Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

wit, and with a natural elegance, both in his behaviour, his tongue, and his pen."

About this time the king frequently came to the university, and was usually welcomed with the applauses and gratulations of the public orator, who acquitted himself so well that he was taken into notice, and received some marks of royal approbation. In one of these visits to Cambridge his majesty was attended by the great secretary of nature and all learning, Sir Francis Bacon, (Lord Verulam,) and by the ever memorable and learned Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, both which did at that time begin a desired friendship with Mr. Herbert. Upon whom the first put such a value on his judgment, that he usually desired his approbation before he would expose any of his books to be printed; and thought him so worthy of his friendship, that having translated many of the prophet David's Psalms into English verse, he made George Herbert his patron, by a public dedication of them to him, as the best judge of divine poetry. And for the learned bishop, it is observable, that at that time there fell to be a modest debate betwixt them two about predestination, and sanctity of life; of both which the orator did, not long after, send the bishop some safe and useful aphorisms, in a long letter, written in Greek; which letter was so remarkable for the language and reason of it, that, after the reading it, the bishop put it into his bosom, and did often show it to many scholars, both of this and foreign nations; but did always return it back to the place where he first lodged it, and continued it so near his heart till the last day of his life.

To these I might add the long and entire friendship betwixt him and Sir Henry Wotton, and Dr. Donne; but I have promised to contract myself, and shall there

fore only add one testimony to what is also mentioned in the Life of Dr. Donne; namely, that a little before his death he caused many seals to be made, and in them to be engraven the figure of Christ crucified on an anchor, (the emblem of hope,) and of which Dr. Donne would often say—“ Crux mihi anchora." These seals he gave or sent to most of those friends on which he put a value; and, at Mr. Herbert's death, these verses were found wrapt up with that seal, which was by the doctor given to him :

When my dear friend could write no more,
He gave this seal, and so gave o'er.

When winds and waves rise highest, I am sure,
This anchor keeps my faith, that me secure.

At this time of being orator, he had learned to understand the Italian, Spanish, and French tongues very perfectly; hoping, that as his predecessors, so he might in time attain the place of a secretary of state, he being at that time very high in the king's favor, and not meanly valued and loved by the most eminent and most powerful of the court nobility. This, and the love of a court conversation, mixed with a laudable ambition to be something more than he then was, drew him often from Cambridge to attend the King wheresoever the court was, who then gave him a sinecure, which fell into his majesty's disposal, I think, by the death of the Bishop of St. Asaph. It was the same that Queen Elizabeth had formerly given to her favorite, Sir Philip Sidney, and valued to be worth an hundred and twenty pounds per annum. With this, and his annuity, and the advantage of his college, and of his oratorship, he enjoyed his genteel humor for clothes, and courtlike company, and seldom looked towards Cambridge, unless

the king were there, but then he never failed; and, at other times, left the manage of his orator's place to his learned friend, Mr. Herbert Thorndike, who is now Prebend of Westminster.

I may not omit to tell, that he had often designed to leave the university, and decline all study, which he thought did impair his health; for he had a body apt to a consumption, and to fevers, and other infirmities, which he judged were increased by his studies; for he would often say-" He had too thoughtful a wit; a wit, like a penknife in too narrow a sheath, too sharp for his body." But his mother would by no means allow him to leave the university, or to travel; and though he inclined very much to both, yet he would by no means satisfy his own desires at so dear a rate, as to prove an undutiful son to so affectionate a mother; but did always submit to her wisdom. And what I have now said may partly appear in a copy of verses in his printed poems; it is one of those that bear the title of " Affliction;" and it appears to be a pious reflection on God's providence, and some passages of his life, in which he says—

Whereas my birth and spirit rather took
The way that takes the town;
Thou didst betray me to a ling'ring book,
And wrap me in a gown.

I was entangled in a world of strife,
Before I had the power to change my life.

Yet, for I threatened oft the siege to raise,
Not simp'ring all mine age;

Thou often didst with academic praise
Melt and dissolve my rage:

I took the sweetened pill, till I came where
I could not go away, nor persevere.

Yet lest perchance I should too happy be
In my unhappiness,

Turning my purge to food, thou throwest me
Into more sicknesses.

Thus doth thy power cross-bias me, not making
Thine own gifts good, yet me from my ways taking.

Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me

None of my books will show.

I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree,

For then sure I should

grow

To fruit or shade; at least some bird would trust
Her household with me, and I would be just.

Yet though thou troublest me, I must be meek,
In weakness must be stout.

Well, I will change my service, and go seek
Some other master out.

Ah, my dear God! though I am clean forgot,
Let me not love thee, if I love thee not.

G. H.

In this time of Mr. Herbert's attendance and expectation of some good occasion to remove from Cambridge to court, God, in whom there is an unseen chain of causes, did in a short time put an end to the lives of two of his most obliging and most powerful friends, Lodowick, Duke of Richmond, and James, Marquis of Hamilton; and not long after him, King James died also, and with him, all Mr. Herbert's court hopes: so that he presently betook himself to a retreat from London, to a friend in Kent, where he lived very privately, and was such a lover of solitariness, as was judged to impair his health more than his study had done. In this time of retirement, he had many conflicts with himself, whether he should return to the painted pleasures of a court life, or betake himself to the study of divinity, and enter into

sacred orders; to which his dear mother had often persuaded him. These were such conflicts as they only can know that have endured them; for ambitious desires, and the outward glory of this world, are not easily laid aside: but at last God inclined him to put on a resolution to serve at his altar.

He did, at his return to London, acquaint a court friend with his resolution to enter into sacred orders, who persuaded him to alter it, as too mean an employment, and too much below his birth and the excellent abilities and endowments of his mind. To whom he replied, "It hath been formerly judged that the domestic servants of the King of Heaven should be of the noblest families on earth. And though the iniquity of the late times have made clergymen meanly valued, and the sacred name of priest contemptible, yet I will labor to make it honorable, by consecrating all my learning, and all my poor abilities, to advance the glory of that God that gave them; knowing that I can never do too much for him, that hath done so much for me as to make me a Christian. And I will labor to be like my Saviour, by making humility lovely in the eyes of all men, and by following the merciful and meek example of my dear Jesus."

This was then his resolution; and the God of constancy, who intended him for a great example of virtue, continued him in it; for within that year he was made Deacon, but the day when, or by whom, I cannot learn; but that he was about that time made Deacon, is most certain; for I find by the records of Lincoln, that he was made Prebend of Layton Ecclesia, in the diocese of Lincoln, July 15, 1626, and that this prebend was given him by John, then Lord Bishop of that See. And now he had a fit occasion to shew that piety and bounty that

« AnteriorContinuar »