MEMOIR OF GEORGE HERBERT

      George Herbert was born in Montgomery Castle, Shropshire, on the 3d of April 1593. His father, Richard Herbert of Blakehall, was descended of a younger branch of the family of Pembroke. His mother was Magdalen Newport, the youngest daughter of Sir Richard Newport of High Arkall, in the county of Salop. Donne, who knew her well, has, in one of his finest poems, the “Autumnal Beauty,” commemorated her noble qualities and her majestic person. Izaak Walton tells us, that as “the happy mother of seven sons and three daughters,” she would often thank God that He had given her “Job’s number and Job’s distribution.” When her fifth son, George, was four years old, her husband died. After the lapse of a few years, she removed to Oxford, to superintend the education of her youngest son, Edward, afterwards the celebrated Lord Herbert of Cherbury, author of the once famous book, De Veritate prout distinguitur de Revelatione.

      George, in the meantime, whose childhood had been spent, as Walton says, “in a sweet content, under the eye and care of a prudent mother, and the tuition of a chaplain,” had been removed to Westminster School, then under the presidency of Mr. Ireland. During the three years he remained at Westminster, he is said to have attained to considerable proficiency in classical, and especially in Greek learning. About the year 1608 he was entered of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he enjoyed the almost paternal care of Dr. Nevil, then Dean of Canterbury and Master of the College. His name appears on the Register of Scholars under date 6th May 1609. At Cambridge he seems to have distinguished himself greatly. In 1611 he took his Bachelor’s degree; within two years thereafter he was chosen a Fellow; he became Master of Arts in 1615; and on the 21st October 1619, on the resignation of Sir Francis Nethersole, he was elected to the distinguished post of Public Orator to the University.

      Walton has described this portion of Herbert’s career with fine feeling and much beauty of expression. “As he grew older,” he says, “so he grew in learning, and more and more in favour both with God and man: insomuch that, in this morning of that short day of his life, he seemed to be marked out for virtue, and to become the care of Heaven; for God still kept his soul in so holy a frame, that he may, and ought to be a pattern of virtue to all posterity, and especially to his brethren of the clergy.” During all the time he was at College, continues the fine old gossip, “all, or the greatest diversion from his study, was the practice of music, in which he became a great master; and of which he would say, that it did relieve his drooping spirits, compose his distracted thoughts, and raise his weary soul so far above earth, that it gave him an earnest of the joys of heaven before he possessed them.”

      By his elevation to the office of Public Orator, which he held