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have paid my promised account of his excellent mother; and I will endeavour to make it short.

I have told her birth, her marriage, and the number of her children, and have given some short account of them. I shall next tell the reader, that her husband died when our George was about the age of four years: I am next to tell, that she continued twelve years a widow; that she then married happily to a noble gentleman, the brother and heir of the lord Danvers, earl of Danby, who did highly value both her person and the most excellent endowments of her mind.

In this time of her widowhood, she being desirous to give Edward, her eldest son, such advantages of learning, and other education, as might suit his birth and fortune, and thereby make him the more fit for the service of his country, did, at his being of a fit age, remove from Montgomery castle with him, and some of her younger sons, to Oxford; and having entered Edward into Queen's college, and provided him a fit tutor, she commended him to his care: yet she continued there with him, and still kept him in a moderate awe of herself, and so much under her own eye, as to see and converse with him daily: but she managed this power over him without any such rigid sourness, as might make her company a torment to her child; but with such a sweetness and compliance with the recreations and pleasures of youth, as did incline him willingly to spend much of his time in the company of his dear and careful mother; which was to her great content: for she would often say, "That 66 as our bodies take a nourishment suitable to the meat on "which we feed; so our souls do as insensibly take in vice "by the example or conversation with wicked company:" and would therefore as often say, "That ignorance of vice "was the best preservation of virtue; and that the very "knowledge of wickedness was as tinder to inflame and "kindle sin, and to keep it burning." For these reasons she endeared him to her own company, and continued with him in Oxford four years; in which time her great and

harmless wit, her cheerful gravity, and her obliging beha viour, gained her an acquaintance and friendship with most of any eminent worth or learning, that were at that time in or near that university; and particularly with Mr. John Donne, who then came accidentally to that place, in this time of her being there. It was that John Donne, who was after Dr. Donne, and dean of St. Paul's, London: and he, at his leaving Oxford, writ and left there, in verse, a character of the beauties of her body and mind: of the first he says,

No spring nor summer beauty has such grace,

As I have seen in an autumnal face.

Of the latter he says,

In all her words to ev'ry hearer fit,

You may at revels, or at council sit.

The rest of her character may be read in his printed poems, in that elegy which bears the name of The Autumnal Beauty. For both he and she were then past the meri

dian of man's life.

This amity, begun at this time and place, was not an amity that polluted their souls; but an amity made up of a chain of suitable inclinations and virtues; an amity like that of St. Chrysostom's to his dear and virtuous Olympias; whom, in his letters, he calls his saint: or an amity, indeed, more like that of St. Hierom to his Paula; whose affection to her was such, that he turned poet in his old age, and then made her epitaph; "wishing all his body were turned "into tongues, that he might declare her just praises to posterity." And this amity betwixt her and Mr. Donne was begun in a happy time for him, he being then near to the fortieth year of his age, (which was some years before he entered into sacred orders;) a time when his necessities needed a daily supply for the support of his wife, seven children, and a family. And in this time she proved one of his most bountiful benefactors; and he as grateful an acknowledger of it. You may take one testimony for what I

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have said of these two worthy persons, from this following letter and sonnet.

"MADAM,

"Your favours to me are every where; I use them, " and have them. I enjoy them at London, and leave them "there; and yet find them at Micham. Such riddles as "these become things inexpressible; and such is your good66 ness. I was almost sorry to find

your servant here this 66 day, because I was loath to have any witness of

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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 en"closed holy hymns and sonnets (which for the matter, not "the workmanship, have yet escaped the fire) to your judg"ment, 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.

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"Your unworthiest servant,

"Unless your accepting him to be so have mended him, MICHAM,

"JO. DONNE."

July 11, 1607.

To the Lady MAGDALEN HERBERT, of St. Mary
Magdalen.

HER of your name, whose fair inheritance

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
Loath 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.

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 that 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

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"reprove the vanity of those many love-poems, that are daily writ, and consecrated to Venus; nor to bewail that

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SO few are writ, that look towards God and heaven. For "my own part, my meaning (dear mother) is, in these son66 nets, to declare my resolution to be, that my poor abili"ties in poetry shall be all and ever consecrated to God's glory; and I beg you to receive this as one testimony.”

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

Than that, which one day worms 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, in thee
The beauty lies, in the discovery.

G. H.

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