together to thank Lord Pembroke for the presentation. The King was then on a visit to the Earl at Wilton, attended by a numerous retinue, among whom was Dr. Laud, who, on hearing the scruples of Herbert, "did so convince him," says Walton, "that the refusal of the living was a sin, that a tailor was sent for from Salisbury to Wilton to take measure, and make him canonical clothes against the next day, which the tailor did." From this anecdote we discover that a distinction of dress was not deemed requisite in persons admitted to Deacon's orders, for Herbert, though made Deacon in 1626, had hitherto worn his sword and silk clothes. Being habited in his new dress, he went with his presentation to the learned Dr. Davenant, then Bishop of Salisbury, who gave him immediate institution. Dr. Davenant had been Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, and President of Queen's College, while Herbert was at Cambridge. It was not at that time required that a clergyman should be in priest's orders before he could be admitted to a cure of souls; but Herbert longed for the next Ember-week, that he might be ordained Priest, and rendered capable of administering both the sacraments. "At which time," says Walton, "the Rev. Dr. Humphrey Henchman laid his hand on Mr. Herbert's head."

He was inducted to the living on the 26th of April, 1630, and on being left alone in the church to "toll the bell," the sense of his situation so overpowered him, that when Mr. Woodnot, who was surprised at his long absence, looked through the window, he saw him lying on the ground before the altar. While in this lowly attitude, he afterwards told his friend, he "set rules for his future life, and made a vow to keep them." On the third day after his induction, he returned to his wife at Bainton, and when he had saluted her, he said, "You are now a minister's wife, and must so far forget your

VOL. I.

T

father's house, as not to claim a precedence of any of your parishioners." In the Country Parson he has left a picture of a clergyman's wife. "If he be married, the choice of his wife was made rather by his ear than his eye; his judgment, not his affection, found out a fit wife for him; whose humble and liberal disposition he preferred before beauty, virtue, and honour." Some of these traits were, perhaps, taken from the character of his own companion, who gained, we are informed by Walton, "an unfeigned love, and a serviceable respect from all that conversed with her; and their love followed her in all places, as inseparably as shadows follow substances in sunshine."

He remained only a short time at Bainton, and then returned to Bemerton. The old parsonage, through the neglect of the late incumbent, was very ruinous; and Herbert, we learn from Aubrey, built a very handsome house, and made a good garden and walks for the minister. A sketch of the parsonage, as it then stood, was communicated by Archdeacon Coxe to Mr. Major for his edition of Walton's Lives in 1825. The house now retains few of its original features; a little bedchamber, and one or two Mullion windows only remain; but until a comparatively recent period, the garden continued in the state in which it had been left by the poet. The village of Bemerton, which Aubrey calls a "pitiful little chapel of ease to Foughleston," was, in later years, the secluded abode of the amiable John Norris, whose neglected compositions glow with the purest fervour of the Christian philosopher.

We are now arrived at the most delightful period of Herbert's life, when the courtier, the poet, and the scholar, became the lowliest servant of the altar of his God. He did not come to offer unto heaven the paralytic thoughts of an exhausted intellect, or the wild fancies of an excited imagination; his choice was the result of much mental

deliberation, assisted by grace and direction from above. He was acquainted with the "ways of learning," and "the quick returns of courtesy and wit," yet he could say, with sincerity and truth, "I love Thee." He knew

The ways of pleasure, the sweet strains,
The lullings and the relishes of it,

The propositions of hot blood and brains;

What mirth and music mean; what love and wit
Have done these twenty hundred years and more.

The Pearl.

He had already expressed his sense of the fleeting nature of earthly enjoyments, in his poem on Virtue.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
'The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall to night,

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,

My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives;

But, though the whole world turns to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

The last stanza sinks into affectation, but the immortality of Virtue is a noble idea.

To impress more deeply on his mind the duties of a Christian pastor, he composed the Country Parson, which was published after his death by Barnabas Oley. With this little book, so simple in its style, and yet so touching in the affection of its exhortations, many of my readers are acquainted. It was the transcript of pure and gentle feelings, and reflects in every page the meekness and humility of the writer; it may be truly said to breathe of

the "flowers in cottage windows:" for among their humble occupants its author loved to dwell, cheering them in sorrow and sickness, and ever ready with a brotherly hand to dry the tears from their eyes. This slight volume leads us to regret the loss of his other prose writings. In a great measure free from the affectation of his poetry, it is at once simple and yet powerful, not laboured, yet elegant, and above all, earnest and sincere. He is not witty, nor learned, nor eloquent, but holy; all his words, to use his own phrase, were seasoned and dipped in his heart before they were uttered by his lips. With him nothing is common, or insignificant, that bears any relation to the Almighty if it had "the honour of that name, it grew great instantly*."

Herbert's first sermon is said by Walton to have been delivered" after a most florid manner; but at the conclusion he informed the congregation of his intention to be in future more plain and practical, a promise to which he faithfully adhered. In all his subsequent sermons—alas, too few!-the texts were constantly selected from the Gospel for the day; and on the afternoon of each Sunday, he devoted half an hour, after the reading of the second lesson, to catechizing the congregation. Like the excellent Archbishop Usher, he attached great importance to this examination he thought that religion ought to occupy a portion of every day, and it was his constant practice to perform the service of the Church twice a-day, at the hours of ten and four, in the chapel adjoining his house. His wife and the other members of his family were always present, and several of the neighbouring gentry were frequent attendants. Few of his own flock were ever absent, and many of his poorer parishioners "would let their plough rest" when his bell invited to prayer; and, having

* Country Parson, p. 50.

joined in that simple and beautiful worship, they returned to their rural employment.

His manners and habits were in harmony with his professions; everything around him was plain and unostentatious. The pleasant picture in the Country Parson was probably copied from his own dwelling. "The furniture of his house is very plain, but clean, whole, and sweet; as sweet as his garden can make; for he hath no money for such things, charity being his only perfume." The "Country Parson's library," he felt to be, "a holy life." Music was his most grateful recreation at Bemerton, as it had formerly been at Cambridge. Aubrey says, he had a very good hand on the lute, to which he set many of his sacred poems. He usually walked twice a-week from his house to Salisbury, a distance of two miles, to hear the Anthem in the Cathedral, observing that the time spent in prayer and solemn music elevated his soul, and was his heaven on earth. He has expressed this feeling in a poem, called Church Music:

Sweetest of sweets, I thank you; when displeasure
Did through my body wound my mind,

You took me thence, and in your house of pleasure
A dainty lodging me assign'd.

Now I in you without a body move,

Rising and falling with your wings,

We both together sweetly live and love,

Yet say sometimes, "God help poor Kings !"

Comfort, I'll die; for, if you post from me,
Sure I shall do so and much more:

But if I travel in your company,

You know the way to heaven's door.

The evenings of the days on which he visited the Cathedral, he frequently spent at a private music-meeting in the same city, a custom he justified by saying, that religion does not banish mirth, but only moderates and sets rules to it.