Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/191

 Powis was created an LL.D. of Cambridge 6 July 1835, and a D.C.L. of Oxford 20 June 1844, and on 12 Dec. 1844 was installed a K.G. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward James, now (1891) earl of Powis.

A portrait of Powis by Sir F. Grant belongs to the present earl. It has been engraved by Cousins. His speech, ‘on moving the second reading of a bill for preventing the union of the sees of St. Asaph and Bangor,’ was published in 1843 (London, 12mo).



HERBERT, GEORGE (1593–1633), poet, born at Montgomery Castle on 3 April 1593, was fourth son of Sir Richard Herbert, by his wife Magdalen, and was brother of, lord Herbert of Cherbury [q. v.], of Sir [q. v.], and of [q. v.] [For an account of his mother and other members of his family see under .] As a child he was educated at home under the care of his mother, whose virtues he commemorated in verse, and he may have accompanied her in 1598 to Oxford, whither she went for four years to keep house for her eldest son, Edward. In his twelfth year (1604-5) George was sent to Westminster School; and obtained there a king's scholarship on 5 May 1609. He matriculated from Trinity College, Cambridge, on 18 Dec. 1609, graduating B.A. in 1612-13, and M.A. 1616. The master of the college, Dean Neville, recognised his promise, and he was elected a minor fellow on 3 Oct. 1614, major fellow 15 March 1615-16, and ‘sublector quartæ classis’ 2 Oct. 1617. Herbert was now a finished classical scholar. Throughout his life he was a good musician, not only singing, but playing on the lute and viol. His accomplishments soon secured for him a high position in academic society, and he attracted the notice of Lancelot Andrewes, bishop of Winchester (cf. Herbert's letter to the bishop in, iii. 466). Herbert contributed two Latin poems to the Cambridge collection of elegies on Prince Henry (1612), and one to that on Queen Anne (1619). At an early period of his university career he wrote a series of satiric Latin verses in reply to Andrew Melville's ‘Anti-Tami-Cami-Categoria’ (first published in 1604). Melville's work was an attack on the universities of Oxford and Cambridge for passing resolutions hostile to the puritans at the beginning of James I's reign. Herbert's answer cleverly defended the established church at all points, and he declared himself strongly opposed to puritanism, an attitude which he maintained through life. Loyal addresses to James I and Charles, prince of Wales, were prefixed, but this work, although circulated in manuscript while Herbert was at Cambridge, was not printed till nearly thirty years after his death, when James Duport, dean of Peterborough, prepared it for publication (1662).

In 1618 Herbert was prelector in the rhetoric school at Cambridge, and on one occasion lectured on an oration recently delivered by James I, bestowing on it extravagant commendation (, Life of Williams, i. 175; cf., Diary, i. 121). Despite his preferments, his income was small, and he was unable to satisfy his taste for book-buying. When appealing for money to his stepfather, Sir John Danvers (17 March 1617-18), he announced that he was ‘setting foot into divinity to lay the foundation of my future life,’ and that he required many new books for the purpose. Soon afterwards he left his divinity studies to become a candidate for the public oratorship at Cambridge— ‘the finest place [he declared] in the university.’ He energetically solicited the influence of Sir Francis Nethersole, the retiring orator, of his stepfather, of his kinsman, the Earl of Pembroke, and of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd. His suit proved successful, and on 21 Oct. 1619 he was appointed deputy orator. On 18 Jan. 1618-19 Nethersole finally retired, and Herbert was formally installed in his place. His duties brought him into relations with the court and the king's ministers. He wrote on behalf of the university all official letters to the government, and the congratulations which he addressed to Buckingham in 1619 on his elevation to the marquisate, and to Thomas Coventry on his appointment as attorney-general in 1620, prove that he easily adopted the style of a professional courtier. He frequently attended James I as the university's representative at Newmarket or Rovston,and he sent an effusively loyal letter of thanks to the king (20 May 1620) in acknowledgment of the gift to the university of a copy of the ‘Basilikon Doron.’ The flattery delighted the king. Herbert thenceforth was constantly at court, and received marks of favour from Lodowick, duke of Lennox, and James, marquis of Hamilton. He made the personal acquaintance of Bacon, the lord