5507 
 
 CORNELL 
 UNIVERSITY 
 • LIBRARY 
 
Corneir University Library 
 
 PR 3507.A38 1907 
 
 v.1-3 
 
 The English works of George Herbert, newl 
 
 3 1924 013 185 412 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013185412 
 
^p hearse ^. palmer. 
 
 THE ENGLISH WORKS OF GEORGE HERBERT. 
 Newly arranged and annotated, and considered in rela- 
 tion to his life by G. H. Palmer. 3 volumes. Illustra- 
 ted. Crown 8vo, $6.00, net. Postage extra. 
 
 THE NATURE OF GOODNESS. i2mo, jSi.io, net. 
 Postpaid, $1.21. 
 
 THE FIELD OF ETHICS, izmo, fi.io, net. Postpaid, 
 
 THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER Books I.-XII. The 
 Text and an English Prose Version. 8vo, I2.50, net. 
 
 THE ODYSSEY. Complete. An English Translation 
 in Prose. Crown 8vo, $1.50. 
 Students' Edition. Crown 8vo, $1.00, net. 
 
 THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES. Translated into 
 English. With an Introduction, izmo, 75 cents. 
 
 A SERVICE IN MEMORY OF ALICE FREEMAN 
 PALMER. Edited by George H. Palmer. With Ad- 
 dresses by James B. Angell, Caroline Hazard, W. J. 
 Tucker, and Charles W. Eliot. With Portraits. Svo, 
 75 cents, net. Postpaid, 82 cents. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 Boston and New York. 
 
THE ENGLISH WORKS OF 
 GEORGE HERBERT 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOLUME I 
 
Pencil drawing on vellum by B. White, probably the original oj 
 all known portraits of Herbert. See Vol. I, p. 50. v>: 
 
LCOU 
 
 THE ENGLISH WORKS OF /f /;> 
 
 (B^eorge Herbert 
 
 NEWLY ABRANGED AND ANNOTATED AND 
 CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO HIS LIFE 
 
 BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER 
 
 VOLUME I 
 ESSAYS AND PROSE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 MDCCCCVII 
 
COPYRIGHT 1905 BV GBORGB HERBJS:RT PALMER 
 ALL RIGHTS RE5BRVED 
 
 Published October iqos 
 
 
NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 IN this edition, called for unexpectedly soon, 
 many small changes have been made, a few 
 errors corrected, two title-pages added, — complet- 
 ing the list of the original title-pages of Herbert's 
 English works, — two indexes changed in position, 
 and two new ones introduced. One of these in- 
 dexes, placed at the end of the first volume, cata- 
 logues Herbert's biblical allusions ; the other, for 
 which I am indebted to Mrs. Grace R. Walden, 
 at the end of the third volume, gives access to the 
 extensive notes, essays, and prefaces. 
 
 Hahvabd DNivERsnr, 
 April 3, 1907. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 VOLUME I 
 
 FAQE 
 
 CHRONOLOGY 1 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS 
 
 I. THE LIFE 15 
 
 II. THE MAN 47 
 
 m. THE POETRY 85 
 
 IV. THE STYLE 121 
 
 V. THE TEXT AND ORDER 169 
 
 HERBERT'S PROSE WORKS 
 
 THE COUNTRY PARSON 193 
 
 CORNARO ON TEMPERANCE 329 
 VALDESSO'S DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 359 
 
 LETTERS 387 
 
 HERBERT'S WILL 413 
 
 NOTES 417 
 
 INDEXES 431 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 VOLUME I 
 
 White's Drawing frontispiece 
 
 White's Engraving in The Temple, 1674 pagb 14 
 
 Spurt's Engraving in The Temple, 1709 46 
 
 Page of the Bodleian Manuscript 84 
 
 English Poem FROM THE Williams Manuscript 120 
 
 Latin Poems from the Williams Manuscript 168 
 
 Title-Page op The Country Parson 203 
 
 Portrait op Louis Cornaro 328 
 
 Title-Page op The Temperate Man 337 
 
 Ferrah's Church at Little Giddino 358 
 
 Title-Page of The Divine Considerations 366 
 
 Interior of Ferrah's Church 386 
 
 Title-Page of Jacula Prudentum 412 
 
PREFACE 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THERE are few to whom this book will seem 
 worth while. It embodies long labor, spent 
 on a minor poet, and will probably never be read 
 entire by any one. But that is a reason for its exist- 
 ence. Lavishness is in its aim. The book is a box 
 of spikenard, poured in unappeasable love over one 
 who has attended my Ufe. When I lay in my cradle, 
 a devotee of Herbert gave me the old poet's name, 
 so securing him for my godfather. Before I could 
 well read, I knew a large part of his verse, — not 
 its meaning, but (what was more important then) 
 its large diction, flexible rhythms, and stimulating 
 mysteries. As I grew, the wisdom hidden in the 
 strange lines was gradually disclosed, and in daily 
 experience, 
 
 His words did finde me out, and 'parallels bring. 
 And in another make me understood. 
 
 For fifty years, with suitable fluctuations of inti- 
 macy, he has been my bounteous comrade. And 
 while his elaborate ecclesiasticism has often re- 
 pelled me, a Puritan, and his special type of self- 
 centred piety has not attracted, he has rendered 
 me profoundly grateful for what he has shown of 
 himself, — the struggling soul, the high-bred gen- 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 tieman, the sagacious observer, the master of lan- 
 guage, the persistent artist. I could not die in peace, 
 if I did not raise a costly monument to his benefi- 
 cent memory. 
 
 It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that 
 an elaborate edition of a subordinate poet is excus- 
 able only on grounds of personal devotion. There 
 are public reasons too. The tendencies of an age 
 appear more distinctly in its writers of inferior 
 rank than in those of commanding genius. These 
 latter tell of past and future as well as of the years 
 in which they Kve. They are for all time. But 
 on the sensitive, responsive souls, of less creative 
 power, current ideals record themselves Avith clear- 
 ness. Whoever, then, values literary history will be 
 glad to seek out the gentle and incomplete poet, be 
 willing for a while to dwell dispassionately in his 
 narrow surroundings, without praise or blame will 
 examine his numbered thoughts, and never forget 
 that even restricted times and poets work out neces- 
 sary elements of human nature and appropriately 
 further its growth. A small writer so studied be- 
 comes large. So would I study Herbert, laying 
 chief stress on his psychological, social, and Kter- 
 ary significance, and marking his connection with 
 the world-movements of his age. 
 
 That there is room for such a study, a brief 
 sketch of the present condition of Herbert-scholar- 
 ship will show. His poetry has had two periods of 
 popularity and a century of neglect. He has been 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 revived after an interval, and even now has not 
 quite come to his own. Between his death, in 1633, 
 and 1709 thirteen editions were published. He so 
 immediately hit the taste of his day that in the first 
 year a second edition of his book was called for, 
 and in 1670 Walton estimated that twenty thou- 
 sand copies had been sold. But between 1709 and 
 1799 not a single edition appeared. Herbert was 
 despised, and only here and there a Cowper ad- 
 mired him. At the opening of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury Coleridge called attention to him again; and 
 in 1835 Pickering began to publish editions of his 
 works more complete than had ever before ap- 
 peared. The period of Romanticism was at hand, 
 the Oxford ecclesiastical movement, and the inter- 
 est in our early literature, — all influences favorable 
 to Herbert. In 1874 Dr. Grosart brought to light 
 the important Williams Manuscript and edited his 
 two elaborate editions. Unhappily he left a worse 
 text than he found ; and when he attempted a 
 reprint of Ferrar's first edition, he seriously dam- 
 aged its worth by careless proof-reading. In 1899 
 Dr. Gibson was more successful in reproducing 
 the original text and in adding the readings of the 
 WilKams Manuscript. During the last quarter 
 century a new edition of Herbert has appeared 
 almost every other year. 
 
 Yet in this period of Herbert's second popularity 
 he is more bought than read. Half a dozen of his 
 poems are famous; but the remainder, many of 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 them equally fitted for household words, nobody 
 looks at. They lie hidden beneath ancestral en- 
 cumbrances which editors have not had the cour- 
 age to clear away. A fairly accurate text has been 
 established, but the arrangement of the book pre- 
 serves its original chaos. No attempt has ever been 
 made to set the poems in intelligible order. The 
 many religious, artistic, and personal problems 
 which they involve remain unexamined. Probably 
 no other poet except Donne stands so much in need 
 of elucidation. Yet only half a dozen editions of 
 Herbert have any notes, and these are generally 
 slight and copied from book to book. Perhaps edi- 
 tors have feared to come to close quarters with him, 
 knowing how much there is to do. How loosely he 
 is published appears in the fact that his book is 
 still without an index of first lines. Present means 
 of access to him are, in short, elementary. 
 
 It is these defects, then, which I would meet. 
 Let there be applied to Herbert those comparative 
 and encyclopaedic methods which have already 
 been accorded to Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, 
 Pope, Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson, and 
 Browning. No one man can accomplish so much. 
 But a beginning may be made, and to it I seem to 
 be called by a long and enriching intimacy. This 
 book will not supersede the many handy editions 
 which are issued for devotional purposes. They 
 will still serve their hallowed ends. My aim is dif- 
 ferent. I am attempting a kind of critical diction- 
 
PREFACE XV 
 
 ary of Herbert, in which his meaning may be sys- 
 tematically fixed with reference to the text itself, 
 to the facts of the author's life, and to the literary 
 conditions under which his poetry arose. 
 
 My plan is this: After a chronological survey of 
 his age, such matters as are essential to a general 
 understanding of his poetry are discussed in a 
 series of Introductory Essays. These deal with the 
 events of his life, the traits of his character, the 
 type of his religious verse, the technique of his 
 expression, and our means of knowing what he 
 wrote. The most important of them for an under- 
 standing of my book — and the one which should 
 be read by whoever can read but one — is the last, 
 on the text and order. It there appears that no exact 
 chronological arrangement of the poems is possible. 
 By using, however, certain broad indications of 
 time, and combining them with the subject-mat- 
 ter, I am able to form twelve significant Groups. 
 To the Groups brief Prefaces are prefixed; giving 
 the reasons for putting together these particular 
 poems, and indicating the features of Herbert's 
 life which they involve. By this association of 
 Essays, Prefaces, and Groups of poems I hope 
 my poet may find that opportunity for self-por- 
 traiture which a prose writer usually obtains in a 
 Life and Letters. 
 
 Desiring the book to be a Variorum Edition, I 
 have gathered into it whatever of importance has 
 been proposed by previous commentators, and 
 
xvi PREFACE 
 
 have myself steadily turned toward fulness of 
 comment ; but a simple classification renders the 
 voluminous notes easy of reference. All are not 
 intended for any one person. They are of five 
 sorts: explanations of words, of phrases, of con- 
 nections of thought, similar passages in Herbert, 
 and similar passages in his contemporaries. Some 
 notes are for beginners, who want to know what 
 this antique and cloudy poet is talking about. For 
 them I try to copie fair what time hath blurr'd, and 
 offer a paraphrase of every sentence at which a 
 fairly intelligent person might hesitate. Others are 
 for those who already know Herbert so well that 
 they would like to apply a microscope and develop 
 his minuter beauties. For them I treat of subtler 
 matters, and especially for them are intended the 
 cross-references, showing Herbert's curious tena- 
 city of thought and even of phrase. By these he 
 is made to comment on himself, and out of his own 
 mouth to explain his peculiar locutions. Wherever, 
 too, in his prose writings similar thoughts or words 
 occur, I quote the passages; as I also bring out of 
 Ferrar, Oley, or Walton whatever illustration those 
 early eulogists afford. 
 
 To trace the external sources from which Her- 
 bert derived material is uncertain business. I have 
 ventured on it sparingly. Vfide as his learning is, 
 he has fully assimilated it, and rarely quotes or 
 directly mentions other writers. Yet his incessant 
 allusion to the Bible is so evident that I have felt 
 
PREFACE xvii 
 
 obliged to refer to such Biblical phrases as he 
 probably had in mind. And rarely as he mentions 
 contemporary poets, I have thought it instructive 
 to cite parallel passages from those who immedi- 
 ately preceded him; but I offer no opinion about 
 the nature or degree of his debts. Donne, how- 
 ever, may fairly be called his master, and to Donne 
 his obligations are of a more palpable sort. Among 
 those who came after him, Henry Vaughan was in 
 so special a sense his follower, besides being him- 
 self a delicate and highly individual poet, that I 
 have felt justified in calling attention to his longer 
 imitations. To trace his smaller ones would be 
 tedious, as Vaughan seldom writes a dozen lines 
 without remembrance of Herbert. 
 
 In the photographic illustrations I attempt to 
 exhibit whatever portions of Herbert's visible 
 world have survived the centuries. Here are the 
 homes of his childhood, youth, and maturity; here 
 the many churches with which in divers ways his 
 life was connected ; here are his portraits, the 
 original drawing and the two early engravings 
 from it; here the handwriting of his ordination 
 subscriptions, preserved in the Record Office at 
 Salisbury; and here that hand may again be 
 traced in pages of the manuscripts of his poems. 
 While these things can afford no such pleasure to 
 one who finds them in a book as to him who has 
 gathered them by pilgrimage to every spot where 
 Herbert's feet have stood, I believe they will all 
 
xviii PREFACE 
 
 be looked at with interest; and some, especially 
 the handwriting and White's drawing, will throw 
 fresh light on problems of the verse. 
 
 My first plan was to publish only the poems, and 
 I still desire to concentrate attention on them, pay- 
 ing Uttle regard to anything else. THECotfNTEY 
 Pabson, however, itself almost a poem, has such 
 intimate relations with The Temple that each 
 suffers in the other's absence. The letters, too, can 
 hardly be omitted. Better than anything else they 
 show Herbert in his every-day dress, especially in 
 the years before he became a priest. The beauty of 
 the translation of Cornaro, and the theologic inter- 
 est of the notes on Valdesso, justify their inclusion. 
 When these are added, we have the complete Eng- 
 lish works of Herbert; for nothing is his in the 
 JacTOiA PKtTDENTUM except the collection, and at 
 least two thirds of that is the work of later editors. 
 
 I cannot bring myself to include the Latin 
 verse. It would double the size of tny book and 
 halve its quality. Unless Latin verse is excellent it 
 is worthless; and surely no one will call Herbert's 
 excellent. The reasons for its inferiority are ob- 
 scure. With his lifelong practice in Latin, with his 
 love of refinement, condensation, and verbal ele- 
 gance, one might'expect from Herbert as exquisite 
 Latin poetry as Milton wrote. But unless my judg- 
 ment is at fault, it is ordinary and conventional. 
 He would be a hardy adventurer who should read 
 five successive pages of it. But Herbert wrote a 
 
PREFACE 
 
 sax 
 
 hundred pages, and added more in Greek. The 
 Latin orations, also, and the Latin letters are too 
 stilted and official for ordinary mortals. When 
 Herbert touches Latin, he leaves simphcity behind. 
 I omit these pieces, then, not merely because they 
 are uninteresting, but because they reveal so Uttle 
 of the man. 
 
 While I have derived much from those who have 
 previously written about Herbert, especially from 
 Coleridge, Willmott, Macdonald, Palgrave, Gro- 
 sart, and Beeching, my most stimulating aid has 
 come by word of mouth. Li the ten years during 
 which my book has been growing, friends have 
 made generous gifts of suggestion and criticism. 
 Especially large are my obUgations to Mr. Lewis 
 Kennedy Morse of Boston, the best Herbert 
 scholar of my acquaintance and my perpetually 
 watchful helper; to Miss Lucy Sprague of the 
 University of California, who, in pursuance of 
 studies in Herbert, subjected the whole body of my 
 notes to a searching revision; to my brother. Rev. 
 Frederic Palmer of Andover, who so freely placed 
 at my disposal his minute knowledge of ecclesi- 
 astical conditions under the Stuarts that parts of 
 my discussion, especially the seventh section of the 
 second Essay, may be said to have been supplied 
 by him; to Professor A. V. G. Allen of the Epis- 
 copal Theological School, Cambridge, for similar 
 guidance in the broader fields of church history; 
 to Professor J. B. Fletcher of Columbia Univer- 
 
XX PREFACE 
 
 sity, for help in comparative literature ; to Pro- 
 fessor Charles Eliot Norton for many valued con- 
 sultations, besides the loan and gift of precious 
 books; and to the late Dr. Horace E. Scudder of 
 Cambridge, for granting me during long years a 
 share in that sober judgment of literary products 
 and that imaginative guidance of inexperienced 
 writers on which he was ever wont to expend 
 himself. 
 
 All this aid, however, is insignificant compared 
 with that furnished by my wife, AUce Freeman 
 Palmer. In reality the book is only half mine. It 
 was begun at her instance, enriched by her daily 
 contributions, sustained through difficulties by her 
 resourceful courage, the tedium of its mechanical 
 part hghtened by her ever ready fingers. When 
 she was dying she asked for its speedy pubHcation. 
 Alas, that she should not see what through more 
 than half her married life she eagerly foresaw, and 
 that the book must miss that ultimate perfection 
 which her full cooperation might have secured! 
 
 Habvard UinvEEsnT, 
 March 19, 1905. 
 
CHRONOLOGY 
 
CHRONOLOGY 
 
 The dates of this list are stated according to the New Style 
 of reckoning. Those prirUed in small capitals refer to Herbert 
 and his immediate circle; those in italics, to political and 
 public events; those in ordinary type, to literature. 
 
 1580. Montaigne's Essais, Bks. I, II. 
 
 1581. Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata. 
 
 1583. Edward Herbert, George Herbert's 
 eldest brother, born. 
 
 1584. Giordano Bruno's Delia Causa, and Dell' 
 Infinito Universo. 
 
 1585. Pierre de Ronsard dies. 
 
 1586. Sir Philip Sidney killed at Ziitphen. 
 
 1588. G. Fletcher, Hobbes, and Wither bom. 
 Defeat of Spanish Armada. 
 
 1589. Henry IV King of .France. 
 
 1590. Sidney's Arcadia. Spenser's Faerie Queene, 
 
 Bks. i-m. 
 
 1591. Sidney's Astrophel and Stella. Shake- 
 speare's Plays begun. Herrick bom. 
 
 1592. Quaries born. Montaigne dies. 
 
 1593. April 3. George Herbert born at 
 Montgomery Castle, North Wales. 
 
4 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 Ferrar and Walton born. Marlowe dies. 
 
 1594. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Bks. I- 
 IV. 
 
 1595. Sidney's Apology for Poetry. Spenser's 
 Colin Clout. Tasso dies. 
 
 1596. Edward Hebbebt matbictjlates at Uni- 
 VEBSiTY College, Oxfoed. 
 
 Spenser's Faerie Queene, Bks. IV-VI. 
 
 1597. RiCHABD Hebbebt, Geobge Hebbebt's 
 
 FATHEB, DIES. 
 
 Bishop Hall's Satires. Bacon's Essays. 
 
 1598. Ladt Hebbebt moves to Oxfobd. 
 Chapman's Iliad. Jonson's Every Man in 
 His Humor. 
 
 Edict of Nantes. Philip II of Spain dies. 
 
 1599. Globe Theatre built. Davies' Nosce 
 Teipsum. Spenser dies. 
 
 1600. MONTTMENT TO RiCHAED HeBBEBT 
 
 ebected in Montgomebt Chubch. 
 G. Bruno and Hooker die. 
 
 1601. John Donne marries Anne More. 
 
 1602. Bodleian Library founded. 
 
 1603. Lady Hebbebt moves to London. 
 Elizabeth dies, James I succeeding. Plague 
 in Oxford. 
 
 1604. Hampton Court Conference. 
 
CHRONOLOGY 5 
 
 Melville's Anti-Tami-Cami-Categorla. 
 
 1605. Herbert enters Westminster School. 
 Bacon's Advancement of Learning. Sir 
 T. Browne born. Cervantes' Don Quixote. 
 Gunpowder Plot. 
 
 1606. Waller and Comeille bom. Lyly dies. 
 
 1607. Jamestown, Virginia, founded. 
 
 1608. Edward Herbert goes abroad. 
 Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster. Mil- 
 ton bom. 
 
 1609. Lady Herbert marries Sir John Dan- 
 VERs. Herbert appointed King's 
 Scholar at Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, May 5; and matriculates De- 
 cember 18. 
 
 Shakespeare's Sonnets published. 
 Douai Translation of the Bible. 
 Robinson's Puritans settle at Leyden. 
 
 1610. Herbert's Sonnets to his Mother. 
 John Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess. Giles 
 Fletcher's Christ's Victorie. 
 
 The Great Contract. Henry IV of France 
 assassinated, Louis XIII succeeding. 
 
 1611. King James' Translation of the Bible. 
 
 1612. Herbert takes B. A. Degree. His two 
 Latin poems on the death of Prince 
 
6 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 Henbt pbintbd in Cambridge Collec- 
 tion OF Elegies. 
 
 Webster's White Devil. Samuel Butler 
 bom. 
 Death of Prince Henry. 
 
 1613. Drayton's Polyolbion. Browne's Britannia's 
 Pastorals. Crashaw and Jeremy Taylor 
 bom. 
 
 The Princess Elizabeth marries Frederic V, 
 Elector Palatine. Death of Sir T. Over- 
 bury. 
 
 1614. Herbert appointed Minor Fellow. 
 Balegh's History of the World. Henry 
 More, the Cambridge Platonist, bom. 
 
 1615. Wither's Shepherd's Hunting. Baxter and 
 Denham bom. 
 
 1616. Herbert takes his M. A. Degree, and 
 is appointed Major Fellow. 
 Shakespeare and Cervantes die. 
 Condemnation of Somerset. Rise of Buck- 
 ingham. 
 
 1617. Herbert appointed Stjblector Quahtae 
 Classis at Trinity. 
 
 Cudworth bom. Donne's wife dies. 
 
 1618. Herbert appointed Praelector in Rhe- 
 toric. 
 
CHRONOLOGY 7 
 
 Cowley and Lovelace born. 
 
 Execution of Ralegh. Beginning of Thirty 
 
 Years' War. 
 
 1619. Herbert appointed Public Orator at 
 Cambridge. His Latin poem on Death 
 OF Qtteen Anne printed in Cambridge 
 Collection of Elegies. Edward Her- 
 bert APPOINTED Ambassador to France. 
 Visit of Ben Jonson to Drummond of 
 Hawthomden. Campion and Daniel die. 
 
 1620. Herbert writes thanking the King for 
 HIS Basilikon Doron, and Bacon for 
 his Instauratio Magna. 
 
 Marvell born. 
 
 Plymouth in New England settled. 
 
 1621. Donne becomes Dean of St. Paul's. Bur- 
 ton's Anatomy of Melancholy. 
 
 Fall of Bacon. 
 
 1622. Vaughan and Moliere bom. Andrew 
 Melville dies. 
 
 1623. Herbert receives from the King the 
 sinectjbe lay Rectorship of Whitford. 
 Oratio qua AtrspicATissEvn Serenissimum 
 Principis Caroli Reditdm ex Hispaniis 
 Celebravit Georgius Herbert. Oratio 
 Domini Georgii Herbert Habita coram 
 
8 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 DoMiNis Legatis cum Magistbo in Aktib. 
 
 TiTTTLis Insignieentub. His beothek 
 
 Henet appointed Mastee op the Revels 
 
 at cotjet and knighted. 
 
 First folio of Shakespeare published. 
 
 Pascal born. 
 
 Duke of Richmond dies. 
 
 1624. Edwaed Heebeet recalled from Paeis, 
 
 AND PUBLISHES HIS De VeEITATE. 
 
 George Fox bom. Duke of Lenox dies. 
 
 1625. Bacon dedicates to Herbert certain 
 Psalms. 
 
 Milton matriculates at Christ's College, 
 Cambridge. Grotius' De Jure Belli et 
 Pacis. John Fletcher and Lodge die. 
 Plagtie in London. King James dies, 
 Charles I succeeding. Marquis of Hamilton 
 dies. 
 
 1626. Herbert appointed Peebbndaet of 
 Leighton Ecclesia in Diocese of Lin- 
 coln. Latin Poem on Bacon's Death. 
 Ferrar settles at Little Gidding. Bishop 
 Andrewes, Bacon, and Sir J. Davies die. 
 War declared against France. 
 
 1627. Heebeet's mother dies. He eesigns the 
 Oratorship. His Paeentalla (Latin 
 
CHRONOLOGY 9 
 
 AND Greek poems) appended to Donne's 
 Sermon in Commemoration of Lady 
 Danvers. 
 Bossuet bom. 
 
 1628. Herbert, threatened with consump- 
 tion, VISITS HIS brother Henry at 
 Woodford, Essex. Sir John Danvers 
 MARRIES Elizabeth Dauntsey. 
 Bunyan bom. 
 
 Petition of Right. Wentworth President of 
 Council of North. Laud Bishop of London. 
 Assassination of Buckingham. 
 
 1629. Herbert living at Dauntsey, Wilts, 
 with the Earl of Danby, Sir John 
 Danvers' eldest brother. Marries 
 Jane Danvers, March 5. Edward Her- 
 bert made Baron of Cherbury. 
 Parliament dissolved for eleven years. 
 
 1630. Herbert instituted at Bemerton, 
 April 26. Ordained Priest, September 
 19. William, Earl op Pembroke, dies, 
 April 10, his brother Philip succeed- 
 ing. 
 
 Settlement of Boston, Massachusetts. 
 
 1631. Dryden bom. Donne and Drayton die. 
 
 1632. Herbert sends notes on Valdesso to 
 
10 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 Febbab. His niece, Dobotht Vaughan, 
 
 DIES AT BeMEETON. 
 
 Locke and Spinoza bom. 
 
 Battle of Lutzen and death of Gustavus 
 
 Adolphus. 
 
 1633. Hebbeet btjeied at Bemeeton, Maech 3. 
 His Will PBOVBD Maech 12. The Temple 
 
 PUBLISHED AT CaMBBIDGE, SOME UNDATED 
 COPIES AND TWO EDITIONS. (ThE OTHEB 
 EDITIONS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUBT 
 
 ABE 1634, 1635, 1638, 1641 with Syna- 
 gogue, 1656 WITH Table, 1660, 1667, 1674 
 
 WITH POBTBAIT AND LiFE, 1679, 1695.) 
 
 Latid Archbishop of Canterbury. Went- 
 worth Lord Deputy of Ireland. Galileo ab- 
 jures: Copemican system. 
 
 1634. A Treatise of Tempeeancb and Sobei- 
 
 ETY TBANSLATED FBOM THE ITALIAN OF 
 LUD. COBNAEUS BY HJEEBEET, AND PUB- 
 LISHED WITH A TEANSLATION OF LeONAED 
 
 Lessius' Latin Hygiasticon, and ateans- 
 lation of an anonymous italian dls- 
 couese on Tempeeance. 
 Crashaw's first publication, Epigrammata 
 Sacra. Milton's Comus acted. Chapman 
 and Marston die. 
 
CHRONOLOGY 11 
 
 1637. Herbert's widow marries Sir Robert 
 Cook of Highnam Court, Gloucester- 
 shire. 
 
 Nicholas Ferrar dies. 
 
 1638. Ferrar's Translation of The Divine 
 Considerations of John Valdesso, 
 containing a letter and notes by 
 Herbert. 
 
 1640. Outlandish Proverbs selected by Mr. 
 G. H. 
 
 1645. Highnam Court burned. R. White, 
 engraver of Herbert's portrait, born. 
 
 1652. Herbert's Remains, containing a Life 
 by B. Oley, a Priest to the Temple, 
 Jacula Prudentum (with title-page 
 DATED 1651), Prayer Before and After 
 Sermon, the Letter to Ferrar on Val- 
 desso, TWO Latin poems to Bacon and 
 ONE TO Donne, with An Addition of 
 Apothegmes by Severall Authours. 
 
 1655. Sib John Danvers dies. 
 
 1662. Georgii Herbebti, Angli Musae Re- 
 SPONSORiAE ad Andreae Melvini, Scoti, 
 Anti-Tami-Cami-Categobiam, appended 
 to Ecclesiastes Solomonis, per Ja. Du- 
 
 PORTUM. 
 
12 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 1665. Lady Cook dies at Highnam. 
 
 1670. The Life op Mb. Geohge Herbert 
 
 WRITTEN BY IZAAK WaLTON. To WHICH 
 
 abe added some letters written by 
 Mr. George Herbert at his being in 
 Cambridge, with others to his mother, 
 the Lady Magdalen Herbert. (Six not 
 before pbinted. The Life of Heebert 
 was added to the other -lives writ- 
 TEN BY Walton, and all webe published 
 togetheb in the same year.) 
 
 1671. A Priest to the Temple. The sec- 
 ond edition, with a new Preface by 
 B. Oley. (The first separate edition.) 
 
 1764. ArroBioGRAPHY of Edward, Lord Her- 
 bert OF Cherbury, first pttblished" 
 BY Horace Walpole, Strawberry Hill 
 Pbess. (Best cbitical edition, edited 
 BY Sidney Lee, 1886.) 
 
 1818. Epistolaby Curiosities, edited by Re- 
 becca Warner, containing four addi- 
 tional LETTERS. 
 
 1835. Pickering's Edition of Herbert's 
 Works, containing Coleridge's annota- 
 tions, ADDING seventeen LaTIN LETTERS 
 
 FROM THE Orator's book at Cambridge, 
 
CHRONOLOGY 13 
 
 SEVERAL Latin poems, and an English 
 
 POEM SUPPOSED TO BE BY HERBERT. 
 
 1874. Rev. A. B. Grosart's Edition of Her- 
 bert's Works, ADDING six English poems 
 and two groups of Latin poems (en- 
 titled Passio Discerpta and Lucus) 
 
 FROM THE Ms. IN THE WiLLIAMS LiBRARY, 
 ALSO SEVEN PsALMS POSSIBLY BY HERBERT. 
 
 1893. Life of George Herbert, by J. J. Dan- 
 ielL, published by The Society for 
 Promoting Christian Knowledge. (Re- 
 vised EDITION IN 1898.) 
 
I 
 
 OUTLINES OF THE LIFE 
 
OUTLINES OF THE LIFE 
 
 THE brief period of Herbert's life forms a turn- 
 ing-point in English history. Whatever oc- 
 curred before it seems ancient ; whatever after, 
 modem. Within its compass of forty years are 
 included nearly a quarter of EUzabeth's reign, 
 the whole of that of James, and a third of that of 
 Charles. While the third centennial of Herbert's 
 birth was passed twelve years ago, he being bom 
 but a century after Columbus set sail and but five 
 years after the Armada, he Hved through half of the 
 Thirty Years' War. He saw the beginning of the 
 religious colonization of America, and almost its 
 end. During his 'life the institutions of England 
 and the temper of its people underwent radical 
 change ; a novel reUgious spirit appeared, soon 
 showing revolutionary power; from healthy ob- 
 jectivity men's minds turned to introspection, per- 
 sonal interests taking the place of national. At his 
 birth English Uterature was in its infancy; at his 
 death it had become one of the great Uteratures of 
 the world and was already in decline. Enumerat- 
 ing all the notable Enghsh writers who died before 
 Herbert was bom, we arrive at little more than a 
 
18 THE LIFE 
 
 dozen. There is far-away Chaucer and his imme- 
 diate group, WicHf, Gower, Lydgate, and the au- 
 thor of Piers Plowman. In another century come 
 Malory, Skelton, and the Balladists. Just preced- 
 ing Herbert's birth appear Tyndale, Coverdale, 
 More, Foxe, Ascham, Wyatt, Surrey, Gascoigne, 
 Sidney. All the rest of our vast company of writ- 
 ers were either the contemporaries or successors 
 of Herbert. In his childhood the plays of Lyly, 
 Greene, Peele, and Nashe were still being printed, 
 the first books of Spenser's Faerie Queene had 
 just appeared, those of Hooker's Ecclesiastical 
 PoUty being issued in Herbert's second year. 
 Shakespeare was busy with his poems and his 
 early plays. Neither Marlowe's Edward II, nor 
 Sidney's Apology for Poetry, nor Chapman's Iliad, 
 nor Bacon's Essays were yet printed. But when 
 Herbert died, the period of constructive' develop- 
 ment in the drama, the lyric, the sonnet, was over. 
 Locke and Dryden were bom; Davenant, Ran- 
 dolph, and Shirley were in vogue upon the stage; 
 Cowley's and Crashaw's first works were being 
 pubUshed. Most of the great Elizabethans were 
 in their graves ; where Donne, the leader of the 
 new poetry, had recently joined them. Milton's 
 Hymn On the Nativity, his Allegro and Penseroso, 
 were written, and in the following year his Comus 
 was acted. A period of equal length more markedly 
 transitional cannot be found in English history. 
 Living at a time when our literature reached 
 
THE LIFE 19 
 
 such sudden and briefly sustained eminence, Her- 
 bert enjoyed the society of a wonderful company of 
 Englishmen. An anonymous reviewer has gathered 
 his associates into a few picturesque groups : " Her- 
 bert was a resident of London before the glorious 
 names which have made the reign of Elizabeth 
 bright to all generations had become names only, 
 — when Camden, Selden, Ralegh, Sackville, Dray- 
 ton, most of our great dramatists, and Shakespeare 
 himself walked our streets. He was at Cambridge 
 when Herrick, Giles Fletcher, Fanshawe, Jeremy 
 Taylor, Milton, Cromwell, were fellow students; 
 and was a visitant at a court to whose pleasures 
 Liigo Jones, Marston, Middleton, and Ben Jonson 
 ministered, — a court where Andrewes, Wotton, 
 Donne, Coke, Bacon, held high place. All these 
 he must have looked upon, and with many he 
 must have exchanged formal courtesies and quaint 
 compliments." 
 
 His life divides itself most naturally into four 
 unequal periods, those of Education, Hesitation, 
 Crisis, and Consecration: the first carrying him up 
 to his twenty-sixth year and to his appKcation for 
 the Cambridge Oratorship, about 1619; the second 
 extending through the next eight years, to the death 
 of his friends, his resignation of the Oratorship, and 
 his plans for rebuilding Leighton Church in 1628- 
 27; the third covering the time of illness and uncer- 
 tainty till his taking orders in 1630; and the fourth, 
 his three years as a priest at Bemerton. To each 
 
20 THE LIFE 
 
 of these periods I devote a section of this essay, and 
 add a final section on his early biographer, Walton. 
 
 II 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT (the name was pro- 
 nounced and often written Harbert) was 
 bom April 3, 1593, at Montgomery in North Wales. 
 There his father owned two estates, Montgomery 
 Castle and Black Hall. In which of them the poet 
 was born is uncertain. Since Montgomery Church 
 has no record of his baptism, he may have been 
 bom, like his brother Edward, at Eyton in Shrop- 
 shire, his mother's maiden home, or he may have 
 been baptized at the Castle itself. Montgomery 
 Castle belongs to that line of fortresses which ex- 
 tends along the eastern boundary of Wales, " The 
 Marches," built to hold the rebellious Welsh in 
 awe. It lies on the borders of Montgomeryshire 
 and Shropshire, in an agricultural region, hilly 
 rather than mountainous, the town small and 
 with woodland in its vicinity; " a pleasant romancy 
 place " in Anthony Wood's time, and in ours also. 
 The eminence on which the castle stood was known 
 as Primrose Hill, and is commemorated in Donne's 
 lines entitled The Primrose. In 1644 Edward 
 Herbert surrendered the Castle to the Parliament, 
 who destroyed it in 1649. Little more than the 
 outline of its wall is now visible. 
 The Herbert family is one of the oldest, stateliest. 
 
GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE H 
 
 Sir WnjJAM Herbebt of Raglan Castle, called William ap Thomaa, ■ 
 and in Welah Margoah Glas or Quzirhi, made Knt. Banneret in 
 1415. 
 
 ■ Gladys, dan 
 Qamm, I 
 Robert V 
 
 Sir William H., cr. Eabl -■ 
 of Pkmbbokb, 1468 ; 
 d. 1469. 
 
 ■ Ann, dan. of Sir 
 Walter Deverenx, 
 Knt. 
 
 William, cr. Earl of 
 HnntingdoD, 1479; 
 d. 1491. 
 
 Walter. 
 
 Illegitimate branch. 
 
 Sir Richard 
 of Ewyas. 
 
 Sir George 
 of Swansea. 
 
 Sir George of = 
 St. Jniian's. 
 
 ■ Jane, dan. of Sir 
 Richard Croft. 
 
 Philip Six d»nghteis. 
 
 Elizabeth = Charles Somerset (nat. son 
 of Henry Beaufort. 3d 
 Duke of Somerset), cr. 
 Earl of Worcester, 1514. 
 
 Sir William, cr. Eabl 
 of PlHBBOKf , 1551. 
 
 Sir Walter ■■ 
 
 Dan. of Sir Will. 
 Morgan of Pen- 
 coyd. 
 
 I 
 Henbt, the ancestor of the 
 Eakls and Mabquisks 
 
 {cr. 1642) of WOECESTKR, 
 
 and Dukes of Beaufobt 
 {cr. 1682). 
 
 Sir Henbt, 
 2d Eabl. 
 
 Mary, dan. of 
 Sir Henry 
 Sidney. 
 
 Sir Edward. 
 
 Sir William = Dan. of Ed- 
 ward Griffith 
 of Penryn. 
 
 Sir Richard = Margaret, dan. 
 
 Newport 
 
 of Sir Thomas 
 Bromley. 
 
 William H., 
 3d Eabl, 
 d.$.p.l6S0. 
 
 Philip, cr. Eabl 
 
 of MONTOOHEBT, 
 
 1605. 4th Eabl, 
 d. 1650. 
 
 William, cr. Baeon 
 Powis, 1629, whose 
 heir and grandson 
 William was cr. 
 Eabl (1674) and 
 Mabqdis (1682). 
 
 I 
 Sir WiLLlAK — Florentia, dan. of 
 William Morgan 
 of Clantaman. 
 
 Sir Francis 
 Newport. 
 
 Maqdalen, = BichArd, d. 1596. 
 d. 1627. 
 
 PHnjp, 5th Earl, d. 1669, the 
 ancestor of the present (13tb) 
 Eabl of Pembroke. (Henry, 
 son of William H., 5th son of 
 Thomas, 8th Earl, was created 
 Eabl of Cabnabyon, 1793.) 
 
 II II 
 
 Mabt, = Edward, K. B., 1603 ; Richard. WUliam. 
 d. 1634. Babon Castleislaks, 
 1624; Babon Heb- 
 
 BEBT of ChEBBUBT, 
 
 1629; d. 1648. 
 
 Charles, 
 d. 1617. 
 
 Geoboe, 
 the poet, 
 <f. 1633. 
 
 Sir Henbt ■■ 
 d. 1673. 
 
 (2) Elizabeth 
 Offley. 
 
 Thomas, 
 <f.l630? 
 
 I 
 Elizabeth = 
 
 ' Sir Henry Margare 
 Jones of 
 Aber- 
 marlea. 
 
THE HERBERT FAMILY 
 
 Thomas, = Gladys, dan. and heiress of Sir David 
 Qamm, Knt., and widow of Sir 
 Robert Vanghan, Ent. 
 
 nneret in 
 
 Sir Bichard of Colebrook, = Margaret, dan. of Thomas 
 
 d. 1469, 
 
 ap Qriffith. 
 
 hten. 
 
 Sir WiUiam of Sir Eichard of = ( 1 ) 
 
 Colebrook. Montgomery = (2) Anne, dan. of Sir 
 
 Richard ap 
 Kvans. 
 
 I 
 
 Anne. Margaret. 
 
 Edward, = Elizabeth, dan. of 
 d.lo9Z. Matthew Price 
 
 of Newtown. 
 
 I I 
 
 John. William. 
 
 OUv 
 
 Tliree 
 daughters. 
 
 Matthew of ^ Anne, dan. of 
 
 Dolguog. 
 
 Charles Fox 
 of Bromfield. 
 
 I I 
 
 Charles =Jane,dan. Qeorge. 
 of Hngh 
 ap Owen. 
 
 Catherine — £d. 
 
 Pryoe. 
 
 iiarj = Thomas Ann. 
 PnrcelL 
 
 Bridget. Margaret. Susan. Joyce. 
 
 h = Sir Henry Margaret ' 
 Jones of 
 Aber- 
 marlea. 
 
 I . I I . I 
 
 =John Frances =Sir John Sir Matthew, Francis. Sir Edward Herbert, = Margaret, dan. 
 
 Vanghau. Brown of cr. Bart. 1660 ; Attomey-Qeneral, of Sir Thomas 
 
 Lincoln- d.».p. 1640-41, d. 1657. Smith. 
 
 shire. 
 
THE LIFE 21 
 
 and most extended in England. Three earldoms 
 — Pembroke, Carnarvon, and Powis — still re- 
 main in the family. It begins with a chamberlain 
 of William the Conqueror, establishing itseK both 
 in England and in Wales. At the thirteenth gen- 
 eration, in the middle of the fifteenth century, it 
 divides: the elder brother, WiUiam, then made first 
 Earl of Pembroke, becoming the ancestor five 
 generations later of the famous brothers, WiUiam 
 and PhiKp, successively Earls of Pembroke in 
 George Herbert's time; while through his younger 
 son, Richard, the Earl became the ancestor also 
 in the fifth generation of George Herbert's father, 
 Richard, the lord of Montgomery. These two 
 parts of the family always kept in close relation 
 with each other; the English as the older, richer, 
 more intimately connected with the Court and with 
 letters, being regarded by the Welsh branch as 
 its strong ally and patron. 
 
 The Herberts of Montgomery were more noted 
 for courage than for intellect. They were a race of 
 soldiers, tall, handsome, black-haired, who lived 
 roughly, quarrelled easily, were sensitive in mat- 
 ters of honor, and with a strong hand dealt out 
 justice over their turbulent domains. But they 
 were trained as gentlemen too. Of George Her- 
 bert's father his son Edward records that "his 
 learning was not vulgar, as understanding well 
 the Latin tongue and being well versed in history." 
 Yet the soldierly blood was in them all. George 
 
22 THE LIFE 
 
 was the fifth son among ten children, seven sons 
 and three daughters, " Job's number and Job's dis- 
 tribution." His brothers, Richard and William, 
 died as officers in the Flemish wars. Thomas 
 commanded a vessel in the navy. George himself 
 laments that feeble health compelled him to the 
 scholar's life. 
 
 Whereas my Hrth and spirit rather took 
 The way that takes the town; 
 
 that is, the martial career. The eldest brother, 
 Edward, created in 1629 Baron Herbert of Cher- 
 buiy, — from his manor, four miles from Mont- 
 gomery, — was at once soldier, statesman, histo- 
 rian, poet, and religious philosopher. A younger 
 brother, Charles, who died while at the University, 
 also wrote verses. . 
 
 Perhaps the literary and artistic tendencies 
 which thus appear a little incongruously in this 
 contentious stock were contributed by the mother. 
 Magdalen Newport was the daughter of one of 
 the largest landed proprietors of Shropshire. She 
 was granddaughter of Sir Thomas Bromley, Chief 
 Justice under Henry VIH and an executor of the 
 King's Will. Even in that age, prolific in powerful 
 women, she was notable; for she combined in 
 herself beauty, piety, inteUect, passion, artistic 
 and Kterary tastes, business abiUty, social charm. 
 Walton gives a winning account of "her great and 
 harmless wit, her chearful gravity and her obliging 
 
THE LIFE 23 
 
 behaviour." An accomplished musician, she trained 
 all her children in music. One of her intimates 
 who deeply affected her son was Dr. Donne, the 
 poet, and the eloquent Dean of St. Paul's. At a 
 critical period in his affairs she assisted him and 
 his large family. He wrote to her one of his Verse- 
 Letters, his Unes The Autumnal, and his sonnet on 
 St. Mary Magdalen. Over her he preached one of 
 the greatest of his funeral sermons. "Her house 
 was a Court in the conversation of the best, and 
 an Almshouse in feeding the poore. God gave her 
 such a comelinesse as, though she were not proud 
 of it, yet she was so content with it as not to goe 
 about to mend it by any Art. And for her Attire, 
 it was never sumptuous, never sordid, but alwayes 
 agreeable to her quality and agreeable to her com- 
 pany." With this sermon George Herbert printed 
 his Paeentalia, a series of Latin poems in honor 
 of her who, as he says, brought him into one world 
 and shaped his course for another. The second of 
 these poems gives a vivid picture of her orderly 
 domestic life. 
 
 Her husband. Sir Richard Herbert, dying in 
 1597, when George was but four years old, the care 
 of her estate and the education of her children fell 
 into her highly competent hands. About a year 
 later she removed to Oxford, where Edward had 
 entered the University. Here George lived with 
 her about four years preparing under tutors for 
 more advanced classical training. The remainder 
 
24 THE LIFE 
 
 of her life was spent in London and Chelsea. Her 
 loveliness was of the unfading sort. It enabled her 
 in 1609 to enter into a daring yet happy second 
 marriage with Sir John Danvers, the younger bro- 
 ther of the Earl of Danby. At this time she was, 
 as Donne says in his funeral sermon on her, over 
 forty years old and already the mother of ten chil- 
 dren. Sir John was barely twenty, but as hand- 
 some as she. " His complexion was so exceedingly 
 beautiful and fine," says Aubrey, "that people 
 would come after him in the street to admire. He 
 had a very fine fancy, which lay chiefly for gardens 
 and architecture." He proved a kind stepfather 
 to George Herbert. A genial, irresponsible man 
 he was, whom everybody Uked so long as he was 
 young, and who had no diflSculty in marrying well 
 three times; but who after the death of his mas- 
 terful first wife fell into debt and bewilderment. 
 Though he had been one of the gentlemen attend- 
 ing the King, yet " being n^lected by his brother," 
 says Clarendon, " and having by a vain expense 
 in his way of living contracted a vast debt which 
 he knew not how to pay, and being a proud formal 
 weak man," he became one of the Regicides. 
 When he died, in 1655, " he was to both poUtical 
 parties as great an object of scorn and detestation 
 as any man in the kingdom." 
 
 With such a double inheritance of soldierly 
 force and intellectual refinement, with decided 
 originality and freedom from convention on both 
 
THE LIFE 25 
 
 sides, and with wealth, eminent family, and great 
 traditions, George Herbert in 1605 entered West- 
 minster School. Lancelot Andrewes was the Dean 
 and Richard Ireland, Master. During his four 
 years there his Uterary bent declared itself. He 
 was admired for his classical scholarship. Here 
 he made his first essays in verse, in Latin, and ia 
 ecclesiasticism, — the three fields in which he was 
 subsequently to win distinction. Though but a boy, 
 he attacked Andrew Melville (1545-1622), the 
 scholarly leader of the Presbyterian party, in a 
 number of Latin Epigrams, which were judged 
 good enough to be passed from hand to hand and 
 to encourage their author to continue them after 
 entering the University. In 1609 he won a scholar- 
 ship at Trinity College, Cambridge, and took his 
 Bachelor's degree three years later. In the year of 
 his entrance he wrote the first of his English poems 
 which have been preserved, two sonnets addressed 
 to his mother. In them he expressed his intention 
 of becoming a religious poet. In the year when he 
 took his degree, 1612, Prince Henry died, the pop- 
 xilar heir to the Crown. The grief of the nation 
 was deep, and was sung by all the poets of the day, 
 — by Browne, Chapman, Donne, Drayton, Drum- 
 mond, Heywood, Sylvester, Wither. With these 
 men Herbert joined. His first printed pieces were 
 two Latin Elegies on the Prince, contributed to a 
 volume issued by the University of Cambridge. 
 Two years later he became a Fellow of his College, 
 
20 THE LIFE 
 
 and an instructor in rhetoric. At the same time 
 he began the systematic study of divinity. To the 
 scholar's life and the priesthood he had been des- 
 tined from early youth. His mother selected the 
 priesthood for him, and his own better judgment 
 approved. 
 
 But during these years, while he was winning 
 academick praise as a clerical scholar and man of 
 letters, he shone in other things as well. The pas- 
 sion for perfection was' in his blood. This, joined 
 with his love of beauty and his pride of birth, lent 
 distinction to whatever he produced, though lim- 
 iting its amount. " He was blest with a natural 
 elegance both in his behaviour, his tongue, and 
 his pen," says Walton. "If during this time he 
 exprest any error, it was that he kept himself too 
 much retir'd and at too great a distance with all 
 his inferiours, and his cloaths seemed to prove that 
 he put too great a value on his parts and paren- 
 tage." Herbert shared heartily in the temper of a 
 time which, dehghting in every species of intellect- 
 ual complexity, made its clothes as fantastic as its 
 verses. In 1615, when the King visited Cambridge, 
 the Vice-Chancellor was obliged to set bounds to 
 personal display and issued the following order: 
 " Considering the fearful enormitie and excess of 
 apparell seen in all degrees, as namely, strange 
 pekadivelas, vast bands, huge cuffs, shoe-roses, 
 tufts, locks and topps of hair, unbecoming that 
 modesty and carridge of students in so renowned a 
 
THE LIFE 27 
 
 University, it is straightly charged that no graduate 
 or student presume to wear any other apparell or 
 ornaments, especially at the time of his Majestie's 
 abode in the towne, than such only as the statutes 
 and laudable customs of this University do allow, 
 upon payne of forfeiture of 6 shillings and 8 pence 
 for every default." That Herbert himself was not 
 averse to pekadivelas and shoe-roses, either in 
 these or in later days, is hinted by Oley in his 
 Preface to The Country Paeson: "I have not 
 offerred to describe that person of his, which 
 afforded so unusual a contesseration of elegancies 
 and set of rarities to the beholder." 
 
 For such genteel humour, and for tastes no 
 less elegant in books, Herbert's income proved 
 insufficient. The eldest son, Edward Herbert, 
 had granted each of his brothers an annuity of 
 £30 from their father's estate, and George had 
 also the income of his Fellowship. But in 1617 
 he writes two letters to his stepfather, begging for 
 more money, urging the expenses of a university 
 life, his great need of books, the cost of sickness 
 with its special articles of diet, and proposing 
 the doubling my annuity now upon condition that I 
 should surcease from all title to it after I enter' d into 
 a benefice. He promises if this is done that he luill 
 for ever after cease his clamorous and greedy book- 
 ish requests. During these years he kept a riding 
 horse and apparently also a small country house, 
 at Newmarket, the racing town near Cambridge. 
 
28 THE LIFE 
 
 III 
 
 HITHERTO throughout this period of Edu- 
 cation Herbert has been aiming, delayingly 
 and through much dallying with social display and 
 graceful literature, at the priesthood. Now this 
 deeper aim, which gave his life the little steadiness 
 it had hitherto possessed, becomes shaken, and he 
 enters that second period of his career which I have 
 ventured to call his period of Hesitation. For 
 eight years dreams of poUtical eminence sway him, 
 subordinating though never altogether destroying 
 his plan to become a priest. Only when these glit- 
 tering hopes have failed is there a recurrence to 
 the earlier and more vital purpose. 
 
 In 1619 Sir Francis Nethersole resigned the 
 Oratorship of Cambridge University. Herbert 
 eagerly sought to become his successor, and 
 brought to bear on the appointing powers the so- 
 licitations of influential friends. Sir Francis, how- 
 ever, had suggested that this place being civil may 
 divert me too miuik from Divinity, at which, not 
 without cause, he thinks I aim. But I have wrote 
 him back that this dignity hath no such earthiness 
 in it but it may very well be joined with heaven; 
 or if it had to others, yet to me ii should not, for 
 aught I yet knew. The attractions of the office he 
 thus describes in a letter to his stepfather: 
 
 The Orator's place is the finest place in the Uni- 
 versity, though not the gainfullest ; yet that will be 
 
THE LIFE 29 
 
 about sol per an. But the commodiousness is 
 beyond the revenue ; for the Orator writes all the 
 University letters, makes all the orations, be it to 
 King, Prince, or whatever comes to the University ; 
 to requite these pains, he takes place next the doc- 
 tors, is at all their assemblies and meetings, and 
 sits above the proctors, is regent, or non-regent at 
 his pleasure, and svch like gaynesses, which will 
 please a young man well. 
 
 Herbert obtained the Oratorship, and held the 
 place eight years. Two of his orations and many 
 of his official letters have come down to us. They 
 show him to have been a skilful courtier, but do 
 him little credit as a moral or intellectual man. 
 Adulation was common in that day. One can only 
 say that Herbert practised it with the force and 
 audacity habitual in his undertakings. The year 
 in which he was seeking the Oratorship he selected 
 as the piece to be read with his rhetoric class an 
 oration of King James, instead of one by Cicero 
 or Demosthenes, and this "he analyzed, showed 
 the concinnity of the parts, the propriety of the 
 phrase, the height and power of it to move the 
 affections, the style utterly unknown to the an- 
 cients, who could not conceive what kingly elo- 
 quence was ; in respect of which those noted 
 demagogi were but hirelings and tribolary rhe- 
 toricians." (Hacket's Life of Archbishop WilUams, 
 I, 175.) He first attracted the notice of the King 
 by a letter written in 1620 in acknowledgment 
 
30 THE LITE 
 
 of the gift to the University of the King's book, 
 Basilikon Doron. "This letter was writ in such 
 excellent Latin," says Walton, "was so full of 
 conceits and all the expressions so suted to the 
 genius of the Kong that he inquired the Orator's 
 name and then ask'd Wilham, Earl of Pembroke, 
 if he knew him? whose answer was, 'That he 
 knew him very well, and that he was his kinsman; 
 but he lov'd him more for his learning and vertue 
 than for that he was of his name and family.' 
 At which answer the King smil'd and asked the 
 Earl leave 'That he might love him too; for he 
 took him to be the Jewel of that University.' " 
 Thereafter, when the King went to hunt at Roy- 
 ston, near Cambridge, Herbert was much in his 
 company. "A laudible ambition to be something 
 more than he then was drew him often from 
 Cambridge to attend the King wheresoever the 
 Court was; and he seldom look'd towards Cam- 
 bridge, unless the King were there, but then he 
 never fail'd ; and at other times left the manage 
 of his Orator's place to his learned friend Mr. 
 Herbert Thomdike," i. e. to his secretary. 
 
 Such assiduity soon brought its rewards, the 
 most honorable among them being the powerful 
 friends acquired. The Duke of Lenox, the Duke 
 of Richmond, the Marquis of Hamilton, became 
 his patrons. In the train of the King in 1620 was 
 Lord Bacon. In that year Herbert had written 
 him an official letter thanking him for the gift 
 
THE LIFE 31 
 
 to the University of his Novum Organum and also 
 a subsequent letter begging him to check the Lon- 
 don booksellers who, having an eye to their own 
 advantage rather than to that of the ■public, are 
 longing for certain monopolies; from which cir- 
 cumstance we fear that the price of books will be 
 increased and our privileges diminished. This 
 was the beginni^ig of a friendship which continued 
 with increasing closeness till Bacon's death. 
 
 In the year that Herbert became Orator, 1619, 
 he printed a Latin Elegy on the death of Queen 
 Anne. In 1623 Walton says the King presented 
 him the lay Rectorship of Whitford with an income 
 of JEIOO. No duties were attached to the place. 
 It was a sinecure which had formeriy been held 
 by Sir PhiUp Sidney. It should be said, however, 
 that Herbert's name does not appear as Rector in 
 the Whitford Church records. 
 
 Herbert was now aspiring to something far 
 higher than his Oratorship. Sir Francis Nether- 
 sole, the preceding Orator, had become secretary 
 to the Queen of Bohemia, the much loved Princess 
 Elizabeth. Sir Robert Naunton, who held the 
 Oratorship before Nethersole, had become one of 
 the Enghsh Secretaries of State. To become such 
 a Secretary himself was Herbert's ambition from 
 1620 to 1625. Nor was it improbable that he 
 would reach it. From 1619 to 1624 his brother 
 Edward was the English Ambassador at the 
 French Court. In 1623 his brother Henry became 
 
38 THE LIFE 
 
 Master of the Revels to King James. Few nobles 
 were more influential than Herbert's great kins- 
 man, the Earl of Pembroke. Herbert accordingly 
 turned aside from divinity to master French, 
 Spanish, and Italian. He even inclined to abandon 
 altogether the scholar's Kfe and go abroad. But 
 the strong will of his mother would not allow this 
 final abandonment of the priesthood, and Herbert 
 remained in England. 
 
 When Prince Charles and Buckingham came 
 home from Spain in 1623, unsuccessful in form- 
 ing a Spanish alliance, Herbert delivered and 
 published a long oration of welcome in which, 
 while as adulatory as ever, he had the courage to 
 protest against the war to which the party of 
 Buckingham now inclined. The historian S. R. 
 Gardiner believes that this courageous stand de- 
 stroyed Herbert's prospects of promotion. Oley 
 says that the secretaryship was once within his 
 grasp. But in 1623 died the Duke of Richmond; 
 in the following year, the Duke of Lenox; in 1625 
 the King and the Marquis of Hamilton; and in 
 1626 Lord Bacon. His mother died a year later, 
 Herbert resigned the Oratorship, and his period 
 of Hesitation, gaynesses, and ambition was at an 
 end. In 1626 he took deacon's orders, but another 
 period of inner turmoil was necessary before he 
 could bring himself to the priesthood. 
 
THE LIFE 33 
 
 IV 
 
 FROM this point onward Herbert's life is best 
 studied in connection with his poetry. That 
 is not the case with its two earher periods, those 
 of Education and Hesitation. In regard to the 
 many years included in these, his writings give 
 little information. Groups I-V of the poems were 
 probably for the most part written during the 
 second of these periods. They report his early 
 thoughts and ideals, but not the incidents of his 
 life. When we turn to Groups VI-XI, covering 
 the last two periods of Crisis and Consecration, 
 the verse becomes strongly biographic. Through 
 it alone can the significance of what is happening 
 be followed. The events that occur, though few, 
 are weighty. It is they which finally bring the man 
 to adequate expression. Without constant refer- 
 ence to those events the later poetry is unintelli- 
 gible, nor can the events be understood without 
 the poetry. Any account, accordingly, of these 
 two most important periods in the Hfe of Herbert 
 must be merely preparatory to the poems and 
 Prefaces of Groups VI-XI. 
 
 Had Herbert died at the point to which we have 
 now brought him, he would have left no name in 
 letters, state, or church. A few Latin poems and 
 orations, not quite half his English verse, — the 
 portion least interesting and which ultimately 
 received most alteration, — would alone show the 
 
34 THE LIFE 
 
 tendencies of this fastidious scholar, courtier, and 
 churchman. None of his prose was written, nor 
 had he yet adopted his priestly calling. Whatever 
 distinguishes him to-day had no existence then. 
 Yet more than four fifths of his life were gone. 
 Of these ineffective years we may say, what he 
 has himself said in another connection, that he 
 ranne, but all he brought was fome. 
 
 The remaining six years were Herbert's blos- 
 soming time. Forces which had long been at work 
 in him bKndly, slackly, and inconsistently, now 
 under the pressure of affliction gradually took 
 control, and shaped his formless life into a thing 
 of beauty. That dilatoriness which seems ever a 
 sad and necessary part of a poet's equipment had 
 done its work. It had brought him enrichment, 
 training, and perhaps at the last a quickening 
 terror. 
 
 Fain would I here home made abode. 
 But I was quicken'd by my houre, 
 
 he says of his Cambridge days. Herbert saw life 
 slipping away in pleasant Cambridge, and sud- 
 denly wondered if there still were time to accom- 
 plish his twin projects. We have seen how early he 
 had resolved to be a poet and a priest. A begin- 
 ning had been made at the one, and he had steadily 
 evaded the other. In his last six years he was to 
 become both in a notable degree. The crisis in his 
 affairs was induced by the following circumstances. 
 
THE LIFE 35 
 
 In 1626 Laud's opponent. Bishop Williams of 
 Lincoln, appointed Herbert a Prebendary of the 
 parish of Leighton, ten miles from Huntington. 
 The appointment was apparently intended, like 
 the previous one at Whitford, to yield a stipend 
 without duties; but it was accepted in a different 
 spirit. The parish was small, the church itself in 
 ruins. No service had been held in it for twenty 
 years. Its roof had fallen, its walls were crumbling, 
 its interior was decayed. It has been asserted that 
 Herbert never visited the place. But the adjoin- 
 ing manor had belonged to his friend the Duke 
 of Lenox ; and five miles away lived one who was 
 subsequently to be closely associated with him, 
 Nicholas Ferrar. Through these or other agencies, 
 now unknown, Herbert became deeply interested 
 in the rehabiUtation of the church. He solicited, 
 he contributed, funds. He tried to induce Ferrar to 
 take his place as Prebendary. Failing in this, he 
 persuaded him to take charge of the long labors 
 of reparation. These continued till after his own 
 death. In his Will he leaves £15 to Leighton 
 Church. The building is a large and beautiful 
 one. The additions made by Herbert and Ferrar 
 in windows, roof, and furnishings have a plain 
 solidity and suitableness which is very attractive. 
 One of Herbert's ecclesiastical arrangements noted 
 by Walton is of decided interest as indicating a 
 sympathy with the Puritan estimate of sermons. 
 "By his order the reading pew and pulpit were 
 
36 THE LIFE 
 
 a little distant from each other and both of an 
 equal height; for he would often say. They should 
 neither have a precedency or priority of the other; 
 but that prayer and preaching, being equally use- 
 ful, might agree like brethren." It is not easy to 
 see why on a church with which he apparently 
 had little connection, Herbert should have spent 
 so much of his love, his thought, and his means. 
 Perhaps the undertaking, expressing as it did in- 
 creased interest in rehgious matters, quieted his 
 conscience for the long evasion of sacred work. 
 
 The year after Leighton Church was begun, 
 Herbert resigned his Oratorship and withdrew from 
 the University. This grave step immediately fol- 
 lowed the death of his mother. In memory of 
 her he published a series of Latin verses full of 
 careful appreciation and respect, though not re- 
 markable for either affection or piety. The only 
 human being who ever perceptibly swayed his 
 life was removed; but her remembered influence 
 proved quite as compulsive as her imperious pre- 
 sence. It was she who originally chose the priest- 
 hood for him; she who maintained his purpose 
 during periods of slackness; she who hindered his 
 going abroad and finally abandoning that caUing. 
 Now she was dead, her purpose unfulfilled. His 
 own courtly hopes were ended, his health was seri- 
 ously impaired. He was engaged, too, with her ap- 
 proval, in a work of church building which brought 
 him into contact with Ferrar, a man of extreme 
 
THE LIFE 37 
 
 religious originality. Many influences without him 
 and within cooperated, and at the end of three 
 years produced their ripening effect. These bitter 
 years of solitude, self-examination, search after 
 health, and reinstatement of early resolve are de- 
 picted in the sixth Group of his poems. They 
 were years spent in retirement. Sometimes he was 
 at his mother's home in Chelsea, where he would 
 meet Dr. Donne, who had hesitated almost as long 
 as himself about taking orders ; sometimes at 
 Woodford in Essex, his courtly brother Henry's 
 country place ; sometimes at Dauntsey in Wilt- 
 shire, the estate of the Earl of Danby. At the 
 neighboring town of Baynton, in 1629, when health 
 and spirits were somewhat restored and he was 
 just entering his thirty-sixth year, he suddenly mar- 
 ried Jane Danvers, a relative of the Earl of Danby, 
 a woman of beauty and independent means. She 
 brought him no children, but the marriage was a 
 happy one. After Herbert's death she married Sir 
 Robert Cook of Highnam Court, Gloucestershire. 
 How long she remained a widow is uncertain. 
 Walton thought it "five years," or in another edi- 
 tion, " about six." But as Sir Robert Cook himself 
 died only ten years after Herbert, and she had 
 borne him three sons and a daughter, her period 
 of widowhood must have been brief. She died in 
 1663. 
 
38 THE LIFE 
 
 ALMOST as suddenly as he had married, 
 Herbert in the following year accepted the 
 living of Fuggleston-cum-Bemerton and began his 
 brief period of Consecration. The greatness of 
 the change is well stated by Charles Cotton, who 
 in 1672, commending Walton for the volume of his 
 Lives which had recently appeared, describes Her- 
 bert as 
 
 " He whose education, 
 Manners and parts, by high applauses blown. 
 Was deeply tainted by Ambition, 
 
 " And fitted for a court, made that his aim; 
 At last, without regard to birth or name. 
 For a poor country cure does all disclaim; 
 
 " Where, with a soul composed of harmonies, 
 Like a sweet swan, he warbles as he dies 
 His Maker's praise and his own obsequies." 
 
 In excuse for Herbert's long hesitation and secular 
 ambition, it should be borne in mind that in his 
 day, as Cotton hints, the priesthood was not re- 
 garded as altogether suitable for a gentleman of 
 birth. In The Countet Parson, Ch. XXVIII, 
 Herbert speaks of the generall ignominy which is 
 cast upon the profession. Donne, in his Lines to 
 Mr. Tilman After He Had Taken Orders, con- 
 gratulates him on putting aside " the lay-scomings 
 
THE LIFE 39 
 
 of the ministry." Walton quotes Herbert's remark 
 that the iniquity of the late times have made clergy- 
 men meanly valtied and the sacred name of -priest 
 contemptible. And Oley says in his Preface to The 
 CotTNTHY Parson: "I have heard sober men cen- 
 sure him as a man that did not manage his brave 
 parts to his best advantage and preferment, but 
 lost himself in an humble way. That was the 
 phrase. I well remember it." 
 
 Herbert was instituted to the Rectorship by 
 John Davenant, Bishop of Salisbury, a leader of 
 the Puritan party, on April 26, 1630, five months 
 before he was ordained priest. Even then he was 
 not able at once to reside in his parish. The Rec- 
 tory was so out of repair that it had not been oc- 
 cupied by his predecessor. Dr. Curie, who had a 
 house fifteen miles away. With this arrangement 
 Herbert was not content. He would live among 
 his people. He reconstructed the Rectory at a cost 
 of £200. Aubrey says : " The old house was very 
 ruinous. Here he built a very handsome house 
 for the minister of brick and made a good garden 
 and walks;" and Walton, that "he hasted to get 
 the Parish Church repair'd, then to beautifie the 
 Chappel (which stands near his house) and that at 
 his own great charge." 
 
 Less than three miles from Salisbury, in its 
 extensive Park, stands Wilton House, one of the 
 stateliest mansions in England. It was built on 
 the foundations of an ancient Abbey, from the 
 
40 THE LIFE 
 
 designs of Hans Holbein. Its owner, WilKam Her- 
 bert, the great Earl of Pembroke, died a fortnight 
 before Herbert was instituted, and was succeeded 
 in the Earldom by his brother Philip. This house 
 of his kinsman must have been a frequent visiting 
 place for Herbert during the few years of his priest- 
 hood. At its gate stood the considerable church 
 of Fuggleston or Fulston St. Peter. Around the 
 church in Herbert's day there was probably some- 
 thing of a hamlet. Here lived and ministered Her- 
 bert's Curate, Nathaniel Bostock. But the parish 
 embraced also the villages of Quidhampton and 
 Bemerton, the three together having a population 
 of not more than three hundred souls. At Bemerton 
 was the small chapel of St. Andrew, forty-six feet 
 long by eighteen wide, seating rather more than 
 fifty people. With this chapel Herbert's ministry 
 is particularly identified. Aubrey writes : " George 
 Herbert was chaplaine to Philip Earl of Pembroke 
 and Montgomery. His lordship gave him a bene- 
 fice at Bemmarton, a pittifuU little chappell of ease 
 to Foughelston." The chapel is almost a part of 
 the Rectory, which stands opposite it and only 
 forty feet away. On this chapel he looked from 
 his study window; in it he read prayers every day; 
 during the time of his feeble health he must have 
 preached oftener here than at Fulston; and here, 
 in the floor beside the altar, he was buried. Though 
 many changes have been made in the little build- 
 ing since he died, they are not such as disturb its 
 
THE LIFE 41 
 
 main features. Herbert would recognize it to-day. 
 What his income at Bemerton was, I am unable 
 to ascertain. I find it stated that one of his suc- 
 cessors in 1692, John Norris, the Platonist and 
 poet, received £70. But Herbert was not depend- 
 ent on the income of his parish. 
 
 The Rectory across the road has doubled its 
 size since Herbert Kved there, and most of its 
 rooms are changed. His study remains and his 
 large garden, which slopes pleasantly down to the 
 small river Wiley. An old medlar-tree is connected 
 by tradition with his planting. Across a mile of 
 intervening meadows rises the spire of SaKsbury 
 Cathedral. At the Rectory the household consisted 
 of himself, his wife, three nieces, daughters of his 
 sister Margaret Vaughan, — one of whom, dying 
 a year before himself, left him £500, — and, as 
 appears in his Will, two men-servants and four 
 maids. In this house were spent the three years 
 which give significance to Herbert's Ufe. 
 
 Cut off as he now largely was from the com- 
 panionship to which he had been accustomed, and 
 with httle opportunity for other forms of outward 
 action, his energies turned within. Things of the 
 mind claimed him with an absorption to which 
 hitherto he had been a stranger. With unwonted 
 persistence he now pursued three lines of ideal 
 construction, — music, writing, and the services of 
 the church, — and in them obtained a needed reUef 
 from isolation, loneliness, and disappointed hopes. 
 
42 THE LIFE 
 
 The neighboring Salisbury aflforded two varieties 
 of music. A private club of musicians drew him 
 each week into its friendly and melodious com- 
 pany ; and listening to the mighty harmonies at 
 the Cathedral, he could 
 
 Without a bodie move, 
 
 Rising and falling wiih their wings. 
 
 Then at Bemerton his lute was always ready to 
 aid his voice in giving fuller expression to his own 
 songs. In short, music seems to have been his one 
 diversion. 
 
 How elaborately he undertook to extract from 
 the ritual of his church every power and beauti- 
 ful significance, Walton has explained, Herbert's 
 own Country Pabson shows, and in the Preface 
 to Group Vn I have discussed. No man ever 
 entered more profoundly into the priesthood. 
 These brief years were indeed a Consecration. 
 Herbert endeavored to empty himself, to dis- 
 charge his former desires, and to become a color- 
 less medium through which the divine reason, 
 austerity, and radiance might healingly shine. 
 The conception of the preacher which with his 
 usual ardor, elaboration, tenderness, and frequent 
 rebellion too, he sought during these bleak years 
 to attain he has announced in his poem of The 
 Windows: 
 
 Lord, how can man preach thy etemall word f 
 He is a brittle crazie glasse^ 
 
THE LIFE 43 
 
 Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford 
 This glorious and transcendent place 
 To be a vnndow, through thy grace. 
 
 But when thou dost anneal in glasse thy storie. 
 
 Making thy life to shine within 
 The holy Preachers, then the light and glorie 
 
 Mare rev'rend grows, and more doth win. 
 
 The full record of this failing and triumphant 
 time will be found in the poems and Prefaces of 
 Groups VII-XI. 
 
 But if Herbert now pressed eagerly forward to 
 attain in a time which he knew must be brief that 
 priestly ideal which he had cherished throughout 
 his dilatory life, no less eager was he to complete 
 the hterary ambitions of his youth. Toward these 
 aims much was already accompUshed. Bacon, 
 Donne, Ferrar, his intimates, knew before he came 
 to Bemerton that he was a skilful poet of the spe- 
 cial type which he had early resolved to become. 
 But the amount of his verse hitherto produced was 
 small, only occasionally was it vitaHzed with per- 
 sonal experience, and none of it was as yet pub- 
 lished. He had much more to say. His art was 
 never so subtle or harmonious as now. The deeper 
 religious life he was leading illuminated his old 
 topic and revealed its finer shades. Yet he felt 
 clear premonitions of his approaching end. 
 
 The harbingers are come. See, see their mark I 
 White is their colour, and behold my head ! 
 
44 THE LITE 
 
 But must they have my brain ? Must they dispark 
 Those sparkling notions which therein were bred ? 
 MvM dtdnesse turn me to a clod ? 
 Yd have they left me, " Thou art still my God." 
 
 Under such pressure, he who was not naturally 
 productive, but by temperament meagre, critical, 
 and postponing, forced from his fading powers an 
 amount of delicate literature which would have 
 been creditable to the most robust of writers. Not 
 only do something like half of his poems come from 
 these three years, but during them his Cottntet 
 Parson also was written. Possibly to this time is 
 due his exquisite translation of Cobnabo On Tem- 
 perance. Only five months before his death he 
 read and elaborately annotated Ferrar's transla- 
 tion of The Divine Considerations of Valdesso. 
 How much more he wrote we do not know. Wal- 
 ton says of Herbert's widow : " This Lady Cook 
 had preserv'd many of Mr. Herbert's private writ- 
 ings which she intended to make pubKck ; but they 
 and Highnam House were burnt together by the 
 late Rebels, and so lost to posterity." To this should 
 be added Aubrey's remark: "He alsowritt a folio 
 in Latin which, because the parson of Highnam 
 could not read, his widowe (then wife to Sir Robert 
 Cooke) condemned to the uses of good houswifry. 
 This account I had from Mr. Arnold Cooke, one 
 of Sir Robert Cooke's sons, whom I desired to 
 ask his mother-in-law for Mr. G. Herbert's MSS." 
 
THE LIFE 45 
 
 When one adds to his manifold literary under- 
 takings the care of his scattered parish and the 
 beginnings of family life, it is evident that these 
 were busy years. Were they too busy? Might 
 not those rheumes arid agues to which his frame, 
 feeble from childhood, had always been disposed, 
 have been checked in their onward movement 
 toward consumption by a less rigorous life? It 
 cannot be known; and in view of what that rigor 
 accomplished, there is Kttle room for regret. The 
 exact date of his death is not known, but he was 
 buried on March 3, 1633. 
 
 VI 
 
 THE Herbert whose contrasted periods of life are 
 here exhibited, and who is studied in minuter 
 detail hereafter, will be found to differ considerably 
 from him who appears in Walton's Life. My ac- 
 count may consequently be received with distrust. 
 Walton's book is one of the glories of our hterature. 
 It is true he had no acquaintance with Herbert. He 
 saw him only once, at Lady Herbert's funeral. But 
 he had documents which have now perished. Out 
 of them and out of his own attractive personality 
 he has woven a Life of Herbert which few pieces 
 of biography exceed in unity, vividness, and con- 
 vincing power. The ease of Walton's account and 
 its apparent waywardness add to its charm and 
 the impression of its veracity. In spite of some 
 
46 THE LIFE 
 
 petty inaccuracies, especially in dates, I believe 
 that what Walton says is substantially true. But 
 there is much which he does not say; and in gen- 
 eral, his book should be judged rather as a piece 
 of art than as even-handed history. In painting a 
 glowing picture an artist selects a point of view, 
 and to what is visible from that point subordinates 
 all else. So Walton works. He paints us the Saint 
 of Bemerton. And while too honest to conceal dis- 
 cordant facts from him who will search his pages, 
 he contrives to throw so strong a light on Herbert's 
 three consecrated years that few readers notice 
 how unlike these are to his vacillating thirty-six. 
 Walton's fascinating portraiture has taken so firm 
 a hold on the popular imagination that it may 
 truly be said to constitute at present the most seri- 
 ous obstacle to a cool assessment of Herbert. To 
 refer to the more secular and literary sides of that 
 complex character seems a kind of sacrilege. Yet 
 Walton himself furnishes material for his own 
 correction. To this I have directed attention, sup- 
 plementing it with the statements of Oley, Lord 
 Herbert, Aubrey, and other contemporaries, and 
 making large use also of Herbert's own estimates 
 of himself contained in his poems and prose writ- 
 ings. By turning to these original sources I hope 
 my readers will be able to perceive the romantic 
 coloring of Walton, to allow for it, and to enjoy 
 that skilful portraiture the more. 
 
Portrait engraved hy White's pupit, J. Sturt, far THE TEMPLE, 
 "- 170S. See Vol.I,p.SO. 
 
3e/Uild an Cra^rr, jDwimirJaae , 
 <fhe'ita^!u!i. ditd .Apo{de tfmata^e . 
 KemmcAu Fbrdi and ItmiAsvffi^Lta/ei 
 
 ^AABmfy'4fT>km£. Pfailotoph^ 
 Examinc^ weiLiheLvus £fbu MuCToic , 
 
 IlevorttiiwmSUTearlAipi^m'dhere! 
 
 nniuiiiiiiiDiiiiiiiiiMHiiiinnniii 
 
n 
 
 TRAITS OF THE MAN 
 
TRAITS OF THE MAN 
 
 WITH these events in the Kfe of Herbert 
 before us, let us examine those features 
 of his complex character which if misconceived 
 prevent an understanding of his writings. A char- 
 acter is interesting about in proportion to the op- 
 posing traits which it harmonizes. And nowhere 
 are such interesting characters so common as 
 among the men who met the conflicting forces of 
 the later Renaissance. Every part of their being 
 responds to a multitude of calls, and yet they im- 
 press us as highly individual men. I shall trace 
 the rich and harmonious diversity of Herbert in 
 his physical structure, his temperamental habits, 
 his intellect, and his religious nature. 
 
 WE do not certainly know how Herbert 
 looked. No contemporary portrait of him 
 exists. If one was ever painted, it has perished. An 
 allusion to a portrait has been sought in a line of 
 The Posie, where, speaking of his intended motto, 
 he says. This by my picture, in my book, I write. 
 But a gracefully turned phrase is no evidence of 
 historic fact. An early engraving, however, has 
 come down to us, preserved in a triple form. In 
 
50 THE MAN 
 
 Walton's Lives (1670) there was printed a portrait 
 of Herbert, signed R. White. In the tenth edition 
 of Herbert's poems (1674), the first to include 
 Walton's Life, this picture appeared again, changed 
 sKghtly, but bearing the same signature. In the 
 twelfth edition (1703) is a coarse reengraving of 
 White's plate by John Sturt (1658-1730), White's 
 pupil. All later portraits of Herbert are fanciful 
 modifications of these early prints. Hitherto these 
 have been our only means for arriving at a know- 
 ledge of his face. What assurance of authenticity 
 do they possess ? 
 
 , Walton and the men of his day knew Herbert's 
 appearance and would certainly demand a picture 
 of some verisimilitude. We must suppose that the 
 likeness of Herbert here presented rests on some 
 accredited original. The engraver, Robert White, 
 says the Dictionary of National Biography, " was 
 the most esteemed and industrious portrait en- 
 graver of his age. His plates number about four 
 hundred. He was celebrated for his original por- 
 traits, which he drew in pencil on vellum with 
 great deHcacy and finish." An original portrait of 
 Herbert this cannot be ; for White was not bom 
 until 1645, twelve years after Herbert died. But 
 it may still be an accurate Kkeness, for White 
 engraved from paintings also. 
 
 I beheve, however, we can now carry the tra- 
 ditional engraving a step nearer to its original. In 
 1902 I learned that there was an early drawing of 
 
THE MAN 51 
 
 Herbert in private hands in Salisbury, and I pro- 
 cured an introduction to its owner, George Young. 
 Most generously he allowed me to examine his 
 picture and even to photograph it for this book. 
 It has not been published before. It is drawn in 
 pencil on vellum with a delicacy of line impossi- 
 ble to reproduce. The size is substantially as it 
 appears in the frontispiece of this volume. For 
 many generations the picture has been in Mr. 
 Young's family, a family descended in a collateral 
 line from Izaak Walton. Of its origin and his- 
 tory nothing is known. In the clear space by 
 Herbert's left shoulder stands the inscription " R. 
 White deKn," in White's handwriting. Is this, 
 then, the original drawing made by White from 
 some painting, the drawing from which the two 
 pictures for Walton were afterwards engraved? 
 Whoever compares it with those engravings will 
 have little doubt of it. The position, the clothing, 
 and the features are identical. There is the same 
 curl of the collar, the same indentation of cap 
 and gown. I notice only three small points of 
 difference: in the drawing a few straggling hairs 
 appear at the top of the forehead below the cap, 
 the Kne of the coUar is slightly open below the 
 chin, and the body of the gown where the right 
 sleeve joins it is visible all the way down. But 
 these are just such changes as might naturally oc- 
 cur in the coarser work of engraving. The fun- 
 damental difference, and that which stamps the 
 
52 THE MAN 
 
 drawing as prior in date, is its superior subtlety in 
 the interpretation of character. Indeed, I know 
 no written criticism of Herbert which exhibits 
 him with such fulness, complexity, and likelihood. 
 Here is high breeding, scholarship, devoutness, dis- 
 appointment, humor, fastidiousness, pathos, pride. 
 This priest has moved in courtly circles and con- 
 vinces us that he was once alive; the engravings, 
 while reporting the same general features, have 
 little play of hfe. They present a meagre ascetic. 
 In the process of engraving, whether conducted by 
 White or by some journeyman, the vitaUty of the 
 drawing has disappeared. The hues have stiff- 
 ened. Perhaps a nature so subtle as Herbert's lends 
 itself more readily to the pencil than to the burin. 
 Yet I think no one can fail to see that the three 
 pictures have a single source. 
 
 What that source was we can only surmise. The 
 style of portraiture is strikingly like that of Van 
 Dyck, Hke him in both his strength and his limita- 
 tions. Van Dyck was in England in 1621, probably 
 in 1629, and certainly early in 1632, in the latter 
 year being knighted by King Charles. He painted 
 many portraits both at the Court and at Wilton 
 House. Wilton House is to-day full of the Pem- 
 brokes who associated with Herbert, fixed in per- 
 petual and elusive charm by the witchery of Van 
 Dyck. Herbert himself, as a kinsman of the house, 
 already a man of note, and Uving but a mile away, 
 might naturally enough have been painted too. 
 
THE MAN 53 
 
 A memorandum of Aubrey's, contained in his 
 Lives, shows that a portrait of him was then be- 
 lieved to exist : " George Herbert — (ask) cozen 
 Nan Garnet pro (his) picture ; if not, her aunt 
 Cooke." Whether the painter was Van Dyek or 
 some other lover of human refinements, in this 
 frontispiece we have for the first time a singularly 
 vivid and subtle representation of Herbert drawn 
 by one selected for the task by Walton himself. 
 
 White's portrait accords well with verbal de- 
 scriptions of Herbert. The consumptive face is 
 long and gaunt, with prominent cheek-bones. Abun- 
 dant curly hair falls to the shoulders. A high brow 
 strongly overarches widely parted eyes. The nose 
 is large and with a Roman curve, the mouth 
 tnarkedly sensitive. In some verses printed in The 
 Temple of 1674, the first edition containing a por- 
 trait of Herbert, the unknown author writes : 
 
 Examine weU the Lines of his dead Face, 
 Therein you may discern Wisdom and Grace. 
 
 That is the combination noticeable in the draw- 
 ing. Walton says of him that " he was for his per- 
 son of a stature inclining towards tallness; his 
 body was very strait, and so far from being cum- 
 bred with too much flesh that he was lean to an 
 extremity. His aspect was chearful, and his speech 
 and motion did both declare him a Gentleman." 
 In his poem The Size, Herbert has this portrait- 
 like stanza: 
 
54 THE MAN 
 
 A Christian's state and case 
 Is not a corpulent, but a thinne and spare 
 
 Yd active strength; whose long and honie face 
 
 Content and care 
 Do seem to equally divide. 
 
 Oley notices the elegance of his person, and Aubrey 
 says that "he was a very fine complexion and 
 consumptive." That he was consumptive, inclin- 
 ing, too, from childhood to indigestion, colds, and 
 fevers, both he himself and Walton repeatedly 
 declare. But his face, like his writings, reveals an 
 intellect somewhat excessive for the body that 
 bears it. This prominence in Herbert of the nobler 
 traits gave to his total appearance an exaltation 
 above the ordinary. Mr. Duncon told Walton that 
 " at his first view of Mr. Herbert he saw majesty 
 and humility so reconcil'd in his looks and be- 
 haviour as begot in him an awful reverence for his 
 person." 
 
 II 
 
 WITH his fragility, too, and insufficiency of 
 bodily stock was associated great refine- 
 ment of the senses. In Herbert's constitution there 
 was nothing dull, stolid, or inclining to asceticism. 
 Sight, hearing, taste, smell, have all left in his verse 
 their record of swift response. Out of an odor 
 Herbert has constructed one of his daintiest poems. 
 
THE MAN 55 
 
 His Banquet is perfumed throughout. In ten other 
 poems fragrances are mentioned. It indicates his 
 revival from illness that he can once more smell 
 the dew and rain. With him the word sweet is 
 more apt to indicate sweetness of smell than of 
 taste. Twice he gives details about the pomander, 
 an EKzabethan substitute for our scent-bottle. 
 Dust he finds peculiarly offensive. One of his 
 descriptions of the bad man is that he is guiltie of 
 dust and sinne. This sensitiveness of smell appears 
 equally in The Country Parson, where we are 
 repeatedly warned to hee'p all sweet and clean. The 
 Parson's house is to be very plain, but clean, whole, 
 and sweet — as sweet as his garden can make; and 
 his clothes are to be without spots or dust or smell. 
 He is to call at the poorest cottage, though it smell 
 never so lothsomly. And this insistence on smell 
 as the final token of nicety is idealized in a maxim 
 of The Church-Porch : 
 
 Let thy minde's sweelnesse have his operation 
 Upon thy body, clothes, and habitation. 
 
 Clothes were always matters of importance to 
 Herbert. Their proprieties are discussed at some 
 length in The Church-Porch, and Herbert's gen- 
 teel humour for them is repeatedly referred to by 
 Walton and Oley. 
 
 Herbert, too, was far from dull of taste. Vivid 
 allusions to food and drink abound. He knows the 
 temptations of both, but dreads more those of food. 
 
56 THE MAN 
 
 He knows how to stay at {he third glasse; but with 
 his deUcate digestion and strong appetite, the quan- 
 tity to be eaten is harder to regulate. He studies 
 diet; he translates Cobnako On Temperance; he 
 has numberless precepts of restraint, none of which 
 would be necessary if he were not constitutionally 
 inclined to excess. The tightness of the rein shows 
 the mettle of the horse. 
 
 How alert is his eye, even the casual reader per- 
 ceives. His many pictures of natural objects have 
 each their individual character, and he records 
 facts with a startling sharpness. Birds sip and 
 straight lift up their head. Frost-^ipt sunnes look 
 sadly. Flowers depart to see their mother-root when 
 they have blown. In terram violas capite inclinantur 
 opaco. Somebody conies puffing by in silks that 
 whistle. Of painted windows we hear how colours 
 and light, in one when they combine and mingle, 
 bring a strong regard and awe. And of leaves. The 
 wind blew them underfoot, where rude unhallow'd 
 steps do crush and grinde their beauteous glories. 
 Or again, 
 
 We are the trees whom shaking fastens more. 
 While Wustring windes destroy the wanton howres. 
 And ruffle aE their curious knots and store. 
 
 Herbert has none of Vaughan's mystic brooding 
 over nature. Physical and menial facts are seldom 
 blended. But while chiefly occupied with inner 
 states, he casts keen glances over the world with- 
 
THE MAN 57 
 
 out, delights in its beauty, and by some unusual 
 word marks an observation as his own. 
 
 The training of Herbert's ear is more generally 
 known than that of his other senses. He sang, 
 played on the viol or lute, and was fond of the 
 organ. Music was at that time a regular part of 
 the education of a gentleman. Milton was trained 
 in it. Poetry was still thought of as song. Herbert's 
 lines were intended to be accompanied by an in- 
 strument. Though in consumption, he sang them 
 until a few days before he died. Throughout his 
 life — as Oley, Walton, and his own poems testify 
 — music was his passion. He counts it his chief 
 means of escaping bodily pain. 
 
 Sweetest of sweets, I thank you I When displeasure 
 Did through my bodie wound my minde. 
 
 You took me thence, and in your house of pleasure 
 A daintie lodging me assign'd. 
 
 This sketch of Herbert's exquisite physical 
 organization, a necessary equipment for poetic 
 work, will have disclosed that his senses were 
 more fine than full, that it is rather the intellectual 
 than the sensuous aspect of objects which appeals 
 to him. Each of our senses reports to us in double 
 terms. We both see and observe; we hear and 
 listen; we smell or taste and perceive. Some minds 
 fasten on one of these sides of experience, some on 
 the other. Dififerent mental types arise accordingly. 
 To Herbert the immediate moment is never the 
 
58 THE MAN 
 
 rapturous affair it is to Giles Fletcher or William 
 Browne. While feeling it, he is looking beyond, 
 correlating it, studying its significance, and judg- 
 ing how far it will serve the purposes of a life. The 
 pure senses are consequently subordinate powers 
 in Herbert's world, and never receive that hon- 
 orable training nor are trusted with that large 
 control which is theirs in the poetry of Chaucer, 
 Sidney, and Spenser. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE only temptations which he mentions with 
 anything like terror are those of idleness and 
 women, hust, a common word with him both in 
 prose and verse, does not mean what it often does 
 in writings of his time, a general desire for plea- 
 sure. It means the specific inclination toward 
 women. This in his eyes is always evil. He mar- 
 ried late, after a life spent partly in the cloister 
 and partly among the gay and loose. His brother 
 Edward made a mercantile marriage, and was 
 boastfully unfaithful to it. He himself never con- 
 ceived love in our fashion as a mysterious power 
 uniting the two worlds of sense and spirit. These 
 remained in his thought steadily hostile. Flesh, 
 though exalted, keeps his grass, and cannot turn 
 to soule. To him woman is always a temptation 
 and disturbance ; and this opinion is as deeply 
 embedded in The Country Parson, written after 
 
THE MAN 59 
 
 his marriage, as in his verse. His discussion of 
 marriage in Chapter IX, on The Parson's State of 
 Life, is essentially monastic. Marriage is for man 
 a mere escape from worse ills, though it may be the 
 good instrument of God to bring women to heaven. 
 No honorable mention of a woman occurs in his 
 writings, if we except the somewhat artificial la- 
 ments for his mother in the Latin Parentalia, and 
 Walton's statement that when he was dying he 
 said : These eyes shall see my master and Saviour 
 Jesu^, and with him see my dear mother. Even 
 the Virgin Mary he thinks of as but an instrument 
 in effecting the birth of Christ, not as possessing 
 distinctive virtues of her own (Anagram, and To 
 All Angels and Saints, 1. 11). Allusions in the 
 third stanza of The Pilgrimage and elsewhere 
 make it probable that once at Cambridge Herbert 
 found the wilde of passion to be a wasted place, but 
 sometimes rich. This experience forms the sub- 
 ject of one of his two poems on Vanitie, and it re- 
 mained with him long as a terrifying remembrance. 
 Li one of his last and most anguished poems he 
 cries as if pursued. What is this womankinde which 
 I can wink into a blacknesse and distaste ? 
 
 Such inability to comprehend the worth and 
 place of woman is the more remarkable when we 
 recall the great influence which his mother ex- 
 ercised over his life. A marvellous woman she must 
 have been, combining in herself many excellences 
 of both man and woman. Donne speaks of her as 
 
60 THE MAN 
 
 having "that perplexing eye which equally claims 
 love and reverence." From her Herbert obtained 
 much of his refinement, much, too, of his stimulus 
 to action. In return he gave her abundant respect 
 and obedience, but not apparently intimate affec- 
 tion. Severa parens, he calls her. Tu radix, tu 
 petra mihi firmissima mater. Through her he never 
 learned to honor womankind. 
 
 IV 
 
 TO estimate justly his second temptation, that 
 of sloth, is more difficult; for vigor was in 
 his stock on both sides. His fighting fathers repro- 
 duced themselves in his contentious brothers; and 
 he himself, though checked by lassitudes, intro- 
 spection, and physical frailty, certainly possessed 
 a virile temper. This has left its mark in such 
 poems as Employment, Businesse, and Con- 
 STANCiE. Though living in an age by no means 
 listless, he warns his countrymen that their great- 
 est danger is sloth, and bids his reader 
 
 When thou dost purpose ought, {wUhin thy power,) 
 Be sure to doe it, though it be but small. 
 
 That he is able to go through a large amount of 
 work in a brief time, and under adverse circum- 
 stances, is evident from what he accompUshed in 
 literature and parish labor during his three years 
 at Bemerton. 
 
THE MAN 61 
 
 But continually in Herbert double tendencies 
 appear. He believed himself disposed to indolence, 
 — A slack and sleepie state of minde did oft pos- 
 sesse me. Of no danger does he more frequently 
 warn himself than of this. Was it real ? I think so. 
 It is true such reproaches sometimes spring from 
 the exactions of a high standard, and may thus 
 reveal a character the opposite of that which they 
 assert. Being normally energetic, though subject 
 to frequent weakness, Herbert may have felt with 
 pecuUar shame those low states where it is impos- 
 sible to know how much of our slackness is attrib- 
 utable to an unresponsive body and how much to 
 a feeble will. But when we recall how little able he 
 showed himself, before he went to Bemerton, to fix 
 on a task and adhere to it, how easily he accepted a 
 life of elegant dependence, I believe we shall see that 
 inaction was in some strange way a genuine, and 
 not a mere poetic, temptation of this forcible man. 
 
 Lord Herbert in praising his brother George 
 says : " He was not exempt from passion and choler, 
 being infirmities to which all our race is subject; 
 but that excepted, without reproach in his actions." 
 The hastiness of temper in social relations here as- 
 serted beset Herbert also in the formation of plans. 
 Speaking in Affliction of the early proposition 
 that he should become a priest, he says : 
 
 My stidden soul caught at the place. 
 And made her youth and fiereenesse seek thy face. 
 
62 THE MAN 
 
 His soul was sudden, Ms first feeling about a plan 
 hot and fierce. He repeats the adjective in The 
 Answer : my fierce youth. Walton's story of his 
 marriage confinns the trait. He married Jane 
 Danvers three days after he first saw her. I do not 
 give the tale full credit. The lady was the daughter 
 of his stepfather's cousin, her family — even ac- 
 cording to "Walton's account — being well known 
 to him. She Uved at Baynton, but a few miles from 
 Dauntsey, where he frequently visited. Yet Wal- 
 ton's stoiy must be substantially true, published, as 
 it was, uncontradicted among those who knew the 
 facts. Herbert certainly married but a few days 
 after his engagement, and the headlong act was 
 characteristic of him. He entered the priesthood 
 in much the same way, years of hesitation ending 
 with a sudden burst of decision. Thus it was 
 throughout his fife : precipitancy and irresolution, 
 energy and delay, went ever hand in hand, each 
 suspicious of its dangerous mate. He hesitated to 
 act because he knew how prone he was to rashness ; 
 but he finally acted rashly in order to escape his 
 besetting sin of delay. A vivid picture of this dou- 
 ble temperament he has given in The Answer, 
 whfere he acknowledges to those 
 
 Who think me eager, hot, and undertaking. 
 But in my prosecutions slack and small, 
 
 that he is like an exhalation steaming swiftly up 
 from some damp ground, as if hastening to the sky; 
 
THE MAN 63 
 
 but cooling by the way, it soon dissipates itself in 
 drops which weep over its lack of accompKshment. 
 So Herbert was frequently called to mourn the 
 slackness of his prosecution. Yet I think he does 
 himself injustice in counting this slackness due to 
 indolence. There is no idle fibre in his mind. It is 
 ever in warres, delighting in difliculties, and moves 
 with an instinctive aversion to the easy course. 
 This, in fact, is its perpetual danger. Thousands 
 of notions in his brain do run; and he cannot, like 
 the rude practical person, promptly discover and 
 discharge the unimportant ones. Time and energy 
 are accordingly wasted. Years slip by, and this 
 abnormally forcible man stands irresolute, bewil- 
 dered by irreconcilable claims. 
 
 This strenuosity of temperament, dissipation of 
 energy, and comparative ineffectiveness of result 
 appear strikingly in the two main events of Her- 
 bert's Kfe, as narrated in my first Essay. Early he 
 proposed to become a priest and a poet. He held 
 to both purposes for more than twenty years. He 
 attained both, reaching such distinction in each 
 as to become a pattern to after ages. Yet in each 
 he conveys the impression of exceptional powers 
 only half used. One hundred and sixty-nine short 
 poems and less than three years in a small country 
 parish represent his accomplishment. Ceaselessly 
 working over his httle roll of poems, he never 
 brought them to perfection ; and though he Hved 
 in one of the most formative periods of English 
 
64 THE MAN 
 
 history, when new thoughts about church, state, 
 and society were pouring in like a flood, the ferment 
 left no trace in his writings, which might have been 
 composed about equally well on a desert island. 
 For the most part, he is concerned with the small 
 needs of his own soul. 
 
 Rightly does Walton characterize him as "a 
 lover of retiredness," for he was essentially unso- 
 cial. Acquainted though he was with many men 
 and many minds, " His soul was hke a star, and 
 dwelt apart." It did not accept the interests of 
 other men nor Invite others to its own. Something 
 of this was no doubt due to his sense of high birth 
 and his consequent detachment from the crowd. 
 He is always an aristocrat, free from vanity and 
 not indisposed to oblige, but he does not turn 
 toward the affairs of others. As I shall show in my 
 next Essay, there were tendencies in his age inclin- 
 ing men to political abstention. The holy and 
 scholarly of those days were prone to withdraw 
 from the world for study and religion, and took 
 the ties lightly which bound them to their fellows. 
 The field of human interest was becoming more 
 and more an internal one, the individual soul and 
 its analysis calUng for much attention from its 
 anxious possessor. Herbert felt and helped to 
 form this tendency. He allied himself with no 
 cause, if we except his youthful attacks on Mel- 
 ville. He took few public responsibilities. To 
 individuals he was strongly drawn, and he seems 
 
THE MAN 65 
 
 to have formed warm friendships with able men. 
 One gets the impression that he was incapable of 
 anything selfish or petty, and that everything about 
 him was instinctively noble. All felt him to be rare 
 and exalted, and gave him instantly the reverence 
 for which his nature called. But pride was in him, 
 fastidiousness, and a dignity which Httle disposed 
 him to accept the ways of others. 
 
 MIDWAY between Herbert's temperamental 
 disposition and his intellectual acquire- 
 ments he his incisive humor and his anxious op- 
 timism. So detached and serious a nature is apt 
 to lack- humor. Milton lacked it; so did Words- 
 worth. Herbert is not without it, though his sub- 
 ject Umits its amount and its kind. He at least 
 knows what mirth and musick mean. He per- 
 ceives how large a part merriment plays in human 
 affairs, devotes to it considerable sections of Thk 
 Church-Porch and The Cotjntrt Parson, and 
 sagaciously warns us that a pleasantness of dis- 
 position is of great use, men being willing to sell 
 the interest and ingagem^nt of their discourses for no 
 price sooner then thai of mirth; whither the nature 
 of man, loving refreshment, gladly betakes it selfe. 
 The Country Parson is accordingly advised to 
 interpose in his conversation some short and hon- 
 est refreshments which may make his other dis- 
 
66 THE MAN 
 
 courses more welcome and lesse tedious. Herbert 
 holds that 
 
 All things are bigge vnth jest. Nothing that's plain 
 Bvt may be wittie if thou hast the vein. 
 
 Pretty evenly distributed throughout his book runs 
 his own peculiar form of humor, a form largely 
 shaped by his love of epigram. There is in it an 
 acid enjoyment of intellectual neatness, shrewd 
 observation, an inclination to approach a subject 
 from an unexpected quarter, and a playfulness 
 too grave for outright laughter. Yet The Quip 
 and The Qxtidditie almost dance. Peace and 
 The Bag are gay. In single lines elsewhere he 
 smiles at the man of pleasure, a kinde of thing 
 that's for itself too dear; at him whose clothes are 
 fast, but his soul loose dboui him; declares that 
 kneeling ne're spoil' d silk stocking; is amused 
 at the astronomer who peers about the heavens 
 and surveys as if he had designed to make a pur- 
 chase there; calls skeletons the shells of fledge souls 
 left behinde; tells how at Doomsday this mem- 
 ber jogs the other, each one whispring, "Live you 
 brother?" and how in barren lives we freeze 
 on until the grave increase our cold. Turns like 
 these abound in Herbert. They connect them- 
 selves with his fondness for embroidered verse ; 
 and while far from full-blooded humor, they re- 
 semble it in intellectual pungency, freedom from 
 conventionality, and grim sport. They indicate a 
 
THE MAN 67 
 
 temperament which, if never exactly meriy, could 
 never have been morose, rigid, or over-reverential 
 to fixed mental habits. Except in The Church 
 Militant Herbert seldom indulges himself in sar- 
 casm. 
 
 In asking whether Herbert is an optimist or a 
 pessimist, we must remember that all religious 
 writers incline to a sort of disparagement of hu- 
 man affairs. Certainly one who without this in 
 mind should read Dotage, Giddinesse, Home, 
 MisEEiE, Mortification, The Rose, The Size, 
 and the five poems on Affliction, might well 
 suppose their author a thorough pessimist. He 
 would be confirmed in this belief by hearing else- 
 where that man is out of order hurVd, that the 
 condition of this world is frail*, that here of all 
 plants afflictions soonest grow, that thy Saviour 
 sentenc'd joy, at least in lump, that fermm et funus 
 olent flores, and that — as Herbert says in his 
 Prayer Before Sermon — we are darknesse and 
 weaknesse and filthinesse and shame. Miserie and 
 sinne fill our days. Such expressions are famiUar 
 to every reader of Herbert, and they seem to assert 
 that this world is rootedly evil, controlled rather 
 by the Devil than by God. But in reality that is 
 not Herbert's belief. This is God's world, a place 
 of great order, intelligence, and beauty. 
 
 All things that are, though they have sevrall wayes. 
 
 Yet in their being joyn with one advise 
 To honour thee. 
 
68 THE MAN 
 
 Yet this divine order is confessedly hidden and 
 much overlaid with afflictive circumstance. In 
 disparaging things of time in view of those of eter- 
 nity, the religious mind has large justification. We 
 make, as Herbert says in The Countbt Pabson, 
 a miserable comparison of the moment of griefs 
 here with the weight of joyes hereafter. Everybody 
 perceives that things present shrink and die. 
 However cheerful we may be, we cannot fail to feel 
 a pathetic poignancy in nature's rude transitori- 
 ness. We are but flowers that glide, and often must 
 wish that we past changing were. Accordingly, in 
 Herbert's case, as in that of Plato and many an- 
 other world-worn soul, longing looks are frequently 
 cast forward beyond mortality's bound. 
 
 Who wants the place where God doth dwell 
 Partakes already half of hell. 
 
 In moments of illness and disappointment, too, this 
 longing may pass over into something like com- 
 plaint. Aper so foul' a journey death is fair. But 
 such words draw no indictment against the uni- 
 verse. Fundamentally, there is no evil in its struc- 
 ture. Herbert's constant doctrine is that in its 
 design and originally, each part of us and of our 
 earth is rich in blessing. At first we liv'd in plea- 
 sure. In Man and Providence we see how marvel- 
 lous is creation, which we alone, the crown of it, 
 can understand and enjoy. God has his glorious 
 law embosomed in us. The two Antiphons bid us 
 
THE MAN 69 
 
 continually to join with God and angels in glad 
 rejoicing. Except sin, nothing can separate us 
 from God; and not even that cuts us off from his 
 love. 
 
 For sure when Adam did not know 
 To sinne, or sinne to smother. 
 
 He might to heav'n from Paradise go 
 As from one room, t' another. 
 
 But precisely here is the trouble. The misery 
 of the world is not grounded in the badness of its 
 make or the harshness of its maker. Sin, and only 
 sin, has brought it about. Lord, thou createdst 
 man in wealth and store, till foolishly he lost the 
 same. And though Herbert, with many others, is 
 pleased to figure sin as typified and finished in 
 Adam's wilfulness and finally curbed by Christ's 
 self-sacrifice, he does not fail to recognize that in 
 these two types are summed up processes always 
 open to man for bHss or woe. Whenever we turn 
 from wilful sin, something of our sweet originall joy 
 is restored; and in The Elixee, Employment, and 
 many other glad songs, we are shown the method 
 of still finding delight and dignity everywhere. 
 On the whole, then, while Herbert as a dualist, 
 who separates spiritual and natural things pretty 
 sharply, is sometimes inclined to blacken earthly 
 conditions for the glory of the divine, he always 
 knows that we are living in our Father's house, 
 that we ourselves are that house, and that neither 
 
70 THE MAN 
 
 it nor we are accursed. In spite of his quivering 
 sense of sin, fundamentally Herbert is an optimist. 
 
 VI 
 
 HERBERT'S mind was a capacious and 
 disciplined one, which had the amplest 
 opportunities and drew from them all they were 
 fitted to yield. Many contemporaries record their 
 admiration of his wide reading and fully assimi- 
 lated knowledge. According to his brother, " He 
 was master of all learning, human and divine." 
 
 He has left a large body of Greek and Latin 
 poems. He knew French, Italian, and Spanish. 
 He was preeminently a student of divinity and 
 poetry. With the law and the medicine of his age 
 he was well acquainted. In natural science he had 
 read and observed; he turned often and hopefully 
 to astrology and alchemy; he was a connoisseur in 
 manners, dress, and the refinements of life. In 
 short, his intellectual curiosity was unceasing, 
 broad, and minute. He followed persistently his 
 own precept, 
 
 To take all that is given, ; whether wealth. 
 Or love, or language; nothing comes amisse. 
 
 Yet this comprehensiveness was ever attended 
 by its needful counterpoise, mental independence. 
 Richard Burton, the author of the Anatomy of 
 Melancholy, is the stock example of a man lost in 
 
THE MAN 71 
 
 learning. He cannot write a page without quoting 
 the opinions of many writers. He must lean, or he 
 cannot walk. Herbert stands on his own feet, and 
 seldom quotes. Whatever he utters is his own, 
 wherever he may have found it. Gathering know- 
 ledge on every side, he so incorporates it into his 
 own mind that its original sources are not easily 
 discovered. What is not fit for such incorporation 
 he rejects, not with scorn, — with respect often- 
 times — yet with entire indifference. Although, 
 as is shown in the next Essay, he was probably 
 acquainted with most of the poetry of his time, his 
 style gives no echo of any other poet except Donne, 
 and of Donne he is no close imitator. The two 
 strongest intellectual forces of that age were Lord 
 Bacon and Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Herbert 
 was in the closest relations with them both, yet 
 neither contributed anything to his mental struc- 
 ture. Since his intimacy with these two men well 
 illustrates his mode of Kmiting himself and accept- 
 ing only such intellectual influences as fit his spe- 
 cial requirements, I will trace his relations with 
 them somewhat in detail. 
 
 Baron Edward Herbert of Cherbury was George 
 Herbert's eldest brother. To us he is chiefly 
 notable for his posthumously published Autobio- 
 graphy, one of the most amusing accounts in our 
 language of a roving ambassador, lover, duellist, 
 and man of fashion, who in his most improbable 
 escapades never loses his courage, vanity, or hold 
 
72 THE MAN 
 
 on his reader's interest. He was a poet, among 
 other things, and in An Ode upon a Question 
 Moved Whether Love Should Continue Forever 
 employed, perhaps for the first time, the stanza of 
 In Memoriam; using it, too, to express the same 
 class of emotions for which Rossetti and Tennyson 
 afterwards judged it fit. A volume of his verse has 
 been well edited by J. Churton Collins. He wrote 
 also a history of Henry VIII, and of the English 
 expedition to the Isle of Rhe. But his serious work 
 was in religious philosophy. His De Veritate may 
 be said to have founded English Deism; for in it he 
 attempts to identify natural and revealed religion, 
 to show that the truths which we usually trace to 
 the Bible are of wider origin, are indeed involved 
 innately in the human constitution. Man is by 
 nature a religious animal. Now although Lord 
 Herbert's book was printed in 1624, and probably 
 written some years earlier, although it related to the 
 very subject which chiefly engaged his brother, that 
 brother never mentions it. It encountered a storm 
 of indignation which George Herbert could have 
 only partially approved, so similar are certain of his 
 own beUefs. But neither its spirit nor method was 
 , his; and he let it entirely alone, as if he had never 
 heard its name. I find no reference to it in his 
 writings, either in the way of acceptance or aversion. 
 Herbert first met Lord Bacon in the King's 
 company at Royston in 1620. I have already men- 
 tioned how in his capacity as Orator he wrote 
 
THE MAN 73 
 
 Bacon several official letters, acknowledging the 
 receipt of his book and soliciting his aid for the 
 University. The friendship of the two men seems 
 to have ripened rapidly. Walton says that " Bacon 
 put such a value on his judgment that he usually 
 desir'd his approbation before he would expose 
 any of his books to be printed." And Archbishop 
 Tennison writes that after some unsuccessful at- 
 tempts by others to translate Bacon's Advance- 
 ment of Learning into Latin, the version was 
 performed by "Mr. Herbert and some others who 
 were esteemed masters in the Roman Eloquence." 
 What this work of translation was, Mr. Spedding 
 has been unable to discover. That it was consider- 
 able appears from Bacon's words, when in 1625 
 he dedicated to Herbert A Translation of Certain 
 Psalms into English Verse: 
 
 "The pains that it pleased you to take about 
 some of my writings I cannot forget ; which did 
 put me in mind to dedicate to you this poor exer- 
 cise of my sickness. Besides, it being my manner 
 for dedications to choose those that I hold most 
 fit for the argument, I thought that in respect of 
 divinity and poesy met — whereof the one is the 
 matter, the other the stile of this little writing — 
 I could not make better choice; so with significa- 
 tion of my love and acknowledgment, I ever rest 
 "Your affectionate Friend, 
 
 "Fh. St. Albans." 
 
74 THE MAN 
 
 Notwithstanding this personal friendship, Her- 
 bert remained totally uninfluenced by Bacon. 
 That he had read Bacon's books, and clearly 
 understood his place and importance, is evident 
 from the three Latin poems addressed to him, 
 besides the Unes of lament for his death; but Her- 
 bert went on his own way, a way which he knew 
 to be different from that of the great innovator, 
 and did not allow himself to be turned aside. 
 
 Herbert's failure to connect with Bacon and 
 Herbert of Cherbury brings out an important 
 intellectual trait which might easily be' mistaken 
 for a lack of ideas. Fundamental ideas he cer- 
 tainly does lack. He is not a philosopher. He never 
 concerns himself to search for basal principles. 
 Bacon and Lord Herbert are questioners of the 
 existing order, reformatory minds, who cannot 
 rest in the world that is given them. They desire 
 to probe it for principles through whose aid it may 
 be brought to clearer knowledge. Herbert's mind 
 was of an opposite type, the mind of the artist 
 rather than that of the philosopher: the artist, 
 who takes whatever material is given and out of 
 it contrives forms of beauty. The appUcation or 
 development of ideas is his work, not the discovery 
 of them. Some men are always challenging what 
 they hear with the question, "Is it true?" I can- 
 not imagine such an inquiry entering the mind of 
 Herbert, There are others, however, and they are 
 often men of force, who searchingly ask, "What 
 
THE MAN 75 
 
 does it mean ? " And this is everywhere Herbert's 
 question. He draws out of all that is around him 
 its richest significance. Accepting the world as he 
 finds it, he studies what it contains which fits his 
 need, and then constructs, often out of forbidding 
 material, a beautiful intellectual lodging. 
 
 vn 
 
 THESE intellectual peculiarities must be borne 
 in mind on coming to estimate Herbert's 
 attitude toward divinity and the Church. In both 
 he accepts all that is oflfered him; but he keeps 
 his independence, his practical rationahty, and is 
 indisposed to fundamental questions. For philo- 
 sophic theology he has neither aptitude nor inter- 
 est. About the ultimate natures of God or man he 
 does not concern himself. A few simple precepts, 
 he tells us in Divinitie, are all the doctrines neces- 
 sary for our guidance. There is usually a philistine 
 tone in Herbert when fundamental problems press. 
 But in harmonizing what is traditional with pre- 
 sent needs and in making dead matter live, he is 
 at his best, and often positively creative. The cur- 
 rent rehgious notions of his time are accordingly 
 all adopted without criticism; but all are rendered 
 rational, humane, exquisitely fitted to men's 
 requirements, and even to their delight and play- 
 fulness. Hell, for example, is accepted; but no- 
 thing is said of its torments. It means banishment 
 
76 THE MAN 
 
 from God, perpetuity of evil. The name Satan 
 does not occur in his poetry. The Devil is men- 
 tioned once, when we are told that he hath some 
 good in him, all agree. Devils appear three or four 
 times, most incidentally, except in the httle poem 
 SiNNE, which is written to show how devils are 
 our sinnes in 'perspective. Heaven is no place of 
 idle reward, but the opportunity to know and serve 
 Him who is now obscurely dear. Christ has made 
 atonement for us; how, is not stated. No forensic 
 explanation is allowed, but love alone triumphs in 
 his death. Sin is self-assertion and alienation from 
 God; salvation, union with Him and affectionate 
 adoption of righteousness. The Trinity is adored; 
 it renders God accessible on so many sides. And 
 all through these accepted and transformed theo- 
 logic notions runs a play of fancy, intimacy, pas- 
 sion, with subtle intellectual diversifications and 
 artistic adjustments, until the total effect is not 
 that of a mind bound by a traditional system, but 
 of one freely finding its own singularly real and 
 triumphant entrance into a divine order. 
 
 Just so he is devoted to his Church, and has 
 rightly become one of its saints. Oley and Walton, 
 with most of his subsequent biographers, have put" 
 him forward to exalt the glories of episcopacy and 
 the abominations of dissent. And well would he 
 be pleased to be employed in such a service ; for he 
 assailed the enenaes of his Church in his youth, 
 sang her ordinances throughout his life, elaborately 
 
THE MAN 77 
 
 ministered them during his closing years, and left 
 a hand-book explaining how they might be exer- 
 cised with the utmost efficiency. Her doctrine 
 and discipline he never questioned. It is no won- 
 der, then, that he has usually been classed as an 
 extreme High Churchman ; and that those who 
 are episcopally-minded, but have only a slight 
 acquaintance with his writings, accept him as the 
 convincing prophet of their cause. Coleridge 
 thought that "The Temple will always be read 
 with fullest appreciation by those who share the 
 poet's devotion to the Dear Mother whose praises 
 he has undertaken to celebrate." 
 
 Yet enthusiastic students of Herbert are con- 
 fined to no one communion. The majority of those 
 I have happened to meet have been drawn from 
 his old enemies, the Puritans and Presbyterians. 
 Many Unitarian devotees I have known too, and 
 several Agnostics. Cathohcs are more apt to find 
 him distasteful. Herbert's extreme insistence on 
 individual responsibility, and his inclination to set 
 the soul in sohtary communication with God, are 
 rather Puritan than " Churchly." He was indeed 
 a loyal follower of the English Church, but the 
 grounds of his allegiance bring him within the 
 sympathy of the Church Universal. In his day, and 
 still more in ours, the English Church has found 
 support among men of two contrasted types, — the 
 obedient souls, who love subjection to authority, 
 and are only at ease under the shelter of a com- 
 
78 THE MAN 
 
 manded institution; and the free beings who find 
 other sects narrow, and so turn to a historic ritual 
 as the naturally selected and fit means by which 
 the total spirit of man may piously express itself. 
 Herbert, when closely questioned, declares him- 
 self one of the latter sort. 
 
 Bancroft, Laud, and other ecclesiastical leaders 
 of Herbert's time held that a fixed form of both 
 Church and State had been divinely estabUshed. 
 Christ, it was beheved, had in mind a single sys- 
 tem of organization, doctrine, and ritual, to be 
 set up in the world forever. This He intrusted to 
 his Apostles. The Roman Church, by virtue of 
 St. Peter's headship, claimed to be in possession 
 of this system. The Anglican leaders claimed 
 that it was theirs. The question was not primarily 
 as to the truth of the doctrines held, or the fitness 
 of the one Church or the other to minister best to 
 spiritual Ufe; it was one of historic fact : which 
 Church did Christ have in mind ? And this beKef 
 that Christ had authorized a particular ecclesias- 
 tical system found a readier acceptance because 
 a similar beUef in regard to the State was already 
 in possession of men's minds. At the beginning of 
 the seventeenth century, those who were disposed 
 to regard institutions not so much as a means but 
 as ends in themselves held unquestioningly to the 
 twin beUefs of divine right in Church and State. 
 
 Another view, however, of the position of the 
 Church of England after the Reformation was 
 
THE MAN 79 
 
 that episcopacy was desirable on account of its 
 reasonableness, its decency, its power of minister- 
 ing to men's wants. Christ announced the prin- 
 ciples which underKe every Church rather than 
 the complete model of some particular one. This 
 theory was set forth in its clearest and most pro- 
 found form by Richard Hooker (1554-1600) in his 
 Ecclesiastical PoKty. Throughout his second and 
 third Books Hooker maintains that law, whether 
 in nature, in the mind and heart of man, or in 
 the constitution of society, is as much a revelation 
 of God as is the Bible. That which discerns and 
 apphes this widely revealed and revealing law is 
 reason. Accordingly " the necessity of PoKty and 
 Regiment in aU Churches may be held without 
 holding any one certain form to be necessary in 
 them all." As a matter of history, episcopacy has 
 descended from the apostles, but it is not on that 
 account to be considered an indispensable neces- 
 sity of Church Hfe. That form of government and 
 ritual which bears within itseK the marks of reason- 
 ableness, order, and edification is stamped thereby 
 as ordained by Christ as truly as if there had been 
 an express command of his for it. " Inasmuch as 
 law doth stand upon reason, to allege reason serv- 
 eth as well as to cite Scripture. . . . For men to 
 be tied and led by authority as if it were a kind 
 of captivity of the judgment, and though there be 
 reason to the contrary not to Ksten unto it but to 
 follow like beasts the first in the herd, they know 
 
80 THE MAN 
 
 not nor care not whither, this were brutish. That 
 authority of men should prevail with men either 
 against or above reason is no part of our belief." 
 
 The opposing views here stated in regard to the 
 divine origin of the Church continue to distinguish 
 its loyal adherents in our day. We know the two 
 parties as High Churchmen and Broad Church- 
 men. The one hold the Church to be divine be- 
 cause it embodies a command of Christ ; the other, 
 because of its adaptation to human needs. Through 
 nearly all communions there runs a similar Une of 
 cleavage. The authoritative mind and the ration- 
 alizing mind are probably inherent in humanity 
 itself. To which type did Herbert belong ? 
 
 Judged by his devotion to the Church of Eng- 
 land, by his hostility to her foes, and by his in- 
 sistence on elaborate ritual, Herbert is a High 
 Churchman ; but there is no indication that he 
 held the tenet distinctive of High Churchmanship, 
 the belief that his ecclesiastical system had been 
 designed and established by Christ. He never 
 defends his position by maintaining for it an in- 
 junction of Christ or an Apostolic model. On the 
 contrary, he employs tests much more verifiable. 
 
 Ctive to thy Mother what thou wovMst allow 
 To ev'ry Corporation. 
 
 In Chapter XHI of The Coxtntht Pahson, 
 where he explains how the church and altar should 
 be arranged, he says that all this is done not as ovt 
 
THE MAN 81 
 
 of necessity, or as 'putting a holiness in the things, 
 bixt as desiring to keep the middle way between 
 superstition and slovenlinesse, and as follovnng the 
 Apostle's two great and admirable Rules in things 
 of this nature : The first whereof is, " Let all things 
 be done decently and in order; " the second, " Let 
 all things be done to edification." For these two 
 rules . . . excellently score out the way, and fully 
 and exactly contain, even in externall and indifferent 
 things, what course is to be taken. To the same 
 effect he speaks in his poem on The British 
 Chtjbch, where he finds the justification of that 
 Church to lie in the fact that she is a mean 
 between the Roman and the Genevan, — neither 
 painted Uke the former nor undrest like the latter. 
 He never asserts that the Churches he opposes 
 have departed from a primitive pattern, or that 
 his own conforms to it. The decadence of the 
 Roman Church, which he traces with much- de- 
 tail in The Chxjbch MiLrrANT, is found in its 
 lapses into moral evil, and not in any alteration 
 of prescribed usage. Marriage, he urges in The 
 Chtjbch-Pobch (1. 19), is holy because man would 
 have been obliged to institute it himself if God 
 had not. Lent is commended because fasting is 
 wholesome, beautiful to practise in company 
 with others, in imitation of Christ, and as a part 
 of a holy plan for the year. Nor can authoritie, 
 which should increase the obligation in us, rruike ii 
 lesse. In baptism his Country Parson willingly 
 
82 THE MAN 
 
 and cheerfully crosseth the child, and thinketh the 
 Ceremony not ■. onely innocent but reverend. In 
 matters so uncertain as praying to the Saints, we 
 should consider that all worship is prerogative, 
 and not engage in it where His pleasure no in- 
 junction layes. He celebrated the Communion 
 infrequently; if not duly once a month, yet at least 
 five or six times in the year (The Country Pah- 
 son, XXII). He, Ferrar, and Donne all used on 
 occasion in their services prayers written by them- 
 selves, side by side with those taken from the 
 Prayer Book. 
 
 On the whole, theOj it is evident — as Walton 
 alleges in his long explanation of Herbert's use of 
 ritual — that he joyously accepted his Church's 
 order through a conviction of its beauty and ser- 
 viceability, and not because of its antiquity or its 
 externally authoritative character. He regarded 
 it as a means, not an end; a tool to be used, not a 
 legal ordinance to be obeyed. He had no hesita- 
 tion in shaping it this way or that, as occasion 
 seemed to demand. That many of its parts were 
 ancient might endear them, but was not the 
 ground of their acceptance. A practice which 
 could claim an express command of Christ, he 
 welcomed fdr that reason. Practices not having 
 such command, and which seemed not favorable 
 to edification, he refused. Everywhere a lover 
 of beauty and of subtle suggestion^ he valued an 
 elaborate ritual. Nothing could seem too rich to 
 
THE MAN 83 
 
 clothe the sunne. An extreme Ritualist he might 
 well be called ; only that RituaUsts rarely, like 
 Herbert, base their ritual on grounds of beauty 
 and serviceability. With them, as with High 
 Churchmen, the moving principle is generally 
 conformity to an ancient command. For Herbert 
 the appeal was to an internal need. 
 
 vni 
 
 THIS paper presents no picture of Herbert. 
 We do not see him here as he walked among 
 men. The many features to which I have separately 
 called attention are not drawn together naturally 
 into a whole. As was said at the beginning, Her- 
 bert is interesting through uniting in himself traits 
 which are usually found opposed. More than in 
 mo-st men his words and works and fashion too 
 are all of a piece. By psychologically detaching his 
 conditions of body, temperament, intellect, and 
 religion, I falsify him. To make him Kve, these 
 must be put together again, and so all be brought 
 into that ordered beauty which Herbert every- 
 where prized. But this singleness of the harmo- 
 nized Herbert can be best read in his poems. 
 
A page of the. Bodleian Marmseript, showing the handwriting of a 
 copyist. See Vol. I, p. 176. 
 
?^ 
 
 " Uu: ^i'A'rhu'S' I*. si'iL. 
 '--?m- met- syii^LC t)^fiiii>!^ mf j^k-icsm^ic 
 
 CDuw lUiui iv nut ,jii)t/lfS aius<?i/n!.f/ii; , 
 C /-/'J-Uc-c'^ am'iStfif. 
 
 juc i:-r<,; :,z(:J;^a,iT i^j/in/M M<cAy/^A/, 
 
 ^ ijtt, wScu it ^!riS%^mu 
 • eirJ hwwjf^a /iffi .rmifj ^lU ,7i^fff mz^ y Jzdxt'. 
 
 ./■'' / 
 
 ' <:finu . 
 
in 
 
 THE TYPE OF RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
THE TYPE OF RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 TO both the matter and the manner of English 
 poetry George Herbert made notable con- 
 tributions. He devised the religious love-lyric, and 
 he introduced structure into the short poem. These 
 are his two substantial claims to originality. To 
 state, illustrate, and qualify them will be the ob- 
 ject of this and the following Essay. 
 
 OF course there was religious verse in England 
 before Herbert's time. To see how consider- 
 able it was, and how he modified it, I will roughly 
 classify what had been written under the four 
 headings of Vision, Meditation, Paraphrase, and 
 Hymn. In the poetry of Vision the poet stands 
 above his world, and is concerned rather with 
 divine transactions than with human. Cynewulf 
 in Saxon times looked into the wonders of the 
 Advent, Ascension, and Doomsday. The author 
 of Piers the Plowman, with visions of the King- 
 dom of Heaven before his eyes, condemned the 
 institutions of rural England. Spenser imagined a 
 fairy realm where chivalry, hohness, and unearthly 
 beauty dominate all forms of evil. Giles Fletcher 
 
88 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 in Keats-like verse pictured the four Victories 
 achieved by Christ. The young Milton, just before 
 Herbert took orders, celebrated the Nativity, Cir- 
 cumcision, and Passion. And a few years after 
 Herbert's death Sandys translated into English 
 verse Grotius' Drama of Christ's Passion. In all 
 these cases the writers are not primarily interested 
 in their relations to God, but in his to the world; 
 and these relations they behold dramatically em- 
 bodied in certain divine occurrences. In such 
 dramatic Visions we may perceive a kind of sur- 
 vival of the early Miracle Play. 
 
 But the imaginative point of view belongs to 
 exceptional men. Much commoner, especially in 
 Herbert's early hfe, was religious Meditation. 
 Spenser had practised it with his accustomed 
 splendor in his two Hymns in Honour of Divine 
 Love and Beauty; so had Constable in his Spirit- 
 ual Sonnets to the Honour of God and his Saints, 
 and Drayton in his Harmonies of the Church. 
 Many of Sidney's sonnets, of Shakespeare's, are 
 reveries on the nature of the soul, its immortality, 
 and its relation to its Maker. Sir John Davies 
 studies these questions more abstractly in his 
 Nosce Teipsum, as does Phineas Fletcher in The 
 Purple Island. Lord Herbert looks at them ro- 
 mantically in his Tennysonian Ode, inquiring 
 Whether Love Should Continue Forever. Drum- 
 mond gravely examines them in his Flowers of 
 Sion. FuUse Greville draws up in verse a Treatise 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 89 
 
 of Religion. Nicholas Breton has similar discus- 
 sions of sacred theipes. Many of Daniel's and 
 of Donne's Epistles and Elegies are weighty with a 
 moral wisdom not to be distinguished from reK- 
 gion; while Donne's Anatomy of the World, Pro- 
 gress of the Soul, and Divine Poems would, if they 
 were not so intellectual, be genuinely devout. 
 Quarles' Divine Fancies are of the same character. 
 Ralegh and Wotton, too, and many other poets 
 less famous than they, have single meditations of 
 sweet seriousness and depth on God, man, death, 
 and duty. Yet religious verse of this type every- 
 where bears the same mark. It studies a problem 
 and tries to reach a general truth. Its writers do not 
 content themselves with recording their own emo- 
 tions. Their poetry, therefore, lacks the individual 
 note and is not lyric. If the preceding group of 
 religious verse may be thought of as following the 
 Miracle Play, this continues the traditions of the 
 old Morality. 
 
 Yet in religion there is more than sacred scenes 
 and wise Meditation. There is worship, the open 
 profession by Grod's children of their exultation in 
 Him and their need of his continual care. Worship, 
 however, especially in the time preceding Herbert, 
 was a collective affair, in which the holy aspirations 
 of the individual were mei^d in those of his fel- 
 lows and went forth in company along already 
 consecrated paths. For such national worship and 
 such sanctified associations nothing could be a 
 
90 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 more fitting expression than the Holy Scriptures. 
 The Bible was the Magna Charta of the Refor- 
 mation. To love it was to show one's hostility to 
 Popery. In it all truth was contained. If one 
 needed poetry, then, or sacred song, where could 
 one obtain it better than in this its original source ? 
 For a time it seemed almost profane to look else- 
 where. The favorite form of religious utterance 
 was the versified Paraphrase of some portion of the 
 Bible. Naturally the Psalms were the part most 
 commonly chosen. The collection of Paraphrases 
 of the Psalms which goes by the name of Sternhold 
 and Hopkins was drawn up in 1562, and was soon 
 adopted into the use of the English churches. But 
 almost every prominent poet attempted a few 
 Psahns. To trabslate them became a literary fash- 
 ion. Wyatt and Surrey engaged in it, as later did 
 Sidney and his sister, Spenser, Sylvester, Davison, 
 Wither, Phineas Fletcher, King James, Lord 
 Bacon, Milton, Sandys, and even Carew. But the 
 disposition to paraphrase the Bible did not con- 
 fine itself to the Psalms. Surrey put Ecclesiastes 
 into verse; Sylvester, Job; Quarles versified Job, 
 Samson, Esther, and the Song of Solomon. Both 
 he and Donne tried to make poetry out of the La- 
 mentations of Jeremiah. Drayton told the stories 
 of Noah, Moses, and David. Indeed, the strange 
 fashion lasted down to the time of Cowley, who in 
 1656 pubUshed four Books of the Troubles of King 
 David, and translated one of them back into Latin. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 91 
 
 Paradise Lost itself may be regarded as but the 
 full, gorgeous, and belated consummation of what 
 Milton's predecessors in Paraphrase and Vision 
 had already attempted. 
 
 The Hymn, that form of religious aspiration 
 most natural to us, developed slowly in the Eng- 
 land of Elizabeth and James, and gained only 
 a partial acceptance during the reign of Charles. 
 The Catholic Church had always had its Latin 
 hymns. Many of these were translated by Lu- 
 ther and the German reformers, and freely used 
 in their churches. Luther's own hymns were 
 much prized. The English Prayer Book is largely 
 a translation of the Roman Breviary, and the 
 Breviary contains many hymns ; but the makers 
 of the Prayer Book left the hymns untranslated. 
 Why so low an estimate was set on hymns in Eng- 
 land is not altogether clear, but for some reason 
 English Protestants contented themselves for the 
 most part with versions of the Psalms. Perhaps 
 they took example from Geneva. Clement Marot 
 in 1544 translated fifty Psalms into French, and 
 these were completed in 1562 by Beza and adopted 
 into the service of the Reformed Swiss and French 
 churches. Genevan influences, being strong in 
 George Herbert's England, may have cooperated 
 with other causes to hold back the promising 
 movement toward giving the English people their 
 own rehgious songs. For such a movement did 
 start. Coverdale in 1540 published some Spiritual 
 
£>^ THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 Songs in company with thirteen Goostly Psahns, 
 mostly translated from German originals. The 
 collection of Stemhold and Hopkins contained 
 a group of hymns in addition to its translated 
 Psalms, while a more marked advance in this 
 direction was made by Wedderbum's widely used 
 Book of Psalms and Spiritual Songs, printed in 
 Scotland in 1560. This had three parts : the first 
 consisting of Psalms, the second of hymns, and 
 the third of popular secular songs to which a 
 reKgious meaning had been attached. Half a 
 dozen Songs of Sadness and Piety were in Wil- 
 Uam Byrd's Book of Songs, 1588. But these ad- 
 mirable beginnings, Enghsh and Scotch, were 
 only slenderly followed up. Such songs were ap- 
 parently too indiAridual, and could not compete 
 with the broad and universal Psalms. As Puri- 
 tanism advanced, the Bible tended to overshadow 
 all other inspiration. It was not until 1623 that 
 George Wither in his Hymns and Songs of the 
 Church composed the first hymn-book that ever 
 appeared in England, and obtained permission to 
 have it used in churches. Eighteen years later he 
 pubHshed a second and much larger volume, under 
 the title of England's Hallelujah, but like its pre- 
 decessor it met with much opposition. Hymns 
 were not a natural form of devotion in the first half 
 of the seventeenth century, and few were even in 
 existence previously to Wither's book. Wither 
 complains in his Scholar's Purgatory (1624) that 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 93 
 
 "for divers ages together there have been but so 
 many hymns composed and pubKshed as make 
 not above two sheets and a half of paper." 
 
 n 
 
 SUCH, then, was the condition of English 
 sacred poetry when Herbert began to write. 
 To each of its four varieties he made good contri- 
 butions. In The Sacrifice and The Bag he has 
 visions of divine events. The massive reflections 
 of The Chuech-Pohch, The Chukch Militant, 
 and many of the poems contained in my third, fifth, 
 and eighth Groups give him high rank among the 
 meditative religious poets. He also translated half 
 a dozen Psalms; and possibly the two Antiphons, 
 one of the poems entitled Praise, and the songs 
 which are appended to Easter, The Holy Com- 
 munion, and An Offering, may pass for hymns. 
 I do not reckon Vertue and The Elixer ; for 
 though these bear his name in our hymn-books, 
 their popular form is not due to him, but to John 
 Wesley. 
 
 Yet in spite of the worth of Herbert's work in all 
 these four accredited varieties, and his real emir 
 nence in the second, his distinctive merit must 
 be sought elsewhere. For he originated a new spe- 
 cies of sacred verse, the religious lyric, a species 
 for which the English world was waiting, which 
 it welcomed with enthusiasm, and which at once 
 
94 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 became so firmly established that it is now diffi- 
 cult to conceive that it did not always exist. In 
 reality, though cases of something similar may be 
 discovered in earlier poetry, it was Herbert who 
 thought it out, studied its aesthetic possibilities, 
 and created the type for future generations. 
 Wherein, then, does this fifth type of Herbert's 
 differ from the preceding four ? In this : The 
 religious lyric is a cry of the individual heart to 
 God. Standing face to face with Him, its writer 
 describes no event, explores no general problem, 
 leans on no authoritative book. He searches his 
 own soul, and utters the love, the timidity, the joy, 
 the vacillations, the remorse, the anxieties, he finds 
 there. That is not -done in the hymn. Though its 
 writer often speaks in the first person, he gives 
 voice to collective feeling. He thinks of himself 
 as representative, and selects from that which he 
 finds in his heart only what will identify him with 
 others. On God and himself his attention is not 
 exclusively fixed. Always in the lyric it is thus 
 fixed. When Bums sings of Mary Morison, he has 
 no audience in mind, nor could his words be 
 adopted by any company. Just so the religious 
 lyric is a supreme love-song, involving two per- 
 sons and two only, — the individual soul as the 
 lover and its divine and incomparable Love. We 
 hear the voice of the former appealing in intro- 
 spective monologue to the distant and exalted 
 dear one. " Divinest love lies in this book," says 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 95 
 
 Crashaw in writing of Herbert's Temple; and he 
 justly marks its distinctive feature. 
 
 A certain preparation for Herbert's work was 
 already laid in the poetry of Robert Southwell. 
 This heroic young Englishman was bom in high 
 station in 1561, became a Jesuit priest, and in 
 1592 was arrested by Elizabeth on account of his 
 religion. After three years of imprisonment in 
 the Tower, where he was thirteen times subjected 
 to torture, he was executed in February, 1595. In 
 the same year were printed two volumes of his 
 verse. These include the long St. Peter's Com- 
 plaint and about fifty short poems, many of them 
 written during his imprisonment. Perhaps the 
 best known is the Christmas song of The Burning 
 Babe. All are vivid, sincere, and accomplished, 
 and all without exception deal with religious 
 themes. Southwell is accordingly our earliest reli- 
 gious poet, the only one before Herbert who con- 
 fined himself to that single field. Possibly Herbert 
 derived from him the idea of taking religion for 
 his province. Southwell's book was popular in 
 Herbert's boyhood ; and when Herbert as a young 
 man announces to his mother his resolve to dedi- 
 cate his poetic powers to God's service, he uses 
 language strikingly similar to that in Southwell's 
 Epistle of The Authour to the Reader. Herbert's 
 long early poem too. The Chubch-Pohch, is in 
 the metre of St. Peter's Complaint. Yet the tem- 
 per of the two men is unlike and their aims diver- 
 
96 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 gent. In style Southwell connects with Spenser, 
 Herbert with Donne. Southwell, too, like Crashaw 
 afterward, Kves in a beautiful Romish world, 
 where the saints claim more attention than his own 
 salvation. Fortitude is his principal theme, and 
 reflections on the emptiness of the world. His is a 
 stout heart. It does not seek intimate communings 
 with its Master, and is seldom alone with God. 
 The lyric yearning of the fearful lover is not his; 
 though in such poems as Content and Rich, Sin's 
 Heavy Load, and Lewd Love is Loss, he nearly 
 approaches the meditative and sententious power 
 of Herbert. That religious love-song, however, in 
 which Herbert traces all the waywardness of his 
 affection for the mighty object of his love, exhibit- 
 ing the same fervency of passion which enters into 
 the human relation, does not occur in Southwell. 
 
 Nearer to Herbert is Thomas Campion, who 
 about 1613 pubUshed twenty Divine and Moral 
 Songs. Campion is an exquisite experimenter, skil- 
 ful in discovering every sweet subtlety which song 
 admits. Both in the personal quality of his reli- 
 gious verse and in its beauty of structure, he may 
 fairly be called a predecessor of Herbert. But he, 
 too, is under Spenserian influence. His religious 
 poems are pure songs, vmtten — like most of his 
 verse — with reference to a musical setting. They 
 lack, therefore, that introspective passion which 
 fills Herbert's throbbing stanzas. Herbert could 
 have obtained Httle direct aid from them. He is 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 97 
 
 more likely to have been indebted to Donne's few 
 hymns and to his Holy Sonnets. In these there 
 is Herbert's own deep communing with God. 
 But instances of this occur all the way down the 
 long line of English poetry. The Early English 
 Text Society has published several volumes of re- 
 ligious verse which, while usually of the types I 
 have named Vision and Meditation, show occa- 
 sional instances of personal appeal. Religious 
 poetry of the personal life had never been uncom- 
 mon among continental Catholics, the mystics, and 
 the German Reformers, though it had not yet 
 found full voice in England. In no strict sense, 
 then, can Herbert be said to have created it, for it 
 is grounded in one of the most constant cravings 
 of human nature. Yet the true discoverer is not 
 he who first perceives a thing, but he who discerns 
 its importance and its place in human life. And 
 this is what Herbert did. He is the first in Eng- 
 land to bring this universal craving to adequate 
 utterance. He rediscovered it, enriched it with his 
 own ingenuity, precision, and candor, and estab- 
 lished it as a theme for English poetry, freed from 
 the mystic and sensuous morbidity which has often 
 disfigured it in other literatures. 
 
98 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 III 
 
 CERTAIN general tendencies of Herbert's time 
 combined with peculiarities of his own na- 
 ture to bring about this new poetry. Individualism 
 was abroad, disturbing "the unity and married 
 calm of states," and sending its subtle influence 
 into every department of English life. The rise 
 of Puritanism was but one of its manifestations. 
 Everywhere the Renaissance movement pressed 
 toward a return to nature and an assertion of the 
 rights of the individual. At its rise these tend- 
 encies were partially concealed. Its first fruits 
 were delivery from oppressive seriousness, a gen- 
 eral emancipation of human powers, the enrich- 
 ment of daily life, beauty, splendor, scholarship, 
 a quickened and incisive intelligence. But as it 
 advanced, the Renaissance opened doors to all 
 kinds of self-assertion. Each person, each desire, 
 each opinion, became clamorous and set up for 
 itself, regardless of all else. In its remoteness Eng- 
 land was tardy in feeling these disintegrating in- 
 fluences. The splendor, too, of the Renaissance 
 was somewhat dimmed in Italy and France before 
 it shone on the age of Elizabeth. There it found 
 a society exceptionally consolidated under a force- 
 ful Queen. Foreign dangers welded the nation 
 together. It is doubtful if at any other period of 
 its history has the EngUsh people believed, acted, 
 enjoyed, and aspired so nearly like a single person 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 99 
 
 as during the first three quarters of the age of 
 EHzabeth. She, her great ministers, and the his- 
 torical plays of Shakespeare set forth its ideals of 
 orderly government. Spenser's poem consum- 
 mated its ideals of orderly beauty, as did Hooker's 
 Ecclesiastical Polity those of an orderly church. 
 Men in those day^ marched together. Dissenters, 
 either of a religious, political, or artistic sort, were 
 few and despised. 
 
 But change was impending. A second period 
 of the Renaissance began, a period of introspec- 
 tion, where each man was prone to insist on the 
 importance of whatever was his own. At the 
 coming of the Stuarts this great change was pre- 
 pared, and was steadily fostered by their inabihty 
 to comprehend it. In science. Bacon had already 
 questioned established authority and sent men 
 to nature to observe for themselves. In govern- 
 ment, the king's prerogative was speedily ques- 
 tioned, and Parliaments became so rebelhous that 
 they were often dismissed. A revolution in poetic 
 taste was under way. Spenser's lulling rhythms 
 and bloodless heroes were being displaced by the 
 jolting and passionate reahsm of Donne. 
 
 The changes wrought in religion were of a deeper 
 and more varied kind. Forms and ceremonies, the 
 product of a collective religious consciousness, 
 P gradually became objects of suspicion. Personal 
 religion, the sense of individual responsibility to 
 God, was regarded as the one thing needful. Al- 
 
100 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 ready the setting up of a national church and the 
 rejection of a Catholic or world-church had ad- 
 mitted the principle of individual judgment, and 
 now the further progress of this principle could not 
 be stayed. If a single nation might seek what was 
 best for itself, regardless of the Papacy, why might 
 not also a single body of Christians, regardless of 
 the nation, — or even an individual soul, regardless 
 of its fellows ? Our souls, the Puritans held, are 
 our own. No man can save his brother. Each 
 stands single before his Maker, answerable to Him 
 
 l- alone. The social sense, it may be said, had de- 
 cayed as an instinct, and had not yet been ration- 
 ally reconstructed. It needed to decay, if a fresh 
 and varied religious experience was to invigorate 
 
 j_English hfe. The call to individualism was the 
 most sacred summons of the age. All sections of 
 the community heard it. Puritanism merely ac- 
 cepted it with peculiar heartiness and reverence. 
 In the High Church party ideas substantially 
 similar were at work.- By them, too, asceticism and 
 "freedom from the world" were often regarded 
 as the path of piety. What a sign of the times is 
 the conduct of Herbert's friend, Nicholas Ferrar, 
 who would cut all ties, stand naked before God, 
 and so seek holiness! Ferrar was a religious 
 genius, able to discern the highest ideals of his 
 age, and courageous enough to carry them out. 
 But how widely and in what unlike forms these 
 individualistic ideas pervaded the community 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 101 
 
 may be seen in three other powerful men, all bom 
 before Herbert died, — Thomas Hobbes, George 
 Fox, and John Bunyan. The best and the worst 
 tendencies of that age demanded that each man 
 should seek God for himself, unhampered by his 
 neighbor. 
 
 And just as the seeker after God is at this time 
 conceived as a detached individual, so is the ob- 
 ject of the search, — God himself. Notions of the 
 divine immanence do not belong to this age. God 
 is not a spiritual principle, the power that makes 
 for righteousness, universal reason, collective 
 natural force. Such ideas come later, in the train 
 of that Deistic movement of which Herbert's 
 brother was the precursor. God is an independent 
 person, exactly like ourselves, having foresight, 
 skill, love and hatred, grief, self-sacrifice, and a 
 power of action a good deal Umited by the kind of 
 world and people among whom He works. From 
 Him Jesus Christ is indistinguishable. With Him 
 one may talk as with a friend ; and though no 
 answering sound comes back, the Bible — every 
 portion of which is his living word — reports his 
 instructions, while the conditions of mind and 
 heart in which we find ourselves after communion 
 with Him disclose his influence and indicate his 
 will. In all this religious realism there is a vitaUty 
 and precision, a permission to take God with us 
 into daily affairs, a banishment of loneliness, and 
 a refreshment of courage impossible to those who 
 
102 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 accept the broader but vaguer notions fashionable 
 in our day. Without attempting to assess the 
 completeness or truth of the opposing conceptions, 
 we must see that the earlier has immense advan- 
 tages for artistic purposes. This concrete, vivid 
 thought of God sets the religious imagination free 
 and makes it creative in poetry as nothing else 
 can. All art is personal and anthropomorphic. 
 
 IV 
 
 HERBERT was a true child of this eager, 
 individualistic, realistic age. In its full tide 
 he Hved. An exceptionally wide acquaintance with 
 its leaders of philosophy, poetry, and the Church 
 brought his impressionable nature to accept its 
 ideals as matters of course. He has not the hardy 
 and spacious nature that asks fundamental ques- 
 tions. His mind is receptive, even if anticipatory. 
 Too proud and independent for an imitator, and 
 ever disposed to build his own pathway, he still 
 Employs in that building only the material he 
 finds at hand. Rarely does he desire more. Small 
 modifications, readjustments, the application of 
 refinement and elevation where coarseness had 
 been before, — these rather than revolutionary 
 measures are what he adds to the intellectual stock 
 of his age. He is no Wordsworth, Keats, or Brown- 
 ing; he is related to his time rather as an early 
 Gray or Arnold, as one who voices with exquisite 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 103 
 
 art what those around him already feel. But if the 
 ideals of his time shaped him, he in turn shaped 
 them. Through his responsive heart and dexter- 
 ous fingers they attained a precision, beauty, and 
 compelling power which bore them far past the 
 limits of that age. 
 
 In his first years at Cambridge Herbert had 
 thought of religion as primarily an affair of ritual 
 and ordinance . This is painfully evident in some 
 Latin epigrams written at this time in reply to 
 Andrew Melville. This learned and witty Scotch- 
 man, in some verses entitled Anti-Tami-Cami- 
 Categoria, had attacked certain features of the 
 English Church as meaningless and injurious to 
 piety. Herbert replies, but shows no devotional 
 spirit in his smart and scurrilous lines. He does 
 not Write as a defender of God, of his own soul, 
 or of holy agencies personally found dear. He 
 defends an established and external institution, 
 whose usages must all aUke be exempt from criti- 
 cism. But such blind partisanship was brief. As 
 has been shown in my preceding Essay, the love 
 of AngKcanism which fills Herbert's later poems 
 and his CoimTBT Paeson is of a different type. 
 It springs from a beUef in the aid his Church 
 can afford to individual holiness, collective con- 
 venience, and permanent beauty. That Church he 
 thinks of as a means and not an end; and the end 
 is everywhere communion of the individual soul 
 with God. 
 
104 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 Strangely enough, it was during the Melville 
 controversy and while defending ecclesiasticism 
 that Herbert heard and accepted his deeper call 
 to vindicate personal rehgion as a poetic theme. 
 On New Year's Day, 1610, at the age of seven- 
 teen, he sent his mother the two momentous son- 
 nets which form the opening of my second Group. 
 They and their accompanying letter announce a 
 Kterary and religious programme which mark an 
 epoch in the life of Herbert and in the develop- 
 ment of EngUsh poetry. In these Sonnets, Walton 
 reports him as saying, / declare my resolution to 
 be that my poor Abilities in Poetry shall be all and 
 ever consecrated to God's glory. Herbert, thus early 
 discovering himself to be a poet, here fixes the 
 field most suitable to his genius. He will give him- 
 self exclusively to rehgious verse, something never 
 before attempted in England except by Southwell. 
 He fixes a special aim, too. He will reprove the 
 vanity of those many Love-poems that are daily writ 
 and consecrated to Venus. Though love is the proper 
 theme of poetry, why should it be studied in its 
 pettiest form as the half-physical tie between men 
 and women, and not where it shows its full force, 
 volume, and variety when God and man are drawn 
 together? Cannot thy love heighten a spirit to 
 sound out thy praise as well as any she f These are 
 accordingly his resolves : he will become a life- 
 long poet; an exclusively religious poet; and while 
 studying love, as do secular poets, — that fire which 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 105 
 
 by God's power and might each breast does feel, — he 
 will present it freed from those sexual limits and 
 artificialities in which it is usually set. 
 
 TO these resolves Herbert remained, I believe, 
 substantially true. Edmund Gosse and some 
 others have asserted that he wrote secular verse 
 also, destroying it when he took orders. For evi- 
 dence they urge that it is improbable that a courtly 
 poet should have written nothing In the current 
 styles, that the religious verse left by Herbert is 
 extremely small in amount, while it shows an 
 excellence hardly possible without long practice. 
 As this is a point crucial for the understanding of 
 Herbert, I will briefly sum up the strong opposing 
 evidence. 
 
 Herbert's secular verse is purely supposititious. 
 Nobody ever saw it and mentioned it, though in 
 certain quarters it would have been mentioned had 
 it existed. Oley and Walton, his early biographers, 
 know nothing of it. They give us to understand 
 that he wrote only on religion. In none of his let- 
 ters is it alluded to, nor in his poems, — full though 
 these latter are of regrets for youthful follies. On 
 the otEer hand, we know that in pursuance of his 
 early purpose he set himself at Cambridge to 
 create a poetry of divine love. On this he was still 
 engaged at Bemerton. In what period of his life. 
 
106 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 then, do his secular poems fall ? Surely not in the 
 years when he was antagonizing secular poetry. 
 But what others remain? Already, eight years 
 before Herbert's death. Bacon, dedicating to him 
 some Psalms, knows of his great reputation for 
 " divinity and poesy met." And twenty years after 
 his death, Henry Vaughan looks back on the 
 loose love-poetry of the previous half century and 
 counts it Herbert's glory to have opposed it. In 
 the preface of Silex Scintillans he writes: "The 
 first that with any effectual success attempted 
 a diversion of this foul and overflowing stream 
 was the blessed man, Mr. George Herbert, whose 
 holy life and verse gained many pious converts, 
 of whom I am the least." 
 
 Nor need we be disturbed over the small quan- 
 tity of sacred verse included in The Temple. Her- 
 bert may have written much more. In the early 
 manuscript of his verse preserved in the Williams 
 Library are six poems which were not included in 
 Ferrar's edition. How many others were similarly 
 rejected we do not know. Differences of style 
 among those preserved indicate that his writing 
 extended over many years. In my Preface to The 
 Church-Porch I have given reasons for suppos- 
 ing that this poem was begun early and continued 
 at different periods of his life. The many changes 
 in the Williams Manuscript show how largely he 
 revised such poems as he intended to retain. In 
 order, then, to give his pen long and sufficient prac- 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 107 
 
 tice, we have no need to invent secular poetry. And 
 as regards the choice character of what was finally 
 published, it may be said that fineness rather than 
 fecundity was ever Herbert's characteristic. Till he 
 settled at Bemerton he wrote no English prose. 
 
 In view, then, of the fact that there is no evidence 
 in behaK of secular poetry by Herbert, while there 
 are strong probabilities against it, we may fairly 
 accept Herbert's declared purpose as final, and 
 believe that he dedicated all his verse to the exposi- 
 tion of divine love, experienced in the communion 
 of each individual heart with God, and also an- 
 nounced as a world-force in the coming of Christ. 
 
 VI 
 
 GOOD examples of the latter sort of love-lyric, 
 where God solicits us, are The Pulley, 
 MiSEKiE, SioN, Decay, The Agonie, the second 
 Phayeb, the second Love. In these the progress 
 of God's love is traced, advancing majestically 
 through humiliation and suffering to rescue httle, 
 fallen, headlong, runaway man. Yet here, too, 
 while love is examined on its divine side, its work is 
 not — as in the Visions previously considered — 
 viewed pictorially and as a purely celestial affair. 
 God is the lover of man, and his slighted appeal 
 to the individual soul is the subject of the song. 
 These poems are accordingly veritable lyrics. They 
 deal with the inner life — with moods, affections. 
 
108 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 soKcitations — not with heavenly transactions, 
 dramatic scenes, objective situations. Indeed, facts 
 and outward events have no place in Herbert's 
 poetry. Only once, in the ninth section of his 
 Latin Parentalia, does he mention events of the 
 day. He might well say with Browning, whom in 
 many respects he strongly resembles, "My stress 
 lay on the incidents in the development of a soul; 
 little else is worth study." 
 
 But it is when Herbert turns to man's side of the 
 great alliance, to man's wavering yet inevitable 
 love of God, that he is most truly himself. For 
 here he can be frankly psychological, and mental 
 analysis is really his whole stock in trade. Yet 
 what passion and tenderness does he contrive to 
 weave into his subtle introspections! Hardly do 
 the impetuous love-songs of Shelley yearn and sob 
 more profoundly than these tangled, allusive, self- 
 conscious, and over-intellectual verses of him who 
 first in English poetry spoke face to face with God. 
 The particular poems I have in mind are the fol- 
 lowing: the Afflictions, The Call, Clasping 
 OF Hands, The Collar, Deniall, The Elixeb, 
 The Flower, The Glance, The Glimpse, 
 Gratefulnesse, Longing, The Method, The 
 Odour, The Pearl, The Search, Submission, 
 The Temper, Unkindnesse, A Wreath. But 
 where shall one stop? To specify what belongs 
 under this heading would be to enumerate a third 
 of all Herbert has written. Perhaps those already 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 109 
 
 named are enough to explain the mighty impact 
 on his generation of the Herbertian conception 
 of religious verse as personal aspiration. Out of 
 his one hundred and sixty-nine poems only twenty- 
 three do not employ the first person ; and half 
 a dozen of these are addresses in the second 
 person to his own soul, while several others are 
 dramatic. Practically all his poetry is poetry of 
 the personal Hfe. " He speaks of God like a man 
 that really believeth in God," says Richard Baxter 
 of Herbert. His matter is individual experience, 
 reported in all the variety of mood and shifting 
 fancy which everywhere characterizes veritable ex- 
 perience. In it he will exhibit the profundities of 
 love and thus confute the love-poets. 
 
 And who are these love-poets ? Of course the 
 whole airy company of EKzabethan songsters, 
 including Donne with his early wild lyrics of love. 
 But it may be conjectured that in his Two Son- 
 nets Herbert has especially in mind those men who 
 have left behind them their long sonnet sequences. 
 This is the more Hkely because most of these 
 sonneteers came into close connection with him 
 through the Pembrokes of Wilton. Sidney, who 
 wrote the Stella series, printed surreptitiously in 
 1591, was the uncle of the Earl of Pembroke. Spen- 
 ser, the friend of Sidney and Pembroke, in 1595 
 published his own series of Amoretti. Daniel, who 
 brought out his sonnets to Delia in 1592, had for 
 his patroness the Countess of Pembroke. So had 
 
110 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 Constable, who printed his Sonnets to Diana in 
 1592, and prefaced Sidney's Apology for Poetry 
 in 1595. Drayton's series to Idea appeared in 
 1594, their author the only one not closely con- 
 nected with the Herbert and Pembroke circle. In 
 the very year in which Herbert declared his re- 
 solve to his mother, Shakespeare's Sonnets were 
 published and dedicated to Mr. W. H., mysterious 
 initials often supposed — though in my judgment 
 erroneously — to be those of William Herbert, 
 Earl of Pembroke, to whom the first folio of Shake- 
 speare's plays is dedicated. With the leaders, 
 therefore, of that group of men who domesticated in 
 England the love-sonnet of Petrarch, Herbert was 
 brought into relation, and he probably had them 
 in mind when he resolved to initiate a movement 
 in opposition to the artificial love-poetry of his day. 
 For these men were artificial, and much disposed 
 to "doleful sonnets made to their mistress' eye- 
 brow." They undertook the complete anatomy of 
 love. No phase of the passion was too trivial to 
 receive their detailed attention, though the emo- 
 tional situation itself often became so paramount 
 as somewhat to hide the features of her who was 
 supposed to inspire it. In fact, her existence be- 
 came comparatively unimportant. Whether there 
 ever was a heroine or hero of a single one among 
 the several sonnet sequences just named has been 
 strongly doubted. The elder Giles Fletcher, print- 
 ing in 1593 his sonnets to Licia, says : " This kind 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 111 
 
 of poetry wherein I write I did it only to try my 
 humour." The writers of such sonnets were en- 
 gaged in exploiting an ideal situation and in re- 
 cording what was demanded by it. Nothing of the 
 sort may ever have occurred in their own experi- 
 ence. Very largely they borrowed their situations 
 and even their phrases from French and Italian 
 sonneteers. A stock of poetic motives had been 
 accumulated among the disciples of Petrarch from 
 which each poet now helped himself at will. Sigh- 
 ing was thus made easy. Mr. Sidney Lee computes 
 that between 1591 and 1597 more than two thou- 
 sand sonnets were printed in England and nearly 
 as many more lyrics. The aim of their authors was 
 literature not Hfe, their ideals ItaUan rather than 
 English, while under the sacred name of love they 
 spun their thin web of delicate fancies, exquisite 
 wordings, and intellectual involvement, prized the 
 more the further it could be removed from reality. 
 
 VII 
 
 NOW in protesting against these love-poets 
 Herbert does not take issue with their 
 strangely elaborate method. This indeed he con- 
 siders to be a danger, but one involved in the very 
 nature of poetry. He had himself incurred it. 
 
 When first my lines of heav'rdy joyes made mention. 
 Such was their lustre, they did so exceU, 
 
112 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 That I sought out quaini words and trim invention ; 
 
 My thoughts began to burnish, sprout and swdl. 
 Curling with metaphors a plain intention. 
 
 Decking the sense, as if it were to sell. 
 
 What he objects to is that the matter of such verse 
 is unequal to the manner. Here is a vast expendi- 
 ture of good brains on trivial stuff. The love talked 
 about is ephemeral, and there is no true beauty 
 there. Beauty and beauteous words should go to- 
 gether. Put sohd love, love of the eternal sort, 
 underneath this lovely enchanting language, sugar 
 cane, honey of roses, and we shall have a worthy 
 union. He tries, therefore, to give the love-lyric 
 body, by employing its secular methods upon 
 sacred subjects, guarding them against its obvious 
 dangers, but preserving its intellectual exuberance 
 and aesthetic charm. Imagine Shakespeare's Son- 
 nets with God as the adored object, instead of the 
 lovely boy, and we shall probably have something 
 like what Herbert was dreaming of. 
 
 The wanton lover in a curious strain 
 
 Can praise his fairest fair. 
 
 And with quaitd metaphors her curled hair 
 
 Curl o're again. 
 
 Thou art my lovdinesse, my life, my light, 
 
 Beautie alone to me. 
 Thy bloudy death and undeserv'd makes thee 
 Pure red and white. 
 
 He honors and imitates the poetry he attacks. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 113 
 
 And this imitation is not confined to diction. It 
 extends to situations as well. Coventry Patmore 
 has explained how 
 
 " Fractions indefinitely smaU 
 Of interests infinitely great 
 Count in love's learned wit for all, 
 And have the dignity of fate." 
 
 Accordingly his lady's frown or smile, her tem- 
 porary absence, his possible neglects, his punctili- 
 ous execution of her trivial commands, the annoy- 
 ance his small misbehaviors may have caused her, 
 his deKght when permitted to speak her praise, — 
 all these and other such interior incidents make up 
 the events of the lover's agitated day. Just such 
 are the perplexities of Herbert's sacred love. Is 
 he grateful enough ? What do his fluctuations of 
 fervor and coolness import ? Surely his pains can 
 come from nothing but God's withdrawal, and 
 inner peace must signify that He is near. To count 
 up how much he sacrifices for his great Love fills 
 him with a content almost comparable to that 
 which comes from seeing how unworthy he is of 
 what he has received. To work for God is his great- 
 est delight; his greatest hardship that he is given 
 so httle to do. Yet even in lack of employment 
 praise is possible, and he can always busy himself 
 with depicting past errors. Herbert, in short, is 
 a veritable lover, and of the true Petrarchian type. 
 In his poem A Pabodie it costs him but a slight 
 
114 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 change of phrase to turn one of Donne's love-songs 
 into one of his own kind. Yet in his most ardent 
 moments he keeps clear of eroticism. Never, like 
 Crashaw and the CathoUc mystics, does he mingle 
 sexual passion with divine. Filled though his verses 
 are with Biblical allusion, they contain hardly a 
 reference to Solomon's Song. He is a man of sobri- 
 ety, of intellectual and moral self-command. 
 
 VIII 
 
 BUT this is not the impression one at first 
 receives. Whoever approaches these fervid 
 little poems with the prepossessions of our time 
 must regard Herbert as a religious sentimentalist, 
 a man of extreme and somewhat morbid piety, 
 attaching undue importance to passing moods. 
 Unfortunately this is the popular impression, and 
 for being such a person he is even admired. Often 
 he is pictured as an aged saint who, through spend- 
 ing a lifetime in priestly offices, has come to find 
 interest only in devout emotions. For such a fan- 
 tastic picture there is no evidence, though Walton's 
 romantic Life has done much to confirm it. In 
 reality, Herbert died under forty ; was a priest 
 less than three years; spent his remaining thirty- 
 six years among men who loved power, place, wit, 
 pleasure, and learning; and held his own among 
 them remarkably well. His Church-Poech and 
 the compact sententiousness of his poetic style 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 115 
 
 show a character somewhat severe, and far re- 
 moved from sentimentality. His Latin poems on 
 the death of his mother are distinctly lacking in 
 piety. His Latin orations and letters are skilful 
 attempts to win favor with the great. His admi- 
 rable Country Pabson is a clear-headed study 
 of the conditions of the minister's work and the 
 means of performing it effectively. In it, while 
 Herbert is much in earnest about religion, he 
 is sagacious too, calculating, and at times almost 
 canny. I give an abridgment of his discussion of 
 preaching: 
 
 When the parson preacheth, he procures atten- 
 tion by all possible art, both by eamestnesse of speech 
 
 — it being naturaE to men to think thai where is 
 rmich earnestness there is somewhat worth hearing 
 
 — and by a diligent and busy cast of his eye on his 
 auditors, with letting them know that he observes 
 who marks and who not ; and with particularizing 
 of his speech now to the younger sort, then to the 
 elder, now to the poor and now to the rich. By these 
 and other means the Parson procures attention ; but 
 the character of his Sermon is Holiness. He is 
 not witty, or learned, or eloquent, but Holy. And 
 this Character is gained first, by choosing texts of 
 Devotion not Controversie, moving and ravishing 
 texts, whereof the Scriptures are full. Secondly, by 
 dipping and seasoning all words and sentences in 
 the heart before they come to the mouth. Thirdly, 
 by turning often and making many Apostrophes to 
 
116 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 God, as, " Oh Lord blesse my people and teach them 
 this point ; " or, " Oh my Master, on whose errand 
 I come, let me hold my peace and doe thou speak 
 thy selfe." Some such irradiations scatteringly in the 
 Sermon carry great holiness in them. Lastly, by an 
 often urging of the presence and majesty of God, 
 by these or such like speeches : " Oh let us all take 
 heed what we do. God sees us, he sees whether I 
 speak as I ought or you hear as you aught; he sees 
 hearts as we see faces." Such discourses shew very 
 Holy. 
 
 I have quoted this passage at some length 
 because it well illustrates Herbert's ever-present 
 use of art. Just as we are ashamed of art and con- 
 ceal it where it is employed, thinking it corrupts 
 the genuineness of feeling, so is Herbert ashamed 
 of unregulated spontaneity. He thinks he honors 
 feeHng best by bringing all its niceties to appropri- 
 ate expression. He wishes to inspect it through 
 and through, to supply it with intelhgence, and to 
 forecast precisely how it should issue in action. 
 What comes short of such fulness is maimed, bar- 
 baric, and brutal. Art he considers the appropriate 
 investiture of aU we prize, and beauty the mark of 
 its worth. Accordingly he ever seeks 
 
 Not rudely, as a beast. 
 To runne into an action ; 
 Bvt still to make Thee prepossesst. 
 And give it his perfection. 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 117 
 
 There are few pages of his poems in which the 
 preciousness of art-constructed beauty is not in 
 some way expressed. 
 
 IX 
 
 WHEN, however, one has come to view 
 things thus artistically, it becomes a de- 
 light through the exercise of art to detach single 
 ingredients of Hfe, free them from the belittle- 
 ments of reality, and view them in their emotional 
 fulness. To secure beauty, this is a necessary 
 process. In the mixed currents of daily affairs, de- 
 votion to my Love is checked by the need of sleep, 
 attention to business, books, or food. I am occu- 
 pied, forgetful, listless. These foreign matters 
 the artist clears away. Starting with a veritable 
 mood, he allows this to dictate congenial circum- 
 stances, to color all details — however minute — 
 with its influence, and so to exhibit a rounded 
 completeness. For such artistic work, requiring 
 intellectual reflection rather than the raw material 
 of emotion, the sentimentalist is disqualified. It is 
 not surprising, then, to find that all the six son- 
 neteers named above, though men who profess to 
 be spending their days pining over unrequited 
 love, are really persons of exceptional intellect, 
 energy, and poise. Sidney was an accompUshed 
 soldier, the idol of his time in mind and morals. 
 Spenser was entrusted by his country with a share 
 
118 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 in the government of Ireland. Constable was a 
 political plotter and refugee. Shakespeare was 
 beyond all other men " self-schooled, self -scanned, 
 self-honored, self-secure." Drayton was a geo- 
 grapher and historian of England. And "well- 
 languaged Daniel's " chief defect as a poet is that 
 his stock of good sense is somewhat excessive. 
 These men are no love-sick dreamers. They care 
 for other things than Diana and Stella and Idea. 
 They are artists. Of course they have felt the power 
 of love and been shaken by its vicissitudes. But 
 every poet takes on an attitude and utters the emo- 
 tion which one so circumstanced should feel. It 
 would be as absurd to suppose that in their sonnets 
 these men are simply narrating facts of their own 
 lives as to imagine that Walter Scott went through 
 all the adventures he reports. Their interest is in 
 beauty. Out of scattered and meagre facts they 
 develop ideal situations. 
 
 This is just what Herbert did. To-day it is 
 usual to make a sharp distinction between the real 
 and the artificial; but Herbert knows no such con- 
 trast. When he is most artificial, he is all aglow 
 with passion ; and when he describes one of his 
 own moods, he is fuU of constructive artifice. That 
 he was a truly religious man, no one will doubt. 
 He certainly felt within himself the conflicts he 
 depicts. In these strange lyrics the course of his 
 wayward and incongruous life may accurately be 
 traced. By attending to biographic hints, and 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 119 
 
 grouping the poems in something hke a living 
 order, I believe we throw much light upon their 
 meanings. The series becomes connectedly inter- 
 esting, almost dramatic. A highly individual per- 
 sonality emerges and takes the place of a conven- 
 tional figure, a personaUty whose work cannot 
 justly be understood without constant and minute 
 reference to the incidents of his life and the ideals 
 of his time. Yet there is duality even here. These 
 personal experiences are after all not the main 
 thing. They are starting-points for subtle intel- 
 lectual play, occasions for exercise of that beauty- 
 producing art which Herbert loves. Moods which 
 exist in him merely in germ, or which coexist 
 with much else, he heightens, isolates, renders 
 dominant and exclusive. One must be dull in- 
 deed not to feel the genuineness of Herbert's reli- 
 gious experience. But he is no mere reporter 
 or historian. We miss his power and splendor if 
 we mistake his imaginative constructions for plain 
 facts. To this sort of misconception we Ameri- 
 cans, so little artistic, so veraciously practical, are 
 peculiarly liable. Herbert's contemporaries were 
 not so misled. They knew him to be a poet, sen- 
 sitive therefoi'e in experience, fertile in invention, 
 rejoicing in shapely construction. Only seven years 
 after his death Christopher Harvey wrote thus 
 in his Stepping Stone to the Threshold of Mr. 
 Herbert's Chubch-Pohch: 
 
120 THE RELIGIOUS POETRY 
 
 "What Church is this? Christ's Church. Whobuilded 
 
 it? 
 Master George Herbert. Who assisted it ? 
 Many assisted; who, I may not say. 
 So much contention might arise that way. 
 If I say Grace gave all. Wit straight doth thwart. 
 And saies, 'All that is there is mine;' But Art 
 Denies and says, 'There's nothing there but's mine.' 
 Nor can I easily the right define. 
 Divide! Say Grace the matter gave, and Wit 
 Did poUsh it; Art measur'd and made fit 
 Each sev'ral piece and fram'd it altogether. 
 No, by no means. This may not please them neither. 
 None's well contented with a part alone. 
 When each doth challenge all to be his own. 
 The matter, the expressions and the measures 
 Are equally Art's, Wit's, and Grace's treasures. 
 Then he that would impartially discuss 
 This doubtful question must answer thus: 
 In building of his Temple Master Herbert 
 Is equally all Grace, all Wit, all Art. 
 Roman and Grecian Muses, all give way: 
 One English poem darkens all your day." 
 
 Such are the triple factors — pious fervor, 
 intellectual play, and ideal construction — which 
 equally cooperate to fashion Herbert's religious 
 love-lyric. 
 

 CTiu^. 
 
 
The poem THE Elixer (PERFECTION), from the Williams 
 Manuscript, showing handwriting of a copyist, and also HerherVs 
 hand in corrections. See Vol. I, p. 177-18^. 
 
^^."^ til ^irr^ ' 
 /I ' -f^ ■ 
 
 7^ 
 
 1 
 
 
 t r 
 
 'V'iVeirruyH^ 
 
 
IV 
 THE STYLE AND TECHNIQUE 
 
THE STYLE AND TECHNIQUE 
 
 IN his poem of Providence, praising God for 
 his wonderful world, Herbert says : 
 
 And as thy house is full, so I adore 
 
 Thy curious art in marshalling thy goods. 
 
 Herbert's own curious art we must now examine, 
 and inquire how he marshals his poetic resources 
 in constructing his stately meditations and reli- 
 gious love-lyrics. How does he build his line, his 
 stanza, and the general plan of his poem ? More- 
 over, how does it happen that he is so diflBcult to 
 comprehend, and to what extent does he adopt the 
 more extreme literary fashions of his time ? These 
 are problems which only slightly concern the gen- 
 eral reader, and are of interest chiefly to the stu- 
 dent of poetry. But Herbert himself was a student. 
 To these matters he gave much thought. Those 
 who like to think his thoughts after him will desire 
 to accompany him to his workshop and to watch 
 his manipulations there. 
 
 Rightly to observe him, we should keep in mind 
 what he designs. It is an error to demand from all 
 poets the same sort of excellence. Each has his own 
 
124 THE STYLE 
 
 gospel, and looks out upon life in some special 
 way. That way we must comprehend, and for the 
 moment make it our own, if we would obtain the 
 enjoyment which each is fitted to furnish. 
 
 To Herbert poetry did not appeal primarily as 
 a sensuous affair, rich in harmonious sounds and 
 mental visualizations. So it had appealed to the 
 idyllic Spenser and his followers, Giles Fletcher, 
 William Browne, George Wither, and the young 
 Milton. Herbert, it is true, was not unacquainted 
 with the sweet strains, the hdlings and the rel- 
 ishes of it. The joyous aspects of idealized nature 
 moved him too, and he could on occasion coin a 
 magic phrase ; but this is not his proper work. He 
 is but slightly romantic, receptive, and pleasing. 
 He has turned his back on the Spenserians and 
 follows the new realistic and intellectual school of 
 Donne, men whose minds are in revolt against grace- 
 ful conventionalities, and whose ears are tired of 
 "linked sweetness long drawn out." What they 
 seek is veracity, full individual experience, sur- 
 prise, freshness of phrase, intellectual stimulus. 
 At a moment's call their flexible wits turn in any 
 direction, and enjoyment for them is measured 
 by the abundance of the material their minds re- 
 ceive. The meagre, the dull, the usual, are their 
 detestation. He who can turn up some new as- 
 pect of our many-sided world is their benefactor. 
 The pleasure which an American takes in physical 
 action, these vigorous creatures feel in action of 
 
THE STYLE 125 
 
 the mind. They love intellectual complication and 
 difficulty, and turn to verse because more sub- 
 tlety and suggestion can be packed into it than 
 prose admits. We must not, then, demand that 
 these poets, " as they sing, shall take the ravished 
 soul and lap it in Elysium." That is just what 
 they avoid. They are determined to keep the soul 
 free, interested, and observant. Nor is it neces- 
 sary to inquire whether their aims are the best. 
 Poetry has many varieties. It is enough to know 
 that one type of it can be had when all its agencies 
 are studied with reference to aims as energetic as 
 these. I hope to show that Herbert did so study 
 it, and that he chose the appropriate means to 
 reach his ends. 
 
 II 
 
 LET us first consider, then, the formation of his 
 line; and under this heading I will include 
 whatever relates to the foot employed, its regular- 
 ity or variation, and its " enjambement," assonance, 
 alliteration, rhyme. To effect his purposes the 
 most familiar foot is the best. A movement of an 
 unusual, swift, or melodious sort might distract 
 attention from the thought, where all the pleasure 
 is intended to be found. Feet, of three syllables 
 are accordingly discarded. There is no dactylic 
 or anapaestic line in Herbert. And though half a 
 dozen feet of this type are scattered through his 
 
126 THE STYLE 
 
 book, they come in cases where an elision occurs, 
 e. g. And rrmch of Asia and Europe fast asleep, or 
 where a break in the rhythm makes the meaning 
 more emphatic, e. g. With noises confused fright- 
 ing the day. His working foot is the common 
 iambic, two syllables with an accent on the sec- 
 ond. In this rhythm all but eleven of his poems 
 are written, these eleven being trochaic, i. e. two 
 syllables with an accent on the first. The Invi- 
 tation and The Banquet are his most ambitious 
 poems in this kind, Pkaise his lovehest. Every- 
 where his rhythm is of extreme regularity. I 
 know no other poet of his time so constantly exact. 
 Jonson said of Donne that "for not keeping of 
 accent he deserved hanging." Herbert does not 
 follow his master in carelessness of rhythm. In 
 all his verse I count only a dozen irregular Hnes; 
 and most of these are due either to coalescence of 
 vowels, or to the greater expressiveness thus given 
 to the thought. 
 
 But though regular, his Hne is far from mechani- 
 cal. He has a feeling for its texture, and is skilful 
 in varying it. Now he shifts its pauses; now he 
 employs the familiar substitution of a trochee for 
 an iambus, especially in the first foot ; now he 
 clogs an unaccented syllable with many conso- 
 nants or with long vowels ; now stops the sense at 
 the end of a Hne, or again runs it over into the 
 next. Here is a well-managed stanza from The 
 Flower: 
 
THE STYLE 127 
 
 Who would have thought my shrivel'd heart 
 Could have recover'd greennesse ? It was gone 
 
 Quite under ground, as flowers depart 
 To see their mother-root when they have blown; ' 
 Where they together 
 All the hard weather. 
 Dead to the world, keep house unknown. 
 
 The variety of pauses here, the many "substitu- 
 tions," especially those of the last two lines, the 
 frequent "running over" of the line, and the 
 " clogging " by such syllables as nesse, hard, and 
 Jceep well illustrate Herbert's skill in varying his 
 rhythms. But he is seldom so swift in movement. 
 By delaying his line he often brings out pensive 
 emotion : 
 
 My feeble spirit, unable to look right. 
 Like a nipt hlossome, hung 
 Discontented; 
 
 or still more commonly blocks its passage and 
 renders it rugged in places where he wishes the 
 thought to linger. 
 
 The question of " enjambement " has attracted 
 much attention among scholars. In the poets 
 immediately preceding Herbert it is an important 
 verse-test. The proportion of "run-over" lines 
 in Shakespeare, for example, has been found to 
 be a convenient means of discriminating the later 
 from the earlier plays. But in the poets of Her- 
 bert's generation this practice is so fully estab- 
 
128 THE STYLE 
 
 lished as to have lost its value as a verse-test. In 
 parts of Webster and Massinger " enjambement " 
 has gone so far that the normal line has almost 
 disappeared. In this matter, as elsewhere, Her- 
 bert is sober. He uses about one "run-over" line 
 to three "end-stopped" in his Cambridge poems; 
 and somewhat more, though not so many as one to 
 two, in those of the Bemerton time. The number 
 of "Hght" and "weak" endings, never consider- 
 able, is rather less in the later poems than in the 
 earlier. 
 
 In accordance with the largely intellectual cast 
 of his verse, Herbert employs Uttle vowel color. 
 In Bttsinessi!, the rhyme is carried throughout in 
 e and o, both sounds being significant and effec- 
 tive. In Home, nine of the thirteen stanzas have a 
 rhyme in a. The sharp vowels i and e are favor- 
 ites with him; and in poignant poems, like The 
 Seabch, one suspects that they are intentionally 
 employed. The broad calm vowels a and o do not 
 so frequently suit his theme, though they domi- 
 nate an occasional stanza. 
 
 Tempests are calm to thee. They know thy hand. 
 And hold it fast, as children do their father's. 
 
 Which crie and follow. Thou has made yoore sand 
 Cheek the proud sea, ev'n when it swells and gathers. 
 
 But all this is elementary. I know no group of 
 lines in Herbert of which we can certainly say, as 
 we can of passages in Spenser or Tennyson, that 
 
THE STYLE 129 
 
 its vowel effects are an important part of the 
 poetry. Keats speaks of the 
 
 " Spenserian vowels that elope with ease, 
 And float along like birds o'er summer seas." 
 
 None of this sort have taken refuge with Herbert. 
 Seldom, too, does Herbert strengthen a line with 
 alliteration. We have in Eastee Wings, Then 
 shall the fall further the flight in me; in The 
 Chuech-Poech, Bring not thy plough, thy plots, 
 thy pleasures thither; in Teinitie-Sxjnday, That 
 I may runne, rise, rest in thee ; in The Glance, the 
 beautiful phrase, His swing and sway ; and sim- 
 ilarly in The Stoem, Do flie and flow ; in Faith 
 he has changed an unalliterative reading of the 
 WilUams Manuscript into Our flesh and frailtie, 
 death and danger. But how far are these occasional 
 collocations from the splendors of Spenser! How 
 strange in view of the alhterative exuberance of 
 Southwell, Giles Fletcher, and other contempora- 
 ries with whom Herbert must have been familiar ! 
 While brief passages of Herbert yield felicitous 
 sounds both of vowels and consonants, a good 
 prose writer generally shows more sensuous feel- 
 ing. In a poet so fond of music one suspects that 
 this failure to appeal to the ear was not wholly 
 due to dulness, but was part of a deliberate 
 plan to push thought into the foreground and fix 
 attention on harsh, intricate, and veritable experi- 
 ence. 
 
130 THE STYLE 
 
 Verses, ye are too fine a thing, too vnse 
 
 For my rough sorrows. Cease, he dumbe and mvte. 
 Give up your feet and running to mine eyes. 
 
 And keep your measures for some lover's lute, 
 Whose grief allows him m/usick and a ryme. 
 For mine excludes both measure, tune, and time. 
 
 In view of his intellectual aims, Herbert avoids, 
 too, the long and melodious lines prized by his 
 predecessors. The fourteen-syllabled line, the 
 Alexandrine with its twelve syllables, played a 
 great part in the musical Elizabethan verse; but 
 there is no instance of either in Herbert. This is 
 not because he makes two short lines out of what 
 his predecessors might have written as a single long 
 one. In the two instances where his added lines 
 would make fourteen syllables, and in the other 
 two where they would make twelve, each line has 
 its independent life and its own rhyming word. 
 His longest line is ten syllables, his shortest three, 
 except in refrain. The frequent use of refrain 
 might seem to conflict with his avoidance of the 
 mellifluous; but I think he is attracted to it for 
 the sake of its iteration of thought, and not for its 
 value as sound. For driving home the dominant 
 note of a poem it serves him admirably. 
 
 As regards rhyme, Herbert follows the practice 
 of his age in making it a necessary factor, not an 
 occasional adjunct, of verse. Heroic blank verse 
 was first used by the Earl of Surrey for translating 
 
THE STYLE 131 
 
 the Aeneid, and was then shaped by Marlowe for 
 dramatic dialogue. Its first considerable use for 
 other purposes was in Milton's Paradise Lost. 
 There is no instance of it in Herbert. Nor was he 
 misled in another direction. Sidney, G. Harvey, 
 Webbe, Puttenham, Fraunce, Campion, and 
 others, mostly of the Pembroke connection, had 
 been experimenting with hexameters and other 
 delicate and rhymeless rhythms. They sought to 
 introduce classical measures, and to attune the 
 English ear, long accustomed to accentual stress, 
 to a quantitative. Herbert does not follow them. 
 His classical training, his love of refinement, his 
 use of these measures in Latin verse, his disposi- 
 tion to experiment, all exposed him to the false 
 fashion. But the themes with which he dealt were 
 too serious, and the intellectual bent of his poems 
 too distinct, to let him be turned toward dilettant- 
 ism. Perhaps, too, he was protected by a certain 
 indiflference to the niceties of verbal sounds. What- 
 ever the cause, he writes no unrhymed stanza. 
 
 Modem poets often content themselves with 
 rhyming alternate hues, allowing the remainder to 
 go unrhymed. Herbert, hke most of his contem- 
 poraries, tolerates nothing so loose. To his mind, 
 a poem is a thoroughgoing system of rhymes. 
 Everything within it must have its echo. Two lines 
 at the opening of Joseph's Coat are the only pair 
 left unrhymed in all his verse. So exceptional a 
 case is, I suspect, due to an error of the copyist. 
 
132 5 THE STYLE 
 
 and I have proposed an emendation. In The Size, 
 too, where a line occurs with nothing to match 
 it, Ernest Rhys and Dr. Grosart very properly 
 believe that a line has dropped out, which they 
 undertake to rewrite. Herbert often uses an un- 
 rhymed line as a refrain. By this means he in- 
 creases the effect of the refrain as a disjointed cry. 
 Occasionally, too, as strikingly in Deniall, he 
 conveys a sense of incompleteness and dissatisfac- 
 tion by a final Une left unrhymed. But absences 
 of rhyme in refrain or abortive ending are not an 
 abandonment of the rhyming principle. They pre- 
 suppose it. If rhyme were not practically universal, 
 such intentional omissions would be ineffective. 
 
 Yet while Herbert's rhyme is universal, it is rude 
 and subordinate. Poets who rhyme largely usually 
 care little for " perfect " rhymes. That is Herbert's 
 case. He rhymes friend and wind, feast and guest. 
 Lord and stirr'd, mud and food, nvuch and crouch, 
 blisse and Paradise, wedding and reading, matter 
 and water, creation and fashion, runnes thin and 
 coming in, unhappinesse and sicknesses, traveller 
 and manner, school-musters and messengers. Such 
 sounds serve well enough to mark an ending line, 
 and are found on every page of his book. Stranger 
 still to a modem ear is his use of identical rhyme, — 
 pleasure and displeasure, please and displease, does 
 and undoes, hold thee and withold thee, write and 
 right, lies and lyes, know and no ; while the words 
 art, hour, power, round, are each repeatedly made 
 
THE STYLE 133 
 
 to rhyme with themselves. Rhymes Kke these were 
 not unusual then; nor even, in the abundant rhyme 
 employed, objectionable. Herbert has his favorite 
 rhymes too. Treasure and -pleasure occur eleven 
 times; ghrie and storie ten; and one and aUme 
 eight. 
 
 When we turn from his employment of single 
 rhymes to his combination of them, the same rough 
 method is apparent. It would be ahen to his pur- 
 pose to study effects of contrast or intensification 
 through neighboring rhyme. In the following 
 examples accidental similarity to associated rhymes 
 lowers the worth of an entire group : here, are, 
 cleare, spare ; or in another four-lined stanza of 
 the same poem (The Rose), choose, oppose, refuse, 
 rose. In a five-Uned stanza of Obedience he has 
 bleed, need, thee, agree, deed. How the two sets of 
 rhymes, which should be contrasted, jar in their 
 similarity ! In SioN, two successive couplets have 
 things, wings, sing, king. In Jordan and Afflic- 
 tion, six-lined poems, we have the following 
 unpleasing combinations : ascend, sense, friend, pre- 
 tence, penn'd, expense ; and again, ours, more, bowres, 
 store, no, bow. Of course instances occur where 
 the chief sounds of a poem are not left to accident. 
 I have already called attention to Businesse and 
 Home. How pleasing, too, is the parallelism of the 
 tenth and eleventh stanzas of The Seaech, where 
 the repeated thought is accompanied by partial 
 recurrence of the same rhyme ! 
 
134 THE STYLE 
 
 This brief exhibit of Herbert's practice will 
 sufficiently show that his rhyming is managed, as 
 it should be, by his intellect and not by his ear. 
 That each line be brought into correspondence 
 with some other line is a part of his poetic plan, 
 a plan not suggested by the sensuous demands of 
 his nature, but accepted with much else from the 
 customs of his time. Once accepted, it is worked 
 with the energetic and resourceful ingenuity which 
 characterize him everywhere. But we have seen 
 how in all his rhythmic work mystery has no place. 
 Mind and matter are kept distinct. Compact and 
 trenchant thought is what he prizes, and from 
 this nothing is allowed to draw off the reader's 
 attention. Those concords of sweet sound which 
 in the great poets are of equal moment with the 
 rational meaning, and ever inseparable from it, 
 are not for him. His lines do not cling in the ear 
 like strains of music. We recall them gladly, but 
 only for their crowded significance. He did not 
 feel those wide and romantic suggestions which 
 lend untraceable magic to Spenser, Shakespeare, 
 Milton, Keats, Shelley, and Tennyson. Such 
 mysticism would have been incongruous with his 
 purpose. 
 
THE STYLE 136 
 
 III 
 
 IN turning from the qualities of Herbert's line 
 to consider those of his stanza, this should 
 be noted : a poet was then expected to fashion his 
 metre almost as much as his subject. Few stand- 
 ard measures were at hand. Poetry was for the 
 most part plastic, and only to a small extent had 
 it settled into fixed forms. In this there was both 
 gain and loss. It encouraged originality, and left 
 many paths open which are now closed; but from 
 what was already done a poet could learn little 
 about the carrying power of different metres. He 
 must try his own experiments. The principal 
 forms already tested were these : In iambic five- 
 foot verse, couplets, alternate rhymes, and heroic 
 blank verse; then the heroic quatrain, or four- 
 lined stanza with alternate rhyme, used by Surrey 
 in his lament for Wyatt, and most familiar to us in 
 Gray's Elegy. A couplet added made a favorite 
 six-lined stanza. Chaucer and Spenser had used 
 effectively a stanza, of seven hues, rhyming ababb 
 c c ; and Wyatt and Surrey had acclimatized the 
 fourteen-lined sonnet, with two accredited rhym- 
 ing systems. Spenser built up a gorgeous stanza 
 of nine lines ending in an Alexandrine; and this 
 line of six iambics was often used in alternation 
 with one of seven to form "the poulter's measure." 
 Couplets of seven iambics were common, as were 
 those of four iambics used largely by Gower. 
 
136 THE STYLE 
 
 These latter were often grouped into stanzas of 
 four lines with alternate rhyme, our long metre. 
 In ballads, our common metre — four iambics fol- 
 lowed by three — was of frequent occurrence. 
 Beyond these few measures each poet was left 
 pretty much to his own devices. 
 
 Of these dozen accepted forms Herbert em- 
 ploys but half. As has been said already, he has 
 no blank verse. Alexandrines, nor lines of seven 
 iambics. He does not use Chaucer's stanza, nor 
 Spenser's. While he is fond of the sonnet, he con- 
 fines himself either to the Shakespearian form 
 or to one peculiar to himself, and never employs 
 in a sonnet less than seven rhymes. The great 
 sonneteers divide their sonnet into two parts, 
 the octave and the sestette, to each of which they 
 assign a different function: the octave describing 
 a situation or stating facts whose significance is 
 then drawn out in the sestette. Herbert's seven- 
 teen sonnets show no such inner logic. The ma- 
 jority of them do not even come to a full pause at 
 the end of the octave, and their reflective or appli- 
 catory portion is usually contained in the last two 
 or three lines. 
 
 Yet if he rejects so much, it is only that he may 
 create the more. He invents for each lyrical sit- 
 uation exactly the rhythmic setting which befits 
 it. How rich his invention is, and how flexibly 
 responsive to the demands of distinguishable 
 moods, may be seen in this : of his one hundred 
 
THE STYLE 137 
 
 and sixty-nine poems, one hundred and sixteen 
 are written in metres which are not repeated. Two 
 out of every three are unique. I may exhibit the 
 same fact in greater detail by saying that while 
 forty-one cases occur of four-lined iambic stanzas, 
 these present twenty different types. Nineteen 
 of the twenty are used but once ; six of them 
 twice ; two three times ; and only one as many 
 as four times. The different effects are secured 
 by varying the number of feet in a line, and by 
 varying the rhyming scheme in all its three possi- 
 ble ways : a a bb, ab ab, and abba. Herbert's 
 twenty-two poems written in five-Uned iambics are 
 also all unique. Of his eleven poems in trochaics, 
 seven are unique and only two repeated. Such 
 variety of practice is not exactly experimentation, 
 for it does not result in fixing forms for subsequent 
 use. But it strikingly exhibits the scope of his 
 metric power and his delicate persistence in fit- 
 ting form to thought. Each set of his emotions he 
 clothes in individual garb; and only when what is 
 beneath is similar is the same set of clothing used 
 a second time. So characteristic a feature of Her- 
 bert's poetry is this ceaseless variety that it has 
 seemed well to call attention to it in the notes. At 
 each poem it is stated whether and where Herbert 
 uses the metre again. 
 
 Herbert has no favorite stanza. One type only 
 does he employ as many as five times. Yet per- 
 haps his inclination to long stanzas, and to those 
 
138 THE STYLE 
 
 with widely spaced rhymes, deserves notice. He 
 has forty-six varieties of six-lined stanza ; four, 
 of seven-lined ; eight, of eight-lined ; and five, of 
 ten-lined. In Justice, Sepulchre, An Offer- 
 ing, and The Glance, one of the rhymes jumps 
 to the fourth line away; in Complaining, Sighs 
 AND Grones, and Ungratefulnesse, to the 
 fifth; and in The Collar there are rhymes as 
 wide as the seventh and even the tenth. The 
 Collar is his only irregular and stanzaless poem, 
 but formlessness was essential there. Indeed, his 
 sense of form is so insistent that sometimes a long 
 succession of couplets or alternate rhymes wearies 
 him; he craves some sort of pause and separation. 
 The Church Militant and Love Unknown 
 are broken up into sections, almost like long 
 stanzas, by the repetition of a line. The value of 
 repetition he fully understands, and, besides the 
 refrain, employs it in a multitude of covert forms. 
 
 IV 
 
 IN calling attention to Herbert's ability to shape 
 a poem as a whole, we may claim for him a 
 high degree of originality. Little had been done 
 in this kind before. Our early lyric poetry is more 
 remarkable for vividness than for form. Its writ- 
 ers feel keenly and speak daringly. By some means 
 or other they usually succeed in stirring in their 
 reader's heart feelings similar to their own. But 
 
THE STYLE 139 
 
 not often do they show that sense of order and 
 coherence which is expected in every other species 
 of Fine Art. Perhaps words are easier material 
 than paint, stone, or sound, and lend themselves 
 more readily to caprice. Of course without a cer- 
 tain sequence no lyric could picture a poet's feeling. 
 Near the beginning the occasion of the feeling is 
 announced ; then follow its manifestations, and 
 at the close it is usually connected in some way 
 with action, resolve, or judgment. Such an emo- 
 tional scheme is often unfolded with much deli- 
 cacy and evenness in the songs of Campion, and 
 in both the songs and sonnets of Sidney and 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 But these are vague divisions, the second espe- 
 cially so. They do not alone give firmness of form. 
 They make poetic writing rather than finished 
 poems. Stirred by some passion, real or imaginary, 
 the poet begins to write, pours forth his feeling 
 until the supply or the reader is exhausted, and 
 then stops. He has no predetermined beginning, 
 middle, and end. Part with part has no private 
 amitie. The place and amount of each portion is 
 fixed by no plan of the whole, but rather by the 
 waywardness of the writer. In most early lyrics, 
 even the best, stanzas might be omitted, added, or 
 transposed, without considerable damage. Each 
 stands pretty much by itself. In the two stanzas 
 of Ben Jonson's stirring song, " Drink to me only 
 with thine eyes," neither is necessary to the other. 
 
140 THE STYLE 
 
 Those of his "Queen and huntress chaste and 
 fair" might about as well have taken any other 
 order. This is the more remarkable because into 
 the drama Jonson carried form in much the same 
 conscious way that Herbert carried it into lyric 
 poetry. But if in the early lyrists the desire for 
 closely knitted structure is slight, it is feebler still in 
 the writers of reflective verse. These men wander 
 wherever thought or a good phrase leads, and are 
 rarely restrained by any. compacted plan. In short, 
 we read most of the early poetry for the sake of 
 splendid bursts, vigorous stanzas, pithy Knes. To 
 obtain these, we wilhngly pass through much that 
 is formless and uninteresting. Seldom do we get 
 singleness of impression. Sidney in his Defence of 
 Poesie complained of the poets of his day that "their 
 matter is quodlihet, which they never marshall into 
 any assured rank, so that the readers cannot tell 
 where to put themselves." Until Herbert appeared, 
 unity of structure was little regarded. 
 
 To such articulated structure Herbert devoted 
 himself, and what he accomplished forms one of 
 his two considerable contributions to English 
 poetry. In his pages we see for the first time a 
 great body of lyrics in which the matter and the 
 form are at one. Impulsive and ardent though 
 Herbert seems, he holds himself like a true artist 
 responsive to his shaping theme. Not that he ac- 
 quires power of this sort at once, or has it always. 
 The Chuhch-Porch is loose, and in many of the 
 
THE STYLE 141 
 
 ecclesiastical poems of his Cambridge years, there 
 is only such general structure as springs from 
 announced theme, emotional development, and 
 moral ending. But the demand for form is deep 
 in him, and more and more he puts himself at its 
 service. In something like a quarter of his work 
 he attains a solidity of structure hitherto unknown. 
 That his achievements in this field exercised 
 little influence over his immediate successors is 
 true, and surprising. But he set the most difficult 
 of examples. Strong form is not catching. Only 
 a man of energy and restraint is capable of it. 
 Other qualities, too, of Herbert's style obscured 
 his form. So rich is he in suggestion, so intellect- 
 ually difficult, so tender in religious appeal, that 
 attention is easily withdrawn from his structure 
 and becomes fixed on details. Whatever the cause, 
 the poets who follow him, and are most affected 
 by his invention of the religious love-lyric, have 
 small regard for his second invention, — structural 
 plan. C. Harvey, Vaughan, Crashaw, Traheme, 
 are conspicuously lacking in restraint. They do 
 not appear to notice the artistic weaving of Her- 
 bert's verse, which has brought it through the 
 rough usage of nearly three centuries ; while their 
 own often more brilliant work now lies largely 
 neglected. Even to-day few think of Herbert as 
 one of our pioneers in poetic structure. 
 
 Briefly to present the evidence for this solidity 
 of form is not easy. The point to be proved is 
 
142 THE STYLE 
 
 not that Herbert exercised remarkable skill in 
 building certain poems. Occasional fine structure 
 was not unknown before. What Herbert did was 
 to vindicate unity of design as a working factor of 
 poetry. He showed how by its use much may be 
 said in Uttle. He made it plain that any theme, 
 if fully and economically embodied, will not lack 
 interest. It is therefore the frequency of his work 
 in this kind which I wish to show. This I think 
 I can do most effectively by dividing his one hun- 
 dred and sixty-nine poems into four groups, accord- 
 ing to the prevalence in them of the principle of 
 form. There appear to be fifty-eight in which there 
 is no wandering from a predetermined plan. But 
 recognizing that judgments may differ on a matter 
 so dehcate, I print the Ust; throwing out, however, 
 the seventeen sonnets, as a species of verse where 
 form would more naturally be found; and also 
 the half-dozen curiosities, like The Altah and 
 Easter Wings, whose form is usually supposed to 
 be their all. The corrected Ust (1) is then the fol- 
 lowing: Aabon, To All Angels and Saints, 
 The British Church, Businesse, Clasping of 
 Hands, Our Life is Hid, Decay, Deniall, 
 Dialogue, Dotage, Frailtie, The Glance, 
 Humilitie, a True Hymne, the second Jor- 
 dan, Judgement, Life, Love Unknown, Man's 
 Medley, The Method, Mortification, The 
 Pearl, The Pilgrimage, the second Prayer, 
 The Pulley, The Quidditie, Sinnes Round, 
 
THE STYLE 143 
 
 Submission, Unghatefulnesse, The Windows, 
 The World. I do not assert that these are Her- 
 bert's best poems. In many eases they are not. 
 But let any one read ten of them, drawn at ran- 
 dom, and he will be convinced that Herbert was 
 the master of a method which had not been prac- 
 tised in English poetry before. 
 
 If we attempt to catalogue (4) those of his 
 poems which are most lacking in form, I suppose 
 they will be these : Charms and Knots, The 
 Church-Porch, The Discharge, Divinitie, 
 The Elixer, Grieve Not, Faith, Home, Lent, 
 Longing, Man, Miserie, the third Praise, The 
 Priesthood, Providence, The Search, Sighs 
 and Grones, Sunday, the first Temper, the first 
 Vanitie. Yet how remarkable is the list ! Though 
 less completely formed than anything else in Her- 
 bert, these twenty poems are superior in structure 
 to most of the verse of Herbert's day, or indeed 
 of ours. 
 
 Between these extreme lists (1) and (4) I find 
 two others, one (2) of sixty poems, in which there 
 is an evident plan adhered to throughout, a plan, 
 however, which lacks the rigidity of outline which 
 marked list (1); and another (3) of thirty-four, 
 in which, while unity has not disappeared, there 
 are considerable digressions from the proposed 
 theme. Examples of (2) are Assurance, Tb(e 
 Bag, The Church Militant, The Church- 
 Floore, Conscience, The Crosse, Dulnesse, 
 
144 THE STYLE 
 
 The Familie, The Flower, The Fokekunnebs, 
 GiDDiNESsE, Geatefulnesse, Obedience, The 
 Odoub, Peace, The Rose, The Sacbieice, The 
 Size, Vertue, Unkindnesse, — all poems of ad- 
 mirable texture, and in most cases working out 
 their purpose better than if they had been more 
 severe. Examples of (3), where the form is more 
 broken, are the Afflictions, The Banquet, 
 The Call, Church-Rents and Schismes, Com- 
 plaining, CoNSTANCiE, Content, The Glimpse, 
 Grace, Grief, Mattens, Repentance, The 
 Storm. It will be noticed that these, which are less 
 completely formed, are often designedly so either 
 for the sake of expressing the incoherence of grief, 
 or, in reflective poems, to afford ampler range for 
 thought. The general result of our inquiry must 
 be astonishment that in the beginning, when firm 
 form was first discovered by our poetry as an im- 
 portant element of its power, it should have been 
 introduced on such an extensive scale by a single 
 writer. 
 
 But though whoever reads the poems of lists 
 (1) and (2) will feel their solidity, it is well to ex- 
 amine the means by which such structural firm- 
 ness is secured. One simple means distinguishes 
 Herbert's work from that of most of his brother 
 poets, — he knows when to stop. Each poem takes 
 up a single mood, relation, or problem of divine 
 love, and ends with its clear exposition. His poems 
 are, accordingly, at once short and adequate. Only 
 
THE STYLE 145 
 
 four of them exceed one hundred and fifty lines. 
 Ten are between fifty and a hundred; sixty, be- 
 tween twenty-five and fifty; and the remainder, 
 nearly a hundred, are less than twenty-five. Such 
 brevity is the more significant when we remember 
 that Herbert is no epigrammatist, like Herrick, 
 but is handhng subjects of unusual range and pro- 
 fundity. 
 
 Three stanzas make one of his favorite lengths. 
 The theme is announced in the first, and is 
 then seen to divide ; one of the divisions being 
 treated in the second, the other in the third stanza. 
 This plan is followed with more or less precision 
 in two of the Afflictions, H. Baptisme, The 
 Call, Chukch-Lock and Key, Chuhch-Musick, 
 Chuech-Rents and Schismes, Dotage, Fhail- 
 TiE, The Glance, the two Joedans, Judgement, 
 Life, Love, Maeie Magdalene, Natdee, The 
 PosiE, The Quidditie, Sinnes Round, The 
 Stoem, Teinitie-Sunday, The Windows. At 
 times, however, the opposing aspects of the sub- 
 ject are so evident that a stanza can be given to 
 each without the need of introduction, an arrange- 
 ment very satisfactory to Herbert's economical 
 and antithetic soul. Examples are the second An- 
 tiphon, Bittee-Sweet, Clasping of Hands, 
 The Dawning, Eastee Wings, The Foil, the 
 first Justice, the first Sinne, The Watee- 
 
 COUESE. 
 
 In a few instances narrative directs the order, as 
 
146 THE STYLE 
 
 in the great Affliction, The Bag, The Chtjkch 
 Militant, Humilitie, Love Unknown, The 
 PiLGKiMAGE, Peace, Thb SACRIFICE. Here the 
 plan permits looseness, and the poems are less 
 shapely. When the time-order followed is of a 
 more subtle kind, almost unobservedly accompa- 
 nying the development of an inner mood, Herbert 
 reaches his climax of easy and inevitable struc- 
 ture. Cases are Abtillekie, Assurance, The 
 Collar, Conscience, The Crosse, Dialogue, 
 The Flower, Gratefulnesse, The Method, 
 Mortification, The Priesthood, The Pullet, 
 SioN, The Stabre. 
 
 Apart from solidity of general structure, Her- 
 bert is ingenious in making minor modifications 
 of form bring out peculiarities of his subject. 
 Baldly stated, these may appear artificial contriv- 
 ances ; but they appear so only because we do 
 not at once notice that inherent union of subject 
 and form which was in Herbert's mind. He will 
 make everything meaningful, and altogether ban- 
 ish wilfulness. Let me not think an action mine 
 own way is ever his artistic prayer. Accordingly 
 he tries to supply every intellectual subtlety of his 
 subject with its appropriate means of outward 
 expression. Sometimes this is furthered by an 
 adjustment of rhyme. In Aaron and Clasping 
 OF Hands, where each stanza is to present dif- 
 ferent aspects of a single thought, the stanzas have 
 identical rhymes. In Man, which is dedicated 
 
THE STYLE 147 
 
 to showing the range and variety of man's nature, 
 almost every stanza has a different rhyming- 
 system. By rhyming together the first and last 
 lines of each long stanza of The Odoub, a curi- 
 ously shut-in yet pervasive quality is given to that 
 fragrant poem. And when it is desired to show 
 how in the vicious circle of Sinne one step leads to 
 another, the final line of each stanza becomes the 
 first of the next, and the closing line of the poem 
 is identical with the beginning. I have already 
 noticed the broken rhymes of Deniall, which 
 accord so beautifully with the inner failure of the 
 poem ; and perhaps I should mention the suc- 
 cessive pruning of the rhymes in Paeadise, and 
 the triplicity of everything in Tbinitie-Sunday. 
 
 But Herbert has a final group of poems which 
 have done much to alienate from him the sym- 
 pathy of modem readers, though they commended 
 him to his own generation. They are poems whose 
 eccentricity of form seems to have no inner justi- 
 fication. Of course we know that every species 
 of daborate artificiahty was then in fashion. Em- 
 broidery pleased. Probably Herbert himself did 
 on occasion enjoy a ruffled shirt. I will not at- 
 tempt fully to defend him. I merely say the num- 
 ber of such poems is small. I count but nine : The 
 Altab, An Anagbam, Eastee Wings, Heaven, 
 Hope, Jesu, Love-Joy, Our Life is Hid, A 
 Wbeath. And are these all artificial ? I am will- 
 ing to throw over An Anagbam, Heaven, and 
 
148 THE STYLE 
 
 Jestt, as badly marked with the time-spirit. But 
 I maintain that the others are at worst pretty 
 play, while often their strange fonns are closely 
 connected with their passionate matter. One who 
 was ever accustomed to let significance dictate 
 structure has here certainly pushed his principle 
 to a fantastic extreme. Our feehng does not easily 
 accompany his. But this is largely due to dulness. 
 We let ourselves be repelled by outward strange- 
 ness, and do not notice how in most of these cases 
 Herbert has made his start from within. In the 
 notes I have endeavored to show that many of 
 these are veritable poems, which could not be more 
 appropriately fashioned. Let any one study sym- 
 pathetically Hope, Paradise, A Wreath, Easter 
 Wings, Love-Joy, and he will discover how ex- 
 quisite poetry can be when most remote from 
 present habits of thought. 
 
 ONE striking peculiarity of Herbert's style 
 remains to be considered, its obscurity. To 
 this his antique diction is often thought to con- 
 tribute, and no doubt modem readers do find 
 some of Herbert's words unfamiliar. He Uved 
 three hundred years ago. Words, it is true, are 
 strangely durable, more so than the everlasting 
 hills ; but a series of centuries has its effect in 
 superseding some and transforming others. Her- 
 
THE STYLE 149 
 
 bert's language has worn remarkably well. He 
 had an instinct for the firm, clear, well-rooted, 
 and richly significant words, and no inclination 
 like Spenser or Browning for words of an antique, 
 fanciful, local, or half-built sort. His diction, 
 therefore, belongs in general to no special age. 
 Less than fifty of his words would appear strange 
 in a book of to-day. But of these fifty something 
 like half are altogether dead, iand when met with 
 in his pages convey to an ordinary reader no 
 meaning whatever. Such words are these : bandie, 
 behither, cyens, demain, glazing, handsell, imp, 
 indear, ingross, jag, licorous, lidger, optick, per- 
 spective, pomander, quidditie, quip, rheums, sconse, 
 snudge, sommers, stour, vizard. Yet these, after 
 aU, occasion little practical difficulty. They occur 
 only once or twice, and are then easily explain- 
 able. More trouble is likely to arise from a 
 second small group of misleading words, i. e. 
 famiUar and frequent words used by Herbert in 
 senses which diflPer in some particular from those 
 current to-day; e. g. complexion with him = dis- 
 position or temperament; consort = concert; his 
 often=its; move often=propose, request; neat= 
 refined, subtle; owe often = own; pretend=seeh to 
 obtain; sphere often = rather the heaven than the 
 earth, i. e., the concave inclosure of the universe 
 assumed in the Ptolemaic astronomy ; stay often 
 =be absent; afore = abundance; siorie = history ; 
 still=alwa,ys ; sweet usually=sweet-smelling; then 
 
150 THE STYLE 
 
 often=than ; thrall = bondage; wfeenas = while. 
 Through these deceptive words a modern reader is 
 Hkely enough to miss Herbert's meaning. When 
 several of them occur together, they may altogether 
 destroy the understanding of a line; e. g. line 53 
 of Providence: Nothing ingendred doth prevent 
 his meat. He will often miss the rhyme too, unless 
 he remembers that the Irish pronunciation of Eng- 
 lish is much nearer to Herbert's than is our own. 
 For example, in a stanza of Constancie, lines 2, 
 3, and 5 rhyme: 
 
 Whom none can work or wooe 
 To use in any thing a trick or sleight. 
 For above aU things he abhorres deceit. 
 
 His words and works and fashion too 
 AU of a piece, and all are cleare and straight. 
 
 But when it appears that time has damaged his 
 words but slightly, and that he more than any of 
 his predecessors or contemporaries studied the 
 sequence of his thought and avoided caprice, 
 Herbert's prevailing obscurity becomes the more 
 puzzling. What can have made a writer whose 
 diction is on the whole sound, and who is ever alert, 
 artistic, and highly rational, so difficult to read? 
 For difficult he is. No other English poet, not even 
 Donne or Browning, gives his reader such fre- 
 quent pause. Nearness of acquaintance does not 
 remove the intricacy. It is perpetual. Or if at 
 times poems like The Elixer, Gratefulnesse, 
 
THE STYLE 151 
 
 The Method, Submission, the second Temper, 
 Unkindnesse, show that he might have been as 
 simple in verse as he regularly is in prose, the 
 moment's lucidity merely makes the prevailing 
 darkness deeper. A trait of style so marked in 
 a man of unmistakable power is apt to be con- 
 nected with his genius. What at first appears a 
 surface blemish, — and a strange one, — traced 
 intimately, runs down to the sources of strength. 
 I believe the intricacy of Herbert is not a matter 
 to be denied, ignored, or condoned, but to be 
 studied, sympathized with, loved. It has been 
 induced by what is most distinctive of him. This 
 jangled utterance is his true tone. He could not 
 have spoken so well if he had spoken more clearly. 
 A considerable cause of both the obscurity and 
 the value of Herbert's verse is to be found in its pri- 
 vate character. None of his English poems received 
 public criticism. That they were written with a pur- 
 pose of ultimate pubUcation appears in the direct 
 appeals to a reader in The Dedication, The 
 Chukch-Porch, Superliminare, The Rose, and 
 perhaps The Chiirch-Floore. The corrections 
 made during the time between the Williams Manu- 
 script and the Bodleian point in the same direction, 
 as do the many references to his art which are scat- 
 tered throughout his book. The kind of private 
 circulation which his poems obtained is shown by 
 the Williams Manuscript itself. They were handed 
 about among his friends. But a writer's mental 
 
152 THE STYLE 
 
 attitude is of one kind when he is directly pre- 
 paring matter for the press; it is widely different 
 when year after year he goes on analyzing his inner 
 life, with only a general notion that perhaps some 
 day the public may be informed. In the first case, 
 the expected judgment of readers is sure to be a 
 weighty influence, steadily constraining toward 
 intelligibility. In the second, a writer is left very 
 much to himself. Individuality of diction, accu- 
 racy and fulness of record, now become the quali- 
 ties sought. What makes for display and for swift 
 solicitation of other minds is neglected. Notable 
 examples of private verse are Shakespeare's Son- 
 nets and Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portu- 
 guese. Every one will see that these would have 
 been written differently if designed immediately 
 for the pubHc eye. In such poems we have the 
 advantage that the writers 
 
 Admit us to their bed-chamber, before 
 
 They appeare trim and drest 
 To ordinarie switours at the doore. 
 
 Yet for such intimate disclosures we pay heavily. 
 We are left to find our own way to the right point 
 of view. Connections of thought which existed in 
 the poet's mind are not worked out. If we do not 
 at once catch his mood, all is blind. Transitions 
 and allusions are abrupt, not calculated with a 
 view to our comprehension. And such is the poetry 
 of Herbert, precious in its very obscurity. We hear 
 
THE STYLE 153 
 
 its writer thinking. These verses were written for 
 himself, and require imagination on our part. We 
 must know where to stand, and observe. In one 
 mood all will be clear which in another was hope- 
 lessly tangled. Such imaginative diflBculties will 
 be eased by the arrangement of the poems here 
 adopted, and by the brief statement of the Subject 
 prefixed to each. 
 
 Perhaps, too, in this connection the strangeness 
 of Herbert's titles is partially explainable. If he 
 had prepared his book for the press, he would not 
 have been likely to give to five poems the same 
 title. Affliction. And what does Aetillehie 
 mean, or The Bunch of Grapes, Chtikch-Lock 
 AND Key, Clasping of Hands, The Collar, 
 The Discharge, Dotage, The Elixer, Gid- 
 dinesse. The Glance, Joseph's Coat, Man's 
 Medley, Mortification, The Pulley, The 
 Quidditie, The Quip, The Size, The Win- 
 dows ? These titles convey Kttle information. To 
 understand them one must read the poem of which 
 they form an integral part. With its emotion they 
 are filled, and from it they derive their signifi- 
 cance. When the poem is read, and one has come 
 into sympathy with it, how fully and with what 
 originality they epitomize it ! Here, as ever, Her- 
 bert demands his reader's patience and imagina- 
 tion, himself doing little to smooth the path of 
 approach. For gaining a hearing, this is an error; 
 but it is one to which a solitary soul is hable, and 
 
154 THE STYLE 
 
 one which, revealing that soul more fully, increases 
 the permanent worth of the utterance. 
 
 But a second sort of intricacy in Herbert's verse 
 publicity could not have cured. It is inherent in 
 his theme, for his is a poetry of struggle. It deals 
 with clashing desires. Herbert himself called it 
 a picture of the many spiritual Conflicts that have 
 past betwixt God and my Soul. For such conflict the 
 general reader is unfortunately not prepared. The 
 epithet " Holy " early became attached to Herbert's 
 name. Vaughan uses it in his Preface to Silex 
 Scintillans, and again in his poem The Match. 
 Oley adopts it in his second Preface to The Coun- 
 TBY Pabson, as does Walton in the fifth chapter of 
 The Complete Angler. It thus became established ; 
 but a more misleading epithet could not have been 
 devised. The thoughts which it suggests hide 
 Herbert from our view. By a holy man we mean 
 a whole man, i. e. one for whom the partition be- 
 tween divine and human things has been broken 
 down. He is one in whom the pain of obedience 
 is ended, and whose feelings and acts now natu- 
 rally accord with God's. The mystics are of this 
 holy, monistic type : Crashaw, Traheme, Madame 
 Guyon. Herbert is steadily dualistic. For him there 
 is ever a contrast between God's ways and man's, 
 and his problem is how to bring the two together 
 without undue loss to either. To the last he never 
 settles the question. God's law has worth, but so 
 have his own desires, his own ambitions. 
 
THE STYLE 155 
 
 His stuffe is flesh, not brasse ; his senses live. 
 And grumble oft that they have more in him 
 Then he that curbs them. 
 
 He always remains 
 
 A wonder tortur'd in the space 
 Betwixt this world and that of grace. 
 
 The story of the clash within his own breast of 
 these mighty opposites is too real and typically 
 human to be told with smcjothness. Smoothness 
 and ease of comprehension characterize the poets 
 of the eighteenth century, men far more artificial 
 than the men of the seventeenth. Indeed, I believe 
 it will be found that the most lucid periods of our 
 language are the least sincere, and that writers 
 peculiarly intricate are often at the same time 
 peculiarly sweet, tender, and veracious. What 
 startling insights into reality has Donne ! And how 
 inevitably we distrust the lucidity of Pope ! These 
 metaphysical poets often seem artificial because 
 they observe profoundly and speak individually. 
 
 Yet privacy and lack of inner harmony were 
 only subordinate causes of Herbert's obscurity. 
 Its fundamental ground lies in the mental ex- 
 uberance of his age, to which I alluded at the 
 beginning of this essay. The joy in eventful living 
 which marks the age of Elizabeth did not pass 
 away with her. It remained, though in a changed 
 field. The soul of man took the place of the 
 outer world, while the old delight in daring and 
 
156 THE STYLE 
 
 diflBcult deeds appeared in this new sphere as a 
 kind of intellectual audacity and an ardent explo- 
 ration of mental enigmas. To how many strange 
 theories did the England of the first half of the 
 seventeenth century give rise ! To exploit a new 
 doctrine became more exciting than a voyage to the 
 Spanish Main. Play is pleasure in one's own exer- 
 tions. Accordingly, ages and individuals that have 
 not lost the heart of boyhood always enjoy ob- 
 stacles. Herbert certainly did, only that his excep- 
 tional artistic restraint enabled him to refine and 
 ennoble the extravagances of this temper. For 
 system-building and the labors of the theologian 
 he did not care. But with equal energy as a poet 
 he threw himself into expressing complex human 
 passions and the deep reahties of his own life. In- 
 genuity he enjoyed. Anything like " smoothness " 
 would have been thought by him and all his friends 
 to defraud them of one of their chief pleasures : 
 
 He who craves aU the minde. 
 And all the soul, and strength, and time. 
 
 If the words ondy ryme. 
 Justly complains that somewhat is hehinde 
 To make his verse, or write a hymne in kinde. 
 
 A frequent form in which this enjoyment of dif- 
 ficulty manifests itself is condensation. To put as 
 much meaning as possible into a given compass is 
 a difficult feat. He is the master who can force 
 words to carry a little more significance than is 
 
THE STYLE 157 
 
 their wont. In this Herbert was peculiarly skilful. 
 His compactness has seldom been equalled. It 
 was one of the chief reasons for the popularity of 
 his book with the generation which followed him, 
 and one of the chief sources of the obscurity which 
 is felt by his readers to-day. Herbert loved pro- 
 verbs, his own or those of others. He formed an 
 extensive collection of them, published after his 
 death under the title of Jacuia Phudentum. To 
 his mind sententiousness was ever honorable. But 
 taste has changed. We like our mental nutri- 
 ment more loosely mixed. Even to his contempo- 
 raries Herbert seemed hard in the grain. What 
 Walton makes him say of his body is equally true 
 of his style: He had too thoughtful a Wit, a Wit 
 like a penknife in too narrow a sheath, too sharp 
 for his body. 
 
 Herbert's style, then, is difficult because of the 
 compact abundance of his thought, because in it 
 we hear the jarring of moods only half harmonized, 
 because it has not been studied with immediate 
 reference to the public eye, and because of historic 
 changes in our language. But such defects are vir- 
 tues, too. Calling on a reader, though they do, for 
 a large amount of study, for time and sympathetic 
 attention, they reward him with the disclosure of 
 a rich, pathetic, and individual personality. In 
 Herbert's most intricate obscurity there is no care- 
 lessness or clumsiness, no vagueness or wilfulness. 
 Undoubtedly he does occasionally exhibit violence 
 
158 THE STYLE 
 
 and bad taste. But I believe that, tried by the 
 standard which had then been reached, he has 
 exceptional restraint of style. The last section of 
 this paper shall be devoted to the negative task 
 of showing how his artistic sense saved him from 
 the worst enormities of his unlicensed age. Let us 
 see what Herbert did not do. 
 
 VI 
 
 I HAVE already remarked how, during the first 
 half of the seventeenth century, language and 
 its accompanying refinements of thought were 
 studied by the Western nations as they never had 
 been studied before. Following the increase of 
 comfort and splendor in the appointments of daily 
 life came the desire for elegance of speech. The 
 great creative periods, too, of literature were draw- 
 ing to a close, and the decadent tendency to mag- 
 nify the literary instrument ,was asserting itself. 
 Under many forms this tendency appeared. It 
 sprang up in England just before Herbert's birth 
 as Euphuism; during his life it ravaged Italy as 
 Marinism ; six years before his death Gongora 
 died, who set the fashion in Spain ; and shortly 
 after his death it appeared ih France as Precio- 
 site. Each time and country shows its own variety 
 of the common movement, but all alike aim at 
 fashioning a literary language which shall be 
 removed from that of the vulgar. Poetry fosters 
 
THE STYLE 159 
 
 such aims. No poet except Wordsworth was ever 
 willing to call a spade a Spade, though most poets 
 avoid the worse vulgarity of calling it an agricul- 
 tural implement. These men did not. Even the 
 greatest of them inflates his phrase. Milton talks 
 of hens as " tame villatic fowl " (Samson Agonistes, 
 1. 1695). In a sophisticated time paraphrases, an- 
 titheses, inversions, paradoxes, — every form of 
 language is welcome which puts a gulf between the 
 common man and the man of culture. These 
 linguistic exquisites are in love with the unex- 
 pected. 
 
 Now it would be manifestly absurd to censure 
 in all its forms this inclination to intellectual and 
 verbal nicety. Provided it yields an adequate 
 return for thinking, a poem which makes us think 
 is none the worse on that account. Our fathers 
 judged it better. Later, as the liking for mental 
 exertion declined, a term of abuse was invented 
 which has ever since lent aid and comfort to 
 thoughtless attacks upon thought. A poet who 
 packs his phrase is said to be full of "conceits." 
 That is the word. I have sought far and wide for 
 a definition of it, but can find nothing precise. 
 Perhaps it is incapable of precise definition, a 
 kind of word of degrees, meaning merely that the 
 writer is more ingenious than his critic likes, and 
 that he sees in his subject wider relations than 
 altogether suit modem taste. But there are base 
 conceits and noble ones. By the base I mean 
 
160 THE STYLE 
 
 those where ingenuity is sought for its own sake. 
 These disregard the feehng which should run deep 
 and formative throughout a poem. They draw 
 attention from the whole and fix it on the parts, 
 the writer meanwhile obtruding himself at the 
 expense of his subject. These faults are most 
 manifest in illustrations. Without the ever-pre- 
 sent words "as" and "like," a poet cannot pro- 
 ceed; for it is his business not so much directly to 
 describe as to let us see into the heart of things, 
 and there discover the feelings which agitate his 
 breast. But a poet who is in pursuit of novelty, 
 and is pleased with intellectual play, is in danger 
 of tracing similarities so remote or superficial that 
 they part company with what should be illustrated; 
 and these are base conceits. 
 
 But there are noble ones, too. A mind aglow 
 with meditative feehng finds its mood reflected 
 from every object that meets its sight or remem- 
 brance. Emotional association has a wonderful 
 power of transforming small things to great, re- 
 mote to near, things rarely thought of to luminous 
 expositors of the customary. Just in proportion 
 to a poet's power will be his readiness for such 
 wide-ranging insight. An unimpassioned reader, 
 who has not brought himself into full sympathy 
 with the emotion described, may judge much to 
 be artificial which is in reaUty tenderly exact. A 
 passage of pregnant unusualness, whose full im- 
 port cannot be caught at once, is easily denounced 
 
THE STYLE 161 
 
 as a conceit. I would not defend the substitution 
 of puzzles for poetry; but the test for a conceit is, 
 after all, simple. Does it by thought exclude feel- 
 ing, or does it through thought embody feeling in 
 some new, individual, and subtle way ? 
 
 That Herbert occasionally indulges in conceits 
 of the baser sort — mental escapades, unprompted 
 by emotion — is undeniable. So did every poet from 
 Shakespeare to Dryden, with the possible excep- 
 tion of Herrick. Herbert's master, Donne, has 
 half a dozen to every page. Quarles has as many. 
 Crashaw systematizes them. He writes a poem to 
 the weeping Magdalen, in each of whose thirty- 
 three stanzas her tears are contemplated from 
 some fresh angle. John Cleveland, of whose 
 poems five editions were published in 1647, thus 
 laments Edward King, Milton's Lycidas : 
 
 "In thee Neptune hath got an University. 
 We'll dive no more for pearls; the hope to see 
 Thy sacred reliques of mortality 
 Shall welcome storms and make the seaman prize 
 His shipwreck now more than his merchandize." 
 
 In his poem of Easter Herbert himself writes : 
 
 Awake, my Ivte, and struggle for thy part 
 With all thy art ; 
 
 The erosse taught all wood to resound his name 
 Who bore the same ; 
 
 His streehed sinews taught all strings what key 
 
 Is best to celebrate this most high day. 
 
162 THE STYLE 
 
 Another Herbertian example, and one quite in 
 the spirit of Crashaw, is from Makie Magdalene: 
 
 When blessed Marie wip'd her Saviour's feet, 
 (Whose precepts she had trampled on before,) 
 
 And wore them for a jeweU on her head. 
 Shewing his steps should be the street 
 Wherein she thenceforth evermore 
 
 With pensive hurriblenesse wotdd live and tread. 
 
 And one more I take from The Sacrifice: 
 
 Behold, they spit on me in scornfiM wise 
 Who by my spiitle gave the blinde man eies. 
 Leaving his blindnesse to mine enemies. 
 
 These are pretty bad. The thought is certainly 
 forced. But it would be a inistake to suppose such 
 eases common. In general, Herbert's artistic 
 sense saves him. He is too much interested in 
 welding together form and matter to allow such 
 vagaries. And on reflection these may seem ex- 
 amples not so much of conceits as of bad taste, — 
 a frequent fault with Herbert, and one due in 
 part to what I have called the privacy of his com- 
 position. Abstracting attention from this, we may 
 detect even in these extravagant lines brooding 
 feeling. The emotional sequence is not untrue. 
 In the worst sort of conceits it is. When Laertes 
 first hears of Ophelia's drowning, Shakespeare 
 makes him say: 
 
THE STYLE 163 
 
 "Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, 
 And therefore I forbid my tears." 
 
 Of course we know that no such words ever came 
 from the lips of a loving brother. Herbert is 
 incapable of such perversity. He never quite 
 departs from truth of feeling. In the instances 
 cited, it is not impossible to feel that all subse- 
 quent wood sympathizes with the wood of the cross ; 
 or to imagine that the hostile spittle of his foes 
 recalls to Jesus his pity for the blind. Even the 
 notorious couplet of The Dawning, 
 
 Christ lepi Ms grave-clothes that we might, when grief 
 Draws tears or bloud, not want an handkerchief, 
 
 is not untrue or really capricious. Christ's grave- 
 clothes are not mentioned as picturesque pieces 
 of accidental linen. They have in Herbert's mind 
 an essentially healing connection with our griefs. 
 
 Seldom, however, does Herbert venture into these 
 perilous regions, familiar as they are to most of 
 his contemporaries. What are called his conceits 
 are usually cases of condensed imagination. They 
 need no apology. On the contrary, they show a 
 restraint and coherence of mood which were 
 exceptional three hundred years ago. The fol- 
 lowing stanza from Employment well illustrates 
 their method, their difficulties, and the grounds 
 for admiration which careful reading discloses : 
 Man is no done, hut a quick coal 
 Of mortall fire ; 
 
164 THE STYLE 
 
 Who blows it not, nor doth controll 
 
 A faint desire. 
 Lets his own ashes choke his sovl. 
 
 Here we have the frequent trouble of words whose 
 ancient sense has changed, quick formerly meaning 
 living, and faint, fainting. But when it is clear 
 what the words mean, how fresh and subtle is the 
 figure ! The powers of man are not fixed and per- 
 manent like those of the star; but, tending of them- 
 selves to decay, perpetually need rekindling. Or 
 take the last stanza of Sion: 
 
 And truly hrasse and stones are heavie things, 
 Tombes for the dead, not temples fit for thee. 
 But grones are quick and fvU of wings. 
 
 And all their motions upward be. 
 And ever as they mount, like larks they sing. 
 The note is sad, yet musick for a king. 
 
 How permeated by a single feeling are all these 
 well-considered phrases ! Or take from Longing 
 an example which shall indicate Herbert's com- 
 pactness as well: 
 
 From thee all pUie flows. 
 
 Mathers are Mnde because thou art. 
 
 And dost dispose 
 
 To them a part. 
 
 Their infants them , and they suck thee 
 
 More free. 
 
 I do not deny that everywhere in Herbert there is 
 
THE STYLE 165 
 
 intellectual effort, and that he demands a corre- 
 sponding effort on his reader's part. That was the 
 enjoyment of his age, and might well be more 
 largely our own. As fumes do work and winde 
 when they ascend, so does he weave himself into 
 the sense. But I believe that whoever scrutinizes 
 carefully will agree that to an extent unusual in 
 his time Herbert maintains the character of a poet 
 and refuses that of a "wit." His weaving is not 
 executed for elegance or display, but is a subtle 
 tracing of religious passion in words which, though 
 compact with thought and sometimes too forceful, 
 are plain, veracious, and of highly individual 
 quality. 
 
 Nor is Herbert's sobriety notable merely in the 
 matter of conceits. It extends to other Uterary 
 extravagances then in vogue. There is no acrostic 
 among his poems, and but a single emblem poem, 
 — one of exceeding beauty. He has but one ana- 
 gram. At a time when poets prided themselves 
 on puns, he uses few, and none of them jocosely. 
 Verbal relationships arouse his curiosity, but never 
 stir his mirth. The following is, I believe, a com- 
 plete list: dispark and sparkling in The Fohe- 
 KUNNEKs; do thee right (write) in Providence; 
 heaven and haven in The Size; holy and wholly 
 in Heaven; / ease you in Jesu; raise and race 
 in The Temper and The Sacrifice; rest and 
 restlessness in The Pulley; strokes and stroking 
 in The Thanksgiving; sonne and sunne several 
 
166 THE STYLE 
 
 times repeated and once discussed at length. Until 
 within the last two hundred years, few writers of 
 our language have abused it so little. 
 
 There is a similar abstinence in classical allu- 
 sions. According to the taste of that day a poet 
 was expected continually to refer to the gods and 
 history of ancient Greece and Rome. Milton does 
 so, as much when he deals with sacred subjects as 
 with secular. Herbert's Latin poems, his Latin 
 letters and orations, abound in such allusions. 
 In the whole Temple I find only these few in- 
 stances : in Abtilleeie the music of the spheres 
 is mentioned ; in Discipline Love's bow ; in Di- 
 viNiTiE the Gordian knot ; in Home the apple may 
 be thought of as the lover's fruit; in The Invita- 
 tion the dove appears as the bird of love; in The 
 Pearl there is mention of a labyrinth and a clue; 
 in Thanksgiving Ovid's Art of Love may be re- 
 ferred to; in The Sonne possibly Plato's torch- 
 race is hinted; and in Time possibly Homer's pic- 
 ture of the Guide-god Hermes. Several of these are 
 decidedly questionable; but even if all are admit- 
 ted, how astonishing small is the list ! What sobri- 
 ety and harmonious taste appears in the almost 
 complete refusal on Herbert's part to conform to 
 an incongruous literary fashion which his educa- 
 tion peculiarly fitted him gracefully to accept ! 
 
 On the whole, then, we may say that Herbert 
 chooses wise means for reaching his special ends. 
 He is the first of our lyric poets who can fairly 
 
THE STYLE 167 
 
 be called a conscious artist : the first who syste- 
 matically tries to shape each of his short poems 
 by a predetermined plan, and that, too, a plan 
 involved in the nature of his subject. He is the 
 first who tries to cut off the extravagances of an 
 over-luxuriant age. That he did not fully succeed 
 is evident. He was a pioneer. He was working 
 in private, on themes expressive of conflict, while 
 knowing very fully and sharing to a large degree 
 the ideals of his contemporaries. But he was in 
 possession of a new method, and one of enor- 
 mous importance. That he was able to apply it 
 so widely is one of his two great achievements. 
 
Tjotin poems from the Williams Manuscript in Herberfs own hand 
 See Vol. I, p. 179, and compare with the handwriting of Vol. Ill, 
 p. 8 and 64. 
 
Cp)^y^ d^m^k 
 
 iri 
 
 in 
 
 '4 
 
 lUn. 
 
 a 
 
 iwiui- 
 
 u 
 
 l!iyMK-0^ m rtM'/t^ (?'»«-''«-/ I'lh"^ 
 
 ^Po^ynk S^hdx^ J^mU, Uftniyj^, 
 
 cii-;k\}clt>' fi/fi';^/)^W w'/Y^'^* p<r/Hf^'^ 
 J^hiuU ini^i-tm^ fAJhtiflt M^^ H^/tu-kn. 
 
V 
 THE TEXT AND ORDER OF POEMS 
 
THE TEXT AND ORDER OF POEMS 
 
 NONE of the English poems of Herbert were 
 printed during his life. All have been trans- 
 mitted to us through an intermediary. Who this 
 intermediary was, what were his character and 
 competence, and what the circumstances attend- 
 ing his peculiar charge, must first be made clear 
 before the grave textual problems of Herbert's 
 little volume can be understood. 
 
 ABOUT a month before Herbert's death, his 
 friend, Nicholas Ferrar, sent a messenger to 
 Bemerton to obtain an account of his condition. 
 Herbert was already weak and lying on a couch. 
 At the messenger's departure, says Walton, "Mr. 
 Herbert with a thoughtful and contented look said 
 to him. Sir, I pray deliver this little Book to my 
 dear brother Ferrar, and tell him he shall find in it 
 a picture of the many spiritual Conflicts that have 
 past hetvdxt God and my Soul, before I could sub- 
 ject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master. Desire 
 him to read it; and then, if he can think it may 
 turn to the advantage of any dejected poor Soul, 
 let it be made pvblick. If not, let him bum it; for 
 
172 THE ORDER 
 
 I and it are less than the least of God's mercies. 
 Thus meanly did this humble man think of this 
 excellent Book, which now bears the name of The 
 Temple: or Sacred Poems and Private Ejac- 
 ulations, of which Mr. Ferrar would say that it 
 would enrich the World with pleasure and piety. 
 And it appears to have done so; for there have been 
 more than twenty thousand of them sold since the 
 'first Impression;" i. e. in less than forty years. 
 
 Nicholas Ferrar, to whom Herbert thus en- 
 trusted the fortunes of his verse, was bom in the 
 same year as Herbert and Walton, and was the 
 son of a wealthy London merchant. He took his 
 Bachelor's degree at Cambridge two years before 
 Herbert, travelled on the Continent, acquired much 
 skill in language and literature, succeeded his 
 father as Deputy Manager of the Virginia Com- 
 pany, was for a year a member of ParKament, pre- 
 ferred celibacy to a brilKant marriage, and in 1625 
 withdrew from the world, establishing himself, 
 his aged mother, his brother, his sister and her 
 eighteen children, on a large estate which he pur- 
 chased at Little Gidding, in Huntingdonshire. 
 On account of its extreme conventual regimen, 
 this place soon acquired the name of The Pro- 
 testant Nunnery. Each member of the household 
 had a fixed assignment of work and worship. 
 Religion, study, music, and handicraft filled every 
 hour of the day, and a considerable portion of the 
 night. Apart from prayer, book-binding was the 
 
THE ORDER 173 
 
 favorite occupation. Several "Concordances," or 
 Harmonies of the Gospels and of Jewish history, 
 made at Gidding and bound in sumptuous style, 
 have survived to our time. 
 
 The temper of Ferrar — at once a reKgious 
 devotee and a strong man of affairs, who sought 
 in an original fashion to establish a little Heaven 
 upon earth where he and his might dwell in peace, 
 order, and beauty — was singularly congenial to 
 Herbert. He himself, it is true, had little of Fer- 
 rar's ascetic disposition. He did not practise fasts 
 and vigils. But he admired Ferrar's devotion to 
 God and his own soul, he felt the sanity of mind 
 which Ferrar preserved through all his pious ex- 
 ercises, and he understood the business ability 
 which made that daring experimental life success- 
 ful. Like Herbert, too, Ferrar had become a 
 deacon, but still withheld himself from priest's 
 orders. During the last seven years of Herbert's 
 life, Ferrar and he were close friends, — friends 
 indeed more of heart and mind than of outward 
 intercourse. Oley says that the two " saw not each 
 other in many years, I think scarce ever, but as 
 Members of one Universitie." Walton writes that 
 "this holy friendship was long maintain'd without 
 any interview, but only by loving and endearing 
 Letters." That the friendship was quite so im- 
 palpable as these statements assert is unlikely. 
 Herbert and Ferrar had been fellow students at 
 the University, where Herbert remained when 
 
174 THE ORDER 
 
 Ferrar settled at Gidding, less than twenty miles 
 away. The year following that settlement, Her- 
 bert became a Prebendary of Leighton, about five 
 miles from Ferrar's door, and for the rebuilding 
 of its church raised among his friends a fund of 
 £2000. To this fund Ferrar was a contributor. 
 Herbert repeatedly begged Ferrar to relieve him of 
 the prebend ; but, true to his plan of retirement, 
 he refused, though he promised to oversee the 
 work of reconstruction. Herbert may never have 
 visited the church for which he labored seven years 
 and which he also remembered in his wiU. No visit 
 is recorded. But such persistent absenteeism is 
 difficult to believe, especially during the years be- 
 fore the Bemerton priesthood. Probably during the 
 Leighton period meetings did occur and the real 
 intimacy of the two men became established, 
 letters and the exchange of Uterary products keep- 
 ing the friendship warm during the isolation of 
 Bemerton. Five months before his death Her- 
 bert annotated Ferrar's translation of Valdesso's 
 Divine Considerations, and in his last illness 
 prayers for him were said at Gidding. When the 
 poems, long circulated in manuscript, finally sought 
 the press, no sponsor of more sympathetic temper, 
 or of finer or firmer judgment, could be found 
 than Nicholas Ferrar. 
 
 Ferrar acted promptly, applying at once for a 
 license. But a curious delay occurred. The official 
 censor, the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, was 
 
THE ORDER 175 
 
 unwilling to sanction these lines of The Chubch 
 Militant: 
 
 Religion stands on tip-toe in owt land 
 Readie to passe to the American strand. 
 
 Ferrar, however, refused to alter anything that 
 Herbert had written, and finally obtained the re- 
 quired Kcense. The book was issued soon after 
 Herbert's death in 1633, a few copies being 
 printed without date, and was so successful that 
 a second edition appeared in the same year. To 
 the sixth edition, that of 1641, Harvey's Synagogue 
 was unhappily added. Corruptions of the perplex- 
 ing text crept in early and continued long. It was 
 not until 1874 that critical revision of the text can 
 be said to have begun. 
 
 11 
 
 FOR fixing a text, three original sources are 
 available. First and most authoritative is 
 Ferrar's edition. I shall refer to this as the edition 
 of 1633. Wherever this gives sense, even inferior 
 sense, I follow it. Ferrar had Herbert's latest 
 manuscript, he had Kterary perception, and that 
 he had a Uterary conscience is shown by his stem 
 treatment of the censor's objections. The book is 
 a piece of careful printing. Departure from its text 
 requires large justification. 
 
 But there is a second authoritative source, so 
 
176 THE ORDER 
 
 tending to corroborate the first as to be almost one 
 with it. In the Bodleian Library at Oxford is a 
 manuscript (Tanner Manuscript, 307) which was 
 apparently at one time in the possession of Arch- 
 bishop Bancroft (1617-1693). On the title-page is 
 written in his hand, " The Original of Mr. George 
 Herbert's Temple, as it was at first Kcenced for 
 the presse. W. Sancroft." The title-page bears 
 also the signature of B. Lany, the Vice-Chancellor, 
 and of four other persons, presumably the judges 
 to whom the book was submitted. That it is the 
 "Kttle Book" brought by Ferrar's messenger has 
 been thought improbable both on account of its 
 folio size and because it is too clean to have passed 
 through the printer's hands. But I cannot count 
 these objections formidable. Just how clean 
 printers' hands at that time were, we do not know; 
 and a pretty adjective used by so picturesque a 
 writer as Walton is not a matter to pin one's faith 
 to. The word "Uttle" may well have been used 
 to indicate the small number of poems which the 
 book contained, only one hundred and sixty-nine. 
 It may have been equivalent to "brief," and have 
 had no reference to the size of the volume's sheets. 
 The five signatures make it almost certain that 
 this is the copy submitted for Kcense; and if so, it 
 is probably the copy used for printing. For it is 
 unlikely that a censor so careful as Vice-Chancellor 
 Lany showed himself to be would allow a book to 
 be printed which might differ from the one he had 
 
THE ORDER 177 
 
 licensed. The character of the manuscript, too, 
 favors the supposition that this copy was prepared 
 for the printer. It is not in Herbert's handwriting, 
 but has been drawn up by a good copyist, who uses 
 throughout an ink generally black and clear. In 
 yellowish ink many small changes have been made, 
 chiefly of punctuation, spelling, capitals, and the 
 numbering of the stanzas in The Chuech-Poech. 
 This last revision looks as if it were made for the 
 printer, and by some one else than the original 
 writer. But whether this is the very manuscript 
 sent by Herbert to Ferrar or not, the differences 
 between it and Ferrar's edition are so few that its 
 influence in determining a true text is chiefly col- 
 lateral and confirmatory. In the notes I refer to it 
 as B, or the Bodleian Manuscript, and give all its 
 variations of reading. 
 
 Until recently these two, the edition of 1633 and 
 the Bodleian Manuscript, have been our sole means 
 of knowing what Herbert vrrote. That untiring, if 
 often whimsical, explorer of the poetry of Elizabeth 
 and James, Dr. Grosart, has added a third. In 
 1874, when preparing an edition of Herbert for the 
 Fuller Worthies' Library, he drew from its hiding- 
 place in the Williams Library, Gordon Square, 
 London, a manuscript which up to that time had 
 remained unused (Jones Manuscript, B, 62). Lit- 
 tle is known about it now. The fly-leaf bears the 
 inscription " Don : Jni. Jones Cler. e museo V. CI. 
 D. H. M. Verrantodum, qui ob. 1730," which has 
 
178 THE ORDER 
 
 been translated, "A gift to John Jones, Clerk, from 
 the library of the celebrated Dr. H. Mapletoft, 
 Huntingdon, who died 1730." On the next leaf, 
 in the same hand, presumably that of Mr. Jones, 
 is written, "This book came originally from the 
 family of Little Gidding and was probably bound 
 there. Q. Whether this be not the Ms. copy that 
 was sent by Mr. Herbert a little before his death to 
 Mr. Nic. Ferrar ? See Mr. Herbert's Life." Who, 
 then, is John Jones, and who is H. M. ? 
 
 Rev. John Jones (1700-1770) was an Oxford 
 graduate, who was for a time Vicar of Alconbury, 
 near Huntingdon, and died as Vicar of Sheephall, 
 Herts. At his death his papers came into the 
 possession of Dr. Thomas Dawson, a dissenting 
 minister, and they are now in the WilKams Library. 
 The only reason I can discover for supposing that 
 H. M. stands for Henry Mapletoft is that the name 
 occurs again in manuscript 87 of the Jones papers. 
 Another Mapletoft, Dr. John (1631-1721), was a 
 son of Susanna Collet, Nicholas Ferrar's niece. 
 He was Ferrar's godson, brought up at Little 
 Gidding, became an eminent Professor of Physic 
 at Gresham College, and later a clergyman of wide 
 influence. Neither of his two sons was named 
 Henry, nor have I been able to learn how the 
 H. M. of the manuscript was related to him. But 
 whether its former owner was or was not a kins- 
 man of Ferrar, at least so much is clear : John 
 Jones derived the manuscript from some library 
 
THE ORDER 179 
 
 in Huntingdonshire to which he supposed it came 
 from the neighboring Little Gidding. Probably, 
 therefore, it was at one time in the possession of 
 Nicholas Ferrar. 
 
 This cannot, however, be the manuscript ob- 
 tained by Ferrar from Herbert just before the lat- 
 ter's death. While its size, duodecimo, accords well 
 with Walton's description, it contains but seventy- 
 three of the one hundred and sijrty-nine poems of 
 the Bodleian. It has also many poems which are 
 found neither in the Bodleian Manuscript nor in 
 the edition of 1633, viz., six English poems, and 
 two series of Latin poems, entitled Passio Dis- 
 CERPTA and LxJCTJS. Preceding the Latin poems is 
 the pencil note, "The following supposed to be 
 Mr. Herbert's own writing. ■ See the Records in the 
 custody of the University Orator at Cambridge." 
 That the writing is Herbert's is unquestionable. 
 The EngHsh poems are written by a different hand, 
 though the hand which has corrected them is the 
 same as that of the Latin poems. 
 
 The departures of this manuscript from the re- 
 ceived text are great and numerous. Few poems 
 are without them. In The Church-Porch ninety- 
 four of the four hundred and sixty-two lines vary 
 from the received text. This mass of fresh mate- 
 rial Dr. Grosart treats as no less worthy of respect 
 than the traditional readings, and he has formed 
 the text of his two editions from this manuscript 
 or from the edition of 1633, according as his poetic 
 
180 THE ORDER 
 
 taste approves the one or the other. I do not ven- 
 ture so far. In my notes I have recorded all the 
 WilUams and Bodleian readings, indicating the 
 former by the letter W, the latter by the letter B; 
 but I have held to Ferrar's text, retaining even its 
 spelUng and capitals, and changing only its punc- 
 tuation. 
 
 I agree, however, with those who count the 
 WilUams Manuscript of capital consequence in 
 Herbert scholarship, and dissent from them merely 
 in my judgment of where that consequence lies. 
 They find it in the poetic worth of the readings, 
 I in their indications of date. Neither they nor I 
 have any doubt of its genuineness, or that it repre- 
 sents a state of the poems earlier than the Bod- 
 leian. It was a common practice with the poets 
 of those days to circulate their verses in manuscript, 
 and one which had many advantages. It allowed 
 continual alteration till death fell on the unsatis- 
 fied poet and stopped further improvement. Few 
 of Donne's poems were published during his Ufe; 
 none of Sidney's Sonnets to Stella. Shakespeare's 
 Sonnets were long circulated in manuscript before 
 being surreptitiously printed. Undoubtedly it is 
 to this custom of private circulation that the 
 Williams volume owes its existence. It is a manu- 
 script lent early in its writer's life to a friend, 
 probably to Mr. Ferrar, containing most of Her- 
 bert's verse which was written at the time of its 
 lending. But its poems were still undergoing con- 
 
THE ORDER 181 
 
 struction, and the process did not cease with the 
 departure of this particular copy from its author's 
 hands. Its hues were subsequently filed. Stanzas 
 appear in it which in the Bodleian Manuscript 
 were thought superfluous. Conceits and dubious 
 constructions are permitted here more frequently 
 than afterward. Let any one read the beautiful 
 Even-Song of the Bodleian, and then the awkward 
 verses in the Williams Manuscript which it sup- 
 planted; let him read the double version of the 
 opening of The Chubch-Pobch, of the Elixer, 
 or of Sunday; the closing verses of Jordan, of 
 Charms and Knots, or of WniTstrNDAY; and 
 he will be convinced that it is the Bodleian and 
 not the Williams Manuscript which represents 
 the maturer taste of its writer. That is certainly the 
 impression given by these longer variations. But 
 the general inferiority of the Williams readings 
 becomes increasingly evident when we test them 
 in a connected group of brief examples. Such a 
 group I draw from The Church-Porch. In each 
 case I give the Williams reading first and then the 
 Bodleian : 
 
 2. The price of thee, and mark thee for a treasure. 
 Thy rate and price, and mark thee for a treasure. 
 
 57. Lust and wine plead a pleasure, cheating gaine. 
 Lust and wine plead a pleasure, avarice gain. 
 
 91. O England ! full of all sinn, most of sloth. 
 O England ! full of sinne, hut mast of sloth. 
 
182 THE ORDEE 
 
 200. Learn this, it hath old gamesters dearly cost. 
 Learn this, that hath old gamesters deerely cost. 
 
 265. When hose men are exalted, do not baie. 
 When basenesse is exalted, do not bate. 
 
 317. Truth dwels not in the clouds ; that bow doth hitt 
 No more than passion when she talks of it. 
 Truth dwels not in the clouds ; the bow that 's there 
 Doth often aim at, never hit the sphere. 
 
 326. Need and bee glad and wish thy presence still. 
 Both want and wish thy pleasing presence still. 
 
 347. Who say, I care not, those I give for gone ; 
 They dye in holes where glory never shone. 
 Who say, I care not, those I give for lost ; 
 And to instruct them, 't will not quit the cost. 
 
 Nobody can fail to see that between the first and 
 second of each of these pairs, time and a smoothing 
 artist have intervened. The very deKcacy of some 
 of the changes, and of many more which limited 
 space forbids me to quote, shows that the critic has 
 been at work, contriving means to ease the reader's 
 attention, while at the same time filHng the line 
 with ampler and more precise significance. 
 
 I, accordingly, altogether reject the readings of 
 the WilUams Manuscript, and conform my text 
 entirely to that of the edition of 1633. The Wil- 
 liams Manuscript, I believe, represents a state of 
 Herbert's poetry which had been outgrown. To 
 adopt its text is to set up our judgment against that 
 
THE ORDER 183 
 
 of its author. But though discarding its readings, 
 I still count it of capital importance in Herbert 
 criticism. Poetically superseded, it is nothing less 
 than epoch-making chronologically; for if we can 
 prove that the Williams Manuscript was written 
 before the Bodleian, we may find in it a means 
 of sorting the poetry of Herbert and of distinguish- 
 ing an earlier and a later portion. Let me, then, 
 estabKsh this all-important fact through three con- 
 verging lines of evidence. 
 
 Ill 
 
 AN obvious indication of early date is found in 
 the fewness of the Williams poems and the 
 position these few occupy in the edition of 1633. 
 If all Herbert's poems were in existence when the 
 Williams Manuscript was written, it is strange such 
 a selection was made, copied, and elaborately cor- 
 rected. The selection was certainly not made on 
 grounds of the excellence of the poems included, 
 nor because of any unity in their topic. They have 
 no more inner connection than the same number 
 taken accidentally from any other part of the book. 
 And while there are a dozen of them which rank 
 high among Herbert's poems, the majority are of 
 an average sort, poems more marked by Herbert's 
 peculiarities than by the traits which commend 
 him to all time. If we may assume that the man- 
 uscript includes the bulk of what had then been 
 
184 THE ORDER 
 
 written, all is clear. In that case also we could 
 understand why these poems, being early, stand 
 early in the arrangement of the Bodleian. In that 
 manuscript, and in the edition of 1633, no Wil- 
 liams poem appears between the seventy-ninth and 
 the one hundred and fifty-sixth place. Though 
 among the seven which in the traditional order are 
 usually printed after the one hundred and fifty- 
 sixth, six are from the Williams Manuscript, the 
 position of these final poems is evidently due to 
 their general subject, — Death and the Last Judg- 
 ment. It is true that out of the first seventy-nine, 
 eighteen are not Williams "poems. But many of 
 these, e. g. The Agonie, Sepuixjhee, Antiphon, 
 The Windows, probably owe their places to their 
 congruity with neighboring poems. It should be 
 remembered, too, that in asserting, as I believe we 
 must, that all the poems of the Williams Manu- 
 script are early, we do not necessarily say that every 
 one found elsewhere is late. Single poems may 
 have existed at the time this manuscript was lent 
 which did not happen to be copied into it. 
 
 But the early date of the Williams Manuscript 
 is still more plainly shown by the character of its 
 readings. To these I have already called atten- 
 tion. Their very inferiority is what gives the 
 manuscript worth, for it justifies us in using it as 
 a document for dating. Strangely enough, this has 
 not been generally perceived. The readings have 
 been treated as weighty, though the manuscript is 
 
THE ORDER 185 
 
 counted early. But the two things are incompat- 
 ible, unless indeed Herbert was a bad critic. There 
 is no evidence that he was. Accordingly, when of 
 two manuscripts one shows on almost every page 
 duller or more wayward readings, we may fairly 
 conclude that it belongs to its writer's earlier years. 
 That the Williams readings are prevailingly duller, 
 I have already proved in the case of The Chubch- 
 PoKCH. Let any one examine the shorter poems as 
 they stand in the printed text and as they appear 
 in the Williams version, given in my appendix, 
 and they will lead him to the same conclusion. We 
 have before us in the one case a finished result, in 
 the other, a prehminary draft. 
 
 A third sort of evidence, even more important 
 for fixing the early date of the Wilhams Manu- 
 script, is found in a hitherto unobserved fact of 
 its subject-matter. In 1630 Herbert became a 
 priest. Now no Williams poem contains any hint 
 that its author is a priest. Many distinctly state 
 that he is not. A large part of the non- Williams 
 poems deal with the joys and perplexities of the 
 priesthood. It is impossible, then, that the Wil- 
 liams Manuscript can have been written at Bemer- 
 ton. And this peculiarity of its contents, coinciding, 
 as it does, with the character of its readings and 
 the position which the much-corrected Williams 
 poems occupy in the Bodleian Manuscript, assures 
 us that Herbert wrote poetry long before he went 
 to Bemerton. It has sometimes been carelessly 
 
186 THE ORDER 
 
 asserted that the seclusion of his last three years 
 made him a poet. But Bacon knew him to be a 
 notable religious poet eight years before his death. 
 The Williams Manuscript proves that when Her- 
 bert went into retirement, he took with him nearly 
 half his poetic work. At this time, he had both 
 written and elaborately altered a large body of 
 verse which he was still farther to perfect in the 
 Bemerton parsonage. I often, he says in Jokdan, 
 blotted what I had begunne. Herbert must here- 
 after stand forth not as a sudden rhapsodist, but 
 as an intentional, long-continued, and ever-revising 
 workman. 
 
 How much earlier than 1630, the year when 
 Herbert took priest's orders, the Williams Manu- 
 script was written, is uncertain. In the great 
 Affliction, When first thou didst eniice to thee 
 my heart, the laments on the death of friends, and 
 on Herbert's severe illness and mental perplexity, 
 indicate that this poem was written in the Crisis 
 years between 1627 and 1629. With this period 
 Walton also connects it. Several other Williams 
 poems contain hints, that they were bom in the 
 same time of disappointment and struggle. But 
 most of those which refer to this period (and it 
 was one likely to leave its mark on whatever was 
 produced in it) are found among the non-Williams 
 poems; for example, The Priesthood, in which 
 he is still hesitating about taking orders. A deci- 
 sion, however, appears to be reached in The 
 
THE ORDER 187 
 
 Peael and Obedience, both included in the early 
 manuscript. Most probably, then, the WiUiams 
 Manuscript was drawn up about 1629, but not all 
 the poems written during this and the preced- 
 ing year were copied into it. Since the history of 
 the manuscript connects it with Little Gidding, 
 my own conjecture is that these poems were lent 
 to Ferrar after he and Herbert became intimate 
 through the building of Leighton Church. This 
 would also justify Ferrar's prompt publication of 
 the final work. Many of the poems he already 
 knew, and he had no need of taking time to deter- 
 mine their worth. 
 
 IV 
 
 ASSUMING, then, that through the Williams 
 Manuscript we know that as early as 1628-29 
 nearly half of Herbert's work was in existence, we 
 are able to rearrange the poems and give them an 
 order more advantageous for study and enjoyment. 
 In justification of the traditional order no grounds 
 are known. Ferrar found it in the Bodleian Manu- 
 script, and followed it in his own printing. The 
 Williams Manuscript does not preserve it. The 
 poems do not require it. Probably it was originally 
 accidental. Occasionally, little groups of poems 
 may give indication of a natural tie, the later mem- 
 bers of a group being possibly drawn after the 
 earlier by some inner similarity, some dependence 
 
188 THE ORDER 
 
 of subject, or some expansion of a phrase once 
 used. But such connection is rare and uncertain. 
 After the first start, the poems were apparently 
 jotted down without plan. In the traditional order 
 there is, therefore, nothing sacred, probably no- 
 thing expressive of Herbert's mind or wish, 
 nothing to forbid whatever new arrangement is 
 more luminous. The most instructive order for all 
 poetry, it is agreed, is the chronological. Though 
 the evidence in Herbert's case, whether drawn 
 from the Williams Manuscript or from the style 
 and statements of the poems themselves, is too 
 slender to establish a thoroughgoing chronological 
 sequence, I beHeve it is ample for distinguishing 
 three great Divisions of poems corresponding to 
 the three periods of Herbert's life marked out in 
 my first Essay. We shall accordingly have poems 
 of the Cambridge period, extending from the be- 
 ginning of his writing through his Oratorship to 
 1627; of the Crisis period, from that date through 
 the years of stress and strain to the time of his 
 taking orders in 1630; and poems of the Bemerton 
 period, when as a priest he served his little parish 
 from 1630 until his death. In the first of these 
 three Divisions will be included the great majority 
 of the Williams poems ; in the second, such Williams 
 and non- Williams poems as contain a reference to 
 Herbert's uncertainty about his coming career; in 
 the third, the majority of the non- Williams poems. 
 Knowing that much which was written at an early 
 
THE ORDER 189 
 
 date might first appear in a late manuscript, I 
 have sometimes been tempted on grounds of style 
 to refer a non- Williams poem to the Cambridge 
 Division. On the whole, I have considered that 
 placing it there is too hazardous an exercise of 
 conjecture, and I have finally allowed no poem 
 to enter this Division which is not contained in 
 the Williams Manuscript. Thinking it well, too, to 
 give the reader some defence against my meddUng 
 hand, I print an index of titles arranged accord- 
 ing to the traditional scheme. 
 
 So much chronological sorting into three broad 
 Divisions, the use of the Williams Manuscript 
 seems to me to render possible. Within the Kmits 
 of the Bemerton Division, and to a less extent else- 
 where, further time-indications may be found. But 
 these are too few and of too uncertain a nature 
 to permit a conservative critic to venture on a 
 full chronological arrangement. Within the great 
 Divisions I have preferred a topical order, which 
 may still throw light on the processes of Herbert's 
 mind, and illuminate the poems by what is known 
 of their writer through other sources. All the poems 
 of the Crisis period are naturally placed together. 
 Within each of the other two Divisions I have 
 drawn up five subordinate sections or Groups, and 
 furnished them with suitable explanatory Prefaces, 
 In the first Division, covering the Cambridge years, 
 the sententious morality of The Chuech-Pokch 
 naturally stands first, for Herbert apparently de- 
 
190 THE ORDER 
 
 signed it as an introduction to his whole poetic 
 work; next we see Herbert planning to become a re- 
 ligious poet; those ecclesiastical poems follow which, 
 with httle personal reference, celebrate the feasts 
 and institutions of the Church ; in a fourth Group are 
 gathered those profound meditations on abstract 
 themes to which the Cambridge period gave rise; 
 while in a fifth are placed those highly character- 
 istic poems in which the vicissitudes of human and 
 divine love are traced with all the passionate deU- 
 cacy which marked the secular love-poetry of the 
 time. The second Division, written during Her- 
 bert's unsettled years, includes all the poems of the 
 Crisis time, at the close of which Herbert brought 
 himself to accept orders. It forms, therefore, but 
 a single Group, the sixth. In the third Division 
 fall the five Groups, VII-XI, which were written at 
 Bemerton, the first showing his gladness in know- 
 ing himself at last a priest; the second giving those 
 reflective poems which were slowly compacted 
 there, as similar ones had been at Cambridge; 
 then doubts arise whether little Bemerton affords 
 sufficient scope for his powers; doubts which are 
 deepened, perhaps caused by, the feehngs of grief 
 and bodily pain which occupy the next Group ; the 
 whole Division being concluded by a set of poems 
 in which he calmly surveys his approaching death. 
 I beUeve that such a classification according to the 
 subject-matter of the poems, a classification which 
 is also largely chronological, will be found more 
 
THE ORDER 191 
 
 generally convenient than the ancient arbitrary 
 order; and I even hope that it may render the con- 
 secutive reading of Herbert instructively evolution- 
 ary and agreeable. Probably, however, those who 
 are approaching The Temple for the first time 
 will be wise to begin their reading with the sixth 
 or even the seventh Group; the poems of the last 
 six Groups being much more plainly marked with 
 Herbert's personality than are those of the first 
 five. 
 
THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THIS piece first appeared in 1652, in a volume 
 entitled Herbert's Remains, or StrNDRT 
 Pieces of that Sweet Singer of The Temple, 
 Mr. George Herbert. With it were printed the 
 Jacula Prudentttm (already published in 1640, 
 and here dated 1651), Herbert's two Praters, his 
 Letter to Febrar (already published in 1638 
 with Ferrar's Translation of Valdesso), two Latin 
 poems addressed to Bacon and one to Donne, 
 and an Addition of Apothegmes by Severall 
 AuTHOURS. The volume contained also A Pre- 
 fatory View of the Life and Virtues of the Authour 
 and the Excellencies of this Book, by Rev. Bar- 
 nabas Oley. Oley (1602-1686) was for a time 
 President of Clare HaU, Cambridge, was ejected 
 from his Cambridge Fellowship by the Parliament, 
 for over fifty years was Vicar of Great Gransden, 
 Huntingdonshire, and Prebendary of Worcester 
 Cathedral for twenty-five. He was an ardent 
 Royalist, an extreme High Churchman, a friend of 
 Nicholas Ferrar, and a rambUng, heated, naively 
 attractive writer. Li 1671 he published the first 
 separate edition of The Countrt Parson, with 
 a new Preface. 
 
196 PREFACE TO 
 
 In both editions the book has a double title: A 
 Priest to the Temple: or The Cotjntrt Par- 
 son, His Character and Rule of Holt Life. 
 But only the second of these titles has been gener- 
 ally used, the first being tacitly dropped. Walton 
 approves the usual title thus in 1670 : " That 
 Mr. Herbert might the better preserve those holy 
 rules which such a priest as he intended to be ought 
 to observe; and that time might not insensibly 
 blot them out of his memory, but that the next 
 year might show him his variations from this 
 year's resolutions; he therefore did set down his 
 rules then resolved upon in that order as the world 
 now sees them printed in a Uttle Book call'd The 
 Country Parson ... a Book so full of plain, 
 prudent, and useful Rules that that Country Par- 
 son that can spare 12 d. and yet wants it is scarce 
 excusable." Herbert himself seems to sanction 
 this second name, and to be ignorant of any other. 
 He opens thirty-four of the thirty-seven chapters 
 with the words The Country Parson, printed in 
 capitals. And though throughout the book he 
 uses the word priest as freely as he does pastor or 
 minister, it nowhere has the prominence of The 
 Courdry Parson. I suspect, therefore, the title A 
 Priest to the Temple is a happy invention of Oley's, 
 When he edited the book, six editions of The 
 Temple were already in circulation. Apparently 
 hoping that the popularity of the poems might 
 help to float the prose, he emphasized the relation- 
 
THE COUNTRY PAESON 197 
 
 ship. Walton, however, and most modem writers 
 have preferred the more exact designation. 
 
 That Herbert intended publication is evident 
 from his words in The Authour to the Reader, 
 dated 1632. Why the book remained so long un- 
 published is unknown. One might suppose the 
 delay due to a belief that so vivid a picture of a 
 punctiHous priest would be unwelcome and unsal- 
 able at a season of Puritan domination. But the 
 time of its unopposed and successful issue was the 
 culmination of the Puritan triumph, three years 
 after the execution of the King, and a year before 
 Cromwell became Protector. Oley's long first 
 Preface, devoted more to abuse of Puritanism than 
 to description of Herbert, seems to have aroused 
 no hostiKty. The causes of delay must, therefore, 
 have been of a private nature. 
 
 There are two hardly reconcilable accounts of 
 the history of the manuscript. Walton writes in 
 
 1670, "At the death of Mr. Herbert this Book fell 
 into the hands of his friend, Mr. Woodnot; and he 
 commended it into the trusty hands of Mr. Barna- 
 bas Oley, who publisht it." But in his Preface of 
 
 1671, Oley states that it is his design "to do a Piece 
 of Right, an office of Justice to the Good man that 
 was possessor of the Manuscript of this Book and 
 transmitted it freely to the Stationer who first 
 printed it. He was Mr. Edmund Duncon, Rector 
 of Fryarn-Bamet." If we accept this account of 
 Oley's, it would seem that the volume of Herbert's 
 
198 PREFACE TO 
 
 Remains was edited by Duncon, and that Oley's 
 work was confined to preparing the Preface. 
 
 The book has throughout a certain double aim. 
 Like Herbert's poetry, The Country Parson is 
 primarily a study of his own conditions. It is 
 written to ease and clarify his own mind and to 
 regulate his future conduct. But in these condi- 
 tions of his own he also perceives universal types, 
 and so is led, in almost scientific fashion, to codify 
 his experience for public use. I have already re- 
 marked the low estimate which in Herbert's time 
 was put upon the ministry of the Church of Eng- 
 land, especially on the country ministry. Herbert, 
 having disappointedly accepted this, will make 
 the utmost of it, developing aU its capacities, and 
 showing how it may become a field fit for intelli- 
 gent, energetic, stately, and holy living. As usual, 
 he looks at it with his own eyes, and treats it as 
 a field hitherto unexplored. He regards himself 
 as laying the foundations of a novel science, and 
 hopes that those who come after him may add to 
 those points which I have observed untill the Booh 
 grow to a compleat Pastorall. Every feature of the 
 country minister's Hfe is accordingly studied. 
 Nothing is counted trivial. Each slightest habit 
 may help or hinder the Parson's aim of reducing 
 Man to the Obedience of God. The humorous under- 
 standing of the stolid countryman here displayed; 
 the keenness and range of vision in detecting 
 modes of access to him ; the interest, zeal, and 
 
THE COUNTRY PABSON 199 
 
 sense of dignity employed in his pursuit; the 
 poetic beauty of the quotations of Scripture; the 
 readiness to cany principles into homely detail; 
 and the ability to sketch the outlines of an entire 
 life from a single point of view, give the book a 
 unique power and adaptability. It is doubtful if 
 the same number of pages in any modern volume 
 will bring to the country minister of to-day an 
 equal amount of ennobling good sense. Changes 
 in belief, in social usage, in civihzation itseK have 
 not antiquated this ardent, candid, original, and 
 solid little treatise. 
 
 Such a work, however (as indeed the words 
 just quoted from Herbert's Preface imply), is at 
 no time complete. It cannot, therefore, possess 
 shapely structure. Herbert is not attempting here 
 to fashion a rounded work of art. Like Bacon, he 
 is gathering observations. Whatever new aspects 
 of the Parson's business present themselves are 
 successively added, and such additions may go on 
 indefinitely. The book is, therefore, without clear 
 plan. Its scheme was not fixed beforehand. Prob- 
 ably, Hke most of Herbert's writings, it was still 
 growing when death supplied it with an end. Yet 
 it is far from chaotic. After discriminating the 
 work of the Country Parson from that of other 
 pastors, Herbert takes up the conditions of success 
 in the Parson's own nature, then his duties in re- 
 lation to the Church services, to the people of his 
 parish, to men in general, and finally considers 
 
200 PREFACE TO 
 
 cases of conduct where, though there is no clear 
 duty, tactful and devout treatment will yield re- 
 sults which would be missed by carelessness. In 
 Oley's editions the table of contents is printed 
 so as to divide the chapters into related groups of 
 three or four each. This method of printing I 
 preserve, though I regard the suggested divisions 
 as too minute and without precise boundaries. 
 
 Every reader of The CoimTKY Parson must 
 be struck with the contrast between its neat style 
 and the intricacy of the poems. This book is 
 drawn up for a business purpose; accordingly it 
 is written plainly, instructively, and in a thoroughly 
 manly fashion. Here are no affectations. Few 
 sentences occur whose full meaning will not be 
 gained at a glance, few where any fehcity of phrase 
 diverts attention from the matter. Often there is 
 skill in bringing out deKcacies of thought, but the 
 long linked sentences run swift and straight, and 
 are guided rather by the reader's needs than by 
 the writer's emotions. In this plainness and in- 
 sistent rationaUty there is charm. A reader does 
 not begin one of these pithy chapters without con- 
 tinuing to the end. 
 
 A piece of writing so lucid has small need of 
 comment. Mine hardly extends beyond marking 
 changes in the meaning of words. Like Herbert 
 himself, I wish to withdraw attention from the 
 form and fix it upon the substance. Parallel pas- 
 sages in the poetry I do not cite. They are noted 
 
THE COUNTRY PARSON 201 
 
 in my commentary on the poems. Only when a 
 whole poem deals with a subject discussed here, 
 have I referred to it. 
 
 Other annotators of The CotrNTKT Parson 
 are R. A. Willmott in his single volume of Her- 
 bert's works, published by Routledge; A. B. Gro- 
 sart in his three quarto volumes in the Fuller 
 Worthies' Library; and H. C. Beeching in his 
 excellent edition of The Country Parson, pub- 
 lished by T. Fisher Unwin. From their notes I 
 have brought over whatever I judged helpful. 
 
Title-Page of THE COUNTRY PARaoN, 
 
A PRIEST 
 
 - To the 
 
 TEMPLE 
 
 OR, 
 
 TheCountrey Parson 
 
 CHARACTER, 
 
 AND 
 
 Rule of Holy Life. 
 
 The AuTHOUSj 
 
 Mg.H. 
 
 
 LONDON, 
 
 I Printed by 7". Muxtji for T. Garthw^it, at the 
 liiile North door of S' PiJ«rx. i6ji. 
 
THE AUTHOUR TO THE READER 
 
 BEING desirous (thorow the Mercy of God) 
 to please Him for whom I am and live, and 
 who giveth mee my Desires and Performances, 
 and considering with my self That the way to 
 please him is to feed my Flocke dihgently and 
 faithfully, since our Saviour hath made that the 
 argument of a Pastour's love, I have resolved to 
 set down the Form and Character of a true Pas- 
 tour, that I may have a Mark to aim at; which 
 also I will set as high as I can, since hee shoots 
 higher that threatens the Moon then hee that aims 
 at a Tree. Not that I think, if a man do not all 
 which is here expressed, hee presently sinns and 
 displeases God, but that it is a good strife to go as 
 f arre as wee can in pleasing of him who hath done 
 so much for us. The Lord prosper the intention 
 to my selfe, and others who may not despise my 
 poor labours, but add to those points which I 
 have observed untill the Book grow to a compleat 
 
 Pastorall. 
 
 Geo. Herbert. 
 1632. 
 
A TABLE OF CONTENTS TO THE 
 COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 Chap. 
 
 1. 
 
 Of a Pastour ... 
 
 - p. 209, 
 
 2. 
 
 Their Diversities 
 
 - p. 211. 
 
 3. 
 
 The Parson's life ... 
 
 - p. 213. 
 
 4. 
 
 Knowledges ... 
 
 - p. 215. 
 
 5. 
 
 Accessary Knowledges 
 
 - p. 218. 
 
 6. 
 
 The Parson Praying 
 
 - p. 220. 
 
 7. 
 
 Premhing - - - - 
 
 - p. 223. 
 
 8. 
 
 On Sundays . . - 
 
 - p. 228. 
 
 9. 
 
 His State of Ufe 
 
 - p. 231. 
 
 10. 
 
 In his house ... 
 
 - p. 236. 
 
 11. 
 
 The Parson's Courtesie - 
 
 - p. 242. 
 
 12. 
 
 Chanty .... 
 
 - p. 244. 
 
 13. 
 
 Church - - - . 
 
 - p. 247. 
 
 14. 
 
 The Parson in Circuit - 
 
 - p. 249. 
 
 15. 
 
 Comforting ... 
 
 - p. 253. 
 
 16. 
 
 A father . . . - 
 
 - p. 255. 
 
 17. 
 
 In Journey ... 
 
 - p. 256. 
 
 18. 
 
 In Sentinell ... 
 
 - p. 258. 
 
 19. 
 
 In Reference ... 
 
 - p.260. 
 
 20. 
 
 In God's stead - - - 
 
 - p. 263. 
 
 21. 
 
 Catechizing ... 
 
 - p. 265. 
 
 22. 
 
 In Sacraments ... 
 
 - p. 270. 
 
 23. 
 
 The Parson's Compleatnesse - 
 
 - p. 274. 
 
 24. 
 
 The Parson Arguing 
 
 - p. 279. 
 
208 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 Chap. 25. Punishing 
 
 - 
 
 - p. 281. 
 
 26. The Parson's Eye - 
 
 - 
 
 - p. 282. 
 
 27. The Parson in mirth 
 
 • 
 
 - p. 288. 
 
 28. In eoniempt 
 
 - 
 
 - p. 289. 
 
 29. With his Church-wardens 
 
 - 
 
 - p. 292. 
 
 30. The Parson's Consid&rcUion 
 
 of 
 
 Provi- 
 
 derux . - - 
 
 - 
 
 - p. 294. 
 
 31. The Parson in Liberty - 
 
 - 
 
 - p. 297. 
 
 32. His Surveys 
 
 - 
 
 - p. 300. 
 
 33. His lAbrary 
 
 - 
 
 - p. 307. 
 
 34. His Dexterity in applying 
 
 Heme- 
 
 dies ... 
 
 - 
 
 - p. 310. 
 
 35. Condescending - 
 
 - 
 
 - p. 316. 
 
 36. Blessing - - - 
 
 - 
 
 - p. 318. 
 
 37. Concerning detraction 
 
 - 
 
 - p. 321. 
 
 The Author's Prayer Before i 
 
 Sermon p. 325. 
 
 Prayer After Sermon - 
 
 > 
 
 - p. 328, 
 
A PRIEST TO THE TEMPLE : OR, 
 THE COUNTREY PARSON, HIS 
 CHARACTER, &c. 
 
 Chapter I 
 Of a Pastor 
 
 A PASTOR is the Deputy of Christ for the 
 reducing of Man to the Obedience of God. 
 This definition is evident, and containes the direct 
 steps of Pastorall Duty and Auctority. For first, 
 Man fell from God by disobedience. Secondly, 
 Christ is the glorious instrument of God for the 
 revoking' of Man. Thirdly, Christ being not to 
 continue on earth, but after hee had fulfilled the 
 work of ReconciKation to be received up into 
 heaven, he constituted Deputies in his place, and 
 these are Priests. And therefore St. Paul in the 
 beginning of his Epistles professeth this, and 
 in the first to the Colossians^ plainly avoucheth 
 that he fils up that which is behinde of the afflic- 
 tions of Christ in his flesh for his Bodie's sake, 
 which is the Church. Wherein is contained the 
 complete definition of a Minister. Out of this 
 Chartre of the Priesthood may be plainly gathered 
 both the Dignity' thereof and the Duty: The 
 
210 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 Dignity, in that a Priest may do that which Christ 
 did, and by his auctority and as his Vicegerent. 
 The Duty, in that a Priest is to do that which 
 Christ did and after his manner, both for Doctrine 
 and Life. 
 
Chapter II 
 Their Diversities 
 
 OF Pastors (intending mine own Nation only, 
 and also therein setting aside the Reverend 
 Prelates of the Church, to whom this discourse 
 ariseth not) some live in the Universities, some in 
 Noble houses, some in Parishes residing on their 
 Cures. Of those that live in the Universities, some 
 live there in office, whose rule is that of the Apos- 
 tle: Rom. 12. 6. Having gifts differing according 
 to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, 
 let lis prophecy according to the proportion of faith; 
 or ministry, let us wait on our ministring ; or he 
 that teacheth, on teaching, &c. he that ruleth, let 
 him do it with diligence, &c. Some in a prepara- 
 tory way, whose aim and labour must be not only 
 to get knowledg, but to subdue and mortifie all 
 lusts and affections ; and not to think that when 
 they have read the Fathers or Schoolmen, a Min- 
 ister is made and the thing done. The greatest 
 and hardest preparation is within. For, Unto the 
 ungodly, saith God, Why dost thou preach my Laws, 
 and takest my Covenant in thy mxmth ? Psal. 50. 16. 
 Those that live in Noble Houses are called Chap- 
 lains, whose duty and obligation being the same 
 
212 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 to the Houses they Kve in as a Parson's to his 
 Parish, in describing the one (which is indeed the 
 bent of my Discourse) the other will be manifest. 
 Let not Chaplains think themselves so free as 
 many of them do, and because they have diflferent 
 Names think their OflSce different. Doubtlesse 
 they are Parsons of the families they Kve in and 
 are entertained to that end, either by an open or 
 impKcite Covenant. Before they are in Orders, 
 they may be received for Companions or dis- 
 coursers; but after a man is once Minister, he 
 cannot agree to come into any house where he 
 shall not exercise what he is, unlesse he forsake his 
 plough and look back. Wherfore they are not 
 to be over-submissive and base, but to keep up 
 with ' the Lord and Lady of the house, and to pre- 
 serve a boldness with them and all, even so farre 
 as reproof e to their very face when occasion cals, 
 but seasonably and discreetly. They who do not 
 thus, while they remember their earthly Lord, 
 do much forget their heavenly ; they wrong the 
 Priesthood, neglect their duty, and shall be so 
 farre from that which they seek with their over- 
 submissivenesse and cringings that they shall ever 
 be despised. They who for the hope of promotion 
 neglect any necessary admonition or reproofe, 
 sell (with Judas) their Lord and Master. 
 
Chapter III 
 The Parson's Life 
 
 THE Countrey Parson is exceeding exact in 
 his Life, being holy, just, prudent, temperate, 
 bold, grave in all his wayes. And because the two 
 highest points of Life, wherein a Christian is most 
 seen, are Patience and Mortification : Patience 
 in regard of affictions. Mortification in regard of 
 lusts and affections, and the stupifying and dead- 
 ing of all the clamarous powers of the soul, there- 
 fore he hath throughly studied these, that he may 
 be an absolute Master and commander of himself 
 for all the purposes which God hath ordained 
 him. Yet in these points he labours most in those 
 things which are most apt to scandaKze his Parish. 
 And first, because Countrey people Kve hardly, 
 and therefore as feehng their own sweat, and con- 
 sequently knowing the price of mony, are offended 
 much with any who by hard usage increase their 
 travell,* the Countrey Parson is very circumspect 
 in avoiding all coveteousnesse, neither being greedy 
 to get, nor nigardly to keep, nor troubled to lose 
 any worldly wealth ; but in all his words and 
 actions sKghting and disesteeming it, even to a 
 wondring that the world should so much value 
 wealth, which in the day of wrath hath not one 
 
214 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 dramme of comfort for us. Secondly, because 
 Luxury is a very visible sinne, the Parson is very 
 caref ull to avoid all the kinds thereof, but especially 
 that of drinking, because it is the most popular 
 vice; into which if he come, he 'prostitutes himself 
 both to shame and sin, and by having fellowship 
 with the unfruitfull works of darknesse he disa- 
 bleth himself of authority to reprove them. For sins 
 make all equall whom they finde together; and 
 then they are worst who ought to be best. Neither 
 is it for the servant of Christ to haunt Innes, or 
 Tavernes, or Ale-houses, to the dishonour of his 
 person and office. The Parson doth not so, but 
 orders his Life in such a fashion that when death 
 takes him, as the Jewes and Judas did Christ, he 
 may say as He did, I sate daily with you teaching 
 in the Temple. Thirdly, because Countrey people 
 (as indeed all honest men) do much esteem their 
 word, it being the Life of buying and selling and 
 dealing in the world; therfore the Parson is very 
 strict in keeping his word, though it be to his own 
 hinderance, as knowing that if he be not so, he 
 wil quickly be discovered and disregarded; neither 
 win they beleeve him in the pulpit whom they can- 
 not trust in his Conversation. As for oaths and 
 apparell, the disorders thereof are also very mani- 
 fest. The Parson's yea is yea, and nay nay; and 
 his apparrell plaine, but reverend and clean, with- 
 out spots, or dust, or smell; the purity of his mind 
 breaking out and dilating it selfe even to his body, 
 cloaths, and habitation. 
 
Chapter IDI 
 The Parson's Knowledg * 
 
 THE Countrey Parson is full of all knowledg. 
 They say it is an Ul Mason that refuseth any 
 stone; and there is no knowledg but, in a skilfull 
 hand, serves either positively as it is or else to 
 illustrate some other knowledge. He condescends 
 even to the knowledge of tillage and pastorage, 
 and makes great use of them in teaching, because 
 people by what they understand are best led to 
 what they understand not. But the chief and top 
 of his knowledge consists in the book of books, 
 the storehouse and magazene of life and comfort, 
 the holy Scriptures. There he sucks and Kves. 
 In the Scriptures hee findes four things: Precepts 
 for life. Doctrines for knowledge. Examples for 
 illustration, and Promises for comfort. These he 
 hath digested severally. But for the understanding 
 of. these the means he useth are first, a holy Life; 
 remembring what his Master saith, that if any do 
 God's will, he shall know of the Doctrine, John 7; 
 and assuring himself that wicked men, however 
 learned, do not know the Scriptures, because they 
 feell them not, and because they are not under- 
 stood but Avith the same Spirit that writ them. The 
 
216 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 second means is prayer, which if it be necessary 
 even in temporall things, how much more in things 
 of another world, where the well is deep and we 
 have nothing of our selves to draw with ? Where- 
 fore he ever begins the reading of the Scripture 
 with some short inward ejaculation, as. Lord, open 
 mine eyes, that I may see the wondrous things of 
 thy Law, &c.' The third means is a diligent Col- 
 lation of Scripture with Scripture. For all Truth 
 being consonant to it self and all being penn'd 
 by one and the self-same Spirit, it cannot be but 
 that an industrious and judicious comparing of 
 place with place must be a singular help for the 
 right understanding of the Scriptures. To this 
 may be added the consideration of any text with 
 the coherence thereof, touching what goes be- 
 fore and what follows after, as also the scope of 
 the Holy Ghost. When the Apostles would have 
 called down fire from Heaven, they were reproved, 
 as ignorant of what spirit they were. For the Law 
 required one thing, and the Gospel another; yet 
 as diverse, not as repugnant; therefore the spirit 
 of both is to be considered and weighed. The 
 fourth means are Commenters and fathers who 
 have handled the places controverted, which the 
 Parson by no means refuseth. As he doth not so 
 study others as to neglect the grace of God in 
 himself and what the Holy Spirit teacheth him, 
 so doth he assure himself that God in all ages 
 hath had his servants, to whom he hath revealed 
 
mS KNOWLEDG 217 
 
 his Truth as well as to him; and that as one 
 Countrey doth not bear all things, that there may 
 be a Commerce, so neither hath God opened or 
 will open all to one, that there may be a traffick 
 in knowledg between the servants of God for the 
 planting both of love and humihty. Wherfore he 
 hath one Comment at least upon every book of 
 Scripture, and ploughing with this and his own 
 meditations he enters into the secrets of God 
 treasured in the holy Scripture. 
 
Chapter V 
 The Parson's Accessary Knowledges 
 
 THE Countrey Parson hath read the Fathers 
 also, and the Schoohnen, and the later Writ- 
 ers, or a good proportion of all, out of all which 
 he hath compiled a book and body of Divinity, 
 which is the storehouse of his Sermons and which 
 he preacheth all his Life, but diversely clothed, 
 illustrated, and inlarged. For though the world is 
 full of such composures, yet every man's own is 
 fittest, readyest, and most savory to him. Besides, 
 this being to be done in his younger and prepara- 
 tory times, it is an honest joy ever after to looke 
 upon his well spent houres. This Body he made 
 by way of expounding the Church Catechisme, to 
 which all divinity may easily be reduced. For it 
 being indifferent in it self e to choose any Method, 
 that is best to be chosen of which there is likelyest 
 to be most use. Now Catechizing being a work of 
 singular and admirable benefit to the Church of 
 God, and a thing required under Canonicall obe- 
 dience, the expounding of our Catechisme must 
 needs be the most usefull forme. Yet hath the 
 Parson, besides this laborious work, a slighter 
 forme of Catechizing, fitter for country people; 
 
HIS ACCESSARY KNOWLEDGES 219 
 
 according as his audience is, so he useth one or 
 other, or somtimes both, if his audience be inter- 
 mixed. He greatly esteemes also of cases of con- 
 science, wherein he is much versed. And indeed 
 herein is the greatest ability of a Parson to lead his 
 people exactly in the wayes of Truth, so that they 
 neither decKne to the right hand nor to the left. 
 Neither let any think this a sUght thing. For every 
 one hath not digested when it is a sin to take some- 
 thing for mony lent, or when not; when it is a fault 
 to discover another's fault, or when not; when the 
 affections of the soul in desiring and procuring 
 increase of means or honour, he a sin of covetousnes 
 or ambition, and when not ; when the appetites of 
 the body in eating, drinking, sleep, and the pleasure 
 that comes with sleep, be sins of gluttony, drunken- 
 ness, sloath, lust, and when not, and so in many 
 circumstances of actions. Now if a shepherd know 
 not which grass will bane, or which not, how is he 
 fit to be a shepherd ? Wherefore the Parson hath 
 throughly canvassed al the particulars of humane 
 actions, at least all those which he observeth are 
 most incident to his Parish. 
 
Chapteb VI 
 The Parson Praying '^ 
 
 THE Countrey Parson, when he is to read di- 
 vine services, composeth himselfe to all pos- 
 sible reverence: lifting up his heart and hands 
 and eyes, and using all other gestures which may 
 expresse a hearty and unfeyned devotion. This he 
 doth, first, as being truly touched and amazed with 
 the Majesty of God before whom he then presents 
 himself; yet not as himself alone, but as presenting 
 with himself the whole Congregation, whose sins 
 he then beares and brings with his own to the 
 heavenly altar to be bathed and washed in the 
 sacred Laver of Christ's blood. Secondly, as this 
 is the true reason of his inward feare, so he is con- 
 tent to expresse this outwardly to the utmost of 
 his power; that being first affected himself, hee 
 may affect also his people, knowing that no Sermon 
 moves them so much to a reverence, which they 
 forget againe when they come to pray, as a devout 
 behaviour in the very act of praying. Accordingly 
 his voyce is humble, his words treatable'' and 
 slow; yet not so slow neither as to let the fervency 
 of the supphcant hang and dy between speaking, 
 but with a grave Kvelinesse, between fear and zeal. 
 
PRAYING 221 
 
 pausing yet pressing, he performes his duty. 
 Besides his example, he, having often instructed 
 his people how to carry themselves in divine ser- 
 vice, exacts of them all possible reverence, by no 
 means enduring either talking, or sleeping, or 
 gazing, or leaning, or halfe-kneeling, or any undu- 
 tifull behaviour in them, but causing them when 
 they sit, or stand, or kneel, to do all in a strait and 
 steady posture, as attending to what is done in the 
 Church, and every one, man and child, answering 
 aloud both Amen and all other answers which are 
 on the Clerk's and people's part to answer; which 
 answers also are to be done not in a hudUng, or 
 slubbering ' fashion, gaping, or scratching the head, 
 or spitting even in the midst of their answer, but 
 gently and pausably, thinking what they say; so 
 that while they answer. As it was in the beginning, 
 &c. they meditate as they speak that God hath 
 ever had his people that have glorified him as wel 
 as now, and that he shall have so for ever. And the 
 like in other answers. This is that which the 
 Apostle cals a reasonable service, Rom. 12. when 
 we speak not as Parrats, without reason, or offer 
 up such sacrifices as they did of old, which was of 
 beasts devoyd of reason; but when we use our 
 reason, and apply our powers to the service of him 
 that gives them. If there be any of the gentry 
 or nobility of the Parish who sometimes make it 
 a piece of state not to come at the beginning of 
 service with their poor neighbours, but at mid- 
 
222 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 prayers, both to their own loss and of theirs also 
 who gaze upon them when they come in, and 
 neglect the present service of God, he by no means 
 suffers it, but after divers gentle admonitions, if 
 they persevere, he causes them to be presented.' 
 Or if the poor Church-wardens be affrighted with 
 their greatness, notwithstanding his instruction 
 that they ought not to be so, but even to let the 
 world sinke so they do their duty ; he presents 
 them himself, only protesting to them that not 
 any ill will draws him to it, but the debt and obli- 
 gation of his calling, being to obey God rather 
 then men. 
 
Chapter VII 
 The Parson Preaching 
 
 THE Countrey Parson preacheth constantly, the 
 pulpit is his joy and his throne. If he at any 
 time intermit, it is either for want of health or 
 against some great Festivall, that he may the bet- 
 ter celebrate it, or for the variety of the hearers 
 that he may be heard at his returne more atten- 
 tively. When he intermits, he is ever very well 
 supplyed by some able man who treads in his steps 
 and will not throw down what he hath built ; whom 
 also he intreats to press some point that he him- 
 self hath often urged with no great success, that 
 so in the mouth of two or three witnesses the truth 
 may be more established. When he preacheth, he 
 procures attention by all possible art, both by 
 eamestnesse of speech — it being naturall to men 
 to think that where is much earnestness there is 
 somewhat worth hearing — and by a diligent and 
 busy cast of his eye on his auditors, with letting 
 them know that he observes who marks and who 
 not; and with particularizing of his speech now 
 to the younger sort, then to the elder, now to the 
 poor and now to the rich. This is for you, and 
 This is for you; for particulars ever touch and 
 
224 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 awake more than generalls. Herein also he serves 
 himselfe of the judgements of God, as of those of 
 antient times so especially of the late ones, and 
 those most which are nearest to his Parish; for 
 people are very attentive at such discourses, and 
 thiii it behoves them to be so, when God is so 
 neer them and even over their heads. Sometimes 
 he tells them stories and sayings of others, ac- 
 cording as his text invites him; for them also men 
 heed and remember better than exhortations, 
 which though earnest yet often dy with the Ser- 
 mon, especially with Countrey people ; which are 
 thick, and heavy, and hard to raise to a poynt of 
 zeal and fervency, and need a mountaine of fire 
 to kindle them, but stories and sayings they will 
 well remember. He often tels them that Sermons 
 are dangerous things, that none goes out of Church 
 as he came in, but either better or worse; that none 
 is careless before his Judg, and that the word of 
 God shal Judge us. By these and other means the 
 Parson procures attention ; but the character of 
 his Sermon is HoUness. He is not witty, or learned, 
 or eloquent, but Holy. A Character that Hermo- 
 genes^ never dream'd of, and therefore he could 
 give no precepts hereof. But it is gained first, 
 by choosing texts of Devotion not Controversie, 
 moving and ravishing texts, whereof the Scriptures 
 are full. Secondly, by dipping and seasoning, all 
 our words and sentences in our hearts before they 
 come into our mouths, truly affecting and cor- 
 
PREACHING 226 
 
 dially expressing all that we say; so that the 
 auditors may plainly perceive that every word is 
 hart-deep. Thirdly, by turning often and making 
 many Apostrophes to God, as. Oh Lord blesse 
 my people and teach them this point; or, Oh my 
 Master, on whose errand I come, let me hold my 
 peace and doe thou speak thy selfe; for thou art 
 Love, and when thou teachest all are Scholers. 
 Some such irradiations scatteringly in the Sermon 
 carry great holiness in them. The Prophets are 
 admirable in this. Solsa. 64: Oh that thou would' st 
 rent the Heavens, that thou would' st come down, &c. 
 And Jeremy, Chapt. 10, after he had complained 
 of the desolation of Israel, tumes to God suddenly: 
 Ok Lord, I know that the way of man is not in 
 himself, &c. Fourthly, by frequent wishes of the 
 people's good and joying therein, though he him- 
 self were with Saint Paul even sacrificed upon the 
 service of their faith. For there is no greater sign 
 of holinesse then the procuring, and rejoycing in 
 another's good. And herein St. Paid excelled in all 
 his Epistles. How did he put the Romans in all 
 his prayers! Bom. 1. 9. And ceased not to give 
 thanks for the Ephesians, Eph. 1. 16. And for the 
 Corinthians, chap. 1. 4. And for the Philippians 
 made request with joy, chap. 1. 4. And is in con- 
 tention for them whither to hve or dy, be with 
 them or Christ, verse 23; which, setting aside his 
 care of his Flock, were a madnesse to doubt of. 
 What an admirable Epistle is the second to the 
 
226 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 Corinthians ! how full of afiPections ! he joyes and 
 he is sorry, he grieves and he gloryes, never was 
 there such care of a flock expressed save in the 
 great shepherd of the fold, who first shed teares 
 over Jerusalem and afterwards blood. Therefore 
 this care may be learn'd there and then woven into 
 Sermons, which will make them appear exceed- 
 ing reverend and holy. Lastly, by an often urging 
 of the presence and majesty of God, by these or 
 such like speeches : Oh let us all take heed what 
 we do. God sees us, he sees whether I speak as I 
 ought or you hear as you ought ; he sees hearts 
 as we see faces; he is among us; for if we be here, 
 hee must be here, since we are here by him and 
 without him could not be here. Then turning the 
 discourse to his Majesty: And he is a great God 
 and terrible, as great in mercy so great in judge- 
 ment. There are but two devouring elements, fire 
 and water; he hath both in him. His voyce is as 
 the sound of many waters. Revelations 1. And he 
 himselfe is a consuming fire, Hebrews 12. Such 
 discourses shew very Holy. The Parson's Method 
 in handling of a text consists of two parts : first, 
 a plain and evident declaration of the meaning 
 of the text ; and secondly, some choyce Observa- 
 tions drawn out of the whole text, as it lyes entire 
 and unbroken in the Scripture it self. This he 
 thinks naturall and sweet and grave. Whereas the 
 other way of crumbling a text into small parts, as, 
 the Person speaking or spoken to, the subject and 
 
PREACHING 227 
 
 object, and the like, hath neither in it sweetnesse, 
 nor gravity, nor variety; since the words apart are 
 not Scripture but a dictionary, and may be con- 
 sidered alike in all the Scripture. The Parson ex- 
 ceeds not an hour in preaching, because all ages 
 have thought that a competency, and he that 
 profits not in that time will lesse afterwards; the 
 same affection which made him not profit before 
 making him then weary, and so he grows from 
 not relishing to loathing. 
 
Chapter VIII 
 The Parson on Sundays 
 
 THE Country Parson as soon as he awakes 
 on Sunday Morning presently falls to work, 
 and seems to himselfe so as a Market-man is 
 when the Market day comes, or a shop-keeper 
 when customers use to come in. His thoughts are 
 full of making the best of the day and contriving 
 it to his best gaines. To this end, besides his ordi- 
 nary prayers, he makes a peculiar one for a bless- 
 ing on the exercises of the day: That nothing befall 
 him unworthy of that Majesty before which he is 
 to present himself, but that all may be done with 
 reverence to his glory and with edification to his 
 flock, humbly beseeching his Master that how or 
 whenever he punish him it be not in his Minis- 
 try. Then he tumes to request for his people that 
 the Lord would be pleased to sanctifie them all, 
 that they may come with holy hearts and awfuU 
 mindes into the Congregation, and that the good 
 God would pardon all those who come with lesse 
 prepared hearts then they ought. This done, he 
 sets himself to the Consideration of the duties of 
 the day; and if there be any extraordinary addi- 
 tion to the customary exercises, either from the 
 
ON SUNDAYS 229 
 
 time of the year, or from the State, or from God 
 by a child born or dead, or any other accident, 
 he contrives how and in what manner to induce* 
 it to the best advantage. Afterwards when the 
 hour calls, with his family attending him he goes 
 to Church, at his first entrance humbly adoring 
 and worshipping the invisible majesty and presence 
 of Almighty God, and blessing the people either 
 openly or to himselfe. Then having read divine 
 Service twice fully, and preached in the morning 
 and catechized in the afternoone, he thinks he 
 hath in some measure, according to poor and 
 fraile man, discharged the publick duties of the 
 Congregation. The rest of the day he spends 
 either in reconciUng neighbours that are at vari- 
 ance, or in visiting the sick, or in exhortations to 
 some of his flock by themselves, whom his Ser- 
 mons cannot or doe not reach. And every one is 
 more awaked when we come and say. Thou art 
 the man. This way he findes exceeding usefull 
 and winning; and these exhortations he cals his 
 privy purse, even as Princes have theirs, besides 
 ther publick disbursments. At night he thinks it 
 a very fit time, both sutable to the joy of the day 
 and without hinderance to publick duties, either 
 to entertaine some of his neighbours or to be 
 entertained of them, where he takes occasion to 
 discourse of such things as are both profitable and 
 pleasant, and to raise up their mindes to apprehend 
 God's good blessing to our Church and State; that 
 
30 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 rder is kept in the one and peace in the other, with- 
 ut disturbance or interruption of publick divine 
 ffioes. As he opened the day with prayer, so he 
 loseth it, humbly beseeching the Ahnighty to par- 
 Ion and accept our poor services and to improve 
 bem that wee may grow therein, and that our feet 
 lay be Uke hindes' feet, ever climbing up higher 
 nd higher unto him. 
 
Chapter IX 
 The Parson's State of Life 
 
 THE Country Parson considering that virginity 
 is a higher state then Matrimony, and that 
 the Ministry requires the beat and highest things, 
 is rather unmarryed then marryed. But yet as the 
 temper of his body may be, or as the temper of his 
 Parish may be, where he may have occasion to 
 converse with women and that among suspicious 
 men, and other like circumstances considered, he is 
 rather married then unmarried. Let him com- 
 municate the thing often by prayer unto God, and 
 as his grace shall direct him so let him proceed. If 
 he be unmarried and keepe house, he hath not 
 a woman in his house, but findes opportunities 
 of having his meat dress'd and other services done 
 by men-servants at home, and his hnnen washed 
 abroad. If he be unmarryed and sojoume, he 
 never talkes with any woman alone, but in the au- 
 dience of others, and that seldom, and then also in a 
 serious manner, never jestingly or sportfully. He 
 is very drcumspect in all companyes, both of his 
 behaviour, speech, and very holes, knowing himself 
 to be both suspected and envyed. If he stand stead- 
 fast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath 
 
232 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his 
 heart that he will keep himself a virgin, he spends 
 his dayes in fasting and prayer and blesseth God for 
 the gift of continency, knowing that it can no way 
 be preserved but only by those means by which at 
 first it was obtained. He therefore thinkes it not 
 enough for him, to observe the fasting dayes of the 
 Church and the dayly prayers enjoyned him by 
 auctority, which he observeth out of humble con- 
 formity and obedience, but adds to them, out of 
 choyce and devotion, some other dayes for fasting 
 and hours for prayers; and by these hee keeps his 
 body tame, serviceable, and heaUhfull ; and his sovJ 
 fervent, active, young, and lusty ^ as an eagle. He 
 often readeth the Lives of the Primitive Monks, 
 Hermits, and virgins, and wondreth not so much at 
 their patient suffering and cheerfull dying under 
 persecuting Emperours, {though that indeed be very 
 admirable) as at their daily temperance, abstinence, 
 watchings, and constant prayers, and mortifications 
 in the times of peace and prosperity. To put an the 
 profound humility and the exact temperance of our 
 Lord Jesus, with other exem/plary vertues of that 
 sort, and to keep them on in the sunshine and noone 
 of prosperity he pndeth to be as necessary, and as 
 difficult at least, as to be cloathed with perfect par 
 tience and Christian fortitude in the cold midnight 
 stormes of persecution and adversity. He keepeth 
 his watch and ward night and day against the 
 proper and peculiar temptations of his state of Life, 
 
HIS STATE OF LIFE 233 
 
 which are principally these two, Spirituall pride, 
 and Impurity of heart. Against these ghostly ene- 
 mies he girdeth up his loynes, keepes the imagina- 
 tion from roving, puts on the whole Armour of God, 
 and by the vertue of the shield of faith he is not 
 afraid of the pestilence that walketh in darkenesse, 
 [camall impurity,] nor of the sicknesse that destroy- 
 eth at noone day, [Ghostly pride and self-conceit.] 
 Other temptations he hath which, like mortall ene- 
 mies, may sometimes disquiet him likewise ; for the 
 humane soule being bounded and kept in in her 
 sensitive faculty, will runne out more or lesse in 
 her intellectuall. Originall concupisence is such an 
 active thing, by reason of continuall inward or out- 
 ward temptations, that it is ever attempting or doing 
 one mischief or other. Ambition, or untimely desire 
 of promotion to an higher state or place, under colour 
 of accommodation or necessary provision, is a com- 
 mon temptation to men of any eminency, especially 
 being single men. Curiosity in prying into high 
 speculative and unprofitable questions is another 
 great stumbling block to the holinesse of Scholers. 
 These and many other spirituall wickednesses in 
 high places doth the Parson fear, or experiment,^ 
 or both ; and that much more being single then if 
 he were marry ed; for then commonly the stream of 
 temptation is turned another way, into Covetous- 
 nesse. Love of pleasure, or ease, or the like. If the 
 Parson be unmarryed and means to continue so, he 
 doth at least as much as hath been said. If he be 
 
234 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 marryed, the choyce of his wife was made rather 
 by his eare ' then by his eye ; his judgement, not 
 his affection, found out a fit wife for him, whose 
 humble and Uberall disposition he preferred before 
 beauty, riches, or honour. He knew that (the good 
 instrument of God to bring women to heaven) a wise 
 and loving husband could out of humility^ produce 
 any spedall grace of faith, patience, meeknesse, 
 love, obedience, &c. and out of liberality make her 
 fruitfull in all good works. As hee is just in all 
 things, so is he to his wife also, counting nothing 
 so much his owne as that he may be unjust unto 
 it. Therefore he gives her respect both afore her 
 servants and others, and halfe at least of the 
 government of the house, reserving so much of the 
 affaires as serve for a diversion for him; yet never 
 so giving over the raines but that he sometimes 
 looks how things go, demanding an account,^ but 
 not by the way of an account. And this must bee 
 done the oftner or the seldomer according as hee is 
 satisfied of his Wife's discretion. 
 
Chapteb X 
 A Parson in his House 
 
 rHE Parson is very exact in the governing of his 
 house, making it a copy and modell for his 
 Irish. He knows the temper and pulse of every 
 rson in his house, and accordingly either meets 
 th ' their vices or advanceth their vertues. His 
 fe is either reUgious, or night and day he is win- 
 Qg her to it. In stead of the qualities of the world, 
 : requires onely three of her: first, a trayning up 
 her children and mayds in the fear of God, with 
 ayers and catechizing and all rehgious duties, 
 condly, a curing and heaUng of all wounds and 
 res with her owne hands; which skill either she 
 ought with her or he takes care she shall learn 
 of some rehgious neighbour. Thirdly, a provid- 
 y for her family in such sort as that neither they 
 mt a competent sustentation nor her husband 
 : brought in debt. His children'' he first makes 
 iristians and then Common- wealths-men; the 
 le he owes to his heavenly Countrey, the other to 
 3 earthly, having no title to either except he do 
 lod to both. Therefore having seasoned them 
 th all Piety, not only of words in praying and 
 ading, but in actions, in visiting other sick chil- 
 
236 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 dren and tending their wounds, and sending his 
 charity by them to the poor, and sometimes giving 
 them a Uttle money to do it of themselves, that 
 they get a deUght in it and enter favour with 
 God, who weighs even children's actions, 1 King. 
 14. 12, 13; he afterwards turnes his care to fit all 
 their dispositions with some caUing, not sparing 
 the eldest, but giving him the prerogative of his 
 Father's profession, which happily * for his other 
 children he is not able to do. Yet in binding them 
 prentices (in case he think fit to do so) he takes 
 care not to put them into vain trades and un- 
 befitting the reverence of their Father's calling, 
 such as are tavernes for men and lace-making for 
 women; because those trades for the most part 
 serve but the vices and vanities of the world, which 
 he is to deny and not augment. However, he 
 resolves vsdth himself never to omit any present 
 good deed of charity in consideration of providing 
 a stock for his children; but assures himselfe that 
 mony thus lent to God is placed surer for his chil- 
 dren's advantage then if it were given to the Cham- 
 ber of London? Good deeds and good breeding 
 are his two great stocks for his children; if God 
 give any thing above those and not spent in them, 
 he blesseth God and lays it out as he sees cause. 
 His servants are all religious; and were it not his 
 duty to have them so, it were his profit, for none 
 are so well served as by religious servants, both 
 because they do best and because what they do 
 
IN fflS HOUSE 237 
 
 is blessed and prospers. After leligion, he teacheth 
 them that three things make a compleate servant : 
 Truth, and Diligence, and Neatnesse or Cleanli- 
 nesse. Those that can read are allowed times for 
 it, and those that cannot are taught; for all in his 
 house are either teachers or learners or both, so 
 that his family is a Schoole of Religion, and they all 
 account that to teach the ignorant is the greatest 
 almes. Even the wab are not idle, but something 
 is written or painted there which may excite the 
 reader to a thought of piety; especially the 101 
 Psalm, which is expressed in a fayre table as being 
 the rule of a family. And when th^ go abroad, 
 his wife among her neighbours is the b^inner of 
 good discourses, his children among children, his 
 servants among other servants; so that as in the 
 hou.se of those that are skUl'd in Musick all are 
 Musicians; so in the house of a Preacher all are 
 preachers. He suffers not a ly or equivocation by 
 any means in his house, but counts it the art and 
 secret of governing to preserve a directinesse and 
 open plainnesse in all things; so that all his house 
 knowes that there is no help for a fault done but 
 confession. He himself e or his Wife takes account 
 of Sermons,* and how every one profits, comparing 
 this yeer with the last; and besides the common 
 prayers of the family, he straitly requires of all to 
 pray by themselves before they sleep at night and 
 stir out in the morning, and knows what prayers 
 tbey say, and tiU they have learned them makes 
 
238 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 them kneel by him; esteeming that this private 
 praying is a more voluntary act in them then when 
 they are called to others' prayers, and that which 
 when they leave the family they carry with them. 
 He keeps his servants between love and fear, 
 according as hee findes them, but generally he dis- 
 tributes it thus: to his Children he shewes more 
 love than terrour, to his servants more terrour 
 than love, but an old good servant boards a child.* 
 The furniture of his house is very plain, but clean, 
 whole, and sweet, as sweet as his garden can make; 
 for he hath no mony for such things, charity being 
 his only perfume, which deserves cost when he can 
 spare it. His fare is plain and common, but whol- 
 some; what hee hath is Kttle, but very good; it con- 
 sisteth most of mutton, beefe, and veal. If he addes 
 anything for a great day or a stranger, his garden 
 or orchard supphes it, or his bame and back- 
 side;^ he goes no further for any entertainment 
 lest he goe into the world, esteeming it absurd 
 that he should exceed who teacheth others tem- 
 perance. But those which his home produceth 
 he refuseth not, as coming cheap and easie, and 
 arising from the improvement of things, which 
 otherwise would be lost. Wherein he admires and 
 imitates the wonderfull providence and thrift of 
 the great householder of the world. For there being 
 two things which as they are are unuseful to man, 
 the one for smalnesse, as crums and scattered 
 corn and the like; the other for the foulnesse, as 
 
IN HIS HOUSE 239 
 
 wash and durt and things thereinto fallen; God 
 hath provided Creatures for both: for the first, 
 poultry ; for the second, swine. These save man 
 the labour and doing that which either he could 
 not do or was not fit for him to do, by taking both 
 sorts of food into them, do as it were dresse and 
 prepare both for man in themselves, by growing 
 themselves fit for his table. The Parson in his 
 house observes fasting dayes ; and particularly, 
 as Sunday is his day of joy so Friday his day of 
 Humiliation, which he celebrates not only with 
 abstinence of diet but also of company, recreation, 
 and all outward contentments; and besides, with 
 confession of sins and all acts of Mortification.* 
 Now fasting days containe a treble obligation : 
 first, of eating lesse that day then on other dayes; 
 secondly, of eating no pleasing or over-nourishing 
 things, as the Israelites did eate sowre herbs: 
 thirdly, of eating no flesh, which is but the deter- 
 mination of the second rule by Authority to this 
 particular. The two former obligations are much 
 more essentiall to a true fast then the third and 
 last; and fasting dayes were fully performed by 
 keeping of the two former, had not Authority 
 interposed ; so that to eat Kttle, and that unplea- 
 sant, is the naturall rule of fasting, although it be 
 flesh. For since fasting in Scripture language is an 
 afflicting of our souls, if a peece of dry flesh at my 
 table be more unpleasant to me then some fish 
 there, certainly to eat the flesh and not the fish is 
 
240 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 to keep the fasting day naturally. And it is observ- 
 able that the prohibiting of flesh came from hot 
 Countreys where both flesh alone, and much more 
 with wine, is apt to nourish more then in cold re- 
 gions, and where flesh may be much better spared 
 and with more safety then elsewhere, where both 
 the people and the drink being cold and flegmatick, 
 the eating of flesh is an antidote to both. For it is 
 certaine that a weak stomack, being prepossessed 
 with flesh, shall much better brooke and bear a 
 draught of beer then if it had taken before either 
 fish, or rootes, or such things; which will discover 
 it selfe by spitting, and rheume, or flegme. To 
 conclude, the Parson, if he be in full health, keeps 
 the three obligations, eating fish or roots,* and that 
 for quantity little, for quality unpleasant. If his 
 body be weak and obstructed, as most Students 
 are, he cannot keep the last obhgation nor suffer 
 others in his house that are so to keep it; but only 
 the two former, which also in diseases of exinani- 
 tion (as consumptions) must be broken: For meat 
 was made for man, not man for meat. To all this 
 may be added, not for emboldening the unruly 
 but for the comfort of the weak, that not onely 
 sicknesse breaks these obUgations of fasting but 
 sickhnesse also. For it is as unnatural to do any 
 thing that leads me to a sicknesse to which I am 
 inclined, as not to get out of that sicknesse when 
 I am in it by any diet. One thing is evident, that 
 an English body and a Student's body are two 
 
IN HIS HOUSE 241 
 
 great obstructed vessels; and there is notMng that 
 is food, and not phisick, which doth lesse obstruct 
 then flesh moderately taken ; as being immod- 
 erately taken, it is exceeding obstructive. And 
 obstructions are the cause of most diseases. 
 
Chapter XI 
 The Parson's Courtesie 
 
 THE Countrey Parson owing a debt of Charity 
 to the poor and of Courtesie to his other 
 parishioners, he so distinguisheth that he keeps 
 his money for the poor and his table for those that 
 are above Alms. Not but that the poor are welcome 
 also to his table, whom he sometimes purposely 
 takes home with him, setting them close by him 
 and carving for them, both for his own humility 
 and their comfort, who are much cheered with 
 such friendUneses. But since both is to be done, 
 the better sort invited and meaner reheved, he 
 chooseth rather to give the poor money, which they 
 can better employ to their own advantage and 
 sutably to their needs, then so much given in meat 
 at dinner. Having then invited some of his Parish, 
 hee taketh his times to do the like to the rest, so 
 that in the compasse of the year hee hath them all 
 with him; because countrey people are very ob- 
 servant of such things, and will not be perswaded 
 but being not invited they are hated. Which per- 
 swasion the Parson by all means avoyds, knowing 
 that where there are such conceits there is no 
 room for his doctrine to enter. Yet doth hee often- 
 
HIS COURTESIE 243 
 
 est invite those whom hee sees take best courses, 
 that so both they may be encouraged to persevere 
 and others spurred to do well, that they may enjoy 
 the like courtesie. For though he desire that all 
 should live well and vertuously not for any re- 
 ward of his, but for vertue's sake, yet that will not 
 be so ; and therefore as God, although we should 
 love him onely for his own sake yet out of his 
 infinite pity hath set forth heaven for a reward 
 to draw men to Piety, and is content if at least so 
 they will become good; So the Countrey Parson, 
 who is a diligent observer and tracker of God's 
 wayes, sets up as many encouragements to good- 
 nesse as he can, both in honour, and profit, and 
 fame ; that he may, if not the best way, yet any 
 way make his Parish good. 
 
Chapter XII 
 The Parson's Charity 
 
 THE Countrey Parson is full of Charity; it is 
 his predominant element. For many and 
 wonderfuU things are spoken of thee, thou great 
 Vertue. To Charity is given the covering of sins, 
 1 Pet. 4. 8; and the forgivenesse of sins, Matthew 
 6. 14, Luke 7. 47; the fulfilling of the Law, Romans 
 13. 10; the life of faith, James 2. 26; the blessings 
 of this Kfe, Proverbs 22. 9, Psalm 41. 2; and the 
 reward of the next, Matth. 25. 35. In brief, it is 
 the body of ReUgion, John 13. 35, and the top of 
 Christian vertues, 1 Corin. 13. Wherefore all his 
 works rellish of Charity. When he riseth in the 
 morning, he bethinketh himselfe what good deeds 
 he can do that day, and presently* doth them; 
 counting that day lost wherein he hath not exer- 
 cised his Charity. He first considers his own Parish, 
 and takes care that there be not a begger or idle 
 person in his Parish, but that all bee in a com- 
 petent way of getting their living. This he affects 
 either by bounty, or perswasion, or by authority, 
 making use of that excellent statute which bindes 
 all Parishes to maintaine their own. If his Parish 
 be riche, he exacts this of them; if poor, and he 
 
mS CHARITY 245 
 
 able, he easeth them therein. But he gives no set 
 pension to any; for this in time will lose the name 
 and effect of Charity with the poor people, though 
 not with God. For then they will reckon upon it, 
 as on a debt; and if it be taken away, though 
 justly, they will murmur and repine as much as he 
 that is disseized of his own inheritance. But the 
 Parson having a double aime, and making a hook 
 of his Charity, causeth them still to depend on 
 him; and so by continuall and fresh bounties, un- 
 expected to them but resolved to himself, hee wins 
 them to praise God more, to Uve more reUgiously, 
 and to take more paines in their vocation, as not 
 knowing when they shal be relieved; which other- 
 wise they would reckon upon and turn to idle- 
 nesse. Besides this generall provision, he hath 
 other times of opening his hand: as at great Fes- 
 tivals and Communions, not suffering any that 
 day that he receives to want a good meal suting 
 to the joy of the occasion. But specially at hard 
 times and dearths he even parts his Living and 
 life among them, giving some com outright, and 
 selling other at under rates ; and when his own 
 stock serves not, working those that are able to 
 the same charity, still pressing it in the pulpit and 
 out of the pulpit, and never leaving them till he 
 obtaine his desire. Yet in all his Charity he dis- 
 tinguisheth, giving them most who live best, and 
 take most paines, and are most charged. So is his 
 charity in effect a Sermon. After the consideration 
 
246 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 of his own Parish he inlargeth himself, if he be 
 able, to the neighbourhood; for that also is some 
 kind of obligation. So doth he also to those at his 
 door, whom God puts in his way and makes his 
 neighbours. But these he halps not without some 
 testimony, except the evidence of the misery bring 
 testimony with it. For though these testimonies 
 also may be falsifyed, yet considering that the Law 
 allows these in case they be true, but allows by no 
 means to give without testimony, as he obeys Au- 
 thority in the one, so that being once satisfied he 
 allows his Charity some blindnesse in the other; 
 especially since of the two commands we are 
 more injoined to be charitable then wise. But evi- 
 dent miseries have a naturall priviledge and ex- 
 emption from all law. When-ever hee gives any 
 thing and sees them labour in thanking of him, 
 he exacts of them to let him alone and say rather, 
 God be praised, God be glorified; that so the 
 thanks may go the right way, and thither onely 
 where they are onely due. So doth hee also before 
 giving make them say their Prayers first, or the 
 Creed and ten Commandments, and as he finds 
 them perfect rewards them the more. For other 
 givings are lay and secular, but this is to give like 
 a Priest. 
 
Chapter XIII 
 The Parson's Church 
 
 THE Countrfey Parson hath a speciall care of his 
 Church, that all things there be decent and 
 befitting his Name by which it is called. There- 
 fore, first he takes order that all things be in good 
 repair : as walls plaistered, windows glazed, floore 
 paved, seats whole, firm, and uniform; especially 
 that the Pulpit and Desk, and Communion Table 
 and Font, be as they ought for those great duties 
 that are performed in them. Secondly, that the 
 Church be swept and kept cleane, without dust 
 or Cobwebs, and at great festivalls strawed, and 
 stuck with boughs, and perfumed with incense.' 
 Thirdly, that there be fit and proper texts of 
 Scripture every where painted, and that all the 
 painting be grave and reverend, not with light 
 colours or fooHsh anticks. Fourthly, That all the 
 books appointed by Authority be there, and those 
 not tome, or fouled, but whole ; and clean, and 
 well bound; and that there be a fitting and sightly 
 Communion cloth of fine linnen, with an hand- 
 some and seemly Carpet of good and costly Stuff e 
 or Cloth, and all kept sweet and clean, in a strong 
 and decent chest, with a Chalice and Cover, and 
 
248 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 a Stoop or Flagon, and a Bason for Almes and 
 offerings ; besides which he hath a Poor-man's box 
 conveniently seated, to receive the charity of well 
 minded people and to lay up treasure for the sick 
 and needy. And all this he doth not as out of ne- 
 cessity, or as putting a hoUness in the things, but 
 as desiring to keep the middle way * between su- 
 perstition and slovenlinesse, and as following the 
 Apostle's two great and admirable Rules in things 
 of this nature: The first whereof is. Let all things 
 be done decently and in order ; The second. Let all 
 things be done to edification, 1 Cor. 14. For these 
 two rules comprize and include the double object 
 of our duty, God, and our neighbour: the first 
 being for the honour of God, the second for the 
 benefit of our neighbor. So that they excellently 
 score out the way, and fully and exactly contain, 
 even in external! and indifferent things, what course 
 is to be taken; and put them to great shame who 
 deny the Scripture to be perfect. 
 
Chapter XIV 
 The Parson in Circuit 
 
 THE Countrey Parson upon the afternoons* in 
 the weekdays takes occasion sometimes to 
 visite in person now one quarter of his Parish, now 
 another. For there he shall find his flock most 
 naturally as they are, wallowing in the midst of 
 their affairs; whereas on Sundays it is easie for 
 them to compose themselves to order, which they 
 put on as their holy-day cloathes, and come to 
 Church in frame, but commonly the next day put 
 off both. When he comes to any house, first he 
 blesseth it, and then as hee finds the persons of the 
 house imployed so he formes his discourse. Those 
 that he findes religiously imployed, hee both com- 
 mends them much and furthers them when hee 
 is gone, in their imployment: as, if hee findes them 
 reading, hee fumisheth them with good books; if 
 curing poor people, hee supplies them with Receipts 
 and instructs them further in that skill, shewing 
 them how acceptable such works are to God, and 
 wishing them ever to do the Cures with their own 
 hands and not to put them over to servants. Those 
 that he finds busie in the works of their calling, 
 he commendeth them also: for it is a good and 
 
250 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 just thing for every one to do their own busines. 
 But then he admonisheth them of two things: 
 first, that they dive not too deep into worldly 
 affairs, plunging themselves over head and eares 
 into carking and caring; but that they so labour 
 as neither to labour anxiously, nor distrustfully, 
 nor profanely. Then they labour anxiously when 
 they overdo it, to the loss of their quiet and health; 
 then distrustfully, when they doubt God's provi- 
 dence, thinking that their own labour is the cause 
 of their thriving, as if it were in their own hands to 
 thrive or not to thrive. Then they labour profanely, 
 when they set themselves to work like brute beasts, 
 never raising their thoughts to God, nor sanctifying 
 their labour with daily prayer; when an the Lord's 
 day they do unnecessary servile work, or in time of 
 divine service on other holy days, except in the cases 
 of extreme poverty, and in the seasons of Seed-time 
 and Harvest. Secondly, he adviseth them so to 
 labour for wealth and maintenance as that they 
 make not that the end of their labour, but that 
 they may have wherewithall to serve God the bet- 
 ter and to do good deeds. After these discourses, 
 if they be poor and needy whom he thus finds 
 labouring, he gives them somewhat ; and opens 
 not only his mouth but his purse to their relief, that 
 so they go on more cheerfully in their vocation, 
 and himself be ever the more welcome to them. 
 Those that the Parson findes idle, or ill employed, 
 he chides not at first, for that were neither civill 
 
IN CIRCUIT 261 
 
 nor profitable; but always in the close, before he 
 departs from them. Yet in this he distinguisheth. 
 For if he be a plaine countryman, he reproves him 
 plainly; for they are not sensible of finenesse. If 
 they be of higher quahty, they commonly are quick 
 and sensible, and very tender of reproof; and 
 therefore he lays his discourse so that he comes to 
 the point very leasurely, and oftentimes, as Nathan 
 did, in the person of another, making them to 
 reprove themselves. However, one way or other, 
 he ever reproves them, that he may keep himself 
 pure and not be intangled in others' sinnes. 
 Neither in this doth he forbear though there be 
 company by. For as when the oflFence is particular 
 and against mee, I am to follow our Saviour's rule 
 and to take my brother aside and reprove him ; 
 so when the offence is publicke and against God, 
 I am then to follow the Apostle's rule, 1 Timothy 
 5, 20, and to rebuke openly that which is done 
 openly. Besides these occasionall discourses, the 
 Parson questions what order is kept in the house: 
 as about prayers morning and evening on their 
 knees, reading of Scripture, catechizing, singing of 
 Psalms at their work and on holy days; who can 
 read, who not ; and sometimes he hears the chil- 
 dren read himselfe and blesseth, encouraging also 
 the servants to learn to read and offering to have 
 them taught on holy-dayes by his servants. If the 
 Parson were ashamed of particularizing in these 
 things, hee were not fit to be a Parson ; but he holds 
 
262 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 the Rule that Nothing is little* in God's service. K 
 it once have the honour of that Name, it grows 
 great instantly. Wherfore neither disdaineth he to 
 enter into the poorest Cottage, though he even 
 creep into it and though it smell never so Ibth- 
 somly. For both God is there also and those for 
 whom God dyed; and so much the rather doth he 
 so as his accesse to the poor is more comfortable 
 then to the rich; and in regard of himself e, it is 
 more humiliation. These are the Parson's general] 
 aims in his Circuit ; but with these he mingles 
 other discourses for conversation sake, and to 
 make his higher purposes slip the more easily. 
 
Chapteb XV 
 The Parson Comforting 
 
 THE Countrey Parson, when any of his cure is 
 sick, or afflicted with losse of friend, or estate, 
 or any ways distressed, fails not to afford his best 
 comforts, and rather goes to them then sends for 
 the afflicted, though they can and otherwise ought 
 to come to him. To this end he hath throughly 
 digested all the points of consolation, as having 
 continuall use of them, such as are from God's 
 generall providence extended even to lillyes; from 
 his particular to his Church; from his promises, 
 from the examples of all Saints that ever were ; 
 from Christ himself, perfecting our Redemption no 
 other way then by sorrow; from the Benefit of 
 affliction, which softens and works the stubborn 
 heart of man; from the certainty both of deliver- 
 ance and reward, if we faint not; from the miser- 
 able comparison of the moment of griefs here with 
 the weight of joyes hereafter. Besides this, in his 
 visiting the sick or otherwise afflicted, he followeth 
 the Churches counsell, namely, in perswading them, 
 to particular confession, labouring to make them 
 understand the great good use of this antient and 
 pious ordinance, and how necessary it is in some 
 
254 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 cases. He also urgeth them to do some pious chari- 
 table works as a necessary evidence and fruit of their 
 faith, at that time especially ; the participation of 
 the holy Sacrament, how comfortable and Sover- 
 aigne a Medicine it is to all sinsick souls; what 
 strength and joy and peace it administers against 
 all temptations, even to death it selfe, he plainly and 
 generally iniimateth to the disaffected or sick person, 
 that so the hunger and thirst after it may come 
 rather from themselves then from his perswasion. 
 
Chapter XVI 
 The Parson a Father 
 
 THE Countrey Parson is' not only a father to his 
 flock but also professeth himselfe throughly 
 of the opinion, carrying it about with him as fully 
 as if he had begot his whole Parish. And of this 
 he makes great use. For by this means when any 
 sinns, he hateth him not as an officer but pityes 
 him as a Father. And even in those wrongs which 
 either in tithing or otherwise are done to his owne 
 person hee considers the offender as a child and 
 forgives, so hee may have any signe of amendment. 
 So also when after many admonitions any con- 
 tinue to be refractory, yet hee gives him not over, 
 but is long before hee proceede to disinheriting, 
 or perhaps never goes so far, knowing that some 
 are called at the eleventh houre; and therefore 
 hee still expects and waits, least hee should deter- 
 mine God's houre of coming; which as hee can- 
 not, touching the last day, so neither touching the 
 intermediate days of Conversion. 
 
chapteb xvn 
 
 The Parson in Journey 
 
 THE Countrey Parson, when a just occasion 
 calleth him out of his Parish (which he dili- 
 gently and strictly weigheth, his Parish being all 
 his joy and thought) leaveth not his Ministry 
 behind him, but is himselfe where ever he is. 
 Therefore those he meets on the way he blesseth 
 audibly, and with those he overtakes or that over- 
 take him hee begins good discourses, such as may 
 edify, interposing sometimes some short and hon- 
 est refreshments which may make his other dis- 
 courses more welcome and lesse tedious. And 
 when he comes to his Inn he refuseth not to joyne, 
 that he may enlarge the glory of God to the com- 
 pany he is in by a due blessing of God for their 
 safe arrival, and saying grace at meat, and at 
 going to bed by giving the Host notice that he will 
 have prayers in the hall, wishing him to informe 
 his guests thereof, that if any be wiUing to partake, 
 they may resort thither. The Uke he doth in the 
 morning, using pleasantly the outlandish proverb,' 
 that Prayers and Provender never hinder journey. 
 When he comes to any other house, where his kin- 
 dred or other relations give him any authority over 
 
IN JOURNEY 257 
 
 the Family, if hee be to stay for a time, hee consid- 
 ers diligently the state thereof to Godward, and 
 that in two points: First, what disorders there are 
 either in Apparell, or Diet, or too open a Buttery, 
 or reading vain books, or swearing, or breeding up 
 children to no Calling, but in idleness or the Uke. 
 Secondly, what means of Piety, whether daily 
 prayers be used, Grace, reading of Scriptures, and 
 other good books, how Sundayes, holy-days, and 
 fasting days are kept. And accordingly as he 
 finds any defect in these, hee first considers with 
 himselfe what kind of remedy fits the temper of 
 the house best, and then hee faithfully and boldly 
 applyeth it; yet seasonably and discreetly, by tak- 
 ing aside the Lord or Lady, or Master and Mistres 
 of the house, and shewing them cleerly that they 
 respect them most who wish them best, and that 
 not a desire to meddle with others' affairs, but the 
 eamestnesse to do all the good he can moves him 
 to say thus and thus. 
 
Chapter XVm 
 The Parson in SentineU 
 
 THE Countrey Parson, where ever he is, keeps 
 God's watch: that is, there is nothing spoken 
 or done in the Company where he is but comes 
 under his Test and censure.* If it be well spoken 
 or done, he takes occasion to conunend and en- 
 large it ; if ill, he presently lays hold of it, least 
 the poyson steal into some young and unwary 
 spirits and possesse them even before they them- 
 selves heed it. But this he doth discretely, with 
 mollifying and suppling words : This was not so 
 well said as it might have been forborn; We can- 
 not allow this. Or else if the thing will admit in- 
 terpretation: Your meaning is not thus, but thus; 
 or, So farr indeed what you say is true and well 
 said, but this will not stand. This is called keep- 
 ing God's watch, when the baits which the enemy 
 lays in company are discovered and avoyded. 
 This is to be on God's side and be true to his party. 
 Besides, if he perceive in company any discourse 
 tending to ill, either by the wickedness or quarrel- 
 somenesse thereof, he either prevents it judiciously 
 or breaks it off seasonably by some diversion. 
 Wherein a pleasantness of disposition is of great 
 
IN SENTINELL 259 
 
 use, men being wiUing to sell the interest and in- 
 gagement of their discourses for no price sooner 
 then that of mirth; whither the nature of man, 
 loving refreshment, gladly betakes it selfe, even 
 to the losse of honour. 
 
Chapter XIX 
 The Parson in Reference 
 
 THE Countrey Parson is sincere and upright 
 in all his relations. And first, he is just to his 
 Countrey : as when he is set at * an armour or 
 horse, he borrowes them not to serve the tume, 
 nor provides slight and unusefull, but such as are 
 every way fitting to do his Countrey true and laud- 
 able service when occasion requires. To do other- 
 wise is deceit, and therefore not for him, who is 
 hearty and true in all his wayes, as being the ser- 
 vant of him in whom there was no guile. Likewise 
 in any other Countrey-duty he considers what is 
 the end of any Command, and then he suits things 
 faithfully according to that end. Secondly, he 
 carryes himself very respectively^ as to all the 
 Fathers of the Church, so especially to his Dioce- 
 san, honouring him both in word and behaviour 
 and resorting unto him in any difficulty, either in 
 his studies or in his Parish. He observes Visita- 
 tions, and being there makes due use of them, as 
 of Clergy councels for the benefit of the Diocese. 
 And therefore before he comes, having observed 
 some defects in the Ministry, he then either in 
 Sermon, if he preach, or at some other time of the 
 
IN REFERENCE 261 
 
 day, propounds among his Brethren what were 
 fitting to be done. Thirdly, he keeps good Cor- 
 respondence with all the neighbouring Pastours 
 round about him, performing for them any Min- 
 isteriall olBSce which is not to the prejudice of his 
 own Parish. Likewise he welcomes to his house 
 any Minister, how poor or mean soever, with as 
 joyfuU a countenance as if he were to entertain 
 some great Lord. Fourthly, he fulfills the duty 
 and debt of neighbourhood to all the Parishes 
 which are neer him. For the Apostle's rule, Philip. 
 4, being admirable and large, that we should do 
 whatsoever things are honest, or just, or pure, or 
 lovely, or of good report, if there be any vertue, or 
 any praise; and Neighbourhood being ever re- 
 puted, even among the Heathen, as an obUgation 
 to do good, rather then to those that are further, 
 where things are otherwise equall, therefore he 
 satisfies this duty also. Especially if God have 
 sent any calamity either by fire or famine to any 
 neighbouring Parish, then he expects no Briefe;^ 
 but taking his Parish together the next Sunday or 
 holy-day and exposing to them the uncertainty 
 of humane affairs, none knowing whose tume 
 may be next, and then when he hath affrighted 
 them with this exposing the obKgation of Charity 
 and Neighbour-hood, he first gives himself liberally 
 and then incites them to give; making together a 
 summe either to be sent, or, which were more 
 comfortable, all together choosing some fitt day 
 
262 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 to carry it themselves and cheere the Afflicted. 
 So if any neighbouring village be overburdened 
 with poore and his owne lesse charged, he findes 
 some way of releeving it and reducing the Manna 
 and bread of Charity to some equality, represent- 
 ing to his people that the Blessing of God to them 
 ought to make them the more charitable, and not 
 the lesse, lest he cast their neighbours' poverty on 
 them also. 
 
Chapter XX 
 The Parson in God^s Stead 
 
 THE Countrey Parson is in God's stead to his 
 Parish, and dischargeth* God what he can 
 of his promises. Wherefore there is nothing done 
 either wel or ill whereof he is not the rewarder 
 or punisher. If he chance to finde any reading in 
 another's Bible, he provides him one of his own. 
 If he finde another giving a poor man a penny, 
 he gives him a tester for it, if the giver be fit to re- 
 ceive it ; or if he be of a condition above such gifts, 
 he sends him a good book or easeth him in his 
 Tithes, telling him when he hath forgotten it. This 
 I do because at such and such a time you were 
 charitable. This is in some sort a discharging of 
 God as concerning this life, who hath promised 
 that Godlinesse shall be gainful!; but in the other, 
 God is his own immediate paymaster, rewarding 
 all good deeds to their full proportion. The Par- 
 son's punishing of sin and vice is rather by with- 
 dravnng his bounty and courtesie from the parties 
 offending, or by private or publick reproof, as the 
 case requires, then by causing them to be presented 
 or otherwise complained of. And yet as the malice 
 of the person or hainousness of the crime may be, he 
 
264 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 is carefull to see condign punishment inflicted; and 
 with truly godly zeal, without hatred to the person, 
 hungreth and thirsteth after righteous punishment 
 of unrighteousnesse. Thus both in rewarding ver- 
 tue and in punishing vice, the Parson endeavour- 
 eth to be in God's stead, knowing that Countrey 
 people are drawne or led by sense more then by 
 faith, by present rewards or punishments more then 
 by future. 
 
Chapter XXI 
 The Parson Catechizing 
 
 THE Countrey Parson values Catechizing highly. 
 For there being three points of his duty, the 
 one to infuse a competent knowledge of salvation 
 in every one of his Flock ; the other to multiply 
 and build up this knowledge to a spirituall Temple; 
 the third to inflame this knowledge, to presse and 
 drive it to practice, turning it to reformation of 
 hfe by pithy and lively exhortations; Catechizing 
 is the first point, and but by Catechizing the 
 other cannot be attained. Besides, whereas in 
 Sermons there is a kind of state, in Catechizing 
 there is an humblesse very sutable to Christian 
 regeneration, which exceedingly delights him as 
 by way of exercise upon himself, and by way of 
 preaching to himself for the advancing of his own 
 mortification. For in preaching to others he for- 
 gets not himseK, but is first a Sermon to himself 
 and then to others, growing with the growth of his 
 Parish. He useth and preferreth the ordinary 
 Church-Catechism, partly for obedience to Au- 
 thority, partly for uniformity sake, that the same 
 common truths may be every where professed; 
 especially since many remove from Parish to 
 
266 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 Parish, who like Christian Souldiers are to give 
 the word and to satisfie the Congregation by their 
 Catholick answers. He exacts of all the Doctrine 
 of the Catechisme : of the younger sort, the very 
 words ; of the elder, the substance. Those he 
 Catechizeth publickly, these privately, giving age 
 honour according to the Apostle's rule, 1 Tim. 5, 1. 
 He requires all to be present at Catechizing: first, 
 for the authority of the work; Secondly, that 
 Parents and Masters, as they hear the answers 
 prove, may when they come home either com- 
 mend or reprove, either reward or punish. Thirdly, 
 that those of the elder sort, who are not well 
 grounded, may then by an honourable way take 
 occasion to be better instructed. Fourthly, that 
 those who are well grown in the knowledg of Re- 
 Kgion may examine their grounds, renew their 
 vowes, and by occasion of both inlarge their medi- 
 tations. When once all have learned the words of 
 the Catechisme, he thinks it the most useful! way 
 that a Pastor can take to go over the same, but 
 in other words. For many say the Catechisme by 
 rote, as parrats, without ever piercing into the sense 
 of it. In this course the order of the Catechisme 
 would be kept, but the rest varyed. As thus in the 
 Creed: How came this world to be as it is ? Was 
 it made, or came it by chance? Who made it? 
 Did you see God make it ? Then are there some 
 things to be beleeved that are not seen ? Is this the 
 nature of beliefe ? Is not Christianity full of such 
 
CATECHIZING 267 
 
 tilings as are not to be seen, but beleeved ? You 
 said, God made the world; Who is God? And 
 so forward, requiring answers to all these, and 
 helping and cherishing the Answerer by making 
 the Question very plaine with comparisons, and 
 making much even of a word of truth from him. 
 This order being used to one would be a Uttle 
 varyed to another. And this is an admirable way 
 of teaching, wherein the Catechized will at length 
 finde dehght, and by which the Catechizer, if he 
 once get the skill of it, will draw out of ignorant 
 and silly* souls even the dark and deep points of 
 Religion. Socrates did thus in Philosophy, who 
 held that the seeds of all truths lay in every body, 
 and accordingly by questions well ordered he 
 found Philosophy in silly Tradesmen. That posi- 
 tion will not hold in Christianity, because it con- 
 tains things above nature; but after that the 
 Catechisme is once learn'd, that which nature is 
 towards Philosophy the Catechisme is towards 
 Divinity. To this purpose some dialogues in Plato 
 were worth the reading, where the singular dex- 
 terity of Socrates in this kind may be observed 
 and imitated. Yet the skill consists but in these 
 three points: First, an aim and mark of the whole 
 discourse whither to drive the Answerer, which 
 the Questionist must have in his mind before any 
 question be propounded, upon which and to which 
 the questions are to be chained. Secondly, a most 
 plain and easie framing the question, even con- 
 
268 THE COUNTRY PAESON 
 
 taining in vertue' the answer also, especially to the 
 more ignorant. Thirdly, when the answerer sticks, 
 an illustrating the thing by something else which 
 he knows, making what hee knows to serve him in 
 that which he knows not : As, when the Parson 
 once demanded after other questions about man's 
 misery. Since man is so miserable, what is to be 
 done ? And the answerer could not tell; He asked 
 him again, what he would do if he were in a ditch ? 
 This famiUar illustration made the answer so 
 plaine that he was even ashamed of his ignorance; 
 for he could not but say he would hast out of it as 
 fast he could. Then he proceeded to ask whether 
 he could get out of the ditch alone, or whether he 
 needed a helper, and who was that helper. This 
 is the skill, and doubtlesse the Holy Scripture 
 intends thus much when it condescends to the 
 naming of a plough, a hatchet, a busheU, leaven, 
 boyes piping and dancing; shewing that things of 
 ordinary use are not only to serve in the way of 
 drudgery, but to be washed and cleansed and serve 
 for Kghts even of Heavenly Truths. This is the 
 Practice which the Parson so much commends to 
 all his fellow-labourers; the secret of whose good 
 consists in this, that at Sermons and Prayers men 
 may sleep or wander; but when one is asked a 
 question, he must discover what he is. This prac- 
 tice exceeds even Sermons in teaching. But there 
 being two things in Sermons, the one Informing, 
 the other Inflaming ; as Sermons come short of 
 
CATECHIZING 269 
 
 questions in the one, so they farre exceed them in 
 the other. For questions cannot inflame or ravish; 
 that must be done by a set, and laboured, and 
 continued speech. 
 
Chapteb XXII 
 The Parson in Sacraments 
 
 THE Countrey Parson being to administer the 
 Sacraments, is at a stand with himself how 
 or what behaviour to assume for so holy things. 
 Especially at Communion times he is in a great 
 confusion, as being not only to receive God, but 
 to break and administer him. Neither findes he 
 any issue in this but to throw himself down at the 
 throne of grace, saying. Lord, thou knowest what 
 thou didst when thou appointedst it to be done 
 thus; therefore doe thou fulfill what thou didst 
 appoint; for thou art not only the feast, but the 
 way to it. At Baptisme, being himselfe in white, 
 he requires the presence of all, and Baptizeth not 
 willingly^ but on Sundayes or great dayes. Hee 
 admits no vaine or idle names, but such as are 
 usuall and accustomed.* Hee says that prayer with 
 great devotion where God is thanked for calling 
 us to the knowledg of his grace, Baptisme being 
 a blessing that the world hath not the like. He 
 willingly and cheerfully crosseth the child, and 
 thinketh the Ceremony not onely innocent but 
 reverend. He instructeth the God-fathers and 
 God-mothers that it is no complementall or light 
 
IN SACRAMENTS 871 
 
 thing to sustain that place^ but a great honour 
 and no less burden, as being done both in the 
 presence of God and his Saints, and by way of 
 undertaking for a Christian soul. He adviseth 
 all to call to minde their Baptism often; for if 
 wise men have thought it the best way of preserv- 
 ing a state to reduce it to its principles by which 
 it grew great, certainly it is the safest course for 
 Christians also to meditate on their Baptisme 
 often (being the first step into their great and 
 glorious calling) and upon what termes and with 
 what vowes they were Baptized. At the times of 
 the Holy Communion he first takes order with the 
 Church- Wardens that the elements be of the best, 
 not cheape or course,* much lesse ill-tasted or 
 unwholesome. Secondly, hee considers and looks 
 into the ignorance or carelessness of his flock, and 
 accordingly applies himselfe with Catechizings and 
 lively exhortations, not on the Sunday of the Com- 
 munion only (for then it is too late,) but the Sun- 
 day, or Sundayes before the Communion, or on 
 the Eves of all those dayes. If there be any who, 
 having not received yet, is to enter into this great 
 work, he takes the more pains with them, that hee 
 may lay the foundation of future Blessings. The 
 time of every one's first receiving is not so much 
 by yeers as by understanding, particularly the rule 
 may be this: When any one can distinguish the 
 Sacramentall from common bread, knowing the 
 Institution and the difference, hee ought to receive, 
 
272 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 of what age soever. Children and youths are 
 usually deferred too long, under pretence of de- 
 votion to the Sacrament, but it is for want of In- 
 struction; their understandings being ripe enough 
 for ill things, and why not then for better? But 
 Parents and Masters should make hast in this, as 
 to a great purchase for their children and servants; 
 which while they deferr, both sides suffer: the one, 
 in wanting many excitings of grace; the other, 
 in being worse served and obeyed. The saying of 
 the Catechism is necessary, but not enough; be- 
 cause to answer in form may stiU admit ignorance. 
 But the Questions must be propounded loosely 
 and wildely,^ and then the Answerer will discover 
 what hee is. Thirdly, For the manner of receiving, 
 as the Parson useth all reverence himself, so he 
 administers to none but to the reverent. The 
 Feast indeed requires sitting, because it is a Feast; 
 but man's unpreparednesse asks kneeling. Hee 
 that comes to the Sacrament hath the confidence 
 of a Guest, and hee that kneels confesseth himself 
 an unworthy one and therefore differs from other 
 Feasters; but hee that sits, or hes, puts up to^ an 
 Apostle. Contentiousnesse in a feast of Charity 
 is more scandall then any posture. Fourthly, 
 touching the frequency of the Communion, the 
 Parson celebrates it, if not duly once a month, yet 
 at least five or six times in the year: as, at Easter, 
 Christmasse, Whitsuntide, afore and after Har- 
 vest, and the beginning of Lent. And this hee doth 
 
IN SACRAMENTS 273 
 
 not onely for the benefit of the work, but also for 
 the discharge of the Church-wardens; who being 
 to present all that receive not thrice a year, if 
 there be but three Communions, neither can all the 
 people so order their affairs as to receive just at 
 those times, nor the Church- Wardens so well take 
 notice who receive thrice and who not. 
 
chapteh xxm 
 
 The Parson's Completenesse 
 
 THE Countrey Parson desires to be all to his 
 Parish, and not onely a Pastour, but a 
 Lawyer also, and a Physician. Therefore hee 
 endures not that any of his Flock should go to 
 Law, but in any Controversie that they should 
 resort to him as their Judge. To this end he hath 
 gotten to himself some insight in things ordinarily 
 incident and controverted, by experience and by 
 reading some initiatory treatises in the Law, with 
 Dalton's Justice of Peace* and the Abridgements 
 of the Statutes, as also by discourse with men 
 of that profession, whom he hath ever some cases 
 to ask when he meets with them; holding that 
 rule that to put men to discourse of that wherein 
 they are most eminent is the most gainf uU way of 
 Conversation. Yet when ever any controversie is 
 brought to him he never decides it alone, but 
 sends for three or four of the ablest of the Parish 
 to hear the cause with him, whom he makes to 
 deliver their opinion first; out of which he gathers, 
 in case he be ignorant himself, what to hold; and 
 so the thing passeth with more authority and 
 lesse envy. In Judging, he followes that which is 
 
HIS COMPLETENESSE 276 
 
 altogether right; so that if the poorest man of the 
 Parish detain but a pin unjustly from the richest, 
 he absolutely restores it as a Judge; but when he 
 hath so done, then he assumes the Parson and 
 exhorts to Charity. Neverthelesse, there may hap- 
 pen sometimes some cases wherein he chooseth to 
 permit his Parishioners rather to make use of the 
 Law then himself; As in cases of an obscure and 
 dark nature, not easily determinable by Lawyers 
 themselves ; or in cases of high consequence, as 
 estabHshing of inheritances; or Lastly, when the 
 persons in difference are of a contentious disposi- 
 tion and cannot be gained, but that they still fall 
 from all compromises that have been made. But 
 then he shews them how to go to Law, even as 
 Brethren and not as enemies, neither avoyding 
 therefore one another's company, much less de- 
 faming one another. Now as the Parson is in Law, 
 so is he in sicknesse also: if there be any of his 
 flock sick, hee is their Physician, or at least his 
 Wife, of whom in stead of the qualities of the 
 world he asks no other but to have the skill of 
 healing a wound or helping the sick. But if neither 
 himselfe nor his wife have the skil, and his means 
 serve, hee keepes some young practitioner in his 
 house for the benefit of his Parish, whom yet he 
 ever exhorts not to exceed his bounds, but in tickle* 
 cases to call in help. If all fail, then he keeps good 
 correspondence with some neighbour Phisician, 
 and enteitaines him for the Cure of his Parish. 
 
276 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 Yet is it easie for any Scholer to attaine to such a 
 measure of Phisick as may be of much use to him 
 both for himself and others. This is done by seeing 
 one Anatomy,* reading one Book of Phisick, having 
 one Herball by him. And let Fernelius^ be the 
 Phisick Authour, for he writes briefly, neatly, and 
 judiciously; especially let his Method of Phisick be 
 diligently perused, as being the practicall part and 
 of most use. Now both the reading of him and 
 the knowing of herbs may be done at such times 
 as they may be an help and a recreation to more 
 divine studies. Nature serving Grace both in com- 
 fort of diversion and the benefit of application 
 when need requires; as also by way of illustration, 
 even as our Saviour made plants and seeds to 
 teach the people. For he was the true householder, 
 who bringeth out of his treasure things new and 
 old; the old things of Philosophy, and the new of 
 Grace; and maketh the one serve the other. And 
 I conceive our Saviour did this for three reasons : 
 first, that by famiKar things he might make his 
 Doctrine slip the more easily into the hearts even 
 of the meanest. Secondly, that labouring people 
 (whom he chiefly considered) might have every 
 where monuments of his Doctrine, remembring in 
 gardens his mustard-seed and UUyes ; in the field, 
 his seed-corn and tares; and so not be drowned 
 altogether in the works of their vocation, but some- 
 times Uft up their minds to better things, even in 
 the midst of their pains. Thirdly, that he might 
 
HIS COMPLETENESSE 277 
 
 set a Copy for Parsons. In the knowledge of sim- 
 ples, wherein the manifold wisedome of God is 
 wonderfully to be seen, one thing would be care- 
 fully observed: which is, to know what herbs may 
 be used in stead of drugs of the same nature, and 
 to make the garden the shop. For home-bred 
 medicines are both more easie for the Parson's 
 purse, and more familiar for all men's bodyes. So, 
 where the Apothecary useth either for loosing, 
 Rubarb, or for binding, Bolearmena,' the Parson 
 useth damask or white Roses for the one, and 
 plantaine, shepherd's purse, knot-grasse for the 
 other, and that with better successe. As for spices, 
 he doth not onely prefer home-bred things before 
 them, but condemns them for vanities and so 
 shuts them out of his family, esteeming that there 
 is no spice comparable, for herbs, to rosemary, 
 time, savoury, mints; and for seeds, to Fennell 
 and Carroway seeds. Accordingly, for salves his 
 wife seeks not the city, but preferrs her garden and 
 fields before all outlandish gums. And surely 
 hyssope, valerian, mercury, adder's tongue, yerrow, 
 melilot, and Saint John's wort made into a salve; 
 And Elder, camomill, mallowes, comphrey and 
 smaUage made into a Poultis, have done great and 
 rare cures. In curing of any, the Parson and his 
 Family use to premise prayers, for this is to cure 
 like a Parson, and this raiseth the action from the 
 Shop to the Church. But though the Parson sets 
 forward all Charitable deeds, yet he looks not in 
 
278 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 this point of Curing beyond his own Parish, except 
 the person bee so poor that he is not able to reward 
 the Phisician; for as hee is Charitable, so he is just 
 also. Now it is a justice and debt to the Common- 
 wealth he Uves in not to incroach on other's Pro- 
 fessions, but to live on his own. And justice is the 
 ground of Charity. 
 
Chapteb xxrv 
 
 The Parson Arguing 
 
 THE Countrey Parson, if there be any of his 
 parish that hold strange Doctrins, useth all 
 possible diUgence to reduce' them to the common 
 Faith. The first means he useth is Prayer, beseech- 
 ing the Father of Ughts to open their eyes, and to 
 give him power so to fit his discourse to them that 
 it may effectually pierce their hearts and convert 
 them. The second means is a very loving and 
 sweet usage of them, both in going to and sending 
 for them often, and in finding out Courtesies to 
 place on them; as in their tithes or otherwise. The 
 third means is the observation what is the main 
 foundation and pillar of their cause, wherein they 
 rely; as if he be a Papist, the Church is the hinge 
 he tumes on; if a Scismatick, scandall. Wherefore 
 the Parson hath diligently examined these two with 
 himselfe, as what the Church is, how it began, how 
 it proceeded, whether it be a rule to it selfe, whether 
 it hath a rule, whether having a rule, it ought not 
 to be guided by it; whether any rule in the world 
 be obscure, and how then should the best be so, at 
 least in fundamental! things, the obscurity in some 
 points being the exercise of the Church, the light 
 
needing oom au eviueiice, auu an exercise, oo lor 
 Scandall : what scandall is, when given or taken ; 
 whether, there being two precepts, one of obey- 
 ing Authority, the other of not giving scandall, 
 that ought not to be preferred, especially since in 
 disobeying there is scandall also ; whether things 
 once indifferent being made by the precept of 
 Authority more then indiflferent, it be in our power 
 to omit or refuse them. These and the Kke points 
 hee hath accurately digested, having ever besides 
 two great helps and powerfuU perswaders on his 
 side : the one, a strict religious hfe ; the other an 
 humble, and ingenuous search of truth ; being 
 unmoved in arguing and voyd of all contentious- 
 nesse: which are two great lights able to dazle the 
 eyes of the mis-led, while they consider that God 
 cannot be wanting to them in Doctrine to whom 
 he is so gracious in Life. 
 
Chapter XXV 
 The Parson Punishing 
 
 WHENSOEVER the Countrey Parson pro- 
 ceeds so fane as to call in Authority, and 
 to do such things of legall opposition either in the 
 presenting or punishing of any as the vulgar ever 
 consters' for signes of iU will, he forbears not in 
 any wise to use the delinquent as before in his 
 behaviour and carriage towards him, not avoyding 
 his company or doing any thing of aversenesse, 
 save in the very act of punishment. Neither doth 
 he esteem him for an enemy, but as a brother 
 still, except some small and temporary estranging 
 may corroborate the punishment to a better sub- 
 duing and humbhng of the delinquent; which if 
 it happily take effect, he then comes on the faster, 
 and makes so much the more of him as before 
 he alienated himselfe ; doubling his regards, and 
 shewing by all means that the delinquent's returne 
 is to his advantage. 
 
Chaptee XXVI 
 The Parson's Eye 
 
 THE Countrey Parson at spare times from 
 action, standing on a hill and considering 
 his Flock, discovers two sorts of vices and two 
 sorts of vicious persons. There are some vices 
 whose natures are alwayes cleer and evident, as 
 Adultery, Murder, Hatred, Lying, &c. There are 
 other vices whose natures, at least in the begin- 
 ning, are dark and obscure: as Covetousnesse and 
 Gluttony. So likewise there are some persons who 
 abstain not even from known sins ; there are 
 others who when they know a sin evidently, they 
 commit it not. It is true indeed they are long a 
 knowing it, being partiall to themselves and witty 
 to others who shall reprove them from it. A man 
 may be both Covetous and Intemperate, and yet 
 hear Sermons against both and himselfe condemn 
 both in good earnest. And the reason hereof is 
 because the natures of these vices being not evi- 
 dently discussed, or known commonly, the begin- 
 nings of them are not easily observable. And the 
 beginnings of them are not observed because of 
 the suddain passing from that which was just now 
 lawfull to that which is presently unlawfuU, even 
 
HIS EYE 283 
 
 in one continued action. So a man dining, eats 
 at first lawfully; but proceeding on, comes to do 
 unlawfully, even before he is aware; not knowing 
 the bounds of the action, nor when his eating 
 begins to be unlawfuU. So a man storing up mony 
 for his necessary provisions, both in present for his 
 family and in future for his children, hardly per- 
 ceives when his storing becomes unlawfull. Yet 
 is there a period for his storing, and a point or 
 center when his storing, which was even now 
 good, passeth from good to bad. Wherefore the 
 Parson being true to his businesse, hath exactly 
 sifted the definitions of all vertues and vices ; es- 
 pecially canvasing those whose natures are most 
 stealing and beginnings uncertaine. Particularly 
 concerning these two vices, not because they are 
 all that are of this dark and creeping disposition, 
 but for example sake and because they are most 
 common, he thus thinks : first, for covetousnes, he 
 lays this ground. Whosoever when a just occasion 
 cals, either spends not at all, or not in some pro- 
 portion to God's blessing upon him, is covetous. 
 The reason of the ground is manifest, because 
 wealth is given to that end to supply our occasions. 
 Now if I do not give every thing its end, I abuse 
 the Creature, I am false to my reason which should 
 guide me, I offend the supreme Judg in perverting 
 that order which he hath set both to things and to 
 reason. The application of the ground would be 
 infinite ; but in brief, a poor man is an occasion. 
 
284 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 my countrey is an occasion, my friend is an occa- 
 sion, my Table is an occasion, my apparell is an 
 occasion; if in all these, and those more which 
 conceme me, I either do nothing, or pinch, and 
 scrape, and squeeze blood undecently to the station 
 wherein God hath placed me, I am Covetous. 
 More particularly, and to give one instance for all, 
 if God have given me servants, and I either pro- 
 vide too Httle for them or that which is unwhole- 
 some, being sometimes baned' meat, sometimes too 
 salt, and so not competent nourishment, I am 
 Covetous. I bring this example because men 
 usually think that servants for their mony are as 
 other things that they buy, even as a piece of wood, 
 which they may cut, or hack, or throw into the 
 fire, and so they pay them their wages all is weU. 
 Nay, to descend yet more particularly, if a man 
 hath wherewithal! to buy a spade, and yet hee 
 chuseth rather to use his neighbour's and wear out 
 that, he is covetous. Nevertheless, few bring covet- 
 ousness thus low, or consider it so narrowly, which 
 yet ought to be done, since there is a Justice in the 
 least things, and for the least there shall be a judg- 
 ment. Countrey-people are full of these petty 
 injustices, being cunning to make use of another 
 and spare themselves. And Scholers ought to be 
 dihgent in the observation of these, and driving 
 of their generall Schoole rules ever to the smallest 
 actions of Life ; which while they dwell in their 
 bookes, they will never finde, but being seated in 
 
HIS EYE 285 
 
 the Countrey and doing their duty faithfully, they 
 will soon discover ; especially if they carry their 
 eyes ever open and fix them on their charge, and 
 not on their preferment. Secondly, for Gluttony, 
 The Parson lays this ground. He that either for 
 quantity eats more than his health or imployments 
 will bear, or for quality is licorous after dainties, is 
 a glutton; as he that eats more than his estate will 
 bear, is a Prodigall ; and he that eats offensively 
 to the Company, either in his order or length 
 of eating, is scandalous and uncharitable. These 
 three rules generally comprehend the faults of 
 eating, and the truth of them needs no proof e; so 
 that men must eat neither to the disturbance of 
 their health, nor of their affairs, (which, being over- 
 burdened or studying dainties too much, they 
 cannot wel dispatch) nor of their estate, nor of 
 their brethren. One act in these things is bad, but 
 it is the custome and habit that names a glutton. 
 Many think they are at more liberty then they are, 
 as if they were masters of their health, and so they 
 will stand to the pain all is well. But to eat to one's 
 hurt comprehends, besides the hurt, an act against 
 reason, because it is unnaturall to hurt one's self; 
 and this they are not masters of. Yet of hurtfull 
 things, I am more bound to abstain from those 
 which by mine own experience I have found hurt- 
 full then from those which by a Common tradi- 
 tion and vulgar knowledge are reputed to be so. 
 That which is said of hurtfull meats extends to 
 
286 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 hurtful! drinks also. As for the quantity, touching 
 our imployments, none must eat so as to disable 
 themselves from a fit discharging either of Divine 
 duties or duties of their calUng. So that if after 
 Dinner they are not fit (or un-weeldy) either to 
 pray or work, they are gluttons. Not that all must 
 presently work after dinner, (For they rather must 
 not work, especially Students, and those that are 
 weakly,) but that they must rise so as that it is not 
 meate or drinke that hinders them from working. 
 To guide them in this there are three rules : first, 
 the custome and knowledg of their own body, and 
 what it can well disgest ; The second, the feeling 
 of themselves in time of eating, which because it 
 is deceitfull; (for one thinks in eating, that he can 
 eat more, then afterwards he finds true); The 
 third is the observation with what appetite they sit 
 down. This last rule joyned with the first never 
 fails. For knowing what one usually can well 
 disgest and feeling when I go to meat in what 
 disposition I am, either hungry or not, according 
 as I feele my self either I take my wonted propor- 
 tion or diminish of it. Yet Phisicians bid those 
 that would live in health not keep an uniform diet, 
 but to feed variously, now more, now lesse. And 
 Gerson^ a spirituall man, wisheth all to incline 
 rather to too much than to too Uttle; his reason is, 
 because diseases of exinanition are more danger- 
 ous then diseases of repletion. But the Parson 
 distinguisheth according to his double aime, either 
 
HIS EYE 287 
 
 of Abstinence a moral vertue or Mortification a 
 divine. When he deals with any that is heavy and 
 carnall, he gives him those freer rules; but when 
 he meets with a refined and heavenly disposition, 
 he carryes them higher, even sometimes to a for- 
 getting of themselves, knowing that there is one 
 who when they forget remembers for them ; As 
 when the people hungred and thirsted after our 
 Saviour's Doctrine, and tarryed so long at it that 
 they would have fainted had they returned empty. 
 He suffered it not; but rather made food miracu- 
 lously then suffered so good desires to miscarry. 
 
Chapter XXVII 
 The Parson in Mirth 
 
 THE Countrey Parson is generally sad, because 
 hee knows nothing but the Crosse of Christ, 
 his minde being defixed' on and with those nailes 
 wherewith his Master was. Or if he have any lei- 
 sure to look off from thence, he meets continually 
 with two most sad spectacles. Sin, and Misery, 
 God dishonoured every day and man afflicted. 
 Neverthelesse, he somtimes refresheth himself, as 
 knowing that nature will not bear everlasting 
 droopings, and that pleasantnesse of disposition is 
 a great key to do good; not onely because all men 
 shun the company of peipetuall severity, but also 
 for that when they are in company instructions 
 seasoned with pleasantness both enter sooner and 
 roote deeper. Wherefore he condescends to hu- 
 mane frailties both in himselfe and others, and 
 intermingles some mirth in his discourses occasion- 
 ally according to the pulse of the hearer. 
 
Chapter XXVHI 
 The Parson in Cordempt 
 
 THE Countrey Parson knows well that both 
 for the generall ignominy which is cast upon 
 the profession, and much more for those rules 
 which out of his choysest judgment hee hath re- 
 solved to observe, and which are described in this 
 Book, he must be despised; because this hath 
 been the portion of God his Master and of God's 
 Saints his Brethren, and this is foretold that it 
 shall be so still until things be no more. Never- 
 thelesse, according to the Apostle's rule he en- 
 deavours that none shall despise him ; especially 
 in his own Parish he suffers it not to his utmost 
 power; for that where contempt is, there is no 
 room for instruction. This he procures, first, by 
 his holy and unblameable life, which carries a 
 reverence with it even above contempt. Secondly, 
 by a courteous carriage and winning behaviour: 
 he that wil be respected, must respect; doing 
 kindnesses but receiving none, at least of those 
 who are apt to despise; for this argues a height 
 and eminency of mind which is not easily despised, 
 except it degenerate to pride. Thirdly, by a bold 
 and impartial reproof* even of the best in the 
 
290 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 Parish, when occasion requires; for this may pro- 
 duce hatred in those that are reproved, but never 
 contempt either in them, or others. Lastly, if the 
 contempt shall proceed so far as to do any thing 
 punishable by law, as contempt is apt to do, if it 
 be not thwarted, the Parson having a due respect 
 both to the person and to the cause, referreth the 
 whole matter to the examination and punishment 
 of those which are in Authority ; that so the sen- 
 tence lighting upon one, the example may reach 
 to all. But if the Contempt be not punishable 
 by Law, or being so the Parson think it in his 
 descretion either unfit or bootelesse to contend, 
 then when any despises him, he takes it either in 
 an humble way, saying nothing at all; or else in a 
 sKghting way, shewing that reproaches touch him 
 no more then a stone thrown against heaven, 
 where he is and lives; or in a sad way, grieved at 
 his own and others' sins, which continually breake 
 God's Laws and dishonour him with those mouths 
 which he continually fils and feeds ; or else in a 
 doctrinall way, saying to the contemner, Alas, 
 why do you thus ? you hurt your selfe, not me; he 
 that throws a stone at another hits himselfe; and 
 so between gentle reasoning and pitying he over- 
 comes the evill; or lastly, in a Triumphant way, 
 being glad and joyfuU that hee is made conform- 
 able to his Master; and being in the world as he 
 was, hath this undoubted pledge of his salvation. 
 These are the five shields wherewith the Godly 
 
IN CONTEMPT 291 
 
 receive the darts of the wicked; leaving anger and 
 retorting and revenge to the children of the world, 
 whom another's ill mastereth and leadeth captive 
 without any resistance, even in resistance to the 
 same destruction. For while they resist the person 
 that reviles, they resist not the evill which takes 
 hold of them and is farr the worse enemy. 
 
Chapter XXIX 
 
 t 
 
 The Parson with his Church-Wardens 
 
 THE Countrey Parson doth often, both pub- 
 lickly and privately instruct his Church- 
 Wardens what a great Charge lyes upon them, 
 and that indeed the whole order and discipline of 
 the Parish is put into their hands. If himselfe 
 reforme anything, it is out of the overflowing of 
 his Conscience, whereas they are to do it by Com- 
 mand and by Oath. Neither hath the place its 
 dignity from the Ecclesiasticall Laws only, since 
 even by the Common Statute-Law they are taken 
 for a kinde of Corporation, as being persons en- 
 abled by that Name to take moveable goods or 
 chattels, and to sue and to be sued at the Law 
 concerning such goods for the use and profit of 
 their Parish; and by the same Law they are to 
 levy penalties for negligence in resorting to church, 
 or for disorderly carriage in time of divine service. 
 Wherefore the Parson suffers not the place to be 
 vilified or debased by being cast on the lower 
 ranke of people, but invites and urges the best 
 unto it, shewing that they do not loose or go lesse 
 but gaine by it; it being the greatest honor of this 
 world to do God and his chosen service, or as 
 
WITH HIS CHURCH-WARDENS 293 
 
 David says, to be even a door-keeper in the house 
 of God. Now the Canons being the Church- War- 
 den's rule, the Parson adviseth them to read or 
 hear them read often, as also the visitation Arti- 
 cles which are grounded upon the Canons, that so 
 they may know their duty and keep their oath 
 the better. In which regard, considering the great 
 Consequence of their place and more of their 
 oath, he wisheth them by no means to spare any, 
 though never so great; but if after gentle and 
 neighbourly admonitions they still persist in ill, 
 to present them ; yea though they be tenants, or 
 otherwise ingaged to the delinquent. For their 
 obKgation to God and their own soul is above 
 any temporall tye. Do well and right, and let the 
 world sinke. 
 
Chapteb XXX 
 The Parson's Consideration of Providence 
 
 THE Countrey Parson considering the great 
 aptnesse Countrey people have to think that 
 all things come by a kind of naturall course, and 
 that if they sow and soyle their grounds, they must 
 have corn; if they keep and fodder well their 
 cattel, they must have milk and Calves; labours 
 to reduce them to see God's hand in all things, and 
 to beleeve that things are not set in such an in- 
 evitable order but that God often changeth it 
 according as he sees fit, either for reward or pun- 
 ishment. To this end he represents to his flock 
 that God hath and exerciseth a threefold power in 
 every thing which concemes man. The first is a 
 sustaining power, the second a governing power, 
 the third a spirituall power. By his sustaining 
 power he preserves and actuates every thing in his 
 being, so that come doth not grow by any other 
 vertue then by that which he continually supplyes, 
 as the com needs it; without which supply the 
 come would instantly dry up, as a river would 
 if the fountain were stopped. And it is observable 
 that if anything could presume of an inevitable 
 course and constiancy in their operations, cer- 
 
CONSIDERATION OF PROVIDENCE 295 
 
 tainly it should be either the sun in heaven or the 
 fire on earth, by reason of their fierce, strong, and 
 violent natures ; yet when God pleased, the sun 
 stood stil, the fire burned not. By God's gov- 
 erning power he preserves and orders the refer- 
 ences of things one to the other, so that though 
 the corn do grow and be preserved in that act 
 by his sustaining power, yet if he suite not other 
 things to the growth, as seasons and weather and 
 other accidents by his governing power, the fairest 
 harvests come to nothing. And it is observable, 
 that God deUghts to have men feel and acknow- 
 ledg and reverence his power, and therefore he 
 often overtumes things when they are thought 
 past danger ; that is his time of interposing : As 
 when a Merchant hath a ship come home after 
 many a storme which it hath escaped, he destroyes 
 it sometimes in the very Haven; or if the goods 
 be housed, a fire hath broken forth and suddenly 
 consumed them. Now this he doth that men 
 should perpetuate and not break off their acts 
 of dependance, how faire soever the opportunities 
 present themselves. So that if a farmer should 
 depend upon God all the yeer, and being ready to 
 put hand to sickle shall then secure himseK and 
 think all cock-sure; then God sends such weather 
 as lays the com and destroys it; or if he depend 
 on God further, even till he imbam his com, and 
 then think all sure; God sends a fire, and con- 
 sumes all that he hath; For that he ought not to 
 
296 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 break off, but to continue his dependance on God, 
 not onely before the come is inned, but after also; 
 and indeed to depend and fear continually. The 
 third power is spirituall, by which God tumes all 
 outward blessings to inward advantages. So that 
 if a Farmer hath both a faire harvest, and that 
 also well inned and imbamed and continuing 
 safe there, yet if God give him not the Grace to 
 use and utter this well, all his advantages are to 
 his losse. Better were his come burnt then not 
 spiritually improved. And it is observable in this, 
 how God's goodnesse strives with man's refracto- 
 rinesse. Man would sit down at this world; 
 God bids him sell it and purchase a better. Just 
 as a Father, who hath in his hand an apple and 
 a piece of Gold under it ; the Child comes, and 
 with pulling gets the apple out of his Father's 
 hand; his Father bids him throw it away and he 
 will give him the gold for it, which the Child 
 utterly refusing, eats it and is troubled with 
 wormes.* So is the carnall and wilfuU man with 
 the worm of the grave in this world, and the worm 
 of Conscience in the next. 
 
Chapter XXXI 
 The Parson in Liberty 
 
 THE Countrey Parson observing the manifold 
 wiles of Satan (who playes his part sometimes 
 in drawing God's Servants from him, sometimes in 
 perplexing them in the service of God) stands fast 
 in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us 
 free. This Liberty he compasseth by one distinc- 
 tion, and that is, of what is Necessary and what is 
 Additionary. As for example: It is necessary, that 
 all Christians should pray twice a day, every day 
 of the week, and four times on Sunday, if they 
 be well. This is so necessary and essentiall to a 
 Christian that he cannot without this maintain 
 himself in a Christian state. Besides this, the 
 Godly have ever added some houres of prayer, 
 as at nine, or at three, or at midnight, or as they 
 think fit and see cause, or rather as God's spirit 
 leads them. But these prayers are not necessary, 
 but additionary. Now it so happens that the godly 
 petitioner upon some emergent interruption in the 
 day, or by oversleeping himself at night, omits his 
 additionary prayer. Upon this his mind begins to 
 be perplexed and troubled, and Satan, who knows 
 the exigent,* blows the fire, endeavouring to dis- 
 
298 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 order the Christian and put him out of his station, 
 and to inlarge the perplexity.^untill it spread and 
 taint his other duties of piety, which none can per- 
 form so wel in trouble as in cahnness. Here the 
 Parson interposeth with his distinction, and shews 
 the perplexed Christian that this prayer being 
 additionary, not necessary, taken in, not com- 
 manded, the omission thereof upon just occasion 
 ought by no means trouble him. God knows the 
 occasion as wel as he, and He is as a gracious 
 Father, who more accepts a common course of 
 devotion then dislikes an occasionall interruption. 
 And of this he is so to assure himself as to admit no 
 scruple, but to go on as cheerfully as if he had not 
 been interrupted. By this it is evident that the 
 distinction is of singular use and comfort, espe- 
 cially to pious minds, which are ever tender and 
 delicate. But here there are two Cautions to be 
 added. First, that this interruption proceed not out 
 of slacknes or coldness, which will appear if the 
 Pious soul foresee and prevent such interruptions, 
 what he may before they come, and when for all 
 that they do come he be a little affected therewith, 
 but not afflicted or troubled ; if he resent it to a 
 mislike, but not a griefe. Secondly, that this inter- 
 ruption proceede not out of shame. As for exam- 
 ple: A godly man, not out of superstition, but of 
 reverence to God's house, resolves whenever he 
 enters into a Church to kneel down and pray, 
 either blessing God that he will be pleased to 
 
IN LIBERTY 299 
 
 dwell among men; or beseeching him, that when- 
 ever he repaires to his house, he may behave him- 
 self so as befits so great a presence; and this 
 briefly. But it happens that neer the place where 
 he is to pray he spyes some scoffing ruffian, who is 
 likely to deride him for his paines. If he now shall 
 either for fear or shame break his custome, he 
 shall do passing ill. So much the rather ought he 
 to proceed as that by this he may take into his 
 Prayer humiHation also. On the other side, if I 
 am to visit the sick in haste and my neerest way ly 
 through the Church, I will not doubt to go without 
 staying to pray there (but onely, as I passe, in my 
 heart) because this kinde of Prayer is additionary, 
 not necessary, and the other duty overweighs it. 
 So that if any scruple arise, I will throw it away, 
 and be most confident that God is not displeased. 
 This distinction may runne through all Christian 
 duties, and it is a great stay and setling to religious 
 souls. 
 
Chapter XXXII 
 The Parson's Surveys 
 
 THE Countrey Parson hath not onely taken a 
 particular Servey of the faults of his own 
 Parish, but a generall also of the diseases of the 
 time, that so when his occasions carry him abroad 
 or bring strangers to him he may be the better 
 armed to encounter them. The great and nationall 
 sin of this Land he esteems to be Idlenesse;* great 
 in it selfe, and great in Consequence. For when 
 men have nothing to do, then they fall to drink, 
 to steal, to whore, to scoffe, to revile, to all sorts 
 of gamings. Come, say they, we have nothing to 
 do, lets go to the Tavern, or to the stews or what 
 not. Wherefore the Parson strongly opposeth this 
 sin, whersoever he goes. And because Idleness is 
 twofold, the one in having no calling, the other in 
 walking carelesly in our calling, he first represents 
 to every body the necessity of a vocation. The 
 reason of this assertion is taken from the nature of 
 man, wherein God hath placed two great Instru- 
 ments, Reason in the soul and a hand in the Body, 
 as ingagements of working; So that even in Para- 
 dise man had a calUng, and how much more out of 
 Paradise, when the evills which he is now subject 
 
HIS SURVEYS 301 
 
 unto may be prevented, or diverted by reasonable 
 imployment. Besides, every gift or ability is a tal- 
 ent to be accounted for and to be improved to our 
 Master's Advantage. Yet is it also a debt to our 
 Countrey to have a Calling, and it concernes the 
 Common-wealth that none should be idle, but all 
 busied. Lastly, riches are the blessing of God and 
 the great instrument of doing admirable good; 
 therfore all are to procure them honestly and sea- 
 sonably, when they are not better imployed. Now 
 this reason crosseth not our Saviour's precept of 
 selling what we have, because when we have sold 
 all and given it to the poor, we must not be idle, 
 but labour to get more that we may give more, 
 according to St. Paul's rule, Ephes. 4. 28, 1 Thes. 
 4. 11, 12. So that our Saviour's selling is so far from 
 crossing Saint Paul's working that it rather estab- 
 lisheth it, since they that have nothing are fittest to 
 work. Now because the onely opposer to this Doc- 
 trine is the Gallant who is witty enough to abuse 
 both others and himself, and who is ready to ask 
 if he shall mend shoos, or what he shall do ? Ther- 
 fore the Parson unmoved sheweth that ingenuous 
 and fit imployment is never wanting to those that 
 seek it. But if it should be, the Assertion stands 
 thus; All are either to have a CalUng or prepare 
 for it. He that hath or can have yet no imployment, 
 if he truly and seriously prepare for it, he is safe 
 and within bounds. Wherefore all are either pre- 
 sently to enter into a Calling, if they be fit for it. 
 
302 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 and it for them; or else to examine with care and 
 advice what they are fittest for, and to prepare for 
 that with all diligence. But it will not be amisse 
 in this exceeding usefull point to descend to par- 
 ticulars, for exactnesse lyes in particulars. Men 
 are either single, or marryed. The marryed and 
 house-keeper hath his hands full, if he do what 
 he ought to do. For there are two branches of 
 his affaires: first, the improvement of his family 
 by bringing them up in the fear and nurture of 
 the Lord ; and secondly, the improvement of his 
 grounds, by drowning* or draining, stocking or 
 fencing, and ordering his land to the best advan- 
 tage both of himself and his neighbours. The 
 Italian says, None fouls his hands in his own busi- 
 nesse ; and it is an honest and just care, so it 
 exceeds not bounds, for every one to imploy him- 
 selfe to the advancement of his affairs, that hee may 
 have wherewithall to do good. But his family is 
 his best care, to labour Christian soules and raise 
 them to their height, even to heaven ; to dresse 
 and prune them, and take as much joy in a straight- 
 growing childe or servant as a Gardiner doth in a 
 choice tree. Could men finde out this dehght, they 
 would seldome be from home ; whereas now, of 
 any place, they are least there. But if after all this 
 care well dispatched, the house-keeper's Family 
 be so small and his dexterity so great that he have 
 leisure to look out, the Village or Parish which 
 either he lives in or is neer unto it is his imploy- 
 
HIS SURVEYS 303 
 
 ment. Hee considers every one there, and either 
 helps them in particular or hath generall Proposi- 
 tions to the whole Towne or Hamlet of advancing 
 the publick Stock, and managing Commons or 
 Woods, according as the place suggests. But if hee 
 may bee of the Commission of Peace, there is no- 
 thing to that.' No Common-wealth in the world 
 hath a braver Institution then that of Justices of 
 the Peace. For it is both a security to the King, 
 who hath so many dispersed Officers at his beck 
 throughout the Kingdome accountable for the 
 publick good, and also an honourable Imploy- 
 ment of a Gentle or Noble-man in the Country 
 he Kves in, inabling him with power to do good, 
 and to restrain all those who else might both 
 trouble him and the whole State. Wherefore it 
 behoves all who are come to the gravitie and ripe- 
 nesse of judgement for so excellent a Place not 
 to refuse, but rather to procure it. And whereas 
 there are usually three Objections made against 
 the Place : the one, the abuse of it by taking petty- 
 Countrey-bribes ; the other, the casting of it on 
 mean persons, especially in some Shires ; and 
 lastly, the trouble of it; These are so far from 
 deterring any good man from the place that they 
 kindle them rather to redeem the Dignity either 
 from true faults or unjust aspersions. Now for 
 single men, they are either Heirs or younger Bro- 
 thers. The Heirs are to prepare in all the fore- 
 mentioned points against the time of their practice. 
 
304 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 Therefore they are to mark theif Father's discre- 
 tion in ordering his House and Affairs, and also 
 elsewhere when they see any remarkable point of 
 Education or good husbandry, and to transplant 
 it in time to his own home with the same care 
 as others when they meet with good fruit get a 
 graffe of the tree, inriching their Orchard and 
 neglecting their House. Besides, they are to read 
 Books of Law and Justice, especially the Stat- 
 utes at large. As for better Books of Divinity, they 
 are not in this Consideration, because we are about 
 a Calling and a preparation thereunto. But chiefly 
 and above all things, they are to frequent Sessions 
 and Sizes; for it is both an honor which they owe 
 to the Reverend Judges and Magistrates to attend 
 them, at least in their Shire, and it is a great ad- 
 vantage to know the practice of the Land; for our 
 Law is Practice. Sometimes he may go to Court, 
 as the eminent place both of good and ill. At other 
 times he is to travell over the King's Dominions, 
 cutting out the Kingdome into Portions, which 
 every yeer he surveys peece-meal. When there is a 
 Parliament, he is to endeavour by all means to be 
 a Knight or Burgess there; for there is no School 
 to a ParUament. And when he is there, he must not 
 only be a morning man,' but at Committees also; 
 for there the particulars are exactly discussed 
 which are brought from thence to the House but in 
 generall. When none of these occasions call him 
 abroad, every morning that hee is at home he must 
 
HIS SURVEYS 303 
 
 either ride the Great Horse * or exercise some of his 
 Military gestures. For all Gentlemen that are not 
 weakned^ and disarmed with sedentary lives are to 
 know the use of their Arms; and as the Husband- 
 man labours for them, so must they fight for and 
 defend them when occasion calls. This is the duty 
 of each to other, which they ought to fulfill. And 
 the Parson is a lover and exciter to justice in all 
 things, even as John the Baptist squared out to 
 every one (even to Souldiers) what to do. As for 
 younger Brothers, those whom the Parson finds 
 loose and not ingaged into some Profession by 
 their Parents, whose neglect in this point is intoler- 
 able and a shamefuU wrong both to the Common- 
 wealth and their own House ; To them, after he 
 hath shewed the unlawfulness of spending the day 
 in dressing. Complementing, visiting and sporting, 
 he first commends the study of the' Civill Law, 
 as a brave and wise knowledg, the Professours 
 whereof were much imployed by Queen Elizabeth, 
 because it is the key of Commerce and discovers 
 the Rules of forraine Nations. Secondly, he com- 
 mends the Mathematicks as the only wonder, 
 working knowledg, and therefore requiring the 
 best spirits. After the severall knowledg of these, 
 he adviseth to insist and dwell chiefly on the 
 two noble branches therof, of Fortification and 
 Navigation; The one being usefuU to all Coun- 
 treys, and the other especially to Hands. But if 
 the young Gallant think these Courses dull and 
 
306 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 phlegmatick, where can he busie himself better 
 then in those new Plantations* and discoveryes 
 which are not only a noble but ako, as they may 
 be handled, a reUgious imployment ? Or let him 
 travel into Germany and France, and observing 
 the Artifices and Manufactures there, transplant 
 them hither, as divers have done lately to our 
 Countrey's advantage. 
 
Chapter XXXIII 
 The Parson's Library 
 
 THE Countrey Parson's Library is a holy Life; 
 for besides the blessing that that brings upon 
 it, there being a promise that if the Kingdome of 
 God be first sought all other things shall be added, 
 even it selfe is a Sermon. For the temptations 
 with which a good man is beset, and the ways 
 which he used to overcome them, being told to 
 another, whether in private conference or in the 
 Church, are a Sermon. Hee that hath considered 
 how to carry himself at table about his appetite,, 
 if he tell this to another, preacheth; and much 
 more feelingly and judiciously then he writes his 
 rules of temperance out of bookes. So that the 
 Parson having studied and mastered all his lusts 
 and affections within, and the whole Army of 
 Temptations without, hath ever so many sermons 
 ready penn'd as he hath victories. And it fares 
 in this as it doth in Physick: He that hath been 
 sick of a Consumption and knows what recovered 
 him, is a Physitian so far as he meetes with the 
 same disease and temper; and can much better 
 and particularly do it then he that is generally 
 learned, and was never sick. And if the same 
 
308 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 person had been sick of all diseases and were re- 
 covered of all by things that he knew, there were 
 no such Physician as he, both for skill and tender- 
 nesse. Just so it is in Divinity, and that not with- 
 out manifest reason: for though the temptations 
 may be diverse in divers Christians, yet the victory 
 is alike in all, being by the self -same Spirit. Neither 
 is this true onely in the miUtary state of a Chris- 
 tian life, but even in the peaceable also; when the 
 servant of God, freed for a while from temptation, 
 in a quiet sweetnesse seeks how to please his God. 
 Thus the Parson, considering that repentance is 
 the great vertue of the Gospel and one of the first 
 steps of pleasing God, having for his owne use 
 examined the nature of it is able to explaine it 
 after to others. And particularly having doubted 
 sometimes whether his repentance were true, or 
 at least in that degree it ought to be, since he 
 found himselfe sometimes to weepe more for the 
 losse of some temporall things then for oflFend- 
 ing God, he came at length to this resolution, 
 that repentance is an act of the mind not of the 
 Body, even as the Originall signifies ; and that 
 the chiefe thing which God in Scriptures requires 
 is the heart and the spirit, and to worship him in 
 truth and spirit. Wherefore in case a Christian 
 endeavour to weep and cannot, since we are not 
 Masters of our bodies, this sufficeth. And con- 
 sequently he found that the essence of repentance, 
 that it may be alike in aU God's children (which 
 
HIS LIBRARY 309 
 
 as concerning weeping it cannot be, some being of 
 a more melting temper then others) consisteth in 
 a true detestation of the soul, abhorring and re- 
 nouncing sin, and turning unto God in truth of 
 heart and newnesse of Ufe ; Which acts of re- 
 pentance are and must be found in all God's ser- 
 vants. Not that weeping is not usefuU where it 
 can be, that so the body may joyn in the grief as 
 it did in the sin; but that, so the other acts be, 
 that is not necessary; so that he as truly repents 
 who performes the other acts of repentance, when 
 he cannot more, as he that weeps a floud of tears. 
 This Instruction and coiMort the Parson getting 
 for himself, when he tels it to others becomes a 
 Sermon. The Uke he doth in other Christian 
 vertues, as of faith and Love, and the Cases of 
 Conscience belonging thereto, wherein (as Saint 
 Paid implyes that he ought, Romans 2.) hee first 
 preacheth to himselfe, and then to others. 
 
Chapter XXXIV 
 The Parson's Dexterity in applying of Remedies 
 
 THE Countrey Parson knows that there is a 
 double state of a Christian even in this Life, 
 the one miKtary, the other peaceable. The miKtary 
 is when we are assaulted with temptations either 
 from within or from without. The Peaceable is 
 when the Divell for a time leaves us, as he did our 
 Saviour, and the Angels minister to us their owne 
 food, even joy and peace and comfort in the holy 
 Ghost. These two states were in our Saviour, not 
 only in the beginning of his preaching, but after- 
 wards also, as Mat. 22. 35, He was tempted; And 
 Luke 10. 21, He rejoyced in Spirit; And they 
 must be likewise in all that are his. Now the Par- 
 son having a Spiritual! Judgement, according as 
 he discovers any of his Flock to be in one or the 
 other state, so he applies himselfe to them. Those 
 that he findes in the peaceable state, he adviseth 
 to be very vigilant and not to let go the raines 
 as soon as the horse goes easie. Particularly he 
 counselleth them to two things : First, to take 
 heed lest their quiet betray them (as it is apt to 
 do) to a coldnesse and carelesnesse in their de- 
 votions, but to labour still to be as fervent in 
 
HIS DEXTERITY 311 
 
 Christian Duties as they remember themselves 
 were when affiction did blow the Coals. Secondly, 
 not to take the full compasse and Kberty of their 
 Peace : not to eate of all those dishes at table 
 which even their present health otherwise admits; 
 nor to store their house with all those furnitures 
 which even their present plenty of wealth other- 
 wise admits; nor when they are among them that 
 are merry, to extend themselves to all that mirth 
 which the present occasion of wit and company 
 otherwise admits, but to put bounds and hoopes ' 
 to their joyes ; so will they last the longer, and 
 when they depart, returne the sooner. If we would 
 judg ourselves, we should not be judged; and if 
 we would bound our selves, we should not be 
 bounded. But if they shall fear that at such or 
 such a time their peace and mirth have carryed 
 them further then this moderation, then to take 
 Job's admirable Course, who sacrificed lest his 
 Children should have transgressed in their mirth. 
 So let them go and find some poor afflicted soul, 
 and there be bountifuU and liberall; for with 
 such sacrifices God is well pleased. Those that the 
 Parson finds in the miKtary state, he fortifyes and 
 strengthens with his utmost skill. Now in those 
 that are tempted, whatsoever is unruly falls upon 
 two heads: either they think that there is none 
 that can or will look after things, but all goes by 
 chance or wit; Or else, though there be a Great 
 Governour of all things, yet to them he is lost; as 
 
312 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 if they said, God doth forsake and persecute them, 
 and there is none to deKver them. If the Parson 
 suspect the first and find sparkes of such thoughts 
 now and then to break forth, then without oppos- 
 ing directly (for disputation is no cure for Athe- 
 isme) he scatters in his discourse three sorts of 
 arguments: the first taken from Nature, the sec- 
 ond from the Law, the third from Grace. For 
 Nature, he sees not how a house could be either 
 built without a builder, or kept in repaire with- 
 out a house-keeper. He conceives not possibly how 
 the windes should blow so much as they can, and 
 the sea rage as much as it can, and all things do 
 what they can, and all not only without dissolu- 
 tion of the whole, but also of any part, by taking 
 away so much as the usuaU seasons of summer 
 and winter, earing and harvest. Let the weather 
 be what it will, still we have bread, though some- 
 times more, somtimes lesse; wherevidth also a care- 
 full Joseph^ might meet. He conceives not possi- 
 bly how he that would beleeve a Divinity, if he 
 had been at the Creation of all things, should 
 less beleeve it seeing the Preservation of all things. 
 For preservation is a Creation; and more, it is a 
 continued Creation, and a creation every moment. 
 Secondly for the Law, there may be so evident 
 though unused a proof of Divinity taken from 
 thence, that the Atheist or Epicurian can have 
 nothing to contradict. The Jewes yet Uve and are 
 known ; they have their Law and Language 
 
HIS DEXTERITY 313 
 
 bearing witnesse to them, and they to it; they are 
 Circumcised to this day, and expect the promises 
 of the Scripture; their Countrey also is known, the 
 places and rivers travelled unto and frequented 
 by others, but to them an unpenetrable rock, an 
 unaccessible desert. Wherefore if the Jewes live, 
 all the great wonders of old live in them, and then 
 who can deny the stretched out arme of a mighty 
 God? especially since it may be a just doubt 
 whether, considering the stubbornnesse of the Na- 
 tion, their living then in their Countrey under so 
 many miracles were a stranger thing then their 
 present exile and disability to Uve in their Coun- 
 trey. And it is observable that this very thing 
 was intended by God, that the Jewes should be 
 his proof and witnesses, as he calls them, Isaiah 
 43. 12. And their very dispersion in all Lands 
 was intended not only for a punishment to them, 
 but for an exciting of others by their sight to the 
 acknowledging of God and his power, Psalm 
 59. 11. And therefore this kind of Punishment 
 was chosen rather then any other. Thirdly, for 
 Grace: Besides the continuall succession (since 
 the Gospell) of holy men, who have born witness 
 to the truth, (there being no reason why any should 
 distrust Saint Luke, or Teriullian, or Chrysostome, 
 more then Tidly, Virgill, or Livy,) There are two 
 Prophesies in the Gospel which evidently argue 
 Christ's Divinity by their success:* the one con- 
 cerning the woman that spent the oyntment on 
 
314 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 our Saviour, for which he told that it should 
 never be forgotten, but with the Gospel it selfe be 
 preached to all ages, Matth. 26. 13. The other 
 concerning the destruction of Jenisalem, of which 
 our Saviour said that that generation should not 
 passe till all were fulfilled, Luke 21. 32. "Which 
 Josephus his story confirmeth, and the contin- 
 uance of which verdict is yet evident. To these 
 might be added the Preaching of the Gospel in all 
 Nations, Matthew 24. 14, which we see even mirac- 
 ulously effected in these new discoveryes, God 
 turning men's Covetousnesse and Ambitions to 
 the effecting of his word. Now a prophesie is a 
 wonder sent to Posterity, least they complaine of 
 want of wonders. It is a letter sealed and sent, 
 which to the bearer is but paper, but to the re- 
 ceiver and opener is full of power. Hee that saw 
 Christ open a bhnd man's eyes, saw not more 
 Divinity then he that reads the woman's oyntment 
 in the Gospell or sees Jerusalem destroyed. With 
 some of these heads enlarged and woven into his 
 discourse at severall times and occasions, the 
 parson setleth wavering ndnds. But if he sees 
 them neerer desperation then Atheisme, not so 
 much doubting a God as that he is theirs, then 
 he dives unto the boundlesse Ocean of God's Love 
 and the unspeakable riches of his loving kindnesse. 
 He hath one argument unanswerable. If God 
 hate them, either he doth it as they are Creatures, 
 dust and ashes, or as they are sinfull. As Crea- 
 
HIS DEXTERITY 315 
 
 tures he must needs love them, for no perfect 
 Artist ever yet hated his owne worke. As sinfull, 
 he must much more love them; because notwith- 
 standing his infinite hate of sinne, his Love over- 
 came that hate, and with an exceeding great 
 victory which in the Creation needed not, gave 
 them love for love, even the son of his love out of 
 his bosome of love. So that man, which way soever 
 he turnes, hath two pledges of God's Love, that in 
 the mouth of two or three witnesses every word 
 may be established: the one in his being, the other 
 in his sinfull being; and this as the more faulty in 
 him, so the more glorious in God. And all may 
 certainly conclude that God loves them till either 
 they despise that Love or despaire of his Mercy. 
 Not any sin else but is within his Love; but the 
 despising of Love must needs be without it. The 
 thrusting away of his arme makes us onely ' not 
 embraced. 
 
Chapteb XXXV 
 The Parson's Condescending 
 
 THE Countrey Parson is a Lover of old Cus- 
 tomes, if they be good and harmlesse; and 
 the rather, because Countrey people are much 
 addicted to them, so that to favour them therein 
 is to win their hearts, and to oppose them therein is 
 to deject them. If there be any ill in the custome 
 that may be severed from the good, he pares the 
 apple and gives them the clean to feed on. Par- 
 ticularly he loves Procession' and maintains it, 
 because there are contained therein 4 manifest 
 advantages : First, a blessing of God for the fruits 
 of the field; Secondly, justice in the Preservation 
 of bounds ; Thirdly, Charity in loving walking 
 and neighbourly accompanying one another, with 
 reconciling of differences at that time, if there be 
 any; Fourthly, Mercy in releeving the poor by a 
 Uberall distribution and largesse, which at that 
 time is or ought to be used. Wherefore he exacts 
 of all to bee present at the perambulation, and 
 those that withdraw and sever themselves from it 
 he misUkes,^ and reproves as uncharitable and un- 
 neighbourly; and if they will not reforme, presents 
 them. Nay, he is so farre from condemning such 
 
HIS CONDESCENDING 317 
 
 assemblies, that he rather procures them to be 
 often, as knowing that absence breedes strange- 
 ness, but presence love. Now Love is his business 
 and aime; wherefore he likes well that his Parish 
 at good times invite one another to their houses, 
 and he urgeth them to it. And somtimes, where 
 he knowes there hath been or is a little difference, 
 hee takes one of the parties and goes with him to 
 the other, and all dine or sup together. There is 
 much preaching in this friendliness. Another old 
 Custome there is of saying, when light is brought 
 in, God send us the light of heaven. And the 
 Parson likes this very well; neither is he affraid 
 of praising or praying to God at all times, but is 
 rather glad of catching opportunities to do them. 
 Light is a great Blessing and as great as food, 
 for which we give thanks; and those that thinke 
 this superstitious, neither know superstition nor 
 themselves. As for those that are ashamed to use 
 this forme, as being old and obsolete and not the 
 fashion, he reformes and teaches them, that at 
 Baptisme they professed not to be ashamed of 
 Christ's Cross, or for any shame to leave that 
 which is good. He that is ashamed in small things, 
 will extend his pusillanimity to greater. Rather 
 should a Christian Souldier take such occasions 
 to harden himselfe and to further his exercises 
 of Mortification. 
 
Chapteb XXXVI 
 Th^ Parson Blessing 
 
 THE Countrey Parson wonders that Blessing 
 the people is in^so little use with his brethren, 
 whereas he thinks it not onely a grave and rever- 
 end thing, but a beneficial also. Those who use 
 it not do so either out of niceness,* because they 
 like the salutations and complements and formes 
 of worldly language better; which conformity and 
 fashionableness is so exceeding unbefitting a Min- 
 ister that it deserves reproof not refutation; Or 
 else because they think it empty and superfluous. 
 But that which the Apostles used so diligently in 
 their writings, nay, which our Saviour himself e 
 used, Marke 10. 16, cannot be vain and superflu- 
 ous. But this was not proper to Christ or the 
 Apostles only, no more then to be a spirituall Fa- 
 ther was appropriated to them. And if temporall 
 Fathers blesse their children, how much more 
 may and ought Spirituall Fathers? Besides, the 
 Priests of the old Testament were commanded to 
 Blesse the people, and the forme thereof is pre- 
 scribed. Numb. 6. Now as the Apostle argues in 
 another case: if the Ministration of condemnation 
 did bless, how shall not the ministration of the 
 
HIS BLESSING 319 
 
 spirit exceed in blessing ? The fruit of this bless- 
 ing good Hannah found, and received with great 
 joy, 1 Sam. 1. 18, though it came from a man 
 disallowed by God; for it was not the person, but 
 Priesthood, that blessed; so that even ill Priests 
 may blesse.* Neither have the Ministers power of 
 Blessing only, but also of cursing. So in the old 
 Testament Elisha cursed the children, 2 Kin. 2. 24; 
 which though our Saviour reproved as unfitting for 
 his particular who was to show all humiUty before 
 his Passion, yet he allows in his Apostles. And 
 therfore St. Peter used that fearful imprecation to 
 Simon Magus, Act. 8: Thy money perish with 
 thee, and the event confirmed it. So did St. Paid, 
 2 Tim. 4. 14. and 1 Tim. 1. 20. Speaking of Alex- 
 ander the Coppersmith, who had withstood his 
 preaching. The Lord (saith he) reward him accord- 
 ing to his works. And again, of Hymeneus and 
 Alexander he saith, he had delivered them to Satan, 
 that they might learn not to Blaspheme. The formes 
 both of Blessing and cursing are expounded in the 
 Common-Prayer-book: the one in. The Grace of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, &c. and, The Peace of 
 God, &c. The other in generall, in the Commina- 
 tion.'' Now blessing differs from prayer in assur- 
 ance, because it is not performed by way of request, 
 but of confidence and power, effectually applying 
 God's favour to the blessed by the interesting of 
 that dignity wherewith God hath invested the 
 Priest, and ingaging of God's own power and insti- 
 
Sao THE COUNTRY PAESON 
 
 tiition for a blessing. The neglect of this duty in 
 Ministers themselves hath made the people also 
 neglect it; so that they are so far from craving this 
 benefit from their ghostly Father that they often- 
 times goe out of church before he hath blessed 
 them. In the time of Popery the Priest's Benedicite 
 and his holy water were over highly valued, and 
 now we are fallen to the clean contrary, even from 
 superstition to coldnes and Atheism. But the 
 Parson first values the gift in himself, and then 
 teacheth his parish to value it. And it is observable 
 that if a Minister talke with a great man in the 
 ordinary course of complementing language, he 
 shall be esteemed as ordinary complementers; but 
 if he often interpose a Blessing when the other 
 gives him just opportunity, by speaking any good, 
 this unusuall form begets a reverence and makes 
 him esteemed according to his Profession. The 
 same is to be observed in writing Letters* also. To 
 conclude, if all men are to blesse upon occasion, 
 as appears Rom. 12. 14, how much more those 
 who are spiritual Fathers P 
 
Chapter XXXVII 
 Concerning Detraction 
 
 THE Countrey Parson perceiving that most 
 when they are at leasure make others' faults 
 their entertainment and discourse, and that even 
 some good men think so they speak truth they 
 may disclose another's fault, finds it somewhat 
 difficult how to proceed in this point. For if he 
 absolutely shut up men's mouths and forbid all 
 disclosing of faults, many an evill may not only 
 be, but also spread in his Parish without any 
 remedy (which cannot be applyed without notice) 
 to. the dishonor of God and the infection of his 
 flock, and the discomfort, discredit, and hinder- 
 ance of the Pastor. On the other side, if it be 
 unlawful to open faults, no benefit or advantage 
 can make it lawfull ; for we must not do evill that 
 good may come of it. Now the Parson taking this 
 point to task, which is so exceeding useful and 
 hath taken so deep roote that it seems the very 
 life and substance of Conversation, hath proceeded 
 thus far in the discussing of it. Faults are either 
 notorious or private. Again notorious faults are 
 either such as are made known by common fame 
 (and of these, those that know them may talk, so 
 
322 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 they do it not with sport but commiseration) ;or 
 else such as have passed judgment and been cor- 
 rected either by whipping, or imprisoning, or the 
 like. Of these also men may talk, and more, they 
 may discover them to those that know them not; 
 because infamy is a part of the sentence against 
 malefactours which the Law intends, as is evi- 
 dent by those which are branded for rogues, that 
 they may be known; or put into the stocks, 
 that they may be looked upon. But some may say, 
 though the Law allow this the Gospel doth not, 
 which hath so much advanced Charity and ranked 
 backbiters among the generation of the wicked, 
 Rom. 1. 30. But this is easily answered: As the 
 executioner is not uncharitable that takes away 
 the life of the condemned, except besides his office 
 he add a tincture of private malice in the joy and 
 hast of acting his part; so neither is he that de- 
 fames him whom the Law would have defamed, 
 except he also do it out of rancour. For in infamy 
 aU are executioners, and the Law gives a male- 
 factour to all to be defamed. And as malefactors 
 may lose and forfeit their goods or Ufe, so may 
 they their good name and the possession thereof, 
 which before their offence and Judgment they 
 had in all men's brests; for all are honest till 
 the contrary be proved. Besides, it concerns the 
 Common-Wealth that Rogues should be known 
 and Charity to the publick hath the precedence of 
 private charity. So that it is so far from being a 
 
CONCERNING DETRACTION 323 
 
 fault to discover such offenders that it is a duty 
 rather, which may do much good and save much 
 harme. ^ Neverthelesse, if the punished delinquent 
 shall be much troubled for his sins and turne 
 quite another man, doubtlesse then also men's 
 affections and words must turne, and forbear to 
 speak of that which even God himself hath for- 
 gotten. 
 
THE AUTHOR'S PRAYER BEFORE 
 SERMON' 
 
 O ALMIGHTY and ever-living Lord God! 
 Majesty, and Power, and Brightnesse and 
 Glory! How shall we dar^ to appear before thy 
 face, who are contrary to thee, in all we call thee ? 
 for we are darknesse, and weaknesse, and filthi- 
 nesse, and shame. Misery and sin fiU our days; 
 yet art thou our Creatour, and we thy work. Thy 
 hands both made us, and also made us Lords of 
 all thy creatures; giving us one world in ourselves, 
 and another to serve us; then didst thou place us 
 in Paradise, and wert proceeding stiD on in thy 
 Favours untill we interrupted thy Counsels, dis- 
 appointed thy Purposes, and sold our God, our 
 glorious, our gracious God, for an apple. O write 
 it! O brand it in our foreheads for ever: for an 
 apple once we lost our God, and still lose him for 
 no more; for money, for meat, for diet: But thou. 
 Lord, art patience, and pity, and sweetnesse, and 
 love; therefore we sons of men are not consumed. 
 Thou hast exalted thy mercy above all things, 
 and hast made our salvation, not our punishment, 
 thy glory ; so that then where sin abounded, not 
 death, but grace superabounded. Accordingly when 
 
326 PRAYER BEFORE SERMON 
 
 we had sinned beyond any help in heaven or earth, 
 then thou saidst, Lo, I come! Then did the Lord 
 of life, unable of himselfe to die, contrive to do it. 
 He took flesh, he wept, he died; for his enemies 
 he died; even for those that derided him then and 
 still despise him. Blessed Saviour! many waters 
 could not quench thy love, nor no pit overwhelme 
 it! But though the streams of thy blood were cur- 
 rant through darknesse, grave, and hell, yet by 
 these thy conflicts, and seemingly hazards, didst 
 thou arise triumphant, and therein madst us vic- 
 torious. 
 
 Neither doth thy love yet stay here! for this 
 word of thy rich peace and reconciliation thou 
 hast committed, not to Thunder or Angels, but to 
 silly and sinful men; even to me, pardoning my 
 sins, and bidding me go feed the people of thy 
 love. 
 
 Blessed be the God of Heaven and Earth! who 
 onely doth wondrous things. Awake, therefore, 
 my Lute and my Viol! awake all my powers to 
 glorifie thee! We praise thee, we blesse thee, we 
 magnifie thee for ever! And now, O Lord, in the 
 power of thy Victories, and in the wayes of thy 
 Ordinances, and in the truth of thy Love, Lo, we 
 stand here, beseeching thee to blesse thy word, 
 wherever spoken this day throughout the universall 
 Church. O make it a word of power and peace, to 
 convert those who are not yet thine and to con- 
 firme those that are; particularly blesse it in this 
 
PRAYER BEFORE SERMON 327 
 
 thy own Kingdom, which thou hast made a Land 
 of light, a storehouse of thy treasures and mercies. 
 O let not our foolish and unworthy hearts rob us of 
 the continuance of this thy sweet love, but pardon 
 our sins and perfect what thou hast b^un. Bide 
 on. Lord, because of the word of truth and meek- 
 nesse and righteousnesse, and thy right hand shall 
 teach thee terrible things. Especially, blesse this 
 portion here assembled together, with thy un- 
 worthy Servant speaking unto them. Lord Jesu! 
 teach thou me that I may teach them. Sanctifie 
 and inable all my powers, that in their full strength 
 they may deliver thy message reverently, readily, 
 faithfully, and fruitfully! O make thy word a 
 swift word, passing from the ear to the heart, from 
 the heart to the life and conversation; that as the 
 rain returns not empty, so neither may thy word, 
 but accomplish that for which it is given. O Lord, 
 hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken, and do 
 so for thy blessed Son's sake, in whose sweet and 
 pleasing words, we say. Our Father, &c. 
 
PRAYER AFTER SERMON 
 
 BLESSED be God, and the Father of all mercy, 
 who continueth to pour his benefits upon us ! 
 Thou hast elected us, thou hast called us, thou hast 
 justified us, sanctified, and glorified us. Thou wast 
 bom for us, and thou Uvedst and diedst for us. 
 Thou hast given us the blessings of this life, and of 
 a better. O Lord, thy blessings hang in clusters, 
 they come trooping upon us ! they break forth like 
 mighty waters on every side. And now. Lord, thou 
 hast fed us with the bread of life; so man did eat 
 Angels' food. O Lord, blesse it! O Lord, make it 
 health and strength unto us, still striving and pros- 
 pering so long within us, untill our obedience reach 
 thy measure of thy love, who hast done for us as 
 much as may be. Grant this, dear Father, for thy 
 Son's sake, our only Saviour; To whom with thee 
 and the Holy Ghost, three Persons, but one most 
 glorious, incomprehensible God, be ascribed all 
 Honour, and Glory, and Praise, ever. Amen. 
 
Brmm, Clement &c Co., Photo. 
 
A TREATISE OF TEMPERANCE AND 
 SOBRIETY 
 
 WRITTEN BY LUD. CORNARUS 
 
 TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY MR. GEORGE 
 HERBERT 
 
PREFACE 
 
 HERBERT'S translation of Comaro first 
 appeared in 1634, in a volume entitled 
 
 HyGIASTICON, OB THE EIGHT COTTRSE OF PBESEBV- 
 
 iNG Life and Health unto exteeme old Age; 
 
 TOGETHEB WITH SOUNDNESSE AND INTEGEITIE OF 
 
 THE Senses, jtjdgement and memobie. Written 
 in Latine by Leonard Lessius, and now Done into 
 EngKsh. To this volume Crashaw prefixed some 
 exquisite lines on "Temperance, The Cheap 
 Physician." The book was made up of three 
 pieces, only the first being written by Lessius, a 
 Jesuit Professor of Divinity at Louvain, whose 
 two other books — De Justitia and De Potestate 
 Summi Pontificis — were condemned by the Church. 
 The second piece is the present treatise by Cor- 
 naro; and the third an anonymous "Discourse 
 Translated out of the Italian that a Spare Diet is 
 Better than a Splendid and Sumptuous: a Para- 
 dox." The first and third pieces are translated by 
 a certain "T. S.," who dates his Preface December 
 7, 1633. Probably this T. S. is none other than 
 Nicholas Ferrar. Oley in his Life of Herbert says 
 that Ferrar "helped to put out Lessius;" and 
 John Ferrar in his Life of his brother Nicholas 
 
332 CORNARO'S TREATISE 
 
 writes: "As Nicholas Ferrar communicated his 
 heart to Mr. Herbert, so he made him the peruser, 
 and desired the approbation, of what he did in 
 those translations of Valdesso and Lessius. To 
 the first Mr. Herbert made an epistle, to the 
 second he sent to add that of Comarius' temper- 
 ance." The copy in the British Museum, dated 
 1634, is called the Second Edition. The book has 
 been printed many times since, under the title 
 The Temperate Man. The title-page of this 
 is here reproduced, and from it my text is taken. 
 Addison discusses Comaro's treatise in The Spec- 
 tator of October 13, 1711. 
 
 At what time Herbert prepared his translation 
 is uncertain; but that it was in the last years of 
 his life may perhaps be inferred from the words 
 of T. S., who writes: "Master George Herbert 
 of blessed memorie, having at the request of a 
 Noble Personage translated it into English, sent a 
 copy thereof not many months before his death 
 unto some friends of his, who a good while before 
 had given an attempt of regulating themselves in 
 matter of Diet." Who this " noble personage " was, 
 or who the friends, is unknown. 
 
 The author of the treatise, Luigi Comaro (1467- 
 1566), was a Venetian nobleman, a member of 
 the family which gave several Doges to Venice 
 and a Queen to Cyprus. His portrait by Tinto- 
 retto is in the Pitti Gallery at Florence, and his pal- 
 ace still stands in Padua. After thirty-five years 
 
OF TEMPERANCE 333 
 
 of gay and careless living he found his health so 
 shattered that death seemed at hand. He cured 
 himself by a great reduction in the amount of his 
 food, and by a spare diet was enabled to reach an 
 extreme age of great bodily and intellectual vigor. 
 His system of dieting he explained and advocated 
 in four Discourses, the first written at the age of 
 eighty-three, the second at eighty-six, the third at 
 ninety-one, the fourth at ninety-five. It is the first 
 of these Discourses, published at Padua in 1558, 
 under the title Trattato de la Vita Sobria, which 
 Herbert translates. 
 
 His aim is practical, not Kterary. He wishes to 
 render Comaro's ideas available for English use, 
 and freely adapts them to this end. T. S. says: 
 " Master Herbert professeth, and so it is indeed 
 apparent, that he was enforced to leave out some- 
 thing out of Comarus ; but it was not anything 
 appertaining to the main subject of the book, but 
 chiefly certain extravagant excursions of the Au- 
 thour against the Reformation of Religion which 
 in his time was newly begun." This statement 
 is unjust to both Comaro and Herbert. There 
 is not a word in Comaro's treatise adverse or 
 favorable to the reformation of rehgion, though 
 Herbert's translation contains only about half 
 the amount of the original. He omits sentences, 
 paragraphs, pages. He recasts what he keeps. 
 But the result is altogether faithful to Comaro's 
 thought, a much more readable and eflFective plea 
 
334 CORNARO'S TREATISE 
 
 for the dietary than any Kteral translation could 
 have been. The lucid and uninvolved style em- 
 ployed suggests that Herbert's work was done 
 about the time of that on The Cottntby Parson. 
 Whether the translation was written during 
 Herbert's closing years at Bemerton or earlier, it 
 represents a lifelong interest. At the University, 
 in 1617, he writes his stepfather about experi- 
 ments on himself in the matter of diet. The 
 Chtjkch-Pokch bids Looh to thy moicth, diseases 
 enter there, and Slight those who say amidst their 
 sickly healths. Thou liv'st by rule. Lent is prized 
 for 
 
 The deannesse of sweet abstinence. 
 
 Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense, 
 
 A face not fearing light; 
 Whereas in fvlnesse there are sluttish fumes, 
 Sowre exhalations, and dishonest rheumes. 
 
 Revenging the delight. 
 
 The Country Parson by fasting keeps his body 
 tame, serviceable and healthfull, and his soul fer- 
 vent, active, young and lusty as an eagle. That 
 book declares that oTie thing is evident that an 
 English body and a student's body are two great 
 obstructed vessels; and half of its twenty-sixth 
 chapter is devoted to rules for determining the 
 quantity of food to be eaten. Walton reports that 
 during the Crisis time when Herbert "was seiz'd 
 with a sharp Quotidian Ague he became his own 
 
OF TEMPERANCE 335 
 
 Physitian and cur'd himself of his Ague by for- 
 bearing Drink, and not eating any Meat, no 
 not Mutton nor a Hen or Pidgeon, unless they 
 were salted. And by such a constant Dyet he re- 
 movd his Ague, but with inconveniencies that 
 were worse; for he brought upon himself a dispo- 
 sition to Rheumes and other weaknesses and a 
 supposed Consumption." Herbert's free trans- 
 lation of Comaro's treatise, then, and his desire 
 to bring its precepts into general use, were no ac- 
 cidents. The "request of a noble personage" 
 merely proved the happy occasion for setting 
 forth under another's name doctrines about food 
 to which he had been devoted throughout his life. 
 
Title-Fage of The Temperate Man. 
 
THE 
 
 TEMPRRATE MAN, 
 
 O 11 THE 
 
 Right Way of Preferving 
 LIFE and HEALTH, 
 
 TOGETHER, 
 
 With Soundnci's of the Senfes, Judg- 
 ment, and Memory unto extream 
 OLD AGE. 
 
 In Three Treatises. 
 
 The Fir ft wkten by the Le*rtied Ltomria 
 
 Lejfm. , , 
 The Second by LQiovf'tck Cunito ^ a N.bk 
 
 Gentleman of ^tsiff. 
 The Third by a Famous mliin. 
 
 TFaithfolly Englifeed. 
 
 L O N D O N^ 
 
 Printed by J. R. for ^ohn Starkly, at 
 
 the MtHY in Fleetfireet, near Tempts 
 
 Sar, 1678. 
 
A TREATISE OF TEMPERANCE AND 
 SOBRIETY 
 
 HAVING observed in my time many of my 
 friends of excellent wit and noble disposi- 
 tion overthrown and undone by Intemperance 
 who, if they had lived, would have beien an orna- 
 ment to the world and a comfort to their friends, 
 I thought fit to discover in a short Ti^atise that 
 Intemperance was not such an evil but it might 
 easily be remedied ; which I undertake the more 
 willingly, because divers worthy young men have 
 obhged me unto it. For when they saw their par- 
 ents and kindred snatcht away in the midst of 
 their days, and me contrariwise, at the age of 
 Eighty and one, strong and lusty, they had a great 
 desire to know the way of my life, and how I came 
 to be so. Wherefore, that I may satisfy their honest 
 desire, and withal help many others who will take 
 this into consideration, I will declare the causes 
 which moved me to forsake Intemperance and 
 live a sober life, expressing also the means which 
 I have used therein. I say therefore that the in- 
 firmities, which did not only begin, but had already 
 gone far in me, first caused me to leave Intemper- 
 ance, to which I was much addicted. For by it 
 
340 CORNARO'S TREATISE 
 
 and my ill constitution (having a most cold and 
 moist stomach), I fell into divers diseases, to wit, 
 into the pain of the stomach, and often of the side, 
 and the beginning of the Gout, with almost a 
 continual fever and thirst. 
 
 From this ill temper there remained little else 
 to be expected of me than that after many trou- 
 bles and griefs I should quickly come to an end; 
 whereas my Ufe seemed as far from it by Nature, 
 as it was near it by Intemperance. When therefore 
 I was thus afflicted from the Thirty-fifth year of 
 my age to the Fortieth, having tried all remedies 
 fruitlessly ,the Physicians told me that yet there was 
 one help for me if I could constantly pursue it, 
 to wit, A sober and orderly life ; for this had every 
 way great force for the recovering and preserving 
 of Health, as a disorderly life to the overthrowing 
 of it, as I too well by experience found. For 
 Temperance preserves even old men and sickly 
 men sound, but Intemperance destroys most 
 healthy and flourishing constitutions. For con- 
 trary causes have contrary effects, and the faults 
 of Nature are often amended by Art, as barren 
 grounds are made fruitful by good husbandry. 
 They added withal that unless I speedily used 
 that remedy, within a few months I should be 
 driven to that exigent that there would be no help 
 for me but Death, shortly to be expected. 
 
 Upon this, weighing their reasons with myself, 
 and abhorring from so sudden an end, and finding 
 
OF TEMPERANCE 341 
 
 myself continually oppressed with pain and sick- 
 ness, I grew fuUy perswaded that all my griefs 
 arose out of Intemperance; and therefore out of a 
 hope of avoiding death and pain I resolved to live 
 a temperate hfe. 
 
 Whereupon, being directed by them in the way 
 I ought to hold, I understood that the food I was 
 to use was such as belonged to sickly constitu- 
 tions, and that in a small quantity. This they had 
 told me before. But I, then not liking that kind 
 of Diet, followed my Appetite and did eat meats 
 pleasing to my taste ; and when I felt inward heats, 
 drank deUghtful wines, and that in great quantity, 
 telling my Physicians nothing thereof, as is the 
 custom of sick people. But after I had resolved to 
 foUow Temperance and Reason, and saw that it 
 was no hard thing to do so, but the proper duty of 
 man, I so addicted myself to this course of life 
 that I never went a foot out of the way. Upon this, 
 I found within a few days that I was exceedingly 
 helped, and by continuance thereof within less 
 than one year (although it may seem to some in- 
 credible), I was perfectly cured of all my infirmi- 
 ties. 
 
 Being now sound and well, I began to consider 
 the force of Temperance, and to think thus with 
 myself: If Temperance had so much power as to 
 bring me health, how much more to preserve it! 
 Wherefore I began to search out most diligently 
 what meats were agreeable unto me, and what 
 
342 CORNARO'S TREATISE 
 
 disagreeable. And I purposed to try whether those 
 that pleased my taste brought me commodity or 
 discommodity, and whether that Proverb, where- 
 with Gluttons use to defend themselves, to wit. 
 That which savours is good and nourisheth, be 
 consonant to truth. This upon trial I found most 
 false: for strong and very cool wines pleased my 
 taste best, as also melons, and other fruit; in Uke 
 manner, raw lettice, fish, pork, sausages, pulse, 
 and cake and py-crust and the like ; and yet all 
 these I found hurtful. 
 
 Therefore trusting on experience, I forsook all 
 these kind of meats and drinks, and chose that wine 
 that fitted my stomach, and in such measure as 
 easily might be digested ; above all, taking care 
 never to rise with a full stomach, but so as I might 
 well both eat and drink more. By this means, 
 within less than a year I was not only freed from all 
 those evils which had so long beset me, and were 
 almost become incurable, but also afterwards I 
 fell not into that yearly disease, whereinto I was 
 wont, when I pleased my Sense and Appetite. 
 Which benefits also still continue, because from the 
 time that I was made whole I never since departed 
 from my setled course of Sobriety, whose admira- 
 ble power causeth that the meat and drink that is 
 taken in fit measure gives true strength to the body, 
 all superfluities passing away without difficulty, 
 and no ill humours being engendred in the body. 
 
 Yet with this diet I avoided other hurtful things 
 
OF TEMPERANCE 343 
 
 also, as too much heat and cold, weariness, watch- 
 ing, ill air, overmuch use of the benefit of marriage. 
 For although the power of health consists most in 
 the proportion of meat and drink, yet these fore- 
 named things have also their force. I preserved me 
 also, as much as I could, from hatred and melan- 
 choly and other perturbations of the mind, which 
 have a great power over our constitutions. Yet 
 could I not so avoid all these but that now and 
 then I fell into them, which gained me this experi- 
 ence, that I perceived that they had no great power 
 to hurt those bodies which were kept in good order 
 by a moderate Diet. So that I can truly say. That 
 they who in these two things that enter in at the 
 mouth keep a fit proportion, shall receive little hurt 
 from other excesses. 
 
 This Galen confirms, when he says that immod- 
 erate heats and colds and winds and labours did 
 little hurt him, because in his meats and drinks 
 he kept a due moderation and therefore never was 
 sick by any of these inconveniences, except it were 
 for one only day. But mine own experience con- 
 firmeth this more, as all that know me can testify. 
 For having endured many heats and colds, and 
 other like discommodities of the body and troubles 
 of the mind, all these did hurt me little, whereas 
 they hurt them very much who live intemperately. 
 For when my brother and others of my kindred saw 
 some great powerful men pick quarrels against me, 
 fearing lest I should be overthrown, they were pos- 
 
344 CORNARO'S TREATISE 
 
 sessed with a deep Melancholy (a thing usual to 
 disorderly Hves), which increased so much in them 
 that it brought them to a sudden end. But I, whom 
 that matter ought to have affected most, received 
 no inconvenience thereby, because that humour 
 abounded not in me. 
 
 Nay, I began to perswade myself that this suit and 
 contention was raised by the Divine Providence, 
 that I might know what great power a sober and 
 temperate life hath over our bodies and minds, and 
 that at length I should be a conqueror, as also a 
 little after it came to pass. For in the end I got the 
 victory, to my great honour and no less profit, 
 whereupon also I joyed exceedingly; which excess 
 of joy neither could do me any hurt. By which it is 
 manifest, That neither melancholy nor any other 
 passion can hurt a temperate Ufe. 
 
 Moreover, I say, that even bruises and squats 
 and falls, which often kill others, can bring little 
 grief or hurt to those that are temperate. This I 
 found by experience when I was Seventy years old; 
 for riding in a Coach in great haste, it happened 
 that the Coach was overturned and then was 
 dragged for a good space by the fury of the horses, 
 whereby my head and whole body was sore hurt 
 and also one of my arms and legs put out of joynt. 
 Being carried home, when the Physicians saw in 
 what case I was, they concluded that I would die 
 vrithin Three days; nevertheless, at a venture. Two 
 Remedies might be used, letting of blood and 
 
OF TEMPERANCE 345 
 
 purging, that the store of humours and inflamma- 
 tion and fever (which was certainly expected) 
 might be hindred. 
 
 But I, considering what an orderiy life I had led 
 for many years together, which must needs so tem- 
 per the humours of the body that they could not 
 be much troubled or make a great concourse, 
 refused both remedies, and only commanded that 
 my arm and leg should be set and my whole body 
 anointed with oyl ; and so without other remedy 
 or inconvenience I recovered, which seemed as a 
 miracle to the Physicians. Whence I conclude that 
 they that Hve a temperate life can receive Uttle hurt 
 from other inconveniences. 
 
 But my experience taught me another thing also, 
 to wit, that an orderly and regular life can hardly 
 be altered without exceeding great danger. 
 
 About Four years since, I was led, by the advice 
 of Physicians and the daily importunity of my 
 friends, to add something to my usual stint and 
 measure. Divers reasons they brought, as, that old 
 age could not be sustained with so little meat and 
 drink, which yet needs not only to be sustained 
 but also to gather strength, which could not be but 
 by meat and drink. On the other side, I argued 
 that Nature was contented with a little, and that I 
 had for many years continued in good health with 
 that little measure; that Custom was turned into 
 Nature, and therefore it was agreeable to reason 
 that my years increasing and strength decreasing. 
 
S46 CORNARO'S TREATISE 
 
 my stint of meat and drink should be diminished 
 rather than increased, that the patient might be 
 proportionable to the agent, and especially since 
 the power of my stomach every day decreased. To 
 this agreed two ItaHan Proverbs, the one whereof 
 was, * He that will eat much, let him eat little ; 
 because by eating little he prolongs his life. The 
 other Proverb was, | The meat which remaineth 
 profits more than that which is eaten; by which is 
 intimated that the hurt of too much meat is greater 
 than the commodity of meat taken in a moderate 
 proportion. 
 
 But all these things could not defend me against 
 their importunities. Therefore to avoid obstinacy 
 and gratify my friends, at length I yielded and 
 permitted the quantity of meat to be increased, 
 yet but Two ounces only. For whereas before, the 
 measure of my whole day's meat, viz. of my bread, 
 and eggs, and flesh, and broth, was 12 ounces 
 exactly weighed, I increased it to the quantity of 
 2 ounces more ; and the measure of my drink, 
 which before was 14 ounces, I made now 16. 
 
 This addition, after ten days, wrought so much 
 upon me that of a chearful and merry man I be- 
 came melancholy and cholerick; so that all things 
 
 * Mangierh piU chi manco mangia. Ed e' contrario, Chi 
 jiiii mangia, manco mangia. II senso i Poco vive chi troppo 
 sparecchia. 
 
 t Fa piU pro gveP eke d laaeia avi tondo, che queT che si 
 mette nel venire. 
 
OF TEMPERANCE 347 
 
 were troublesome to me, neither did I know well 
 what I did or said. On the Twelfth day, a pain of 
 the side took me, which held me Two and twenty 
 hours. Upon the neck of it came a terrible fever, 
 which continued Thirty-five days and nights, 
 although after the Fifteenth day it grew less and 
 less. Besides all this I could not sleep, no, not a 
 quarter of an hour, whereupon all gave me up for 
 dead. 
 
 Nevertheless I, by the grace of God, cured 
 myself only with returning to my former course of 
 Diet, although I was now Seventy-eight years old, 
 and my body spent with extream leanness, and the 
 season of the year was winter, and most cold air. 
 And I am confident that, under God, nothing holp 
 me but that exact rule which I had so long con- 
 tinued. In all which time I felt no grief, save now 
 and then a little indisposition for a day or Two. 
 
 For the Temperance of so many years spent all 
 ill humours, and suffered not any new of that kind 
 to arise, neither the good humours to be corrupted 
 or contract any ill quality, as usually happens in old 
 men's bodies which live without rule. For there is 
 no malignity of old age in the humours of my body, 
 which commonly kills men ; and that new one 
 which I contracted by breaking my diet, although 
 it was a sore evil, yet had no power to kill me. 
 
 By this it may clearly be perceived how great is 
 the power of order and disorder; whereof the one 
 kept me well for many years, the other, though it 
 
348 CORNARO'S TREATISE 
 
 was but a little excess, in a few days had so soon 
 overthrown me. If the world consist of order, if our 
 corporal life depend on the harmony of humours 
 and elements, it is no wonder that order should 
 preserve and -disorder destroy. Order makes arts 
 easie and armies victorious, and retains and con- 
 firms kingdoms, cities, and families in peace. 
 Whence I conclude that an orderly hfe is the 
 most sure way and ground of health and long days, 
 and the true and only medicine of many diseases. 
 Neither can any man deny this who will nar- 
 rowly consider it. Hence it comes that a Physician, 
 when he cometh to visit his Patient, prescribes this 
 Physick first, that he use a moderate diet; and 
 when he hath cured him commends this also to him, 
 if he wiU live in health. Neither is it to be doubted, 
 but that he shall ever after Uve free from diseases, 
 if he will keep such a course of life; because this 
 will cut off all causes of diseases, so that he shall 
 need neither Physick nor Physician. Yea, if he will 
 give his mind to those things which he should, he 
 will prove himself a Physician, and that a very 
 compleat one; for indeed no man can be a perfect 
 Physician to another, but to himself only. The 
 reason whereof is this: Every one by long experi- 
 ence may know the qualities of his own nature, and 
 what hidden properties it hath, what meat and 
 drink agrees best with it ; which things in others 
 cannot be known without such observation as is 
 not easily to be made upon others, especially since 
 
OF TEMPERANCE 349 
 
 there is a greater diversity of tempers than of faces. 
 Who would beheve that old wine should hurt my 
 stomach, and new should help it, or that cinnamon 
 should heat me more than pepper ? What Physi- 
 cian could have discovered these hidden qualities 
 to me, if I had not found them out by long expe- 
 rience? Wherefore one to another cannot be a 
 perfect Physician. Whereupon I conclude, since 
 none can have a better Physician than himself, 
 nor better Physick than a Temperate Life, Tem- 
 perance by all means is to be embraced. 
 
 Nevertheless, I deny not but that Physicians are 
 necessary, and greatly to be esteemed for the 
 knowing and curing of diseases, into which they 
 often faU who live disorderly. For if a friend who 
 visits thee in thy sickness, and only comforts and 
 condoles, doth perform an acceptable thing to 
 thee, how much more dearly should a Physician be 
 esteemed, who not only as a friend doth visit thee, 
 but help thee! 
 
 But that a man may preserve himself in health, I 
 advise that instead of a Physician a regular Hfe is 
 to be embraced, which, as is manifest by experi- 
 ence, is a natural Physick most agreeable to us, 
 and also doth preserve even ill tempers in good 
 health, and procure that they prolong their Ufe 
 even to a hundred years and more, and that at 
 length they shut up their days like a Lamp, only 
 by a pure consumption of the radical moisture, 
 without grief or perturbation of humours. Many 
 
350 COENARO'S TREATISE 
 
 have thought that this could be done by Aurum 
 potabUe, or the Philosopher' s-stone, sought of many, 
 and found of few; but surely there is no such mat- 
 ter, if Temperance be wanting. 
 
 But sensual men (as most are), desiring to satisfie 
 their Appetite and pamper their belly, although 
 they see themselves ill handled by their intemper- 
 ance, yet shun a sober life; because, they say. It is 
 better to please the Appetite (though they live Ten 
 years less than otherwise they should do) than 
 always to live under bit and bridle. But they con- 
 sider not of how great moment ten years are in 
 mature age, wherein wisdom and all kind of virtues 
 is most vigorous, which but in that age can hardly 
 be perfected. And that I may say nothing of other 
 things, are not almost all the learned books that 
 we have, written by their Authors in tha- age and 
 those Ten years which they set at nought in regard 
 of their belly ? 
 
 Besides, these Belly-gods say that an orderly 
 life is so hard a thing that it cannot be kept. To 
 this I answer that Galen kept it and held it for the 
 best Physick; so did Phto also, and Isocrates, and 
 TuUy, and many others of the Ancients; and in 
 our age, Paul the Third, and Cardinal Bembo, who 
 therefore lived so long; and among our Dukes, 
 Laudiis and Donahis, and many others of inferior 
 condition, not only in the city, but also in villages 
 and hamlets. 
 
 Wherefore, since many have observed a regular 
 
OF TEMPERANCE 361 
 
 life both of old times and later years, it is no such 
 thing which may not be performed; especially 
 since in observing it there needs not many and 
 curious things, but only that a man should begin, 
 and by httle and little accustom himself unto it. 
 
 Neither doth it hinder that Plato says. That they 
 who are employed in the common-wealth cannot 
 live regularly, because they must often endure 
 heats, and colds, and winds, and showers, and 
 divers labours, which suit not with an orderly Ufe. 
 For I answer. That those inconveniences are of 
 no great moment (as I showed before) if a man be 
 temperate in meat and drink; which is both easy 
 for common-weal's-men and very convenient, both 
 that they may preserve themselves from diseases 
 which hinder pubUck imployment, as also that 
 their mind in all things wherein they deal may be 
 more lively and vigorous. 
 
 But some may say, He which lives a regular life, 
 eating always light meats and in a little quantity, 
 what diet shall he use in diseases, which being in 
 health he hath anticipated ? I answer first. Nature, 
 which endeavours to preserve a man as much as 
 she can, teacheth us how to govern ourselves in 
 sickness. For suddenly it takes away our appetrte, 
 so that we can eat but a very little, wherewith she 
 is very well contented; so that a sick man, whether 
 he hath lived heretofore orderly or disorderly, 
 when he is sick ought not to eat but such meats 
 as are agreeable to his disease, and that in much 
 
352 CORNARO'S TREATISE 
 
 smaller quantity than when he was well. For if he 
 should keep his former proportion. Nature, which 
 is already burdened with a disease, would be 
 wholly oppressed. Secondly, I answer better, that 
 he which lives a temperate life cannot fall into 
 diseases, and but very seldom into indispositions, 
 because Temperance takes away the causes of 
 diseases ; and the cause being taken away, there 
 is no place for the effect. 
 
 Wherefore since an orderly life is so profitable, 
 so vertuous, so decent, and so holy, it is worthy 
 by all means to be embraced, especially since it is 
 easy and most agreeable to the Nature of Man. No 
 man that follows it is bound to eat and drink so 
 little as I. No man is forbidden to eat fruit or fish, 
 which I eat not. For I eat little because a little 
 sufficeth my weak stomach; and I abstain from 
 fruit and fish and the like, because they hurt me. 
 But they who find benefit in these meats may, yea 
 ought to use them. Yet all must needs take heed 
 lest they take a greater quantity of any meat or 
 drink (though most agreeable to them) then their 
 stomach can easily digest ; So that he which is 
 offended with no kind of meat and drink, hath the 
 quantity and not the quality for his rule, which is 
 very easy to be observed. 
 
 Let no man here object unto me. That there are 
 many, who though they live disorderly, yet con- 
 tinue in health to their lives' end ; Because since 
 this is at the best but uncertain, dangerous, and 
 
OF TEMPERANCE 353 
 
 very rare, the presuming upon it ought not to lead 
 us to a disorderly life. 
 
 It is not the part of a wise man to expose himself 
 to so ma,ny dangers of diseases and death only 
 upon a hope of a happy issue, which yet befalls 
 very few. An old man of an ill constitution, but 
 living orderly, is more sure of life than the most 
 strong young man who hves disorderly. 
 
 But some, too much given to Appetite, object. 
 That a long Ufe is no such desirable thing, because 
 that after one is once Sixty-five years old, all the 
 time we live after is rather death than life. But 
 these err greatly, as I will show by myself, recount- 
 ing the dehghts and pleasures in this age of 83 
 which now I take, and which are such as that men 
 generally account me happy. 
 
 I am continually in health, and I am so nimble 
 that I can easily get on horseback without the ad- 
 vantage of the ground, and sometimes I go up high 
 stairs and hills on foot. Then I am ever cheerful, 
 merry, and well-contented, free from all troubles 
 and troublesome thoughts; in whose place joy and 
 peace have taken up their standing in my heart. 
 I am not weary of Ufe, which I pass with great 
 deUght. I confer often with worthy men, excel- 
 ling in wit, learning, behaviour, and other vertues. 
 When I cannot have their company, I give myself 
 to the reading of some learned book, and afterwards 
 to writing; making it my aim in all things how I 
 may help others to the furthest of my power. 
 
354 CORNARO'S TREATISE 
 
 All these things I do at my ease, and at fit sea- 
 sons, and in mine own houses ; which, besides 
 that they are in the fairest place of this learned 
 City of Padua, are very beautiful and convenient 
 above most in this age, being so built by me ac- 
 cording to the rules of Architecture, that they are 
 cool in summer and warm in winter. 
 
 I enjoy also my gardens, and those divers, parted 
 with rills of running water, which truly is very 
 delightful. Some times of the year I enjoy the 
 pleasure of the Euganean hills, where also I have 
 fountains and gardens and a very convenient 
 house. At other times, I repair to a village of mine 
 seated in the valley; which is therefore very plea- 
 sant, because many ways thither are so ordered 
 that they all meet and end in a fair plot of ground; 
 in the midst whereof is a Church suitable to the 
 condition of the place. This place is washed with 
 the river of Brenta, on both sides whereof are great 
 and fruitful fields, well manured and adorned with 
 many habitations. In former time it was not so, 
 because the place was moorish and unhealthy, fitter 
 for beasts than men. But I drained the ground, 
 and made the air good. Whereupon men flocked 
 thither and built houses, with happy success. By 
 this means the place is come to that perfection 
 we now see it is. So that I can truly say. That I 
 have both given God a Temple and men to wor- 
 ship him in it. The memory whereof is exceeding 
 delightful to me. 
 
OF TEMPERANCE 355 
 
 Sometimes I ride to some of the neighbour cities, 
 that I may enjoy the sight and communication of 
 my friends, as also of excellent Artificers in Archi- 
 tecture, painting, stone-cutting, musick, and hus- 
 bandry, whereof in this age there is great plenty. 
 I view their pieces, I compare them with those of 
 Antiquity, and ever I learn somewhat which is 
 worthy of my knowledge. I survey palaces, gar- 
 dens, antiquities, publick fabrics, temples, and forti- 
 fications ; neither omit I any thing that may either 
 teach or delight me. I am much pleased also in 
 my travels with the beauty of situation. Neither 
 is this my pleasure made less by the decaying dul- 
 ness of my senses, which are all in their perfect 
 vigour, but especially my Taste; so that any sim- 
 ple fare is more savoury to me now than heretofore, 
 when I was given to disorder and all the delights 
 that could be. 
 
 To change my bed, troubles me not. I sleep 
 well and quietly any where, and my dreams are 
 fair and pleasant. But this chiefly dehghts me, that 
 my advice hath taken eflFect in the reducing of 
 many rude and untoiled places in my country to 
 cultivation and good husbandry. I was one of 
 those that was deputed for the managing of that 
 work, and abode in those fenny places two whole 
 months in the heat of summer, (which in Italy is 
 very great,) receiving not any hurt or inconvenience 
 thereby: So great is the power and efficacy of that 
 Temperance which ever accompanied me. 
 
356 CORNARO'S TREATISE 
 
 These are the delights and solaces of my old 
 age, which is altogether to be preferred before 
 others' youth: Because that by Temperance and 
 the Grace of God I feel not those perturbations of 
 body and mind wherewith infinite both young and 
 old are afficted. 
 
 Moreover by this also in what estate I am may 
 be discovered, because at these years (viz. 83) I 
 have made a most pleasant Comedy, full of honest 
 wit and merriment; which kind of Poems useth to 
 be the child of Youth, which it most suits withal 
 for variety and pleasantness, as a Tragedy with old 
 Age, by reason of the sad events which it con- 
 tains. And if a Greek Poet of old was praised that 
 at the age of 73 years he writ a Tragedy, why 
 should I be accounted less happy, or less myself, 
 who being Ten years older have made a Comedy ? 
 
 Now lest there should be any delight wanting 
 to my old age, I daily behold a kind of immortality 
 in the succession of my posterity. For when I 
 come home, I find eleven grand-children of mine, 
 all the sons of one father and mother, all in perfect 
 health ; all as far as I can conjecture, very apt 
 and well given both for learning and behaviour. 
 I am dehghted with their music and fashion, and 
 I myself also sing often; because I have now a 
 clearer voice than ever I had in my life. 
 
 By which it is evident that the life which I live 
 at this age is not a dead, dumpish, and sower life, 
 but chearful, Hvely, and pleasant. Neither if I 
 
OF TEMPERANCE 357 
 
 had my wish, would I change age and constitution 
 with them who follow their youthful appetites, 
 although they be of a most strong temper; be- 
 cause such are daily exposed to a thousand dangers 
 and deaths, as daily experience showeth, and I 
 also, when I was a young man, too well found. I 
 know how inconsiderate that age is and, though 
 subject to death, yet continually afraid of it. For 
 death to all young men is a terrible thing, as also 
 to those that Uve in sin, and follow their appetites; 
 whereas I by the experience of so many years have 
 learned to give way to Reason; whence it seems 
 to me not only a shameful thing to fear that which 
 cannot be avoided, but also I hope, when I shall 
 come to that point, I shall find no Kttle comfort 
 in the favour of Jesus Christ. Yet I am sure that 
 my end is far from me: for I know that (setting 
 casualties aside) I shall not die but by a pure reso- 
 lution, because that by the regularity of my Hfe I 
 have shut out death all other ways. And that is 
 a fair and desirable death which Nature brings by 
 way of resolution. 
 
 Since, therefore, a Temperate hfe is so happy 
 and pleasant a thing, what remains but that I 
 should wish all who have the care of themselves 
 to embrace it with open arms ? 
 
 Many things more might be said in commenda- 
 tion hereof ; but lest in any thing I forsake that 
 Temperance which I have found so good, I here 
 make an End. 
 
PREFATORY LETTER AND NOTES 
 
 BY GEORGE HERBERT 
 
 To THE Hundred and Ten Considerations 
 OF SiGNiOR John Valdesso, Treating of 
 
 THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE MOST PROFITABLE, 
 
 MOST Necessary and most Perfect in our 
 Christian Profession 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE author of the One Hundred and Ten 
 Considerations was the Spanish reformer, 
 Juan de Valdes (1500-1541), a contemporary of 
 Luther and a predecessor of Molinos. As a young 
 man, in a book entitled Dialogo de Mercurio y 
 Caron, he attacked the corruption of the Romish 
 Church. In consequence of hostilities thus excited, 
 he left Spain in 1530, and, after a year or two in 
 Rome, settled in Naples, where in 1533 he wrote 
 a philological treatise, Dialogo de la Lengua. But 
 his interest was in religion. He gathered about him 
 a notable group of men and women, — his brother 
 Alphonso, Peter Martyr, Ochino, Camesecchi, 
 Vittoria Colonna, Giulia Gonzaga, — all eager for 
 the reform of the Church and for the Lutheran doc- 
 trine of justification by faith, though disapproving 
 Luther's schism. Valdes' most important religious 
 writings are Latte Spirituale, Trataditos, Ciento i 
 Diez Concideraciones, and El Eviangelio de San 
 Mateo. Recently these have been translated into 
 English by B. B. Wiffen and J. T. Betts. 
 
 Alphonso, the twin brother of Juan de Valdes, 
 was for a time in the service of the Emperor 
 Charles V. Walton, failing to distinguish the 
 
362 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 brothers, relates anecdotes of Juan which are now 
 known to be without foundation. 
 
 Herbert's notes on Valdesso, as he was called 
 in Italy, form his single contribution to theology. 
 A passage in The Countht Pabson is the only 
 other evidence that he was not altogether lacking 
 in theological interest: The Countrey Parson hath 
 read the Fathers also, and the Schoolmen, and the 
 later Writers, or a good proportion of all, out of aU 
 which he hath compiled a book and body of Divinity, 
 which is the storehouse of his Sermons and which he 
 preacheth all his Life, but diversly clothed, illus- 
 trated, and inlarged. For though the world is full 
 of such composures, yet every man's own is fittest, 
 readyest, and most savory to him. This Body he 
 made by way of expounding the Church Catechisme, 
 to which all divinity may easily be reduced (Ch. V). 
 Herbert's other utterances make him appear either 
 indifferent to theological ideas, or, as in his poem 
 of DiviNiTiE and in lesser degree elsewhere, posi- 
 tively scornful. He usually approaches reUgion, 
 as my second Introductory Essay explains, on its 
 practical side. In these notes, however, though the 
 doctrines discussed have important practical issues, 
 Herbert is primarily concerned with the relation 
 to one another of certain contrasted beliefs. Some 
 of them he regards with favor, others he con- 
 demns. 
 
 Valdesso's book is judged valuable for its accept- 
 ance of Christ's redemption, for the love of Christ 
 
OF VALDESSO 363 
 
 shown by its author, and for its insistence on per- 
 sonal rather than on corporate reKgion. But Her- 
 bert's disagreement is deep and fundamental. He 
 believes Valdesso to be a mystic, as indeed he was, 
 disinclined to any other standard of truth and 
 right than his own subjective feelings. (1) He sets 
 up private enthusiasmes and revelations; (2) he 
 opposeth the teaching of the Spirit to the teaching 
 of Scripture ; (3) he saith we shall not be punished 
 for evill doing, nor rewarded for wel doing or living, 
 for all the point lies in believing or not believing. 
 
 With these three related beliefs Herbert takes 
 issue. As regards the first, he observes that in indif- 
 ferent things there is roome for motions, and expect- 
 ing of them ; but in things good, as to relieve my 
 neighbour, God hath already revealed His will about 
 it. Restraining motions are much more frequent to 
 the godly then inviting motions. But to yield to 
 such inner promptings, and so to remove the godly 
 from all jurisdiction, — this cannot stand, and it is 
 HI doctrine in a common-wealth. Against it and 
 the second error he urges that those thai have in- 
 spirations must still use Peter, God's Word. 
 
 Valdesso, in Herbert's judgment, discovers too 
 slight a regard of the Scriptures, as if it were but 
 children's meat. He seems to imagine that through 
 spiritual growth we get beyond the Bible, gradu- 
 ally find it unnecessary, and become sufficient for 
 ourselves. In reality the Scriptures have not only 
 an elementary use, but a use of perfection ; neither 
 
364 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 can they ever be exhavMed. It is they which must 
 steady the believer and keep him sane. 
 
 For there is a fixed right which even the Saints 
 must not contravene. To pretend that they are 
 exempt from laws with God is dangerous and too 
 farre. Even Abraham, had he killed his sonne 
 Isaac, might have been justly put to death for it by 
 the magistrate, unlesse he cofuM have mxide it ap- 
 peare that it was done by God's immediate precept. 
 
 Brief and fragmentary as are the arguments 
 here used, perhaps also restrained through defer- 
 ence to his friend, Herbert's point of view is clear 
 and distinct. From it he attacks mysticism in its 
 central position, viz. its assertion that the ground 
 of authority Hes in the individual's own feelings, 
 and that no standards erected by past experience 
 or by the present needs of society can discredit that 
 inner prompting. 
 
 Fortunately we know precisely when these notes 
 were written. In the first edition the accompanying 
 letter to Ferrar is dated September 29. But in the 
 second edition the year is added, 1632. Just five 
 months, then, before his death Herbert prepared 
 these thoughtful notes on a weighty book. They 
 show how stringently he pressed his literary work 
 during the failing years at Bemerton. I forbare not 
 in the midst of my grief es, he proudly says. But the 
 Considerations which these notes sought to qualify, 
 the only volume which ever came from Ferrar's 
 pen, remained unprinted for six years. Perhaps 
 
OF VALDESSO 365 
 
 Herbert's criticisms made his friend hesitate. At 
 any rate, the book did not appear till 1638, when 
 Ferrar had been dead two years, and then the qual- 
 ifying notes accompanied it. These notes appear 
 also in later editions, though with some changes 
 and- additions. Among the latter is a series of 
 explanations by an unknown writer, apparently 
 designed to break the force of Herbert's objec- 
 tions. Commonplace though these are, I follow 
 Dr. Grosart in printing them as addenda, inclos- 
 ing them in brackets. 
 
Title-Page of The Divine Considerations. 
 
t BE *HU N DRED AN I> TEN^ 
 
 e^NSIDERATlOK^ 
 
 icmN V4iDE|^a 
 
 TRBKri H iG OF twos E 
 
 things whfch atciQdftprof^aBlcjfnojd 
 
 ncccflary,an(4'fPoftpcrfca in out 
 
 Bi oughrout of Italy hy'^<ff^riM^ and' 
 
 firftfetforthitiltafipirtat S<//by 
 
 €«UtuSeeui>dksCiiri»^ 
 
 fe.- 
 
 -te 
 
 /aul now tranflsted ootcf theltaliap 
 
 'riated 
 
 WHcreunto is added ah Epiftle ofthc Auth(^, 
 or aPrcfacc tohisDivmc Commentary 
 u^ the gemans, 
 
 |f*)^/f *^''«i V»l^«wf tmanifi ihtm td^mrftr-' 
 " fttf.Jftt ntt the »if4me tfthu wjrfd. 
 
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 ' 5^-d 
 
NOTES ON THE DIVINE CONSIDERA- 
 TIONS OF VALDESSO 
 
 A Copy of a Letter written by Me. Gborgb 
 . Hebbeht to his Friend the Translator 
 OP this Book 
 
 MY deare and deserving Brother, your Valr 
 desso I now returne with many thanks and 
 some notes, in which perhaps you will discover 
 some care, which I forbare not in the midst of my 
 griefes: First, for your sake, because I would doe 
 nothing negligently that you commit unto mee; 
 Secondly, for the author's sake, whom I conceive 
 to have been a true servant of God, and to such 
 and all that is theirs I owe diUgence; Thirdly, for 
 the Church's sake, to whom by printing it I would 
 have you consecrate it. You owe the Church a 
 debt, and God hath put this into your hands (as 
 He sent the fish with mony to S. Peter) to dis- 
 charge it; happily also with this (as His thoughts 
 are fruitful), intending the honour of His servant 
 the author, who being obscured in his own coun- 
 try. He would have to flourish in this land of Kght 
 and region of the Gospell among His chosen. It 
 is true there are some things which I like not in 
 him, as my fragments will expresse when you read 
 them. Neverthelesse I wish you by all meanes to 
 
368 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 publish it, for these three eminent things observ- 
 able therein: First, that God in the midst of Pop- 
 ery should open the eyes of one to understand and 
 expresse so clearely and excellently the intent of the 
 Gospell in the acceptation of Christ's righteous- 
 nesse (as he sheweth through all his Considera- 
 tions), a thing strangely buried and darkned by 
 the adversaries, and their great stumbUng-blbck. 
 Secondly, the great honour and reverence, which 
 he everywhere beares towards our deare Master 
 and Lord, concluding every Consideration almost 
 with His holy Name, and setting His merit forth 
 so piously; for which I doe so love him that were 
 there nothing else I would print it, that with it the 
 honour of my Lord might be pubUshed. Thirdly, 
 the many pious rules of ordering our life, about 
 mortification, and observation of God's Kingdome 
 within us, and the working thereof, of which he was 
 a very dihgent observer. These three things are 
 very eminent in the author, and overweigh the de- 
 fects, as I conceive, towards the publishing thereof. 
 
 From his Parsonage of Bemmorton 
 Near Salisbury, September 29, 1632. 
 
 Beiefe Notes kblating to the Dtmious and offen- 
 
 SrVE PliACES IN THE FOLLOWING CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 To the 3 Consid. upon these words: 
 
 Not for thy speech! 
 Other Law and other Doctrine have we. 
 
 These words about the H. Scripture suite with 
 
OF VALDESSO 369 
 
 what he writes elsewhere, especially Consid. 32. 
 But I like none of it, for it sKghts the Scripture too 
 much. Holy Scriptures have not only an elemen- 
 tary use, but a use of perfection and are able to 
 make the man of God perfect (1 Tim. iv.). And 
 David (though David) studied all the day long in 
 it, and Joshua was to meditate therein day and 
 night. (Josh, the 1.) 
 
 To the 3 Consid. upon these words: 
 
 As they also make use of the Scriptures to 
 
 conserve the health of their minds. 
 
 All the Saints of God may be said in some sence 
 to have put confidence in Scripture, but not as a 
 naked Word severed from God, but as the Word 
 of God; and in so doing they doe not sever their 
 trust from God. But by trusting in the W]ord of 
 God they trust in God. Hee that trusts in the 
 king's word for anything, trusts in the king. 
 
 To the 5 Consid. upon these words : 
 God regards not how pious or impious we he. 
 
 This place, together with many other, as namely 
 Consid. 71, upon Our Father; and Consid. 94, 
 upon these words : Ood doth not hold them for good 
 or for evill for that they observe or not observe, &c., 
 though it were the author's opinion, yet the truth 
 of it would be examined. See the note upon Con- 
 sid. 36. 
 
S70 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 To the 6 Consid. 
 
 The doctrine of the last passage must be warily 
 understood. First, that it is not to be understood 
 of actuall sinnes, but habituall; for I can no more 
 free my selfe from actuall sinnes after Baptisme 
 then I could of originall before and without Bap- 
 tisme. The exemption from both is by the grace of 
 God. Secondly, among habits, some oppose theo- 
 logical vertues, as uncharitablenesse opposes char- 
 ity, infidelity faith, distrust hope ; of these none 
 can free themselves of themselves, but only by the 
 grace of God. Other habits oppose morall vertues, 
 as prodigality opposes moderation, and pusilla- 
 nimity magnanimity. Of these the heathen freed 
 themselves only by the generall providence of God, 
 as Socrates and Aristides, &c. Where he sayes the 
 inflammaiion of the naturall, he sayes aptly, so it be 
 understood with the former distinction; for fames 
 is not taken away, but accensio fomitis ; the nat- 
 urall concupiscence is not extinguished, but the 
 heate of it asswaged. 
 
 To the 11 Consid. 
 
 He often useth this manner of speech, beleeving 
 by Revelation, not by relation, whereby I under- 
 stand he meaneth only the effectuall operation or 
 illumination of the Holy Spirit, testifying and ap- 
 plying the revealed truth of the Gospell, and not 
 any private enthusiasmes or revelations; as if he 
 
OF VALDESSO 371 
 
 should say, 'A generall apprehension, or assent 
 to the promises of the Gospell by heare-say, or 
 relation from others, is not that which fiUeth the 
 heart with joy and peace in believing ; but the 
 Spirit's bearing witnesse with our spirit, revealing 
 and applying the generall promises to every one in 
 particular, with such syncerity and efficacy that it 
 makes him godly, righteous, and sober all his life 
 long, — this I call beleeving by Revelation and 
 not by relation.' 
 
 [Valdesso, in the passage to which this note is 
 attached, considers the state of that man who, 
 though hard of belief and difficult to be persuaded, 
 has at length been awakened to the truths of the 
 Gospel, as infinitely preferable to the hasty faith 
 which the man who is easily persuaded to adopt 
 any opinion is too often induced to yield to the 
 promises of the Gospel. The former, as having 
 resigned his prejudices to the force of truth, is 
 said to believe by Revelation; whereas the latter, 
 as having yielded to the Gospel the same weak 
 assent which any other doctrines equally might 
 have drawn from him, is said to believe by rela- 
 tion, by human persuasion and the opinion of 
 mankind.] 
 
 To the 32 Consid. 
 
 I much mislike the comparison of images and 
 H. Scripture, as if they were both but alphabets 
 and after a time to be left. The H. Scriptures, as I 
 
372 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 wrote before, have not only an elementary'use, but 
 a use of perfection; neither can they ever be 
 exhausted (as pictures may be by a plenarie cir- 
 cumspection), but still, even to the most learned 
 and perfect in them, there is somewhat to be 
 learned more. Therefore David desireth God, in 
 the 119 Psalme, to open his eyes that he might 
 see the wondrous things of his Lawes and that he 
 would make them his study; although by other 
 words of the same Psalme it is evident that he was 
 not meanly conversant in them. Indeed, he that 
 shall so attend to the bark of the letter as to neglect 
 the consideration of God's worke in his heart 
 through the Word doth amisse. Both are to be 
 done : the Scriptures still used, and God's worke 
 within us still observed, Who workes by His Word 
 and ever in the reading of it. As for that text, They 
 shall he all taught of God, it being Scripture, cannot 
 be spoken to the disparagement of Scripture; but 
 the meaning is this. That God in the dayes of the 
 Gospell will not give an outward law of ceremonies 
 as of old, but such a one as shall still have the assist- 
 ance of the Holy Spirit applying it to our hearts, 
 and ever outrunning the teacher, as it did when 
 Peter taught Cornehus. There the case is plaine: 
 Cornelius had revelation, yet Peter was to be sent 
 for; and those that have inspirations must still use 
 Peter, God's Word. If we make another sence of 
 that text, wee shall overthrow all means save Cate- 
 chizing and set up enthusiasmes. 
 
OF VALDESSO 373 
 
 In the Seripture are 
 Doctrines — these ever teach more and more. 
 Promises — these ever comfort more and more. 
 
 Ro. XV. 4. 
 
 [In this note Herbert justly objects to a very 
 quaint and far-fetched comparison which the au- 
 thor draws between the books of Holy Scripture 
 and the images of the Roman Catholic Church. As 
 the unlearned are fond of placing pictorial images 
 in different situations, in order that the objects 
 of their behef might never be absent from their 
 minds, so the learned delight to heap up copies of 
 the Holy Scriptures with notes, comments, and 
 explanations of wise men, that they may be fur- 
 nished with every information which they may 
 desire on the subject of the Christian faith. But in 
 both cases alike, those who are not indued with the 
 true inspiration of the Spirit confine themselves to 
 the study of these their first rudiments; whereas 
 the truly pious, who are guided by the Spirit of God, 
 look upon Scripture in one case, and images in 
 the other, as but the alphabet as it were of Chris- 
 tianity, and to be cast aside after they have once 
 obtained the revelation and grace of God. This 
 comparison, as being incomplete, and in fact lead- 
 ing to dangerous doctrines, Herbert very properly 
 impugns.] 
 
374 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 To the 33 Consid. 
 
 The doctrine of this Consideration cleareth that 
 of the precedent. For as the servant leaves not the 
 letter when he hath read it, but keepes it by him, 
 and reads it againe and againe, and the more the 
 promise is delayed the more he reads it and forti- 
 fies himselfe with it, so are wee to doe with the 
 Scriptures, and this is the use of the promises of 
 the Scriptures. But the use of the doctrinall part 
 is more, in regard it presents us not with the same 
 thing only when it is read, as the promises doe, but 
 enlightens us with new considerations the more 
 we read it. Much more might be said, but this 
 sufficeth. He himselfe allowes it for a holy con- 
 versation and refreshment. 
 
 [In the 32nd Consideration; and amongst all di- 
 vine and spiritual exercises and duties, he nameth 
 the reading and meditation of Holy Scripture for 
 the first and principal, as Consid. 47, and others; 
 so that it is plain the author had a very reverend 
 esteem of the Holy Scripture, especially considering 
 the time and place where he lived. That Valdesso 
 did not undervalue the Scriptures, notwithstanding 
 the remarks alluded to in Herbert's last note, is 
 evident from the passage to which this present note 
 refers. In it the Scriptures are said to be to us as 
 a letter would be to a servant from his lord, which 
 is treasured up by him as containing promises of 
 high and unusual favours, certain in the end to be 
 fulfilled, although slow in coming.] 
 
OF VALDESSO 375 
 
 To the 36 Consid. on these words: 
 
 Neither fearing chastisement for transgression, 
 
 nor hoping for reward, for observation, &c. 
 
 All the discourse from this line till the end of this 
 chapter may seeme strange, but it is sutable to what 
 the author holds elsewhere; for he maintaines that 
 it is faith and infidelity that shall judge us now 
 since the Gospell, and that no other sin or vertue 
 hath any thing to doe with us ; if we believe, no 
 sinne shall hurt us ; if we believe not, no vertue 
 shall helpe us. Therefore he saith here, we shall 
 not be punished (which word I hke here bettpr 
 than chastizement, because even the godly are chas- 
 tized but not punished) for evill doing, nor re- 
 warded for wel doing or living, for all the point lies 
 in believing or not believing. And with this exposi- 
 tion the chapter is cleare enough; but the truth of 
 the doctrine would be examined, however it may 
 passe for his opinion. In the Church of God there 
 is one fundamentall, but else variety. 
 
 [The author's good meaning in this will better 
 appear by his 98th Consideration of faith and good 
 werks. The arguments of the author in this place 
 on the Christian liberty may be correctly explained 
 as Herbert has in this note explained them. It 
 may, however, be questioned whether his language 
 is not a little too obscure; so much so, indeed, that 
 a hasty perusal of the chapter might lead those who 
 were predisposed to such an inference to imagine 
 
376 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 that Valdesso had fallen into the grievous heresy 
 which once led so many men astray in our own 
 country, that even sins might be committed with 
 impunity, and were not in fact sinful, when a man 
 was once a member of the invisible Church of 
 Christ and justified by faith.] 
 
 To the 37 Consid. on these words-: 
 That God is so delicate and sensitive, &c. 
 
 The Apostle saith that the wages of sinne is 
 death, and therefore there is no sinne so small that 
 merits not death, and that doth not provoke God, 
 Who is a jealous God. [In the margin here, " This 
 note is the French translator's."] 
 
 To the 46 Consid. on these words: 
 
 Exercise not thyself in anything pretending justi- 
 
 fication. 
 
 He meaneth (I suppose) that a man presume not 
 to merit, that is, to obhge God, or justify himselfe 
 before God, by any acts or exercises of religion; 
 but that he ought to pray God affectionately and 
 fervently to send him the light of His Spirit, which 
 may be unto him as the sunne to a travellour in his 
 journey; hee in the meane while applying himselfe 
 to the duties of true piety and syncere religion, such 
 as are prayer, fasting, alms-deeds, &c. after the 
 example of devout Cornelius. 
 
 [Or thus: there are two sorts of acts in religion, 
 acts of humiliation and acts of confidence and joy; 
 
OF VALDESSO 377 
 
 the person here described to be in the dark ought 
 to use the first, and to forbear the second. Of the 
 first sort are repentance.'prayers, fasting, alms, mor- 
 tifications, &c. ; of the second, receiving of the Com- 
 munion, praises, psalms, &c. These in divers cases 
 ought, and were of old forborne for a time. This 
 note almost explains itself. In the text to which it 
 refers the Spirit of God is described as gradually 
 shedding its light upon the mind in the same man- 
 ner as the sun breaks by degrees upon the eyes of 
 a traveller in the dark.] 
 
 To the 49 Consid. on these words: 
 Remaining quiet when they perceive no motion, &c. 
 
 In indififerent things there is roome for motions, 
 and expecting of them; but in things good, as to 
 relieve my neighbour, God hath already revealed 
 His will about it. Therefore we ought to proceed, 
 except there be a restraining motion, as S. Paul 
 had when hee would have preached in Asia. And I 
 conceive the restraining motions are much more 
 frequent to the godly then inviting motions, be- 
 cause the Scripture invites enough ; for it invites us 
 to all good according to that singular place, Phil, 
 iv. 8. A man is to embrace all good; but because 
 he cannot doe all, God often chuseth which he 
 shall doe, and that by restraining him from what 
 He would not have him doe. 
 
 [The author in this place is speaking of motions 
 communicated by the Spirit, either to do or to 
 
378 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 refrain from doing certain actions. Herbert's note 
 explains his sentiments on that subject.] 
 
 To the same Consid. upon these words: 
 A man's free vnll doth consist, &c. 
 
 He meanes a man's fre will is only in outward, 
 not in spirituall things. 
 
 To the same Consid. on these words: 
 
 Neither Pharaoh nor Jvdas, &c. could cease to be 
 
 such. 
 
 This doctrine, however true in substance, yet 
 needeth discreet and wary explaining. 
 
 [The doctrine that bad men, such as Pharaoh, 
 Judas, and other vessels of wrath, only fulfilled 
 parts appointed to them by God, and could not be 
 otherwise than what they were.] 
 
 To the 58 Consid. upon the seventh difference. 
 
 By occasions I suppose hee meaneth the ordi- 
 nary or necessary duties and occasions of our call- 
 ing and condition of life, and not those which are 
 in themselves occasions of sinne, such as are all 
 vain conversations. For as for these, pious per- 
 sons ought alwaies to avoid them. But in those 
 other occasions God's Spirit will mortify and try 
 them as gold in the fire. 
 
 [The author speaks of human learning as insuf- 
 ficient to guide a man to the knowledge of the 
 truth. Herbert's note explains itself.] 
 
OF VALDESSO 379 
 
 To the 59 Consid. upon these words: 
 
 And with doubtfulnesse I see He prayed in the 
 
 garden. 
 
 To say our Saviour prayed with doubtfubiesse is 
 more then I can or dare say. But with condition or 
 conditionally He prayed as man, though as God 
 He knew the Event. Feare is given to Christ, but 
 not doubt, and upon good ground. 
 
 To the 62 Consid. 
 
 This Chapter is considerable. The intent of it, 
 that the world pierceth not godly men's actions no 
 more than God's, is in some sort true, because they 
 are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. ii. 14). So Ukewise 
 are the godly in some sort exempt from Lawes, 
 for Lex justo non est posita. But when he enlargeth 
 them he goes too farre. For first, concerning Abra- 
 ham and Sara, I ever tooke that for a weaknesse in 
 the great patriark. And that the best of God's ser- 
 vants should have weaknesses, is no way repugnant 
 to the way of God's Spirit in them, or to the Scrip- 
 tures, or to themselves, being still men, though 
 godly men. Nay, they are purposely recorded in 
 Holy Writ. Wherefore as David's adultery cannot 
 be excused, so need not Abraham's equivocation, 
 nor Paul's neither when he professed himselfe a 
 Pharisee, which strictly he was not, though in the 
 point of resurrection he agreed vsdth them and they 
 with him. The reviUng also of Ananias seemes, by 
 
S80 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 his owne recalling, an oversight; yet I remember 
 the Fathers forbid us to judge of the doubtfull 
 actions of saints in Scripture, which is a modest 
 admonition. But it is one thing not to judge, 
 another to defend them. Secondly, when he useth 
 the word jurisdiction, allowing no jurisdiction over 
 the godly, this cannot stand, and it is ill doctrine in 
 a common-wealth. The godly are punishable as 
 others when they doe amisse, and they are to be 
 judged according to the outward fact, unlesse it be 
 evident to others as well as to themselves that God 
 moved them; for otherwise any malefactor may 
 pretend motions, which is insufferable in a common- 
 wealth. Neither doe I doubt but if Abraham had 
 lived in our kingdome under government, and had 
 killed his sonne Isaac, but he might have been 
 justly put to death for it by the magistrate, unlesse 
 he could have made it appeare that it was done 
 by God's immediate precept. He had done justly 
 and yet had been punished justly, that is. In hu- 
 mano foro el secundum praesumptionem legahm 
 [according to the common and legal proceedings 
 among men]. So may a warre be just on both sides, 
 and was just in the Canaanites and IsraeUtes both. 
 How the godly are exempt from laws is a known 
 point among divines; but when he sayes they are 
 equally exempt with God, that is dangerous and 
 too farre. The best salve for the whole chapter is 
 to distinguish judgment. There is a judgment of 
 authority (upon a fact), and there is a judgment 
 
OF VALDESSO 381 
 
 of the learned. For as a magistrate judgeth in his 
 tribunall, so a scholar judgeth in his study and cen- 
 sureth this or that ; whence come so many books 
 of severall men's opinions. Perhaps he meant all 
 of this later, not of the former. Worldly learned 
 men cannot judg spirituall men's actions, but the 
 magistrate may. 
 
 [And surely this the author meant by the word 
 jurisdiction, for so he useth the same word in Con- 
 sideration 68 ad finem. The 62d Consideration 
 treats of the dangerous and useless question how 
 far saints are exempt from human law, laying 
 down at the same time a position equally unten- 
 able in its full extent, that men have neither right 
 nor abihty to judge of those things which the holy 
 men recorded in Scripture have done contrary to 
 human law. The note before us was penned by 
 Herbert to quahfy and restrict this doctrine.] 
 
 To the 63 Consid. 
 
 The authour doth still discover too slight a 
 regard of the Scripture, as if it were but children's 
 meat; whereas there is not onely milke there, but 
 strong meat also (Heb. v. 14) ; things hard to bee 
 understood (2 Pet. iii. 16) ; things needing great con- 
 sideration (Mat. xxiv. 15). Besides, he opposeththe 
 teaching of the Spirit to the teaching of Scripture, 
 which the Holy Spirit wrote. Although the Holy 
 Spirit apply the Scripture, yet what the Scripture 
 teacheth the Spirit teacheth ; the Holy Spirit, 
 
382 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 indeed, some time doubly teaching, both in pen- 
 ning and in applying. I wonder how this opinion 
 could befall so good a man as it seems Valdesso 
 was, since the saints of God in all ages have ever 
 held in so pretious esteem the Word of God as 
 their joy and erowne and their treasure on earth. 
 Yet his owne practice seemes to confute his opin- 
 ion; for the most of his Considerations, being 
 grounded upon some text of Scripture, shewes that 
 he was continually conversant in it and not used it 
 for a time onely and then cast it away, as he sayes 
 strangely. There is no more to be said of this chap- 
 ter but that his opinion of the Scripture is unsuffer- 
 able. As for the text of S. Pet. 2 Ep. i. 19, which 
 he makes the ground of his Consideration, build- 
 ing it all upon the word, Untill the day-starre arise, 
 it is nothing. How many places doe the Fathers 
 bring about until against the heretiques who dis- 
 puted against the virginity of the blessed Virgin, 
 out of that text (Mat. i. 25), where it is said, 
 Joseph knew her not until shee had brought forth 
 her firstborn Sonne, as if afterwards he had knowne 
 her. And indeed in common sence, if I bid a man 
 stay in a place untill I come, I doe not then bid 
 him goe away, but rather stay longer, that I may 
 speak with him or doe something else when I doe 
 come. So S. Peter bidding the dispersed Hebrews 
 attend to the word till the day dawn, doth pot bid 
 them then cast away the word, or leave it off; but, 
 however, he would have them attend to it till that 
 
OF VALDESSO 383 
 
 time, and then afterward they will attend it of 
 themselves without his exhortation. Nay, it is 
 observeable that in that very place he preferres the 
 word before the sight of the Transfiguration of 
 Christ. So that the word hath the precedence 
 even of revelation and visions. And so his whole 
 discourse and sevenfold observation falls to the 
 ground. 
 
 [In the 63d Consideration Valdesso attempts to 
 show, by seven conformities, that the Holy Scripture 
 is like a candle in a dark place, and that the Holy 
 Spirit is like the sunne; in this showing that sUght 
 regard for Scripture with which Herbert charges 
 him in the note before us.] 
 
 To the 65 Consid. on these words : 
 
 Acknowledging the benefit received by Jesus Christ 
 
 our Lord; like as it betides unto a thirsty travellour, 
 
 to whom, &c. 
 
 This comparison is infinitely too base. There is 
 none of the references which we have had with our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, dissolved but infinitely per- 
 fected, and He shall ever continue our glorious 
 Head. And all the influences of our happinesse 
 shall ever descend from Him, and our chief glory 
 shall, as I conceive, consist in that which He saith 
 among the last words that He spake in the XVII 
 John, 34, Father, I will that they also whom Thou 
 hast given Me bee with Me where I am, that they also 
 may behold the glory which Thou hast given Me be- 
 
384 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 fore ike foundation of the world. [To which agreeth 
 that which S. Paul writes (2 Thes. 1, chap. 9)]. 
 
 To the 69 Consid. upon these words: 
 So much faith as thereby to remove mauntaines. 
 
 Divines hold that justifying faith and the faith 
 of miracles are divers gifts and of a different na- 
 ture, the one being gratia gratis data, the other 
 gratia gratum faciens, — this being given only to 
 the godly, and the other sometimes to the wicked. 
 Yet doubtlesse the best faith in us is defective and 
 arrives not to the point it should; which if it did, 
 it would doe more than it does. And miracle- 
 working, as it may be severed from justifying faith, 
 so it may be a fruit of it and an exaltation. (1 John 
 V. 14.) 
 
 [This note is appended to the 69th Considera- 
 tion, that all men, bearing in mind the faith to 
 work miracles with which some have been endued, 
 should always judge their own faith incomplete. 
 And secondly, that their faith is always to be mea- 
 sured by their knowledge of God and Christ.] 
 
 Page 247. 
 
 Though this were the author's opinion, yet the 
 truth of it would be examined. The 98th Consid- 
 eration, about being justified by faith or by good 
 works, or condemned for unbelief or evil works, 
 make plain the Author's meaning. 
 
 [The author in this place alludes briefly to the 
 
OF VALDESSO 385 
 
 imputed merits of Christ, apparently as if they 
 entirely superseded human virtue and rendered it 
 unnecessary. Herbert refers to the 98th Consider- 
 ation to explain this apparent inconsistency.] 
 
 Page 270. 
 
 By the saints of the world he everywhere under- 
 stands the cunning hypocrite, who by the world is 
 counted a very saint for his outward show of hoK- 
 ness. And we meet with two sorts of these saints of 
 the world : one whose hoKness consists in a few cer- 
 emonies and superstitious observations; the other's 
 in a zeal against these, and in a strict perform- 
 ance of a few cheap and easy duties of religion with 
 no less superstition; both of them having forms or 
 vizors of godliness, but denying the power thereof. 
 
 [This note merely explains a term, saints of the 
 world, which Valdesso employs in the Considera- 
 tion to which the note is attached.] 
 
 Page 354. 
 
 Though this be the author's opinion, yet the 
 truth of it would be examined. The 98th Consid- 
 eration, about being justified by faith or by good 
 works, or condemned for unbelief or evil works, 
 make plain the author's meaning. 
 
 [Herbert here repeats a note which he had 
 attached to a previous passage. He again alludes 
 to the same doctrine, qualifying it by a reference 
 to a future Consideration.] 
 
386 THE DIVINE CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 To the 94 Consid. 
 
 By Hebrew piety he meaneth not the very cere- 
 monies of the Jewes, which no Christian observes 
 now, but an analogat observation of ecclesiasticall 
 and canonicall lawes superinduced to the Scrip- 
 tures, Kke to that of the Jewes, which they added 
 to their divine law. This being well weighed, will 
 make the Consideration easy and very observable. 
 For at least some of the Papists are come now to 
 what the Pharisees were come to in our Saviour's 
 time. 
 
 [This note is written to explain the term, Hebrew 
 piety, and in no other way refers to the text of 
 Valdesso.] 
 
 Page 355. 
 
 This is true only of the Popish cases of con- 
 science, which depend almost wholly on their 
 canon law and decretals, knots of their own tying 
 and untying; but there are other cases of con- 
 science, grounded on piety and moraUty, and the 
 difficulty of applying their general rules to particu- 
 lar actions, which are a most noble study. 
 
 [Herbert here qualifies another statement of 
 Valdesso, which would seem to confound the cases 
 of conscience which the Romanists were so fond of 
 framing, with others which often arise in the bosoms 
 of good men and are founded on a regard to piety 
 and moraUty.] 
 
Intenor ofFerrar's Church, S2 x IS feet, with chancel U X 10. 
 See Vol. I, p. 171-175. 
 
LETTERS OF GEORGE HERBERT 
 
PREFACE 
 
 SIXTEEN English letters of Herbert's have 
 been preserved in whole or in part. Six of 
 them were written to his stepfather, Sir John 
 Danvers, four to his brother Henry, two to Nicho- 
 las Ferrar (besides the one already printed as a 
 preface to the notes on Valdesso), and one each to 
 his mother, his sister, and the Countess of Pem- 
 broke. They are arranged here chronologically. 
 Though not all dated, on internal evidence it is 
 possible to fix approximately the time when each 
 was written. 
 
 Herbert's letter to his mother first appeared in 
 Walton's Life. In an appendix to that book Walton 
 also printed Herbert's letter to his sister, the six 
 letters to Danvers, and the one to Ferrar sending 
 notes on Valdesso. In the appendix to the collected 
 Lives he added the letter to the Countess of Pem- 
 broke. The other two letters to Ferrar are derived 
 from John Ferrar's Life of his brother. Those to 
 Henry Herbert were first printed in 1818, in a vol- 
 ume of letters of the Herbert family edited by Re- 
 becca Warner and entitled Epistolary Curiosities. 
 
 At first sight these are not precisely the letters 
 of Herbert which one would desire. All, with the 
 
390 PREFACE TO 
 
 exception of those to Perrar, are addressed to rela- 
 tives. But even so, the collection is strangely 
 meagre. There is no letter to Edward Herbert, 
 only one to Herbert's mother, that one being the 
 most artificial of all ; while the correspondence 
 with Ferrar which, according to Walton and Oley, 
 was so frequent as to be their chief bond of in- 
 timacy, is here represented by fragments. Those 
 were disturbed times, when letters were easily lost 
 or destroyed; but one would suppose that less than 
 forty years after Herbert's death it would have 
 been easy to gather more letters of a man then 
 decidedly famous and during his life widely con- 
 nected. 
 
 Yet if the letters are few and brief, they throw 
 valuable Kght on Herbert's character and on sev- 
 eral important incidents of his life. It is true they 
 say nothing about his verse, his Crisis time, his 
 marriage, his taking orders, his clerical work at 
 Bemerton. But during the Cambridge years they 
 tell of his slender health, his disposition to extrava- 
 gance, his fondness for buying books, his purpose 
 of the priesthood, his Ught postponement of it, his 
 eagerness for the Oratorship. In his later years, 
 too, we catch gUmpses of his rebuilding Leighton 
 Church, his care of his nieces, and his pleasant 
 relations with the Pembrokes. On the whole, that 
 must be regarded as a fortunate selection of letters 
 which in so short a compass reports so much about 
 their reticent writer. 
 
LETTERS 391 
 
 Furthermore, these letters are individual and 
 truthful. They are written by one who has some- 
 thing of importance in mind which he wishes to 
 put into the mind of another. The correspondence 
 of the seventeenth century does not usually con- 
 vey this impression. Verbiage, compUment, con- 
 ventional modes of utterance, distortion of sincerity 
 through Kterary desire, make many of the letters 
 of this period tiresome reading. That is the case 
 with Donne's voluminous letters, with Herbert's 
 letters in Latin, — yes, even with Milton's. So 
 obscuring are the literary flourishes in these la- 
 bored compositions that it is difficult to discover 
 what has happened or what is felt. Something of 
 this stiffness will be noticed in the hortations of 
 Herbert's letter to his mother, which seems rather 
 intended for the public than for a suffering dear 
 one. But in general the simple and meaningful 
 tone of these letters probably gives us our best 
 indication of how Herbert talked in the intimacies 
 of ordinary life. 
 
LETTERS OP GEORGE HERBERT 
 
 To Sm J. D.i 
 
 Sib, 
 
 THOUGH I had the best wit in the world, yet 
 it would easily tyre me to find out variety of 
 thanks for the diversity of your favours, if I sought 
 to do so; but I possess it not. And therefore let it 
 be sufficient for me that the same heart which you 
 have won long since is still true to you, and hath 
 nothing else to answer your infinite kindnesses but 
 a constancy of obedience ; only hereafter I will 
 take heed how I propose my desires unto you, 
 since I find you so willing to yield to my requests; 
 for since your favours come a horseback, there is 
 reason that my desires should go a-foot; neither do 
 I make any question but that you have performed 
 your kindness to the full, and that the horse is 
 every way fit for me, and I will strive to imitate the 
 compleatness of your love, with being in some pro- 
 portion, and after my manner, your most obedient 
 
 Servant, 
 
 Geobge Hebbebt. 
 
394 LETTERS 
 
 To Sir John Danvehs 
 
 Sib, 
 
 I dare no longer be silent, lest while I think I am 
 modest, I wrong both myself, and also the confi- 
 dence my friends have in me. Wherefore I wiU 
 open my case unto you, which I think deserves the 
 reading at the least : and it is this, I want books 
 extremely. You know. Sir, how I am now setting 
 foot into Divinity, to lay the platform of my future 
 Kfe; and shall I then be fain always to borrow 
 books, and build on another's foundation ? What 
 tradesman is there who will set up without his 
 tools ? Pardon my boldness. Sir; it is a most seri- 
 ous case, nor can I write coldly in that wherein 
 consisteth the making good of my former educa- 
 tion, of obeying that spirit which hath guided me 
 hitherto, and of atchieving my (I dare say) holy 
 ends. This also is aggravated, in that I apprehend 
 what my friends would have been forward to say 
 if I had taken ill courses. Follow your book, and 
 you shall want nothing. You know, Sir, it is their 
 ordinary speech, and now let them make it good; 
 for since I hope I have not deceived their expecta- 
 tion, let not them deceive mine. But perhaps they 
 will say. You are sickly, you must not study too 
 hard. It is true (God knows) I am weak, yet not 
 so but that every day I may step one step towards 
 my joumie's end; and I love my friends so well as 
 that if all things proved not well, I had rather the 
 
LETTERS 395 
 
 fault should He on me than on them. But they will 
 object again, What becomes of your Annuity? 
 Sir, if there be any truth in me, I find it Kttle 
 enough to keep me in health. You know I was sick 
 last vacation, neither am I yet recovered, so that I 
 am fain ever and anon to buy somewhat tending 
 towards my health; for infirmities are both painful 
 and costly. Now this Lent I am forbid utterly to 
 eat any fish, so that I am fain to dyet in my cham- 
 ber at mine own cost; for in our pubHck halls, you 
 know, is nothing but fish and white-meats; out of 
 Lent also twice a week, on Fridayes and Satur- 
 days, I must do so, which yet sometimes I fast. 
 Sometimes also I ride to Newmarket, and there lie 
 a day or two for fresh air; all which tend to avoid- 
 ing of costlier matters, if I should fall absolutely 
 sick. I protest and vow, I even study thrift, and 
 yet I am scarce able with much ado to make one 
 half year's allowance shake hands with the other. 
 And yet if a book of four or five shillings come in 
 my way, I buy it, though I fast for it; yea, some- 
 times of ten shiUings. But, alas Sir, what is that to 
 those infinite volumes of Divinity, which yet every 
 day swell and grow bigger? Noble Sir, pardon 
 my boldness, and consider but these three things: 
 first, the bulk of Divinity. Secondly, the time when 
 I desire this (which is now, when I must lay the 
 foundation of my whole hfe). Thirdly, what I de- 
 sire and to what end, not vain pleasures, nor to a 
 vain end. If then. Sir, there be any course, either 
 
396 LETTERS 
 
 by engaging my future annuity, or any other way, 
 I desire you. Sir, to be my mediator to them in my 
 behalf. 
 
 Now I write to you. Sir, because to you I have 
 ever opened my heart, and have reason by the 
 Patents of your perpetual favour to do so still, for 
 I am sure you love your faithfuUest Servant, 
 
 George Hebbert. 
 
 Trin. CoU., March 18, 1617. 
 
 To Mb. H. Heebeet* 
 
 Brother, 
 
 The disease which I am troubled with now is the 
 shortness of time ; for it hath been my fortune of 
 late to have such sudden warning, that I have not 
 leisure to impart unto you some of those observa- 
 tions which I have framed to myself in conversa- 
 tion, and whereof I would not have you ignorant. 
 As I shall find occasion, you shall receive them by 
 pieces; and if there be any such which you have 
 found useful to yourself, communicate them to me. 
 You live in a brave nation, where, except you wink,^ 
 you cannot but see many brave examples. Be 
 covetous, then, of all good which you see in French- 
 men, whether it be in knowledge or in fashion or 
 in words; for I would have you, even in speeches 
 to observe so much as, when you meet with a witty 
 French speech, try to speak the like in EngUsh. 
 So shall you play a good merchant, by transport- 
 ing French commodities to your own country. Let 
 
LETTERS 397 
 
 there be no kind of excellency which it is possible 
 for you to attain to, which you seek not. And have 
 a good conceit of your wit, mark what I say, have a 
 good conceit of your wit; that is, be proud not with 
 a foolish vaunting of yourself when there is no 
 cause, but by setting a just price of your quahties. 
 And it is the part of a poor spirit to undervalue 
 himself and blush. But I am out of my time. 
 When I have more time, you shall hear more; and 
 write you freely to me in your letters, for I am your 
 ever loving brother, 
 
 G. Herbert. 
 
 P. S. My brother is somewhat of the same tem- 
 per, and perhaps a little more mild, but you will 
 hardly perceive it. 
 
 To my dear Brother, 
 Mr. Henry Herbert, at Paris. 
 
 To THE THTJLT NOBLE SiK J. D.* 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I understand by a letter ' from my brother 
 Henry that he hath bought a parcel of books for 
 me, and that they are coming over. Now though 
 they have hitherto travelled upon your charge, yet 
 if my sister were acquainted that they are ready, 
 I dare say she would make good her promise of 
 taking five or six pound upon her, which she hath 
 hitherto deferred to do, not of herself, but upon the 
 want of those books which were not to be got in 
 
398 LETTERS 
 
 England. For that which surmounts, though your 
 noble disposition is infinitely free, yet I had rather 
 flie to my old ward, that if any course could be 
 taken of doubhng my annuity now upon condition 
 that I should surcease from all title to it after I 
 enter'd into a benefice, I should be most glad to 
 entertain it, and both pay for the surplusage of 
 these books and for ever after cease my clamorous 
 and greedy bookish requests. It is high time now 
 that I should be no more a burden to you, since I 
 can never answer what I have already received; 
 for your favours are so ancient^ that they prevent 
 my memory, and yet still grow upon your hum- 
 blest servant, 
 
 George Herbert. 
 
 I remember my most humble duty to my 
 mother. I have wrote to my dear sick sister this 
 week already, and therefore now I hope may be 
 excused. 
 
 I pray. Sir, pardon my boldness of enclosing 
 my brother's letter .'in yours, for it was because I 
 know your lodging, but not his. 
 
 To Sm John Danvehs 
 
 Sir, 
 
 This week hath loaded me with your favours. 
 I wish I could have come in person to thank you, 
 but it is not possible. Presently after Michaelmas 
 I am to make an oration to the whole Univeraity, of 
 
LETTERS 399 
 
 an hour long in Latin, and my Lincoln journey 
 hath set me much behind hand: neither can I so 
 much as go to Bugden and deliver your letter, yet 
 I have sent it thither by a faithful messenger this 
 day. I beseech you all, you and my dear Mother 
 and sister, to pardon me ; for my Cambridge ne- 
 cessities are stronger to tye me here than yours 
 to London. If I could possibly have come, none 
 should have done my message to Sir Fr. Nether- 
 sole for me. He and I are ancient acquaintance, 
 and I have a strong opinion of him that if he can 
 do me a courtesy, he will of himself ; yet your 
 appearing in it affects me strangely. I have sent 
 you here enclosed a letter from our Master on 
 my behalf, which if you can send to Sir Francis 
 before his departure, it will do well, for it express- 
 eth the Universitie's inclination to me. Yet if you 
 cannot send it with much convenience, it is no 
 matter, for the gentleman needs no incitation to 
 love me. 
 
 The Orator's place (that you may understand 
 what it is) is the finest place in the University, 
 though not the gainfuUest; yet that will be about 
 30 Z. per an. But the commodiousness is beyond 
 the revenue; for the Orator writes all the Univer- 
 sity letters, makes all the orations, be it to King, 
 Prince, or whatever comes to the University; to 
 requite these pains, he takes place next the doc- 
 tors, is at all their assembKes and meetings, and 
 sits above the proctors, is regent, or non-regent at 
 
400 LETTERS 
 
 his pleasure, and such like gaynesses, which will 
 please a young man well.' 
 
 I long to hear from Sir Francis. I pray Sir, send 
 the letter you receive from him to me as soon as 
 you can, that I may work the Heads to my pur- 
 pose. I hope I shall get this place without all 
 your London helps, of which I am very proud ; 
 not but that I joy in your favours, but that you 
 may see that if all fail, yet I am able to stand on 
 mine own legs. Noble Sir, I thank you for your 
 infinite favours ; I fear only that I have omitted 
 some fitting circumstance; yet you will pardon my 
 haste, which is very great, though never so but that 
 I have both time and work to be your extreme 
 servant, 
 
 George Herbert. 
 
 To SiK John Danveks 
 
 I have received the things you sent me, safe ; 
 and now the only thing I long for is to hear of my 
 dear sick sister: first, how her health fares, next, 
 whether my peace be yet made with her concern- 
 ing my unkind departure. Can I be so happy, as 
 to hear of both these that they succeed well ? Is 
 it not too much for me ? Good Sir, make it plain 
 to her, that I loved her even in my departure, in 
 looking to her son and my charge. I suppose she 
 is not disposed to spend her eyesight on a piece 
 of paper, or else I had wrote to her; when I shall 
 understand that a letter will be seasonable, my 
 
LETTERS 401 
 
 pen is ready. Concerning the Orator's place, all 
 goes well yet; the next Friday it is tryed, and ac- 
 cordingly you shaU hear. I have forty businesses 
 in my hands ; your courtesie will pardon the haste 
 of your humblest servant, 
 
 George Hekbeht. 
 Trin. Coll.. Jan. 19, 1619. 
 
 To Sib John JDanvers 
 Sir, 
 
 I understand by Sir Francis Nethersol's letter, 
 that he fears I have not fully resolved of the mat- 
 ter, since this place being civil may divert me too 
 much from Divinity, at which, not without cause, 
 he thinks I aim. But I have wrote him back that 
 this dignity hath no such earthiness in it but it 
 may very well be joined with heaven; or if it had 
 to others, yet to me it should not, for aught I yet 
 knew; and therefore I desire him to send me a 
 direct answer in his next letter. I pray, Sir, there- 
 fore, cause this enclosed to be carried to his bro- 
 ther's house of his own name (as I think) at the 
 sign of the Pedler and the Pack on London-bridge, 
 for there he assigns me. I cannot yet find leisure 
 to write to my Lord, or Sir Benjamin Ruddyard; 
 but I hope I shall shortly, though for the reckoning 
 of your favours I shall never find time and paper 
 enough, yet am I your readiest servant. 
 
 Geoege Heebeet. 
 Trin. CoU. Octob. 6, 1619. 
 
402 LETTERS 
 
 I remember my most humble duty to my 
 mother, who cannot think me lazy, since I rode 
 200 miles ^ to see a sister, in a way I knew not, and 
 in the midst of much business, and all in a fort- 
 night, not long since. 
 
 Foe my deab sick Sistee' 
 
 Most deab Sistee, 
 
 Think not my silence forgetfulness, or that my 
 love is as dumb as piy papers; though businesse 
 may stop my hand, yet my heart, a much better 
 member, is always with you; and, which is more, 
 with our good and gracious God, incessantly beg- 
 ging some ease of your pains with that earnestness 
 that becomes your griefs and my love. God, Who 
 knows and sees this writing, knows also that my 
 soUiciting Him has been much and my tears many 
 for you. Judge me then by those waters and not 
 by my ink, and then you shall justly value your 
 most truly, most heartily, affectionate brother and 
 servant, 
 
 Geobge Hebbebt. 
 
 Trin. Coll. Decern. 6, 1620. 
 
 A Lettbh of Me. Geoege Herbeet to his 
 mothee in hee sickness 
 
 Madam, 
 
 At my last parting from you I was the better 
 content because I was in hope I should my self 
 carry all sickness out of your family; but since I 
 
LETTERS 403 
 
 know I did not and that your share continues, or 
 rather increaseth, I wish earnestly that I were 
 again with you; and would quickly make good my 
 wish but that my employment does fix me here, 
 being now but a month to our Commencement; 
 wherein my absence, by how much it naturally 
 augmenteth suspicion, by so much shall it make 
 my prayers the more constant and the more earnest 
 for you to the God of all consolation. In the mean 
 time I beseech you to be chearful and comfort 
 yourself in the God of all comfort. Who is not will- 
 ing to behold any sorrow but for sin. What hath 
 affliction grievous in it more then for a moment ? 
 or why should our afflictions here have so much 
 power or boldness as to oppose the hope of our 
 joys hereafter ? Madam, as the earth is but a point 
 in respect of the heavens, so are earthly troubles 
 compar'd to heavenly joyes ; therefore if either 
 age or sickness lead you to those joyes, consider 
 what advantage you have over youth and health, 
 who are now so near those true comforts. Your 
 last letter gave me an jearthly preferment, and, I 
 hope, kept heavenly for your self. But wou'd you 
 divide and choose too ? Our colledg customs allow 
 not that; and I shou'd account my self most happy 
 if I might change with you; for I have alwaies 
 observ'd the thred of life to be like other threds or 
 skenes of silk, full of snarles and incumbrances. 
 Happy is he whose bottome* is wound up and laid 
 ready for work in the New Jerusalem. For my 
 
404 LETTEBS 
 
 self, dear mother, I alwaies fear'd sickness more 
 then death; because sickness hath made me unable 
 to perform those offices for which I came into the 
 world and must yet be kept in it. But you are 
 freed from that fear who have already abundantly 
 discharg'd that part, having both ordered your 
 family and so brought up your children that they 
 have attain'd to the years of discretion and com- 
 petent maintenance. So that now if they do not 
 well, the fault cannot be charg'd on you — whose 
 example and care of them will justifie you both to 
 the world and your own conscience; in somuch 
 that whether you turn your thoughts on the life 
 past or on the joyes that are to come, you have 
 strong preservatives against all disquiet.* And for 
 temporal afflictions, I beseech you consider all that 
 can happen to you are either afflictions of estate 
 or body or mind. For those of estate, of what poor 
 regard ought they to be, since if we have riches we 
 are commanded to give them away! so that the 
 best use of them is, having, not to have them. But 
 perhaps, being above the common people, our 
 credit and estimation calls on us to live in a more 
 splendid fashion. But, oh God! how easily is that 
 answered when we consider that the blessings in 
 the Holy Scripture are never given to the rich, but 
 to the poor! I never find Blessed be the rich, or 
 Blessed he the noble ; but Blessed be the meek, and 
 Blessed be the poor, and Blessed be the mourners, for 
 they shall be comforted. And yet, oh God! most 
 
LETTERS 405 
 
 carry themselves so as if they not only not desir'd 
 but even fear'd to be blessed. And for afflictions of 
 the body, dear madam, remember the holy mar- 
 tyrs of God, how they have been burnt by thou- 
 sands and have endur'd such other tortures as the 
 very mention of them might beget amazement; 
 but their firy trials have had an end, and yours 
 (which, praised be God, are less) are not like to 
 continue long.' I beseech you let such thoughts as 
 these moderate your present fear and sorrow, and 
 know that if any of yours should prove a Goliah- 
 like trouble, yet you may say with David, That 
 God who delivered me out of the paws of the lyon 
 and hear will also deliver me out of the hands of this 
 uncircumdsed Philistine. Lastly, for those afflic- 
 tions of the soul, consider that God intends that 
 to be as a sacred temple for Himself to dwell in, 
 and will not allow any room there for such an in- 
 mate as grief, or allow that any sadness shall be 
 His competitor. And above all, if any care of fu- 
 ture things molest you, remember those admirable 
 words of the Psalmist^ Cast thy care on the Lord, 
 and He shall nourish thee (Psal. Iv.). To which 
 joyn that of St. Peter, Casting all your care on the 
 Lord, for He careth for you (1 Pet. v. 7). "What an 
 admirable thing is this, that God puts His shoulder 
 to our burthen and entertains our care for us, that 
 we may the more quietly intend His service! To 
 conclude, let me commend only one place more to 
 you (Philip, iv. 4): St. Paul saith there, Rejoyce 
 
406 LETTERS 
 
 in the Lord alwaies; and again I say rejoyce. He 
 doubles it to take away the scruple of those that 
 might say, What, shall we rejoyce in afflictions ? 
 Yes, I say again, rejoyce; so that it is not left to us 
 to rejoyce or not rejoyce, but whatsoever befalls us 
 we must alwaies, at all times, rejoyce in the Lord, 
 Who taketh care for us. And it follows in the next 
 verse: Let your moderation a'pfear to all men ; the 
 Lord is at hand ; he carefvl for nothing. What can 
 be said more comfortably? Trouble not your- 
 selves; God is at hand to deKver us from all or in 
 all. Dear madam, pardon my boldness, and accept 
 the good meaning of 
 
 Your most obedient son, 
 
 Geokge Hebbeet. 
 Trin. CoU., May 29, 1622. 
 
 To Sib Henry Hebbeet 
 
 Deab Beotheb, 
 
 That you did not only entertain my proposals 
 but advance them, was lovingly done and Uke a 
 good brother. Yet truly it was none of my mean- 
 ing, when I wrote, to put one of our nieces into 
 your hands, but barely what I wrote I meant, and 
 no more ; and am glad that although you ofifer 
 more, yet you will do, as you write, that also. I was 
 desirous to put a good mind into the way of char- 
 ity, and that was all I intended. For concerning 
 your offer of receiving one, I will tell you what I 
 wrote to our eldest brother when he urged one 
 
LETTERS 407 
 
 upon me, and but one, and that at my choice. I 
 wrote to him that I would have both or neither ; 
 and that upon this ground, because they were to 
 come into an unknown country, tender in know- 
 ledge, sense, and age, and knew none but one who 
 could be no company to them. Therefore I consid- 
 ered that if one only came, the comfort intended 
 would prove a discomfort. Since that I have seen 
 the fruit of my observation, for they have lived so 
 lovingly, lying, eating, walking, praying, working, 
 still together, that I take a comfort therein; and 
 would not have to part them yet, till I take some 
 opportunity to let them know your love, for which 
 both they shall and I do thank you. It is true there 
 is a third sister,* whom to receive were the great- 
 est charity of all, for she is youngest and least 
 looked unto; having none to do it but her school- 
 mistress, and you know what those mercenary 
 creatures are. Neither hath she any to repair unto 
 at good times, as Christmas, &c. which you know 
 is the encouragement of learning all the year after, 
 except my Cousin Bett take pity of her, which yet 
 at that distance is some difficulty. If you could 
 think of taking her, as once you did, surely it were 
 a great good deed, and I would have her conveyed 
 to you. But I judge you not. Do that which God 
 shall put into your heart, and the Lord bless all 
 your purposes to his glory. Yet truly if you take 
 her not, I am thinking to do it, even beyond my 
 strength; especially at this time, being more beg- 
 
408 LETTERS 
 
 garly now than I have been these many years, as 
 having spent two hundred pounds in building;* 
 which to me that have nothing yet, is very much. 
 But though I both consider this and your observa- 
 tion also of the unthankf ulness of kindred bred up, 
 (which generally is very true,) yet I care not ; I for- 
 get all things so I may do them good who want 
 it. So I do my part to them, let them think of me 
 what they will or can. I have another Judge, to 
 Whom I stand or fall. If I should regard such 
 things, it were in another's power to defeat my 
 charity, and evil should be stronger than good: 
 But difficulties are so far from cooling Christians, 
 that they whet them. Truly it grieves me to think 
 of the child, how destitute she is, and that in this 
 necessary time of education. For the time of breed- 
 ing is the time of doing children good: and not as 
 many who think they have done fairly if they 
 leave them a good portion after their decease. But 
 take this rule, and it is an outlandish^ one, which I 
 commend to you as being now a father. The best- 
 bred child hath the best portion. Well, the good 
 God bless you more and more, and all yours, and 
 make your family a houseful of God's servants. 
 So prays your ever-loving brother, 
 
 G. Herbert. 
 
 My wife's and nieces' service. 
 
 To my very dear Brother, 
 Sir Henry Herbert, at Court. 
 
LETTERS 409 
 
 To SiE Henry Heebeht 
 
 Deab Bbo. 
 
 I was glad of your Cambridge news ; but you 
 joyed me exceedingly with your relation of my 
 Lady Duchess's ' forwardness in our church build- 
 ing. I am glad I used you in it; and you have no 
 cause to be sorry, since it is God's business. If 
 there fall out yet any rub, you shall hear of me ; 
 and your offering of yourself to move my Lords 
 of Manchester and Bohngbroke is very welcome to 
 me. To show a forwardness in reUgious works is a 
 good testimony of a good spirit. The Lord bless 
 you, and make you abound in every good work, to 
 the joy of your ever loving brother, 
 
 G. Hekbebt. 
 
 March 21, Bemerton. 
 
 To my dear Brother, 
 Sir Henry Herbert, at Court. 
 
 To Sir Hbnet Herbert 
 
 Dear Bkotheh, 
 
 It is so long since I heard from you, that I long 
 
 to hear both how you and yours do, and also what 
 
 becomes of you this summer. It is the whole 
 
 amount of this letter, and therefore entertain it 
 
 accordingly from your very affectionate brother, 
 
 G. Hebbebt. 
 7 June, Bemerton. 
 
 My wife's and nieces' service to you. 
 
410 LETTERS 
 
 To Nicholas Ferrah' 
 
 Mt exceeding deab Bkotheh, 
 
 Although you have a much better Paymaster 
 than myself, even Him Whom we both serve, yet I 
 shall ever put your care of Leighton upon my ac- 
 count, and give you myself for it, to be yours for- 
 ever. God knows I have desired a long time to do 
 the place good, and have endeavoured many ways 
 to find out a man for it. And now my gracious 
 Lord God is pleased to give me you for the man 
 I desired; for which I humbly thank Him, and am 
 so far from giving you cause to apology about your 
 counseUing me herein, that I take it exceeding 
 kindly of you. I refuse not advice from the mean- 
 est that creeps upon God's earth — no, not though 
 the advice step so far as to be reproof; much less 
 can I disesteem it from you, whom I esteem to be 
 God's faithful and diligent servant, not consider- 
 ing you any other ways as neither I myself desire 
 to be considered. Particularly I Uke all your ad- 
 dresses, and, for ought I see, they are ever to be 
 liked. [So he goes on in the discourse of the build- 
 ing the church in such and such a form as N. F. 
 advised, and letting N. F. know all he had and 
 would do to get moneys to proceed in it, and con- 
 cludes thus:] You write very lovingly, that all 
 your things are mine. If so, let this of Leighton 
 Church the care be amongst the chiefest also; so 
 also have I requested Mr. W[ood-note] for his 
 
LETTERS 411 
 
 part. Now God the Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ bless you more and more, and so turn you 
 all in your several ways one to the other, that ye 
 may be a heavenly comfort, to His praise and the 
 great joy of 
 
 Your brother and servant in Christ Jesus, 
 George Herbert. 
 
 Postscript. As I had written thus much, I 
 received a letter from my brother, Sir Henry 
 H[erbert], of the blessed success that God had 
 given us, by moving the duchess's heart to an 
 exceeding cheerfulness in signing 100 I. with her 
 own hands, and promising to get her son to do as 
 much, with some little apology that she had done 
 nothing in it (as my brother writes) hitherto. She 
 referred it also to my brother to name at first what 
 the sum should be; but he told her grace that he 
 would by no means do so, urging that charity must 
 be free. She Kked our book weU, and has given 
 order to the tenants at Leighton to make payment 
 of it. God Almighty prosper the work. Amen. 
 
 To Nicholas Fehrab 
 
 My Dear Brother, 
 
 I thank you heartily for Leighton, your care, 
 your counsel, your cost. And as I am glad for the 
 thing, so no less glad for the heart that God has 
 given you and yours to pious works. Blessed be 
 my God and dear Master, the Spring and Foun- 
 
412 LETTERS 
 
 tain of all goodness. As for my assistance, doubt 
 not, through God's blessing, but it shall be to the 
 full; and for my power, I have sent my letters 
 to your brother, investing him in all that I have. 
 [And so he goes on in his advice for the ordering 
 of things to that business.] 
 
 To THE Right Hon. the Ladt Anne, Countess 
 OF Pembroke* and Montgomery, at Coubt. 
 
 Madam, 
 
 What a trouble hath your goodness brought on 
 you, by admitting our poor services! now they 
 creep in a vessel of metheglin,'' and still they will be 
 presenting or wishing to see if at length they may 
 find out something not unworthy of those hands at 
 which they aim. In the mean time a priest's bless- 
 ing, though it be none of the court style, yet 
 doubtless, madam, can do you no hurt. "Wherefore 
 the Lord make good the blessing of your mother' 
 upon you and cause all her wishes, diligence, 
 prayers, and tears, to bud, blow, and bear fruit in 
 your soul, to His glory, your own good, and the 
 great joy of, madam, your most faithful servant in 
 •Christ Jesu, 
 
 Geoege Herbert. 
 
 Dec. 10, 1631. Bemerton. 
 
 Madam, Your poor colony of servants present 
 their humble duties. 
 
Title-Page ofJacula Prudentum. 
 
=^*T?Wi^* 
 
 
 
 
 OVTLAnVlSH 
 
 PROVERBS,! 
 
 SELECTED 
 
 By M'. G.H. 
 
 
 
 
 LONDON, 
 
 Printed by T,P. for HufXfhrey 
 
 3ltt»den-^ At the Cuftic ia' 
 
 Ctru-bill. » * 4 «. 
 
EXTRACTED FROM THE PRINCIPAL 
 
 REGISTRY OF HER MAJESTY'S 
 
 COURT OF PROBATE 
 
 ON THE PREROGATIVE COURT OF CANTER- 
 BURY. AO. T>m. 1632) 
 
 [First printed by Dr. Grosart in Iiis Edition ol Herbert's Works In The 
 Fuller Worthies' Library] 
 
 I GEORGE HERBERT commending my soule 
 and body to Almightie God that made them doe 
 thus dispose of my goodes. I giue all my goodes 
 both within doores and without doores both mon- 
 neys and bookes and howshould stuffe whether in 
 my possession or out of my possession that properly 
 belonge to me vnto my deare wife excepting onely 
 these legacies hereafter insuing. First there is 
 seaven hvndred poundes in Mr. Thomas Lawleys 
 handes a Merchant of London which fell to me 
 by the death of my deare neece Mrs. Dorothy 
 Vaughan whereof two hvndred poundes belonges 
 to my two Neeces that survive and the rest unto 
 my self e : this whole sum of five hvndred pounds 
 I bequeath vnto my Neeces equally to be devided 
 betweene them excepting some legacies of my de- 
 ceased Neece which are to be payd out of it vnto 
 some whose names shall be annexed vnto this bill. 
 
414 THE WILL 
 
 Then I bequeath twenty pounds vnto the poore of 
 this parish to be devided according to my deare 
 wiues discretion. Then I bequeath to Mr Hays 
 the Comment of Lucas Brugensis vpon the Scrip- 
 ture and his halfe yeares wages aforehand. then I 
 bequeath to Mr. Bostocke St. Augustines Workes 
 and his halfe yeares wages aforehand, then I leave 
 to my servant Elizabeth her dubble wages giuen 
 her, three pound more besides that which is due 
 to her; to Ann I leave thirty shillinges: to Marga- 
 ret twenty shillinges : to Wilham Twenty Nobles, 
 to John twentie shiUinges, all these are over and 
 aboue their wages: To Sara thirteene shillinges 
 foure pence, Alsoe my Will and pleasure is that 
 Mr. Woodnoth should be mine Executor to whome 
 I bequeath twenty pound, whereof fifteene pound 
 shall be bestowed vppon Leighton Church, the other 
 five pound I giue to himselfe. Lasthe I besech Sir 
 John Danvers that he would be pleased to be 
 Overseer of this Will — 
 
 George Herbert. 
 
 (Testes) Nathaniel] Bostocke — EKzabeth 
 Burden. 
 
 On the other side are the names of those to 
 whome my deceased Neece left legacyes. 
 
 All those that are crost are discharged already, 
 the rest are to be payd. 
 
 To Mrcs Magdalen Vaughan one hvndred pound 
 To Mrs Catharine Vaughan one hvndred pound 
 To Mr George Herbert one hvndred pound" To 
 
THE WILL 415 
 
 Mrs Beatrice Herbert forty pound" To Mrs Jane 
 Herbert tenn pound" To Mrs Danvers five pound" 
 To Amy Danvers thirty shilKnges To Mrs Anne 
 DanVers twenty shillinges To Mrs Mary Danvers 
 twenty shillinges To Mrs Michel twenty shillinges 
 To Mrs EUzabeth Danvers Mr Henry Danvers 
 wife twenty shillinges, to the poore of the parish 
 twenty pound" To my Lord of Cherbury tenn 
 pound To Mr Bostocke forty shiUinges" To 
 Elizabeth Burthen thirty shillinges" To Mary 
 Gifford tenn shillinges" To Anne Hibbert tenn 
 shilhnges" To Willuam Scuce twenty shilUnges" 
 To Mrs Judith Spencer five pound To Mary 
 Owens forty shillinges. To Mrs Mary Lawly fifty 
 shillinges" To Mr Gardiner tenn pound MS. that 
 the fiue pound due to Mrs Judeth Spencer is to be 
 payd to Mrs Mary Lawly at Chelsey MS. that 
 there are diuers moneys of mine in Mr Stephens 
 handes Stationer of London, having lately receaved 
 an hvndred and two poundes besides some Re- 
 mainders of monyes whereof he is to giue as I 
 know he will a Just account: if there be any body 
 els that owe me any thing else of old debt I forgiue 
 them. 
 
 PROBATUM fuit Testamentum suprascriptum 
 apud London coram venerabiH viro magistro Wil- 
 limo Mericke legum Doctore Surrogato venerabilis 
 viri Domini Henrici Marten militis legum etiam 
 doctoris Curiae Prerogative Cantuariensis Magis- 
 teri Custodis sive Commissarij legitime constituti 
 
416 THE WILL 
 
 duodecimo die mensis Martij Anno Domini juxta 
 cursum et computaconem Ecclesie Anglicane Mil- 
 lesimo sexcentesimo tricesimo secundo juramento 
 Arthuri Woodnoth Executoris in hujusmodi Testa- 
 mento nominati cui commissa fuit administratio 
 omnium et singulorum bononim jurium et credi- 
 torum dicti defuncti de bene et fideliter adminis- 
 trando eadem ad Sancta Dei Evangelia in debita 
 juris forma jurat. 
 
NOTES 
 
THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 1, p. 209. Revoking =ca.Ydng back. 
 
 2, p. 209. Colossians i, 2, 4. 
 
 3, p. 209. The Dignity. To a court friend who dissuaded 
 
 Herbert from entering into sacred orders, as 
 too mean an employment and too much be- 
 low his birth, he replied : It hath been formerly 
 fudged that the Domestick Servants of the King 
 of Heaven should be of the noblest Families on 
 Earth ; and though the Iniquity of the late 
 Tim£s have made Clergy-men meanly valued 
 and the sacred name of Priest contemptible, 
 yet I will labour to make it honourable by con- 
 secrating all my learning and all my poor 
 abilities to advance the glory of that God that 
 game them : Walton's Life. 
 
 1, p. 218. Keep up tOT<A=stand up to. 
 
 1, p. 213. 2'roi;eH=traTail, labor. 
 
 1, p. 215. The Parson's Knowledg. Be covetous of all 
 good which you see in Frenchman, whether 
 it be in knowledge or in fashion or in words. 
 Let there be no kind of excellency which it is 
 possible for you to attain to, which you seek 
 not : Herbert to his brother Henry. 
 
 1, p. 216. Psalm cxix, 18. 
 
420 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 1, p. 220. The Parson Praying, i. e. reading the service. 
 
 2, p. 220. 2'reoto6te=deliberate. 
 1, p. 221. Shibbering=3lovenLj. 
 
 1, p. 222. " Presented, i. e. to the Bishop or Archdea- 
 con for offences against the Canons. Such 
 presentations could be made by the minister, 
 churchwardens, or sidesmen, but were usually 
 made by the churchwardens. The offences 
 for which presentations were made under the 
 Canons of 1603 were such as the following: 
 adultery, drunkenness, swearing, usury, non- 
 attendance at Holy Communion, having chil- 
 dren baptized out of the parish, disturbing 
 divine service, etc. : " H. C. Beeching. 
 
 1, p. 224. "Hermogenes, a Rhetorician of Tarsus in the 
 reign of Marcus Aurelius. He describes and 
 gives 'precepts' for seven 'characters of good 
 oratory, such as perspicuity, elegance,' etc. : " 
 H. C. Beeching. 
 
 1, p. 229. 7ndi«;e=introduce, bring it in. 
 
 1, p. 232. 2>!Mf^= joyous, strong. 
 
 1, p. 233. f;a;penTOe»rf= experience. 
 
 1, p. 234. By his eare. This would suggest that it was 
 their parents' choice, rather than their own 
 headlong emotion, which brought Herbert 
 and Jane Danvers together after a three days' 
 acquaintance. 
 
 8, p. S34. Account. "And he was most happy in his 
 Wife's unforc'd compliance with his acts of 
 Charity, whom he made his Almoner and paid 
 
THE COUNTRY PAESON 421 
 
 constantly into her hand a tenth penny of 
 what money he recav'd for Tythe and gave 
 her a power to dispose a tenth part of the Corn 
 that came yearly into his Barn, which trust 
 she did most faithfully perform and would 
 often offer to him an account of her steward- 
 ship: " Walton's Life. 
 
 1, p. 235. Meets with = contends against. 
 
 8, p. 235. His children. Herbert had none. 
 
 1, p. 236. Happily =iia.plj, perhaps. 
 
 2, p. 236. " Chamber of London. The allusion is obvi- 
 
 ously to the ancient custom of this city called 
 'Orphanage.' By that custom the estates of 
 all freemen dying intestate vested in the 
 Court of Mayor and Aldermen, who were by 
 the custom guardians of the children. They 
 fed, boarded, clothed, and educated them, 
 and provided dowers for the daughters at 
 marriage ; set the sons up in business, and 
 divided the estate when they attained their 
 majority. The estate being realized, the pro- 
 ceeds were paid into the 'Chamber of Lon- 
 don' to the custody of the 'Chamberlain,' 
 who is a 'corporation sole' for these pur- 
 poses. He made use of the money for city 
 purposes, allowing .£4 per cent interest to 
 the estate. As there were neither government 
 securities nor banks in George Herbert's days, 
 and the Bank of England had not been 
 founded, the term 'Chamber of London' 
 
422 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 would have the force of any expression of the 
 present day implying undoubted security:" 
 A. B. Grosart. 
 1, p. 237. "Takes account of Sermons. It was the cus- 
 tom in many households even of the last 
 generation to require an epitome of the ser- 
 mon:" H. C. Beeching. 
 
 1, p. 238. Boards a cM(i= approaches, ranks as ; cf. 
 
 The Chdhch-Pohch, II, 57, 1. 368. 
 
 2, p. 238. J?acA:-szde=back-yard. Dr. Grosart quotes 
 
 from Vaughan's Looking Back, "How brave 
 a prospect is a bright back-side." 
 
 1, p. 239. With these prescriptions for fasting compare 
 Herbert's poem Lent, II, 171. 
 
 1, p. 240. "Roots : as potatoes, which first came to 
 England in Herbert's youth:" A. B. Grosart. 
 
 1, p. 244. PresCTrfZy= immediately, without postpone- 
 ment. 
 
 1, p. 247. Incense. Isaiah Ixvi, 3. 
 
 1, p. 248. The vddde way, more precisely described in 
 The British Chubch, IH, 101. 
 
 1, p. 249. Afternoons: his mornings being given to study. 
 
 1, p. 252. Nothing is little, the subject of TheElixeb, 
 II, 99. 
 
 1, p. 255. The Courdrey Parson is. The emphasis falls 
 on is. 
 
 1, p. 256. In 1640 a collection of proverbs was published 
 under the title Outlandish Peoverbs se- 
 lected by Mr. G. H. In the second edition 
 (1652) this title was changed to Jacuia 
 
THE COUNTRY PARSON 423 
 
 PEtTDENTUM : OR OXITLANDISH PROVERBS, SEN- 
 TENCES, ETC. 
 
 1, p. 258. Ce««Mre= judgment. 
 
 1, p. 260. Set a^=:assessed for, put down as capable of 
 
 furnishing for the public service. 
 
 2, p. 260. Respectively = with suitable respect, as in 
 
 The Church-Porch, II, 45, 1. 253. 
 1, p. 261. Bne/e= an official order that a collection be 
 
 made. 
 1, p. 263. Dischargeth. He himself performs for his 
 
 people the promises God has made them. 
 1, p. 267. Si?iy= uneducated. 
 1, p. 268. In «erfiie=virtually, in substance. 
 
 1, p. 270. W'illingly=aX times fixed by himself. 
 
 2, p. 270. H. C. Beeching quotes ; "Let priests also take 
 
 care that they do not permit wanton names to 
 be given to children, especially female chil- 
 dren, in baptism:" Wilk. Cone, ii, 33. And 
 * R. A. Willmott quotes from Crabbe's Parish 
 
 Register, Pt. I: 
 
 "Pride lives with all; strange names our rustics give 
 To helpless infants, that their own may live; 
 Pleased to be known, they'll some attention claim 
 And find some by-way to the house of fame. 
 'Why Iionicera willt thou name thy child?' 
 I asked the gardener's wife in accents mild. 
 'We have a right,' replied the sturdy dame, 
 And Lonicera was the infant's name." 
 
 1, p. 271. CoMree= coarse. 
 
 1, p. 272. "Loosely and wildely=not in set form and 
 sequence:" A. B. Grosart. 
 
424 THE COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 2, p. 272. Pvts wp <o=assumes himself to be. 
 
 1, p. 274. Michael Dalton's The Country Justice was 
 published in 1618, a fourth edition in 1630. 
 
 1, p. 275. TicUe. Ed. 1671 reads ticklish, i. e. difficult. 
 
 1, p. 276. Anatomy = either a dissection, or a diagram of 
 the human body. 
 
 3, p. 276. John Francis Fernelius (1506-1558), physi- 
 
 cian to Henry H of France. 
 
 1, p. 277. Boleannena=aji astringent Armenian earth. 
 
 1, p. 279. Redtice=lea,d back. So p. 209, 1. 2. 
 
 1, p. 281. CorM<ers= construes. 
 
 1, p. 284. Baned= diseased. In his Will Herbert re- 
 membered his servants. 
 
 1, p. 286. John Gerson (1363-1429), chancellor of the 
 University of Paris. 
 
 1, p. 288. Z)e^a;e(i= firmly fixed. 
 
 1, p, 289. Bold and impartial reproof. "There was not 
 a man in his way (be he of what Ranke he 
 would) that spoke awry (in order to God) but^ 
 he wip'd his mouth with a modest, grave and 
 Christian reproof:" Oley, Life of Herbert, 
 prefixed to The Countrt Parson. 
 
 1, p. 296. "Herbert's apologue raises more difficulties 
 than it lays. Healthy children do not get 
 worms from apples, if the apples are good; 
 and what would the piece of gold mean to the 
 child but more apples?" H. C. Beeching. ■ 
 
 1, p. 297. £iCTgie?rf= exigency ; used again in second 
 paragraph of the translation of Comaro. 
 
 1, p. 300. Idlmesse, cf. The Chuech-Poech, II, 23, 
 1. 79-96. 
 
THE COUNTRY PAESON 426 
 
 1, p. 302. Drtnuning =&oodmg. 
 1, p. 303. Nothing to <Aa<= nothing comparable. 
 1, p. 304. Morning man=one who merely attends the 
 regular morning sessions. 
 
 1, p. 305. The Great Horse=a, war horse, ridden in full 
 
 armor. 
 
 2, p. 305. Not weakned. Later editions read now. 
 1, p. 306. Those new Plantations, i. e. America. 
 
 1, p. 311. ffoopes= restraints. 
 1, p. 312. Joseph, Genesis xli, 35. 
 1, p. 313. SMCcess= fulfilment. 
 1, p. 315. Onely=a,nd that alone. 
 
 1, p, 316. Procession. =" beating the bounds" or walking 
 
 in religious procession to mark out the parish 
 boundaries. 
 
 2, p. 316. Mislikes= takes it in ill part. 
 
 1, p. 318. iVM!ewess= disposition to refine overmuch. 
 
 1, p. 319. IllPriests mayUesse. The 26th of the 39 Arti- 
 
 cles is entitled, "Of the unworthiness of the 
 ministers, which hinders not the effect of the 
 Sacrament." 
 
 2, p. 319. Comminalion. The English Prayer Book (not 
 
 the American) has a special service of "Com- 
 mination or denouncing of God's anger and 
 judgments against sinners." 
 1, p. 320. In writing Letters. H. C. Beeching remarks 
 that only two complete letters of Herbert writ- 
 ten from Bemerton are preserved, one to 
 Ferrar and one to the Countess of Pembroke, 
 and each concludes with a blessing. 
 
426 PRAYERS 
 
 1, p. 825. Prayers Before and After Sermon 
 
 Dr. Grosart prints the following note: "With 
 reference to these prayers, they first appeared 
 in Herbert's Remains (1652). Mr. YeoweU 
 doubted their genuineness on this ground: 
 'When it is remembered how punctiliously 
 George Herbert walked according to canoni- 
 cal rule in small as in great matters, it seems 
 highly improbable that he would use these 
 two unauthorized prayers in divine service.' 
 (N. & Q. 2d S. iii, p. 88.) Professor Mayor 
 answered (ib. p. 120) : 'Perhaps the Prayers 
 before and after Sermon were intended for 
 private use. Or, if not, I see nothing in The 
 Country Pabson or elsewhere to prove that 
 Herbert would scruple to use prayers of his 
 own composition before and after sermon ; 
 and these prayers seem to be altogether in his 
 tone.' Dr. Sibbes, Dr. Fuller, and many 
 others had similar prayers." 
 
LETTERS 
 
 1, p. 393. For an account of Herbert's stepfather. Sir 
 John Danvers, see Introd. Essay, I, 24, and 
 CoNSTANciB, in, 119. Herbert makes him 
 the executor of his Will. This letter send- 
 ing thanks for the gift of a horse, which is 
 mentioned in the next letter as abeady in 
 use, was probably written a little earlier than 
 that. 
 
 1, p. 396. Written probably in 1617-8 (cf. with p. 397). 
 
 Henry Herbert was two years younger than 
 George. 
 
 2, p. 396. Wmk=to half dose the eyes, as in Miserie, 
 
 II, 257, 1. 62. . 
 
 1, p. 397. Probably written before he obtained the Ora- 
 torship, at which time his income was in- 
 creased. The letter seems to connect itself 
 with that of March 18, 1617-8, to his step- 
 father, in which this increase of the annuity is 
 first proposed. 
 
 1, p. 398. Ancient. Sir John Danvers had married Her- 
 bert's mother but eight years before. 
 
 1, p. 400. The passage on the Oratorship shows this let- 
 ter to have been written in 1619. 
 
 1, p. 402. 200 miles. Is this the journey mentioned in 
 the fourth letter to Sir 'John Danvers ? 
 
428 LETTERS 
 
 S, p. 402. Herbert's eldest sister, Elizabeth, bom in 1583 
 and married to Sir Henry Jones, was an in- 
 valid during many years. 
 
 1, p. 403. Bottome=a, spool, as in The Dischabge, 
 m, 191, 1. 45. 
 
 1, p. 404. Disquiet. Donne, in his funeral sermon on 
 Lady Danvers, says that in her last years 
 she was disposed to melancholy. To this 
 disposition Herbert appears to address his 
 letter. 
 
 1, p. 405. Like to continue long. She did not die until 
 1627. 
 
 1, p. 407. This third sister was afterwards received at 
 Bemerton. 
 
 1, p. 408. Building, i. e. the rebuilding of the Rec- 
 
 tory. 
 
 2, p. 408. Outlandish=iaKiga, and strange, as in Faith, 
 
 n, 233, 1. 9, and The British Chubch, HI, 
 101, 1. 10. 
 
 1, p. 409. Duchess, i. e. the Duchess of Lenox, whose 
 home was at Leighton. So, too, p. 411. 
 
 1, p. 410. These letters to Ferrar must belong in the 
 years 1628-32, the first one apparently to 
 some early year within this period. 
 
 1, p. 412. The Countess of Pembroke was Lady Anne 
 Clififord, daughter of the third Earl of Cum- 
 berland. Her first husband was the Earl of 
 Dorset. After his death she married, in 1630, 
 Philip, fourth Earl of Pembroke. His brutali- 
 ties obliged her to separate from him. 
 
LETTERS 429 
 
 2, p. 412. Metheglin, or mead=a liquor made of fer- 
 
 mented honey. 
 
 3, p. 412. Mother. Her mother was Lady Margaret 
 
 Russell, daughter of the Duke of Bed- 
 ford. 
 
INDEXES 
 
TITLES ARRANGED IN THE TRADI- 
 TIONAL ORDER 
 
 The Dedication, 11, ix. 
 The Church-Porch, n, IS. 
 Superliminare, U, 119. 
 The Altar, II, 121. 
 The Sacrifice, H, 123. 
 The Thanksgiving, II, 287. 
 The Reprisafl, 11, 293. 
 The Agonie, III, 153. 
 The Sinner, 11, 295: 
 Good Friday, H, 149. 
 Redemption, II, 237. 
 Sepulchre, III, 156. 
 Easter, II, 153. 
 Easter Wings, H, 335. 
 H. Baptisme, 11, 191. 
 Nature, 11, 303. 
 Sinne, II, 229. 
 Affiction, II, 247. 
 Repentance, II, 305. 
 Faith, n, 233. 
 Prayer, II, 181. 
 H. Communion, 11, 195. 
 Antiphon, II, 107. 
 Love, II, 83. 
 The Temper, II, 313. 
 The Temper, II, 315. 
 Jordan, II, 87. 
 Employment, II, 103. 
 H. Scriptures, II, 187. 
 Whitsunday, II, 157. 
 Grace, II, 311. 
 Praise, II, 95. 
 Affliction, n, 339. 
 Mattens, 11, 285. 
 Sinne, H, 231. 
 Even-Song, III, 59. 
 Church-Monuments, 11, 201. 
 Church-Musick. n, 199. 
 
 Church-Lock and Key, II, 301. 
 The Church Floore, TQ, 167. 
 The Windows, III, 15. 
 Trinitie-Sunday, II, 161. 
 Content, 11, 353. 
 The Quidditie, II, 97. 
 Humilitie, II, 239. 
 Frailtie, II, 359. 
 Constancie, III, 119. 
 Affliction, III, 269. 
 The Starre, II, 365. 
 Sunday, II, 175. 
 Avarice, III, 113. 
 Anagram, III, 165. 
 To All Angels and Saints, II, 
 
 163. 
 Employment, II, 347 
 Deniall, II. 297. 
 Christmas, II, 167. 
 Ungratefulnesse, II, 243. 
 Sighs and Grones, HI, 277. 
 The World, H, 225. 
 Our Life is Hid, &c., 11, 283. 
 Vanitie, U, 357. 
 Lent, n, 171. 
 Vertue, m, 335. 
 The Pearl, H, 381. 
 Affliction, IH, 271. 
 Man, II, 215. 
 Antiphon, III, 63. 
 Unkindnesse, II, 309. 
 Life, m, 321. 
 Submission, III, 205. 
 Justice, m, 253. 
 Charms and Knots, 11, 211. 
 Affliction, HI, 273. 
 Mortification, 11, 259. 
 Decay, m, 115. 
 
434 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Miserie, U, 251. 
 Jordan, n, 91. 
 Prayer, 11, 183. 
 Obedience, II, 385. 
 Conscience, III, 229. 
 Sion, m, 265. 
 Home, ni, 325. 
 The British Church, m, 101. 
 The Quip, HI, 33. 
 Vanitie, III, 133. 
 The Dawning, III, 333. 
 Jesu, in, 303. 
 Businesse, III, 139. 
 Dialogue, II, 369. 
 Duhiesse, III, 207. 
 Love-Joy, HI, 163. 
 Providence, III, 79. 
 Hope, HI, 203. 
 Sinnes Round, HI, 143. 
 Time, HI, 339. 
 Gratefulnesse, HI, 41. 
 Peace, II, 377. 
 Confession, III, 259. 
 Giddinesse, IH, 129. 
 The Bunch o£ Grapes, HI, 
 
 215. 
 Love Unknown, IH, 179. 
 Man's Medley, m, 125. 
 The Storm, III, 263. 
 Paradise, HI, 39. 
 The Method, HI, 197. 
 Divinitie, HI, 97. 
 Grieve Not the Holy Spirit, 
 
 &c., m, 255. 
 The Familie, IH, 185. 
 The Size, HI, 193. 
 Artillerie, H, 361. 
 Church-Rents and Schismes, 
 
 m, 105. 
 
 Justice, III, 117. 
 The Pilgrimage, m, 237 
 The Holdfast, HI, 17. 
 Complaining, HI, 267. 
 The Discharge, HI, 187. 
 Praise, H, 397. 
 An Offering, II, 393. 
 Longing, lU, 281. 
 
 The Bag, El, 157. 
 The Jews, HI, 109. 
 The Collar, HI, 211. 
 The Glimpse, IH, 289. 
 Assurance, iH, 225. 
 The Call, m, 9. 
 Clasping of Hands, HI, 37. 
 Praise, IH, 45. 
 Joseph's Coat, HI, 301. 
 The TuUey, HI, 149. 
 The Priesthood, H, 373. 
 The Search, IH, 219. 
 Grief, HI, 323. 
 The Crosse, HI, 231. 
 The Flower, HI, 305. 
 Dotage, m, 137. 
 The Sonne. HI, 161. 
 A True Hymne, HI, 27. 
 The Answer, H, 351. 
 A Dialogue -Antheme, HI, 
 
 343. 
 The Water-Course, HI, 147. 
 Self-Condemnation, IH, 111. 
 Bitter-Sweet, HI, 251. 
 The Glance, HI, 331. 
 The 23 Psahne, HI, 19. 
 Marie MasdaJene, HI, 151. 
 Aaron, HI, 11. 
 The Odour, HI, 23. 
 The Foil, HI, 123. 
 The Forerunners, HI, 317. 
 The Rose, H, 389. 
 Discipline, HI, 297. 
 The Invitation, HI, 49. 
 The Banquet, HI, 53. 
 The Posie, HI, 29. 
 A Parodie, HI, 293. 
 The Elixer, H, 99. 
 A Wreath, H, 319. 
 Death, H, 263. 
 Dooms-Day, H, 267. 
 Judgement, H, 271. 
 Heaven, H, 273. 
 Love, H, 401. 
 The Churdi Militant, HI, 
 
 359. 
 L'Envoy, HI, 381. 
 
TITLES ARRANGED IN THE ORDER 
 OF THIS EDITION 
 
 Dedication, IE, ix. 
 
 Grottp I: The Church- 
 
 POBCH. 
 
 The Church-Poreh, II, 15. 
 Gboup II: The Resolve. 
 Two Sonnets to his Mother, 
 
 n, 79. 
 
 Love, II, 83. 
 Jordan, II, 87. 
 Jordan, II, 91. 
 Praise, II, 95. 
 The Quidditie, H, 97. 
 The Elixer, H, 99. 
 Employment, II, 103. 
 Antiphon, II, 107. 
 
 Group HI: The CHtiRCH. 
 Superliminare, II, 119. 
 The Altar, II, 121. 
 The Sacrifice, H, 123. 
 Good Friday, II, 149. 
 Easter, II, 163. 
 Whitsmiday, H, 157. 
 Trinitie-Smxday, II, 161. 
 To AU Angels and Saints, 
 
 n, 163. 
 
 Christmas, II, 167. 
 Lent, n, 171. 
 Sunday, H, nh. 
 Prayer, II, 181. 
 Prayer, II, 183. 
 The H. Scriptures, II, 187. 
 H. Baptisme, II, 191. 
 H. Baptisme, II, 193. 
 H. Communion, II, 195. 
 Church-Musick, II, 199. 
 
 Church - Monuments, EC, 
 201. 
 
 GROtrp IV: Meditation. 
 Charms and Knots, II, 
 
 211. 
 Man, n, 215. 
 The World. II, 225. 
 Sinne, II, 229. 
 Sinne, II, 231. 
 Faith, n, 233. 
 Redemption, II, 237. 
 Humihtie, II, 239. 
 Ungratefulnesse, II, 243. 
 Affliction, II, 247. 
 Miserie, II, 261. 
 Mortification, II, 259. 
 Death, II, 263. 
 Dooms-Day, II, 267. 
 Judgement, II, 271. 
 Heaven, H, 273. 
 
 Gbotip V: The Inner Life. 
 Our Life is Hid, &c., II, 
 
 283. 
 Mattens, II, 285. 
 The Thanksgiving, II, 287. 
 The Eeprisall, U, 293. 
 The Sinner, H, 295. 
 Deniall, H, 297. 
 Chittch-Lock and Key, II, 
 
 301. 
 Nature, H, 303. 
 Repentance, H, 305. 
 Unkindnesse, H, 309. 
 Grace, H, 311. 
 The Temper, II, 313. 
 
436 
 
 INDEX 
 
 The Temper, U, 316. 
 A Wreath, II, 319. 
 
 Gboup VI: The Crisis. 
 Easter Wings, 11, 335. 
 Affliction, II, 339. 
 Employment, II, 347. 
 The Answer, II, 351. 
 Content, II, 353. 
 Vanitie, 11, 357. 
 Frailtie, H, 359. 
 Artillerie, II, 361. 
 The Starre, n, 365. 
 Dialogue, H, 369. 
 The Priesthood, 11, 373. 
 Peace, H, 377. 
 The Pearl, H, 381. 
 Obedience, n, 385. 
 The Rose, H, 389. 
 An Offering, H, 393. 
 Praise, II, 397. 
 Love, II, 401. 
 
 Gboup VII: The Happy 
 Pbeest. 
 The Call, m, 9. 
 Aaron, IQ, 11. 
 The Windows, m, 16. 
 The Holdfast, IH, 17. 
 The 23 Psalme, HI, 19. 
 The Odour, m, 23. 
 A True Hymne, m, 27. 
 The Posie, HI, 29. 
 The Quip, IH, 33. 
 Clasping of Hands, HI, 37. 
 Paradise, IH, 39. 
 Gratefulnesse, IH, 41. 
 Praise, Hi, 45. 
 The Imdtation, IH, 49. 
 The Banquet, IH, 63. 
 Even-Song, HI, 59. 
 Antiphon, HI, 63. 
 
 Gkoup Vill: Bemeeton 
 Study. 
 To My Successor, HI, 76. 
 Providence, III, 79. 
 
 Divinitie, m, 97. 
 
 The British Church, m, 
 
 101. 
 Church-Rents and Schismes, 
 
 m, 106. 
 
 T^e Jiews, m, 109. 
 Self-Condemnation,in, 111. 
 Avarice, HI, 113. 
 Decay, IH, 115. 
 Justice, HI, 117. 
 Constancie, HI, 119. 
 The Foil, HI, 123. 
 Man's MedlCT, HI, 125. 
 Giddinesse, HI, 129. 
 Vanitie, HI, 133. 
 Dotage, HI, 137. 
 Businesse, IH, 139. 
 Sinnes Round, IH, 143. 
 The Water-Course, IH, 147. 
 The Pulley, HI, 149. 
 Marie Magdalene, HI, 161. 
 The Afiome, HI, 153. 
 Sepulchre, IH, 165. 
 The Bag, HI, 167. 
 The Sonne, IH, 161. 
 Love-Jpy, HI, 163. 
 Anagram, IH, 166. 
 The Church -Floore, HL 
 167. 
 
 Group IX: Restlessness. 
 Love Unknown, HI, 179. 
 The Famihe, HI, 185. 
 The Discharee, HI, 187. 
 The Size, IH, 193. 
 The Method, HI, 197. 
 Hope, m, 203. 
 Submission, IH, 205. 
 Dulnesse, HI, 207. 
 The Collar, IH, 211. 
 The Bunch of Grapes, IH, 
 
 216. 
 The Search, HI, 219. 
 Assurance, HI, 226. 
 Conscience, HI, 229. 
 The Crosse, HI, 231. 
 The Pilgrimage, HI, 237. 
 
INDEX 
 
 437 
 
 Group X: Stjtfehing. 
 Bitter-Sweet, HI, 251. 
 Justice, in, 253. 
 Grieve Not the Holy Spirit, 
 
 &c.. m, 256. 
 Confession, HI, 259. 
 The Storm, III, 263. 
 Sion, m, 265. 
 Complaioing, HI, 267. 
 Affliction, III, 269. 
 Affliction, HI, 271. 
 Affliction, HI, 273. 
 Sighs and Grones, HI, 277. 
 Longing, IH, 281. 
 The GUmpse, HI, 289. 
 A Parodie, HI, 293. 
 Discipline, IH, 297. 
 Joseph's Coat, HI, 301. 
 Jesu, IH, 303. 
 The Flower, HI, 305i. 
 
 Gbotjp XI: Death. 
 The Forerunners, HI, 317. 
 Life, HI, 321. 
 Grief, m, 323. 
 Home, m, 325. 
 The Glance, HI, 331. 
 The Dawning, HI, 333. 
 Vertue, HI, 336. 
 Time, HI, 339. 
 A Dialogue-Antheme, IH, 
 343. 
 
 Gbotjp XH: ADDrrioNAL and 
 
 Doubtful Poems. 
 The Church-Militant, IH, 
 
 359. 
 L'Envoy, HI, 381. 
 H. Communion, IH. 383, 
 Love, HI, 387. 
 Trinitie-Sunday, IH, 389. 
 Even-Song, III, 391. 
 The Knell, III, 393. 
 Perseverance, HI, 395. 
 The Convert, HI, 397. 
 On an Anchor-Seal, HI, 
 
 399. 
 To John Donne, D. D., Ill, 
 
 401. 
 A Paradox lU, 403. 
 Psahn H, HI, 407. 
 Psalm m, IH, 410. 
 Psahn IV, HI, 411. 
 Psahn VI, HI, 413. 
 Psalm VH, HI, 415. 
 Gloria to Psalm XXHI, IH, 
 
 419. 
 On Sir John Danvers, IH, 
 
 421. 
 On Lord Danvers, HI, 
 
 423. 
 To the Queene of Bohemia, 
 
 HI, 425. 
 L'Envoy, HI, 431. 
 
BIBLICAL ALLUSIONS 
 
 Genesis: 
 i, 9, 10, n, 220. 
 
 27. n, 58. 
 ii,7,n,128,160,180,m, 282. 
 
 8, n, 246. 
 21, n, 146. 
 
 iii, 3-6, II, 142. 
 3-7, n, 226. 
 7, in, 226, 278. 
 15, II, 232. 
 
 17, m, 280. 
 
 18, n, 138. 
 
 19, n, 200. 
 vi, 18, m, 360. 
 viii, 4, m, 360. 
 
 9, n, 130, III, 218. 
 ix, 20, m, 216, 368. 
 xi, 4, n, 368, m, 144. 
 
 9, m, 372. 
 31, in, 360. 
 
 xii, 5, m, 360. 
 
 10, m, 360. 
 xvii, 19, III, 360. 
 xviii, 33, in, 114. 
 xix, 3, m, 114. 
 xxiv, 11, m, 114. 
 xxxii, 10, m, 30. 
 
 24, m, 114. 
 
 28, n, 290. 
 xxxvii, 3, m, 800. 
 xli, 35, I, 425. 
 
 Exodus: 
 iii, 2, m, 114. 
 viii, 3, m, 360. 
 X, 22, ni, 278. 
 xii, 22, n, 118. 
 xiii, 21, m, 186. 
 xiv, 25, m, 44. 
 xvi, 1-16, n, 124. 
 xix, 16, n, 66. 
 
 xix, 20, m, 114. 
 
 XX, 7, n, 20. 
 25, n, 120. 
 
 xxiv, 12, n, 294. 
 
 xxviii, 30, III, 12. 
 33-35, m, 12, 114. 
 36, III, 12. 
 
 xxxii, 10, III, 114. 
 14, m, 114. 
 
 xxxiv, 33, II, 136. 
 
 xxxvii, 1, III, 360. 
 Leviticus: 
 
 xxiii, 14, n, 170. 
 Niunbers: 
 
 viii, 7, n, 4. 
 
 xi, 5, m, 366. 
 
 xiii, 23, III, 214. 
 
 XX, 8, II, 134. 
 11, III, 180. 
 
 xxxiii, 10, m, 214. 
 Deuteronomy: 
 
 V, 15, II. 124. 
 
 xxxi, 26, III, 360. 
 Joshua: 
 
 vii, 21, II, 194. 
 Judges: 
 
 vi, 11, ni, 114. 
 
 xvi, 3, n, 178. 
 
 1 Samuel: 
 
 vi, 10, II, 46. 
 xvii, 50, n, 54, 94. 
 xviii, 1, n, 46. 
 
 2 Samuel: 
 
 vi, 6, II, 374. 
 
 xiv, 14, m, 54. 
 1 Kings: 
 
 vii, 23, 61, m, 264. 
 
 xix, 9, m, 114. 
 Ezra: 
 
 iii, 12, m, 374. 
 
440 
 
 BIBLICAL ALLUSIONS 
 
 Nehemiah: 
 
 vlii, 12, n, 178. 
 Job: 
 xiv, 2, m, 304. 
 
 7-9, n, 310. 
 
 9, m, 108, 306. 
 xxiii, 3, in, 218. 
 
 4, m, 270. 
 xxviii, 18, II, 380. 
 xxxviii, 11, III, 82. 
 Psalms: 
 i, 3, m, 430. 
 ii, 2, n, 124. 
 viii, 4, II, 284, 386. 
 XV, m, 120. 
 xviii, 2, II, 180. 
 xxi, 3, II, 286. 
 . xxii, 6, II, 44, m, 254. 
 xxiv, 8, II, 396. 
 XXV, 11, II, 304. 
 xxviii, 1, in, 394. 
 xxxi, 2, in, 282. 
 
 3, m, 226. 
 
 12, m, 272. 
 
 14, in, 318. 
 xxxiii, 6, II, 142. 
 xxxviii, 15, in, 34. 
 xlii, 1, n, 84. 
 
 3, ni, 218. 
 xlvi, 4, n, 168. 
 xlvii, 7, ni, 406. 
 li, 8, n, 306. 
 
 hr, 6, n, 156, 336, ni, 328. 
 Ivi, 3, n, 344. 
 
 8, in, 46. 
 Ixv, 7, ni, 82. 
 Ixxi, 7, III, 272. 
 Ixxvi, 2, n, 378. 
 Ixxvii, 7-9, III, 220. 
 Ixxviii, 24, 26, II, 146. 
 Ixxx, 8, in, 358. 
 Ixxxvi, 11, m, 128, 272. 
 xc, 16, in, 304. 
 xciv, 9, n, 400, ni, 282. 
 xev, 4, n, 134. 
 ci, m, 118. 
 
 d, 2, n, 296. 
 cii, m, 280. 
 
 10, m, 232. 
 ciii, 15, m, 304. 
 civ, m, 77. 
 
 19, n, 184. 
 
 27, ni, 82. 
 cvi, 2, m, 94. 
 cvii, 8, in, 360. 
 cix, 18, n, 306. 
 cxvi, n, 396. 
 
 16, n, 126. 
 cxviii, 24, n, 178. 
 cxix, 18, I, 419. 
 
 103, n, 168, 186. 
 
 105, n, 176. 
 
 166, n, 378. 
 cxxx, 3, In, 58. 
 cxxxix, 3, n, 260, 318. 
 
 8, m, 218. 
 
 10, m, 204. 
 
 12, II, 210. 
 
 14, II, 214. 
 
 17, in, 360. 
 cxliv, 1,'n, 130. 
 cxlv, 10, m, 78. 
 
 Proverbs: 
 
 iii, 9, 10, n, 212. 
 
 vi, 1-4, n, 48. 
 
 viii, 17, n, 210. 
 
 X, 18, n, 212. 
 
 xi, 24, II, 210. 
 
 xii, 4, II, 16. 
 
 xiii, 7, II, 34. 
 
 xvi, 28, in, 264. 
 
 xvii, 24, n, 62. 
 
 xix, 17, II, 58, 288. 
 
 XX, 27, m, 110. 
 
 xxiii, 26, n, 244. 
 
 XXX, 4, n, 134. 
 Song of Solomon: 
 
 ii, 1, in, 104. 
 16, in, 36. 
 Isaiah: 
 
 i, 3, n, 176. 
 
 V, 1, 2. n, 230. 
 
BIBLICAL ALLUSIONS 
 
 V, 1-7, n, 138. 
 
 4, n, 104. 
 vi, 5, II, 180. 
 
 6-8, II, 364. 
 ix, 6, II, 134, 396. 
 xiv, 29, m, 144. 
 xl, 6, m, 304. 
 
 24, II, 310. 
 xlv, 9, II, 370. 
 xlviii, 10, III, 282. 
 liii, 9, II, 144. 
 Ivii, 20, II, 22. 
 Iviii, 7, II, 172. 
 lix, 5, m, 144. 
 k, 2, m, 374. 
 
 19, m, 120. 
 Ixiii, 3, m, 152, 216. 
 
 5, m, 324. 
 Ixiv, 12, II, 140. 
 Ixvi, 3, I, 422. 
 
 Jeremiah: ' 
 
 V, 22, m, 82. 
 
 ix, 1, m, 322. 
 15, n, 306. , 
 
 X, 24, m, 296. 
 
 xxxi, 33, II, 302, 384, 
 134. 
 
 xxxviii, 11, n, 258. 
 Lamentations: 
 
 i, 12, n, 124. 
 
 ii, 15, n, 124. 
 18, m, 322. 
 Ezekiel: 
 
 xi, 19, n, 196. 
 
 xviii, 25, 29, III, 252. 
 
 xjmd, 26, II, 302. 
 Daniel: 
 
 xii, 3, n, 364. 
 Zechariah: 
 
 iv, 12, n, 158. 
 
 vii, 12, n, 120. 
 Malachi: 
 
 iii. 8-10. n. 58. 
 
 m. 
 
 Book of Wisdom: 
 vii, 17-23, n, 380. 
 viii, 1, m, 78. 
 xvi, 13, m, 306. 
 Matthew: 
 ii, 1, 2, II, 126. 
 
 9, n, 148. 
 iii, 16, n, 156. 
 iv. 2, II, 172. 
 V, 8, II, 14. 
 
 48, n, 172, III, 16. 
 vi, 16, n, 170. 
 
 26-34, III, 186. 
 vii, 13, il, 22. 
 
 14, n, 192. 
 viii, 24, m, 156. 
 
 31, n, 140. 
 xiii, 46, n, 381. 
 xvi, 18, III, 370. 
 
 19, n, 372. 
 
 24, II, 142. 
 xviii, 9, II, 260. 
 xxi, 8, II, 154. 
 xxii, 12, II, 400. 
 XXV, 40, II, 68. 
 xxvi, 15, II, 124. 
 
 28, II, 146, m, 180. 
 
 40-43, n, 124. 
 
 46-57, II, 124. 
 
 63, n, 136. 
 
 69, n, 128. 
 
 68, II, 136. 
 xxvii, 26, n, 132. 
 
 26, II, 134. 
 
 27, II, 136. 
 
 28, II, 138. 
 
 29, II, 138. 
 
 31, II, 140. 
 
 32, II, 142. 
 34, II, 146. 
 
 36, II, 146. 
 
 37, II, 144. 
 
 38, n. 144. 
 
443 
 
 BIBLICAL ALLUSIONS 
 
 xxvii, 46, II, 143, S86. 
 
 xxviii, 2, II, 178, HI, 360. 
 Mark: 
 
 xi, 15-17, m, 184. 
 
 xiii, 31, m, 226. 
 
 xiv, 24, m, 216. 
 50, n, 126. 
 65, II, 134. 
 Luke: 
 
 ii, 7, III, 158. 
 
 20, n, 168. 
 iv, 23, II, 144. 
 V, 35, n, 170. 
 
 vi, 24-26, ni, 194. 
 vii, 38, m, 150. 
 X, 24, n, 140. 
 xiv, 13, m, 50. 
 xvi, 2, II, 66. 
 xvii, 2, II, 34. 
 
 21, m, 114. 
 xk, 40, n, 120. 
 
 41, II, 398. 
 xxii, 20, II, 270. 
 
 42, n, 124. 
 
 44, II, 124, 136, m, 268. 
 48, n, 126. 
 64, II, 136. 
 xxiii, 11, 12, II, 128. 
 
 18, II, 132. 
 
 19, II, 132. 
 21, n, 140. 
 28, II, 136. 
 
 43, II, 236. 
 John: 
 
 i, 9, III, 110. 
 ii, 15, n, 62. 
 
 19, II, 128. 
 
 21, m, 264. 
 vi, 55, II, 232. 
 viii, 12, n, 132. 
 
 44, III, 110. 
 58, n, 132. 
 
 ix, 6, n, 134. 
 
 X, 33, II, 128. 
 
 xii, 3, m, 150. 
 
 5, II. 124. 
 
 xii, 6, II, 124. 
 xiii, 1, m, 226. 
 
 7, m, 178. 
 
 13, ni, 22. 
 
 23, II, 46. 
 xiv, 6, n, 370, III. 8. 
 XV, 1, II, 148, in, 162, 216. 
 xvi, 6, n, 126. 
 xviii, 24, n, 126. 
 xix. 15. n. 134. 
 
 34. n. 146. 190, III, 168, 
 180. 
 
 Acts: 
 
 ii, 3, n, 156. 
 
 vii, 47, 48, m, 264. 
 
 viii, 32, n, 128. 
 
 X, 4, II, 58. 
 
 xvii, 30, n. 256. HI. 212. 
 
 xxii. 22, II, 132. 
 Romans: 
 
 V, 12-21, n, 232. 
 
 vi, 11, m, 286. 
 
 viii. 26. n, 152. 
 
 35. III. 8. 60. 222. 
 ix. 21. II. 372. 
 
 X, 6-8, m, 134. 
 
 1 Corinthians: 
 i, 21, II, 64. 
 iii, 16, m, 264. 
 
 17, n, 62. 
 V, 7, n, 196. 
 ix, 27. in, 394. 
 X, 4, II, 138. 
 
 11, III. 216. 
 xi, 13. III. 110. 
 XV. 22. m. 16. 
 
 31. n. 268, m, 268, 
 270. 
 
 32, n, 250. 
 55, m, 342. 
 
 2 Corinthians: 
 ii, 15, in, 23. 
 
 16, n, 62. 
 iii, 3, in, 154. 
 13, n. 136. 
 14,111. 116. 
 
BIBLICAL ALLUSIONS 
 
 443 
 
 iv. 7, II, 64. 
 
 8-10, m, 250. 
 V, 8, III, 828. 
 
 21, n, 400. 
 vi, 10, III, 250. 
 
 16, m, 264. 
 X, 4, II, 302. 
 
 Galatians: 
 
 iii, 13, II. 142. 
 
 iv, 24, II, 236. 
 Ephesians: 
 
 ii, 14, III, 360. 
 
 iii. 8. m. 30. 
 
 iv, 8, II, 144. 
 
 vi, 30. m. 255. 
 Philippians: 
 
 i, 23, ni, 340. 
 
 ii, 6, II, 128. 
 6-8, II, 370. 
 
 13, III, 16. 
 iii, 19, n, 20. 
 iv, 3, n, 190. 
 
 7, n, 134. 
 Colossians: 
 i, 2, 4, I, 419. 
 
 24, m, 380. 
 ii. 12, n, 152. 
 iii, 3, II, 283. 
 
 9. m, 12. 
 
 14, III, 166. 
 2 Thessalonians: 
 
 i, 11, n, 384. 
 1 Timothy, vi, 10. HI, 112, 
 194. 
 12. n, 126. 
 Hebrews: 
 
 ii. 15. ni, 342. 
 
 17, m. 158. 
 
 vi. 19, m, 202. Si 
 vii. 2, II, 378. 
 viii, 2, m, 164. 
 X, 13, II. 166. 
 
 16, n, 384. 
 
 22, II, 4. 
 xi, 1, II, 232. 
 
 14, m, 234. 
 xii, 14, II, 118. 
 
 James: 
 i, 6, n, 368. 
 
 8, II, 338. 
 
 15, n, 14. 
 ii, 19. m, 388. 
 iii. 17, n, 182. 
 iv, 14, n, 350. 
 
 1 Peter: 
 
 i, 12, II, 140. 
 
 2 Peter: 
 
 iii, 10. m. 336. 
 1 John: 
 
 ii. 13, II. 192. 
 Revelation: 
 
 iv, 4, 10, II, 162. 
 
 vii, 14. II, 178. 
 
 viii. 6, m. 108. 
 
 X, 6, m, 340. 
 
 9, m, 260. 
 xiiii, 8, II, 190. 
 xvi, 1, III, 278. 
 xvii, 5, III, 370. 
 XX, 12, II. 270. 
 xxi, 8, m. 140. 
 
 9, II, 176. 
 22, in, 264. 
 27, II, 118. 
 ■ xxii, 2, n. 272. 
 12. II, 270. 
 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
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