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shall now suddenly (with Job) make my bed in the dark. And I praise God I am prepared for it; and I praise him I am not to learn patience now I stand in such need of it; and that I have practised mortification, and endeavoured to die daily, that I might not die eternally; and my hope is, that I shall shortly leave this valley of tears, and be free from all fever and pain; and, which will be a more happy condition, I shall be free from sin, and all the temptations and anxieties that attend it. And this being past, I shall dwell in the New Jerusalem, dwell there>> with men made perfect, dwell where these eyes shall see my Master and Saviour, Jesus; and with him see my dear mother, and all my relations and friends."

Thus the hours of his sickness became hours of rejoicing, and a light that went not out shone over the dark chamber, for he felt that he was "going daily towards" his final resting-place.

"his

After this discourse he became more restless, and “ soul," says Walton, "seemed. seemed to be weary of her earthly tabernacle; and this uneasiness became so visible, that his wife, his three nieces, and Mr. Woodnot, stood constantly about his bed, beholding him with sorrow, and an unwillingness to lose the sight of him, which they could not hope to see much longer. As they stood thus beholding him, his wife fobserved him to breathe faintly, and with much trouble, and observed him to fall into a sudden agony, which so surprised her, that she fell into a sudden passion, and required of him to know how he did. To which his answer was, that he had passed a conflict with his last enemy, and had overcome him by the merits of his Master, Jesus. After which answer, he looked up and saw his wife and nieces weeping to an extremity, and charged them, if they loved him, to withdraw into the next room, and there pray, every one alone, for him, for nothing but their lamentations could make his death uncomfortable."

Being left with Mr. Woodnot and Mr. Bostock, he requested the former to look into the cabinet that stood in the room, and take out his will; and having obtained Mr. Woodnot's promise to be his executor for his wife and nieces, he said, I am now ready to die; and soon after added, Lord, forsake me not, now my strength faileth me; but grant me mercies for the merits of my Jesus. And now, Lord-Lord, now receive my soul; and with these words he expired so placidly, that neither of his friends, who hung over him, knew of his departure.

With so much serenity was this Christian poet gathered to his fathers, "unspotted of the world, full of alms-deeds, full of humility, and all the examples of a virtuous life.” Wherefore, then, should we weep for the pilgrim who thus early in the summer-time set out for the celestial country, where they whom he loved were gone before, and where his beautiful piety taught him to believe that his mother's arms were longing for her absent son. Although he was young in years, he was rich in good works.

It is not growing, like a tree,
In bulk, doth make man better be.
A lily of the day

Is fairer far in May;

Although it fall and die that night,

It was the flower and plant of light.

BEN JONSON.

The flower was only transplanted into a heavenly garden, where no storm can ever prevail against it*.

Herbert was buried, according to his own desire, with the singing-service for the burial of the dead, by the singing-men of Sarum. We derive this information from Aubrey, whose uncle, T. Danvers, was at the funeral. The parish Register of Bemerton states, that "Mr. George Herbert, Esq., Parson of Fuggleston and Bemerton, was

* See the "Flower," in the Temple.

buried the 3rd of March, 1632." He lies in the chancel, "under no large, nor yet very good marble grave-stone, without any inscription*;" and when an admirer of his virtues and poetry made a visit to the church in 1831, he found the altar raised by a platform of wood, and the pavement entirely concealed.

Herbert, we are told by Walton, who had seen him, was of " a stature inclining towards leanness; his body was very straight, and so far from being cumbered with too much flesh, that he was lean to an extremity. His aspect was cheerful, and his speech and motion did both declare him a gentleman; for they were all so meek and obliging, that they purchased love and respect from all that knew him." Aubrey says that he was of a very fine complexion. The benevolent expression of his countenance is known from his portrait†, to which the lines on Sir Philip Sidney, may be applied.

A sweet attractive kind of grace,

A full assurance given by looks,
Continual comforts in a face,
The lineaments of Gospel-books.

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His manners corresponded with the sweetness of his features. "His life," says his eldest brother, was most holy and exemplary, insomuch, that about Salisbury, where he lived beneficed for many years, he was little less than sainted. He was not exempt from passion and choler, being infirmities to which all our race is subject; but that excepted, without reproach in all his actions." Anger, we may be assured, could never long be the inmate of so gentle a bosom.

His virtues were active, and adapted to the wants of

* Aubrey.

+ Prefixed to his "Works," 1709, by G. Sturt.

Poems, by R. White.

Bromley's Catalogue of Engraved Heads, p. 87.

human life; in the words of one of our greatest divines, when speaking of a departed friend, they form a little volume, which we may constantly carry in our bosom. As a son, he was most amiable; his tender respect to his mother increased with his years; he alleviated her sorrows, covered her imperfections, and comforted her age. In the discharge of his sacred office he was diligent and unwearied; every cottage-threshold was familiar to his feet, and his charity was only bounded by his fortune. The sadness, which he considered one of the most becoming characteristics of a clergyman, was in his own case relieved by a decent and serene mirth; for he said, that nature could not "bear everlasting droopings," and that pleasantness of disposition was "a great way to do good." The writer of the sketch prefixed to his Remains, speaks of his "conscientious expense of time, which he ever measured by the pulse, that native watch God has set in every one of us. His eminent temperance and frugality; his private fastings; his mortifications of the body; his extemporary exercises at the sight or visit of a charnel-house; at the stroke of a passing-bell, when ancient charity used, said he, to run to church and assist the dying Christian with prayers and tears." He was also scrupulously careful in the observance of all appointed fasts, and he welcomed the "dear fast of Lent" in a poem of several stanzas. He suffered no opportunity to escape of inculcating the truths of the Gospel. In the chancel of the Church, we are informed by Aubrey, were many apt sentences of Scripture. At his wife's seat, My life is hid with Christ in God, Coloss. iii. 3,—a text which he has taken for the subject of one of his poems; and above, "in a little window blinded within a veil ill-painted," Thou art my hidingplace. Psalm xxxii.

Besides his musical recreations, he was very fond of angling, which was then a favourite amusement of many

eminent men.

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Donne was a great practitioner and patron" of the art; Duport, the Greek professor, styled himself candidatum arundinis; and Sir Henry Wotton described it as idle time, not idly spent."

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Herbert's literary talents are not to be estimated from his productions. "God," he said, "has broken into my study, and taken off my chariot-wheels: I have nothing worthy of God." His youth was devoted to the acquirement of academic praise. In his maturer years, the allurements of a learned Court, and the prospect of fame and honour promised by the favour of the King, served to distract his mind from any great pursuit; and when he entered the Church, he put away all objects of worldly ambition, and only sought to prove himself a true and humble disciple of his Master. His scholarship was sound and elegant; the freedom and vigour of his Latin style were acknowledged by Lord Bacon, and Bishop Andrews carried a Greek letter written by him in his bosom. We may infer that he was also a good mathematician; for in the Country Parson he recommends "the mathematics as the only wonder-working knowledge." Of his acquaintance with Italian literature, he has only left us a slight testimony, in the translation of Cornaro's Treatise on Temperance, a work he undertook at "the request of a noble personage," and of which he sent a copy, not many months before his death, to a few friends who were forming a plan of diet-regulation. The second edition was published at Cambridge, in 1634, with the Hygiasticon of Leonard Lessius.

As a poet, he once enjoyed a wonderful popularity; and when Walton wrote, twenty thousand copies of the Temple had been circulated. The first edition,—of which a copy is preserved in the Library of Trinity College,appeared at Cambridge in 1632*. The history of this

*It had reached a seventh in 1656.

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