Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/186

Herbert perception (Opera, iii. 411). Descartes also studied Herbert, and, while complaining of his metaphysical subtlety, recognised his eminence as a thinker. Direct attacks on Herbert appeared abroad in J. Musæus's ‘Examen Cherburianismi, sive de Luminis Naturæ insufficientia ad salutem, contra E. Herbertum de Cherbury,’ Jena, 1675 (2nd edit.), and Wittenberg, 1708, and in C. Kortholt's ‘De Tribus Impostoribus,’ i.e. Herbert, Hobbes, and Spinoza, Keil, 1680, and Hamburg 1700.

Halyburton, in his ‘Natural Religion Insufficient,’ 1714, declared that Herbert was ‘the first who lick'd Deism and brought it to something of a form,’ and Leland, in 1754, first described him as the father of English Deism. These claims have been popularly admitted. But Herbert has, as a matter of fact, little in common with the eighteenth-century school of Deists. Only Blount acknowledged any indebtedness to him, and it is doubtful if the true leaders of the movement were acquainted with his writings. Herbert's true affinity is with the Cambridge Platonists.

A volume of Herbert's poems, in English and Latin, was published by his brother Henry in 1665. As a poet he was a disciple of Donne, and excelled his master in obscurity and ruggedness. Ben Jonson was impressed by his ‘obscureness.’ His satires are very poor, but some of his lyrics have the true poetic ring, and at times suggest Herrick. He often employs the metre which was brought to perfection by Tennyson in ‘In Memoriam.’ His Latin verses are scholarly, and chiefly deal with philosophic subjects. His poems were reprinted and edited by Mr. J. Churton Collins in 1881. ‘The Life of Henry VIII,’ Herbert's standard historical work, embodies a mass of information derived from authentic papers. It is an apology for Henry. Four manuscript volumes, containing many notes for the book, are now in Jesus College Library. He was assisted in the compilation by many clerks and by Thomas Master, B.D., a fellow of New College, Oxford, who is said to have aided him in his other works. The history was first published in 1649. Whitaker, the publisher, who had obtained the manuscript from Herbert, had some litigation in the House of Lords with Herbert's grandson Edward, who claimed that the manuscript was left to him for his sole use. Herbert's commentaries on Buckingham's expedition to the Isle of Rhé was published in a Latin translation by Timothy Baldwin [q.v.] in 1658. The original English version was first printed by the present Earl of Powis for the Philobiblon Society in 1860. Two manuscript copies of Herbert's unpublished paper on the royal supremacy in the church are extant, one at Queen's College, Oxford, and the other in the Public Record Office.

, second (1600?-1655), Lord Herbert's elder son, was one of the magistrates of Shrewsbury in 1634, and actively helped to relieve the poor who were then stricken with the plague. In 1639 he commanded a troop of horse in the expedition into Scotland,and on the outbreak of the civil wars he was commissioned by the king at Nottingham (3 Sept. 1642) to raise a full regiment of twelve hundred foot, and was appointed governor of Bridgnorth. While there the king sent him (17 Oct. 1642) a commission as captain of a troop of four score horse. In 1643 he conducted Queen Henrietta Maria from Burlington, on her arrival from Holland, to the king at Oxford, and on 28 Sept. 1643 he was made governor of Ludlow. In 1644 he joined Prince Rupert at Shrewsbury, and was appointed governor of Aberystwith Castle (20 April 1644) (Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. App. iv. p. 399; Powysland Club Collections, xi. 362). In August 1648 he succeeded to his father's title and estates. He was allowed to compound for his estates, but after he had paid a large fine, the parliament ordered the demolition of Montgomery Castle (16 June 1649). Herbert was permitted to sell the old materials for his own profit. He died 13 May 1655, and was buried in Montgomery Church. His portrait (with a black lace collar) is at Powis Castle. By his wife Mary, daughter of John Egerton, first earl of Bridgewater, he was father of two sons, Edward and Henry (see below), and of four daughters (ib. vii. 136-9). One daughter, Florentia or Florence, married her kinsman, Richard Herbert of Dolguog. Another daughter, Frances, is said to have married William Brown of Weston, and their descendant, the Rev. Robert Fitzgerald Meredith, petitioned Queen Victoria in 1889 to revive in his favour the barony of Herbert of Cherbury.

, third (d. 1678), the first lord's favourite grandson, joined the royalists under Sir George Booth, lord Delamere, when they declared for Charles II in Cheshire, and suffered a short imprisonment. After the Restoration he was made custos rotulorum for Montgomeryshire (24 Aug. 1660), and for Denbighshire (1666). Richard Davies, the quaker, of Welshpool, Montgomeryshire, often appealed to Herbert in behalf of coreligionists committed to prison, and Herbert treated Davies with much kindness. He was, Davies says, a very big fat man. He