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work is beautiful. Having taken leave of Mr. Duncon, and intrusted him with a message to "his brother Ferrar,” he did, says Walton, with so sweet a humility as seemed to exalt him, bow down to Mr. Duncon, and with a thoughtful and contented look, say, "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 passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom. Desire him to

read it; and then, if he can think it may turn to the advantage of any poor, dejected soul, let it be made public; if not, let him burn it. For I, and it, are less than the least of God's mercies." His poetical character has been drawn with considerable accuracy, by Baxter. This celebrated non-conformist had, in his youth, been introduced to the notice of Sir Henry Herbert, by whom he was kindly received: but he had not resided at Whitehall more than a month, when he was "glad to be gone," being offended with the negligent observance of the Sabbath. But I must confess," he says, 66 after all, that next the Scripture Poems, there are none so savoury to me, as Mr. George Herbert's. I know that Cowley, and others, far excel Herbert in wit and accurate composure; but as Seneca takes with me above all his contemporaries, because he speaketh things by words feelingly and seriously, like a man that is past jest, so Herbert speaks to God, like a man that really believeth in God, and whose business in the world is most with God: heart-work and heaven-work make up his books*."

Having mentioned Herbert, says Mr. Coleridge in the Friend, that model of a man, a gentleman, and a clergyman, let me add, that the quaintness of some of his thoughts, (not of his diction, than which nothing can be

* From Poetical Fragments, &c., 1681.

more pure, manly, and unaffected), has blinded modern readers to the great general merit of his poems, which are for the most part excellent in their kind. The lines upon Employment are eminently pathetic and beautiful :

If, as a flower doth spread and die,
Thou would'st extend me to some good,
Before I were by frost's extremity
Nipt in the bud;

The sweetness and the praise were Thine,
But the extension and the room,

Which in Thy garland I should fill, were mine
At the great doom.

For as thou dost impart Thy grace,

The greater shall our glory be,

The measure of our joys is in this place,

The stuff with Thee.

Let me not languish, then, and spend

A life as barren to Thy praise,

As is the dust to which that life doth tend,
But with delays.

All things are busy, only I

Neither bring honey with the bees,

Nor flowers to make that, nor the husbandry
To water these.

I am no link of thy great chain,

For all my company is as a weed;

Lord, place me in Thy comfort, give one strain
To my poor reed.

:

And the verses upon Grace are equally plaintive and harmonious; the thought in the third stanza is very pleasing, and the concluding prayer of the poet is the more affecting from the remembrance of its speedy fulfilment :My stock lies dead, and no increase Doth my dull husbandry improve; O, let Thy graces, without cease, Drop from above!

If still the sun should hide his face,
Thy house would but a dungeon prove,
Thy works night's captives; O, let grace
Drop from above!

VOL. I.

U

The dew doth every morning fall,
And shall the dew outstrip Thy dove?
The dew for which grass cannot call
Drop from above!

O come, for Thou dost know the way,
Or, if to me Thou wilt not move,
Remove me where I need not say,

Drop from above!

The poem on Life is, in the conception, very beautiful, and some of the lines could only have emanated from a mind of true poetical feeling; but the same affected taste which marred the verses upon Virtue, is also discoverable here:

I made a posie while the day ran by;

Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie

My life within this band:

But time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away
And wither in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart.
I took, without more thinking, in good part,
Time's gentle admonition :

Who did so sweetly Death's sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day,
Yet sug'ring the suspicion.

Farewell, dear flowers! Sweetly your time ye spent,
Fit while ye lived, for smell and ornament,

And after death for cures.

I follow straight, without complaints or grief,
Since if my scent be good, I care not if
It be as brief as yours.

Of the epithets and individual thoughts that ever distinguish the work of a true poet, the Temple affords more specimens than I have space to enumerate. But one exquisite verse may be quoted, in which the appearance of the Church of God is contrasted with the pomps of

earth:

And when I view abroad both regiments,

The world's and Thine;

Thine clad with simpleness and sad events,
The other fine, &c.

Frailty.

How the blessed names of those who have suffered and died in defence of our religion arise to our remembrance, when we read these words! We think of Latimer, of Cranmer, and Ridley, and of the glorious company of sainted martyrs, whom they guided unto eternal glory.

The poem on Peace exemplifies his faults and his beauties; his fantastic but ingenious imagery, and his tender and enthusiastic devotion:

Sweet Peace, where dost thou dwell? I humbly crave,
Let me once know.

I sought thee in a secret cave,

And ask'd if Peace were there,

A hollow wind did seem to answer-No;
Go seek elsewhere.

I did ;-and, going, did a rainbow note:
Surely, thought I,

This is the lace of Peace's coat:

I will search out the matter.

But while I look'd the clouds immediately
Did break and scatter.

Then went I to a garden, and did spy
A gallant flower,

The crown imperial. "Sure," said I,

"Peace at the root must dwell." But when I digg'd, I saw a worm devour What show'd so well.

At length I met a rev'rend good old man :
Whom when for Peace

I did demand, he thus began:

"There was a Prince of old

At Salem dwelt, who lived with good increase
Of flock and fold.

"He sweetly liv'd; yet sweetness did not save
His life from foes.

But after death out of his grave

There sprang twelve stalks of wheat:
Which many wond'ring at, got some of those
To plant and set.

"It prosper'd strangely, and did soon disperse
Through all the earth:

For they that taste it do rehearse

That virtues lie therein;

A secret virtue, bringing peace and mirth
By flight of sin.

"Take of this grain, which in my garden grows,
And grows for you:

Make bread of it; and that repose

And peace, which everywhere

With so much earnestness you do pursue,
Is only there."

These specimens from the Temple cannot be brought to a close in more appropriate words than Walton's eloquent eulogy of the work, in the Life of Donne. "It is a book," he says, "in which, by declaring his own spiritual conflicts, he hath comforted and raised many a dejected and discomposed soul, and charmed them into sweet and quiet thoughts; a book, by the reading whereof, and the assistance of that spirit that seemed to inspire the author, the reader may attain habits of peace and piety, and all the gifts of the Holy Ghost and heaven, and may, by still reading, still keep those sacred fires burning upon the altar of so pure a heart as shall free it from the anxieties of this world, and keep it fixed upon things that are above."

The writer would have wished no higher praise, yet the extracts I have given may incline the reader to consider the Temple deserving of study, for a better reason than that for which Pope is said frequently to have perused it*. A few of the poems were translated into Latin, and published, with others, by W. Dillinghamt. Granger asserts, that the poems annexed to the Temple were written by Crashaw; but the translator of the Sospetto d'Herode could never have subdued his genius to the level of the

Essay on the Genius and Writing of Pope, p. 85.

Poemata Varii Argumenti partim e Georgio Herberto Latinè Reddita.

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