Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/193

 fate (Powysland Club Coll. vii. 132). Herbert's widow was buried at Highnam in 1656 (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. ii. 157).

Besides the Latin poems contributed to the Cambridge collections, Herbert only published in his lifetime ‘Parentalia,’ verses in Latin and Greek to his mother's memory, which were appended to Dr. Donne's funeral sermon (London, 1627,12mo), and ‘Oratioquâ auspicatissimum Serenissimi Principis Caroli Reditum ex Hispanijs celebrauit Georgius Herbert, Academiæ Cantabrigiensis Orator,’ printed by Cantrell Legge at the Cambridge University Press, 1623. All the poetic work by which he is remembered was published posthumously. On his deathbed Herbert directed a little manuscript volume of verse to be delivered to his friend Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding, with a view to publication. Ferrar at once applied for a license to the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, who hesitated, on the ground that two lines in one of Herbert's poems (‘The Church Militant’) alluded somewhat contemptuously to the emigration of religion from England to America. But the prohibition was soon withdrawn. The volume was entitled ‘The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations,’ and Ferrar, the editor, described in a preface Herbert's piety. Except the opening and closing poems,entitled respectively ‘The Church Porch’ and ‘The Church Militant,’ almost all the pieces are very brief. The earliest edition, which probably appeared within three weeks of Herbert's death, bears no date on the title-page. It was apparently printed for private circulation only. A unique copy of it is in the Huth Library. The first edition issued to the public bears the date 1633. A second edition was issued in the same year, and later editions are dated 1634, 1635, 1638, 1641, 1656, 1660, 1667, 1674, 1679, 1703, and 1709. All editions earlier than 1650 were printed and published at Cambridge. Walton, writing in 1670, says that more than twenty thousand copies had been ‘sold since the first impression.’ ‘The Synagogue’ of [q. v.], which is printed in all the later editions, was first appended to that of 1641. A portrait of Herbert, engraved by R. White, was first introduced into the 1674 edition, with which Walton's life was also reprinted. The text of the 1679 edition is disfigured by misprints, which have been repeated in many later editions. An alphabetical table was first added in 1709. Modern reprints are very numerous. An attractive edition, issued by Pickering, is dated 1846. Mr. J. H. Shorthouse wrote a preface for a facsimile reproduction in 1882. But the fullest edition of Herbert's poems is that edited by Dr. Grosart in vols. i. and ii. of his collected edition of Herbert's works (1874), and reproduced in the Aldine series in 1876. A manuscript copy (fol.) of the ‘Temple,’ which seems to have been presented by Ferrar to the vice-chancellor of Cambridge for his license in March 1632-3, is in the Bodleian Library. A manuscript volume containing portions of the ‘Temple,’ with a few other English poems by Herbert which are not included in Ferrar's edition, and two collections of Latin epigrams, entitled respectively ‘Passio Discerpta’ and ‘Lucus,’ is in Dr. Williams's Library, Gordon Square, London. It seems to have belonged to Ferrar, and to have been bound by him at Little Gidding. The English verses may possibly represent an early plan of the ‘Temple.’ Dr. Grosart, in his complete edition of Herbert's poems, has carefully collated the text of the printed with the manuscript versions, and has published all the additional poems, both English and Latin, which are found in the Dr. 'Williams's MS.

Herbert is also credited with verse-renderings of eight psalms,which are signed ‘G.H.,’ in John Playford's ‘Psalms and Hymns,’ London, 1671, fol. Walton, in his ‘Life of Herbert,’ prints two sonnets addressed by him to his mother. Aubrey quotes inscriptions assigned to Herbert on the tomb of Lord Dunvers at Dauntsey, and on the picture of Sir John Danvers, his stepfather's father. A poem by Herbert called ‘A Paradox’ in the Rawlinson MSS. at the Bodleian Library, and a poetic address to the queen of Bohemia in Brit. Mus. Harl. MS. 3910, pp. 121-2, were first printed by Dr. Grosart. In 1662 Herbert's reply to Andrew Melville's ‘Anti-Tami-Cami-Categoria’ of 1604 was published at Cambridge as an appendix to a volume entitled ‘Ecclesiastes Solomonis. Auctore Joan. Viviano. Canticum Solomonis: Nec non Epigrammata per Ja. Duportum.’ Herbert's verses appear with a separate titlepage: ‘Georgii Herberti Angli Musæ Responsoriæ ad Andreæ Melvini Scoti, Anti-Tami-Cami-Categoriam.’

Herbert's chief work in prose is ‘A Priest to the Temple, or the Countrey Parson, his Character and Rule of Holy Life,’ which was first issued in a little volume (Lond. 1652, 12mo) bearing the general title ‘Herbert's Remains,’ and including a second tract called ‘Jacula Prudentum’ (see below). A brief address to the reader, signed by Herbert, is dated 1632, and there is a biographical notice of the author by Barnabas Oley. The second edition (Lond. 1671, 12mo) contains a new preface by Oley, which deals only with the theological value of the volume. The book