Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/194

 is a record of the duties and aspirations of a pious country clergyman, but the style is marred by affectations and wants simplicity. Herbert also added to his friend Ferrar's English translation of Leonard Lessius's ‘Hygiasticon’ a translation from the Latin of Cornaro entitled ‘A Treatise of Temperance and Sobrietie,’ and made at the request ‘of a noble personage.’ This was first published at the Cambridge University Press in 1634. With Ferrer's translation of Valdezzo's ‘Hundred and Ten Considerations … of those things … most perfect in our Christian profession’ (Oxford, 1638) were published a letter from Herbert to Ferrar on his work, and ‘Briefe Notes [by Herbert] relating to the dubious and offensive places in the following considerations.’ The licenser of the press in his imprimatur calls special attention to Herbert's notes. In the 1646 edition of Ferrar's Valdezzo Herbert's notes are much altered. In 1640 there appeared in ‘Witt's Recreations’ a little tract entitled ‘Outlandish Proverbs selected by Mr. G. H.’—a collection of 1,010 proverbs. This tract was republished with many additions and alterations as ‘Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c., selected by Mr. George Herbert, late Orator of the Universitie of Cambridge,’ in 1651, and with it were printed ‘The Author's Prayers before and after Sermons’ (which also appear in Herbert's ‘Country Parson’); his letter to Ferrar ‘upon the translation of Valdesso’ (dated from Bemerton, 29 Sept. 1632); and Latin verses on Bacon's ‘Instanratio Magna,’ on Bacon's death, and on Dr. Donne's seal. The volume concludes with ‘An Addition of Apothegmes by Severall Authours.’ This book was reissued in 1652 as a second part of the volume entitled Herbert's ‘Remains’ (Lond. 12mo).

Four affectionate letters to his younger brother, Sir Henry Herbert, dated 1618 and later, appear in Warner's ‘Epistolary Curiosities,’ 1818, pp. 1-10. His letters to Ferrar are inserted in Webb's ‘Life of Ferrar;’ his letters to his mother were printed by Walton, and some official letters from Cambridge as orator are extant in the university archives.

Herbert's poems found much favour with his seriously-minded contemporaries. Richard Crashaw, in presenting the ‘Temple’ ‘to a Gentlewoman,’ speaks enthusiastically of Herbert's ‘devotions’ and expositions of ‘divinest love.’ Walton, who in his ‘Angler’ quotes two of his poems, ‘Virtue’ and ‘Contemplation of God's Providence,’ characterises the ‘Temple,’ in his life of Donne, as ‘a book in which, by declaring his own spiritual conflicts, he hath comforted and raised many a dejected and discomposed soul and charmed them with sweet and quiet thoughts.’ Richard Baxter found, ‘next the scripture poems,’ ‘none so savoury’ as Herbert's, who ‘speaks to God like a man that really believeth in God’ (Poetical Fragments, pref. 1681). Henry Vaughan, in the preface to his ‘Silex Scintilians,’ 1650, credits Herbert with checking by his holy life and verse ‘the foul and overflowing stream’ of amatory poetry which flourished in his day. Charles I read the ‘Temple’ while in prison. Archbishop Leighton carefully annotated his copy with appreciative manuscript notes. Cowper's religious melancholy was best alleviated by poring over the book all day long. Coleridge wrote of the weight, number, and compression of Herbert's thoughts, and the simple dignity of the language (Biog. Lit.) But in spite of these testimonies Herbert's verse, from a purely literary point of view, merits on the whole no lofty praise. His sincere piety and devotional fervour are undeniable, and in portraying his spiritual conflicts and his attainment of a settled faith he makes no undue parade of doctrinal theology. But his range of subject is very narrow. He was at all times a careful literary workman, and the extant manuscript versions show that he was continually altering his poems with a view to satisfying a punctilious regard for form. An obvious artificiality is too often the result of his pains. He came under Donne's influence, and imitated Donne's least admirable conceits. Addison justly censured his ‘false wit’ (Spectator, No. 58). In two poems, ‘Easter Wings’ and ‘The Altar,’ he arranges his lines so as to present their subjects pictorially. But on very rare occasions, as in his best-known poem, that on ‘Virtue,’ beginning ‘Sweet day so cool, so calm, so bright,’ or in that entitled ‘The Pulley,’ he shows full mastery of his art, and, despite some characteristic blemishes, writes as though he were genuinely inspired.

