almost sorry to find your servant here this day, because I was loth to have any witness of my not coming home last night, and indeed of my coming this morning. But my not coming was excusable, because earnest business detained me; and my coming this day is by the example of your St. Mary Magdalen, who rose early upon Sunday, to seek that which she loved most; and so did I. And, from her and myself, I return such thanks as are due to one, to whom we owe all the good opinion, that they whom we need most, have of us. By this messenger, and on this good day, I commit the enclosed holy hymns and sonnets (which for the matter, not the workmanship, have yet escaped the fire) to your judgment, and to your protection too, if you think them worthy of it; and I have appointed this enclosed sonnet to usher them to your happy hand.

"Your unworthiest servant, "unless your accepting him to be so "have mended him,

"Mitcham, July 11, 1607.

Jo. DONNE."

TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT, OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN.

HER of your name, whose fair inheritauce
Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo,

An active faith so highly did advance,

That she once knew more than the Church did know,
The resurrection; so much good there is

Deliver'd of her, that some Fathers be

Loth to believe one woman could do this;
But think these Magdalens were two or three.
Increase their number, Lady, and their fame:
To their devotion add your innocence:
Take so much of th' example, as of the name;
The latter half; and in some recompense
That they did harbour Christ himself a guest,
Harbour these hymns, to his dear name addrest.
J. D.

Q

at Camb

These hymns are now lost to us; but doubtless they were such, as they two now sing in heaven.

There might be more demonstrations of the friendship, and the many sacred endearments betwixt these two excellent persons, (for I have many of their letters in my hand,) and much more might be said of her great prudence and piety: but my design was not to write hers, but the life of her son; and therefore I shall only tell my reader, that about the very day twenty years that this letter was dated and sent her, I saw and heard this Mr. John Donne (who was then Dean of St. Paul's) weep, and preach her funeral sermon, in the parish church of Chelsea, near London, where she now rests in her quiet grave; and where we must now leave her and return to her son George, whom we left in his study in Cambridge.

And in Cambridge we may find our George Herbert's behaviour to be such, that we may conclude he consecrated the first-fruits of his early age to virtue, and a serious study of learning. And that he did so, this following letter and sonnet, which were, in the first year of his going to Cambridge, sent his dear mother for a new-year's gift, may appear to be some testimony.

"But I fear the heat of my late ague hath dried up those springs by which scholars say the Muses use to take up their habitations. However, I need not their help to reprove the vanity of those many love poems that are daily writ, and consecrated to Venus; nor to bewail that so few are writ, that look towards God and heaven. For my own part, my meaning (dear mother) is, in these sonnets, to declare my resolution to be, that my poor abilities in poetry, shall be all and ever consecrated to God's glory; and I beg you to receive this as onetestimony."

My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee,
Wherewith whole shoals of martyrs once did burn,
Besides their other flames? Doth Poetry

Wear Venus' livery? only serve her turn?
Why are not sonnets made of thee? and lays
Upon thine altars burnt? Cannot thy love
Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise
As well as any she? Cannot thy Dove
Outstrip their Cupid easily in flight?

Or, since their ways are deep, and still the same,
Will not a verse run smooth that bears thy name?
Why doth that fire, which by thy power and might
Each breast does feel, no braver fuel choose

Than that, which one day warms may chance refuse?
Sure, Lord, there is enough in thee to dry
Oceans of ink; for as the deluge did

Cover the earth, so doth thy Majesty:
Each cloud distils thy praise, and doth forbid
Poets to turn it to another use.

Roses and lilies speak thee; and to make
A pair of cheeks of them, is thy abuse.
Why should I women's eyes for crystal take?
Such poor invention burns in their low mind

Whose fire is wild, and doth not upward go
To praise, and on thee, Lord, some ink bestow.
Open the bones, and you shall nothing find

In the best face but filth; when, Lord, on thee
The beauty lies, in the discovery.

G. H.

This was his resolution at the sending this letter to his dear mother; about which time he was in the seventeenth year of his age; and as he grew older, 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, of which the reader may expect a more exact account in what will follow.

I need not declare that he was a strict student, because that he was so, there will be many testimonies in the future part of his life. I shall therefore

Q 2

only tell, that he was made Bachelor of Arts in the year 1611; Major Fellow of the college, March 15, 1615: and that in that year he was also made Master of Arts, he being then in the 22d year of his age; during all which time, all, or the greatest diversion from his study, was the practice of fmusic, 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 raised his weary soul so far above earth, that it gave him an earnest of the joys of heaven, before he possessed them." And it may be noted, that from his first entrance into the college, the generous Dr. Nevil was a cherisher of his studies, and such a lover of his person, his behaviour, and the excellent endowments of his mind, that he took him often into his own company; by which he confirmed his native. gentleness and if during this time he expressed any error, it was, that he kept himself too much retired, and at too great a distance with all his inferiors; and his clothes seemed to prove, that he put too great a value on his parts and patronage.

and

This may be some account of his disposition, of the employment of his time, till he was Master of Arts, which was anno 1615; and in the year 1619, he was chosen Orator for the University. His two precedent Orators were Sir Robert Nanton, and Sir Francis Nethersoll. The first was not long after made Secretary of State; and Sir Francis, not very long after his being Orator, was made Secretary to the Lady Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia. In this place of Orator our George Herbert continued eight years, and managed it with as becoming and grave a gaiety, as any had ever before or since his time. For he had acquired great learning, and was blessed with a high fancy, a civil and sharp wit, and with a natural elegance, both in his behaviour,

his tongue, and his pen."

Of all which there might be very many particular evidences; but I will limit myself to the mention of but three.

And the first notable occasion of showing his fitness for his employment of Orator was manifested in a letter to King James, upon the occasion of his sending that University his book called Basilicon Doron and their Orator was to acknowledge this great honour, and return their gratitude to his Majesty for such a condescension; at the close of which letter he writ,

"Quid Vaticanam Bodleianamque objicis hospes!

Unicus est nobis Bibliotheca Liber."

This letter was writ in such excellent Latin, was so full of conceits, and all the expressions so suited to the genius of the King, that he enquired the Orator's name, and then asked William, Earl of Pembroke, if he knew him? whose answer was, "That he knew him very well, and that he was his kinsman; but he loved him more for his learning and virtue, than for that he was of his name and family." At which answer the King smiled, and asked the Earl's leave "that he might love him too, for he took him to be the jewel of that University."

The next occasion he had and took to show his great abilities, was, with them, to show also his great affection to that Church in which he received his baptism, and of which he professed himself a member; and the occasion was this: There was one Andrew Melvin, a minister of the Scotch Church, and rector of St. Andrew's, who, by a long and constant converse with a discontented part of that Clergy which opposed episcopacy, became at last to be a chief leader of that faction; and had proudly appeared to be so to King James, when he was but