Selected Works. George Herbert
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but eloquent page of Walton. Herbert’s chief if not sole recreation was music, “in which heavenly art,” says his affectionate biographer, “he was a most excellent master, and did himself compose many divine hymns and anthems, which he set and sung to his lute or viol; and though he was a lover of retiredness, yet his love to music was such, that he went usually twice every week, on certain appointed days, to the cathedral church in Salisbury; and at his return would say, that his time spent in prayer and cathedral music elevated his soul, and was his heaven upon earth. But before his return thence to Bemerton, he would usually sing and play his part at an appointed private music-meeting; and to justify this practice, he would often say, ‘Religion does not banish mirth, but only moderates and sets rules to it.’”
At length, after a residence at Bemerton of about two years, his health became so much impaired that he was forced to confine himself for the most part to the house. But still, in spite of his increasing weakness, he continued as formerly to read prayers in public twice a-day, sometimes at home and sometimes in the church which immediately adjoined. “In one of which times of his reading, his wife observed him to read in pain, and told him so, and that it wasted his spirits, and weakened him; and he confessed it did, but said his life could not be better spent than in the service of his master Jesus, who had done and suffered so much for him. “But,” said he, “I will not be wilful; for though I find my spirit be willing, yet I find my flesh is weak; and therefore Mr. Bostock{5} shall be appointed to read prayers for me to-morrow; and I will now be only a hearer of them, till this mortal shall put on immortality.’ And Mr. Bostock,” says Walton, “did the next day undertake and continue this happy employment, till Mr. Herbert’s death.”
A few weeks before his death, Herbert was visited by his friend Mr. Duncon, afterwards rector of Friar Barnet in Middlesex. To him, at parting, the dying man delivered The Temple, with instructions to place it in the hands of their common friend Nicholas Farrer, the “Protestant Monk” of Little Gidding, saying, as he did so, “Sir, I pray you deliver this little book to my dear brother Farrer, and tell him he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed betwixt 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 dejected poor soul, let it be made public; if not, let him burn it; for I and it are the least of God’s mercies.” “Thus meanly,” adds Walton, who reports the words, “did this humble man think of this excellent book, of which Mr. Farrer would say, there was in it the picture of a divine soul in every page; and that the whole book was such a harmony of holy passions, as would enrich the world with pleasure and piety.”
The closing scene of this good man’s life cannot be better told than in the language of Walton. He had now become very “restless,” says Izaak, “and his soul 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, whom they could not hope to see much longer. . . . . And when he looked up, and saw his wife and nieces weeping to an extremity, he 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. To which request their sighs and tears would not suffer them to make any reply; but they yielded him a sad obedience, leaving only with him Mr. Woodnot and Mr. Bostock. Immediately after they had left him, he said to Mr. Bostock, ‘Pray, sir, open that door, then look into that cabinet, in which you may easily find my last will, and give it into my hand:’ which being done, Mr. Herbert delivered it into the hand of Mr. Woodnot, and said, ‘My old friend, I here deliver you my last will, in which you will find that I have made you sole executor for the good of my wife and nieces; and I desire you to show kindness to them, as they shall need it. I do not desire you to be just, for I know you will be so for your own sake; but I charge you, by the religion of our friendship, to be careful of them.’ And having obtained Mr. Woodnot’s promise to be so, he said, ‘I am now ready to die.’ After which words, he said, ‘Lord, forsake me not, now my strength faileth me; but grant me mercy for the merits of my Jesus. And now, Lord—Lord, now receive my soul!’ And with these words he breathed forth his divine soul, without any apparent disturbance, Mr. Woodnot and Mr. Bostock attending his last breath, and closing his eyes.”
So died George Herbert. Let our last hope be that of his artless and affectionate biographer—“If God shall be so pleased, may I be so happy as to die like him!”
The Temple was published at Cambridge shortly after its anther’s death, with a preface by Nicholas Farrer. It immediately became popular—to such an extent, indeed, that when Walton published his lives, upwards of twenty thousand copies had been sold. Cowley alone enjoyed a greater popularity. But while the works of Cowley are now half forgotten, those of Herbert are still highly esteemed and widely read. And they are worthy of the distinction. The Temple may be disfigured by conceits which may sometimes displease us, and by obscurities which may seem to partake of the mysticism of the later Schoolmen. But our displeasure bears no proportion to the delight with which we contemplate the richness of his fancy and the idiomatio beauties of his language; while the deep devotion with which the poem is instinct warrants us in believing, with Henry Vaughan, that the “holy life and verse” of Herbert did much to divert that “foul and overflowing stream” of impurity by which the literature of Eng-, land was then inundated.
‘More sweet than odours caught by him who sails
Near spicy shores of Araby the blest,
A thousand times more exquisitely meet,
The freight of holy feeling which we meet,
In thoughtful moments, wafted by the gale
From fields where good man walk, or bowers wherein they rest.’
WORDSWORTH.”
THE POETRY OF GEORGE HERBERT
I. THE TEMPLE.
THE DEDICATION.
Lord, my first fruits present themselves to thee;
Yet not mine neither: for from thee they came,
And must return. Accept of them and me,
And make us strive, who shall sing best thy name.
Turn their eyes hither, who shall make a gain
Theirs, who shall hurt themselves or me, refrain.
1. THE CHURCH-PORCH.
Perirrhanterium.
THOU, whose sweet youth and early hopes inhance
Thy rate and price, and mark thee for a treasure,
Hearken unto a Verser, who may chance
Ryme thee to good, and make a bait of pleasure:
A verse may finde him who a sermon flies,
And turn delight into a sacrifice.
Beware of lust; it doth pollute and foul
Whom God in baptisme washt with his own blood:
It blots thy lesson written in thy soul;
The holy lines cannot be understood.
How dare those eyes upon a Bible look,
Much lesse towards God, whose lust is all their book!
Abstain wholly, or wed. Thy bounteous Lord
Allows thee choise of paths: take no by-wayes;
But gladly welcome what he doth afford;
Not grudging, that thy lust hath bounds and staies.
Continence hath his joy: weigh both; and so
If rottennesse