Читать книгу Selected Works - George Herbert - Страница 5

George Herbert was born in Montgomery Castle, Shropshire, on the 3d of April 1593. His father, Richard Herbert of Blakehall, was descended of a younger branch of the family of Pembroke. His mother was Magdalen Newport, the youngest daughter of Sir Richard Newport of High Arkall, in the county of Salop. Donne, who knew her well, has, in one of his finest poems, the “Autumnal Beauty,” commemorated her noble qualities and her majestic person. Izaak Walton tells us, that as “the happy mother of seven sons and three daughters,” she would often thank God that He had given her “Job’s number and Job’s distribution.” When her fifth son, George, was four years old, her husband died. After the lapse of a few years, she removed to Oxford, to superintend the education of her youngest son, Edward, afterwards the celebrated Lord Herbert of Cherbury, author of the once famous book, De Veritate prout distinguitur de Revelatione.

George, in the meantime, whose childhood had been spent, as Walton says, “in a sweet content, under the eye and care of a prudent mother, and the tuition of a chaplain,” had been removed to Westminster School, then under the presidency of Mr. Ireland. During the three years he remained at Westminster, he is said to have attained to considerable proficiency in classical, and especially in Greek learning. About the year 1608 he was entered of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he enjoyed the almost paternal care of Dr. Nevil, then Dean of Canterbury and Master of the College. His name appears on the Register of Scholars under date 6th May 1609. At Cambridge he seems to have distinguished himself greatly. In 1611 he took his Bachelor’s degree; within two years thereafter he was chosen a Fellow; he became Master of Arts in 1615; and on the 21st October 1619, on the resignation of Sir Francis Nethersole, he was elected to the distinguished post of Public Orator to the University.

Walton has described this portion of Herbert’s career with fine feeling and much beauty of expression. “As he grew older,” he says, “so he grew in learning, and more and more in favour both with God and man: insomuch that, in this morning of that short day of his life, he seemed to be marked out for virtue, and to become the care of Heaven; for God still kept his soul in so holy a frame, that he may, and ought to be a pattern of virtue to all posterity, and especially to his brethren of the clergy.” During all the time he was at College, continues the fine old gossip, “all, or the greatest diversion from his study, was the practice of music, in which he became a great master; and of which he would say, that it did relieve his drooping spirits, compose his distracted thoughts, and raise his weary soul so far above earth, that it gave him an earnest of the joys of heaven before he possessed them.”

By his elevation to the office of Public Orator, which he held for eight years, Herbert was on the highway to court preferment. His predecessors, Naunton and Nethersole, had attained respectively to the dignities of Secretary of State and principal Secretary to the Queen of Bohemia. His debût in his new capacity was a successful one. James I had presented to the University a copy of his book, Basilicon Doron, and it was Herbert’s duty to acknowledge the honour. In a Latin letter, still extant, written with an elegance not unworthy of Milton or Buchanan, he intermingled with compliments to the King expressions “so full of conceits,” and so adapted to James’s taste, that the gratified monarch was pleased to pronounee the writer “the jewel of the University.”

To the University itself the King at length came, where it was Herbert’s duty, as often as James could spare time from his sports at Newmarket and Royston, to welcome him with “gratulations and the applauses of an orator,” which “he performed so well, that he still grew more and more into the King’s favour.”{1} It was during these progresses that Herbert became acquainted with Lord Bacon and Bishop Andrews—an acquaintance that ripened into an intimacy which only ceased with the poet’s death. With Sir Henry Wotton, also, he was on terms of close friendship; and Donne esteemed him so highly, that on his deathbed he bequeathed to the son of the “Lady Magdalen” a seal, bearing the figure of Christ crucified on an anchor, and the motto, “Crux mihi anchora.”

Herbert seems at this period to have been exceedingly solicitous for Court preferment, and with this view to have become an assiduous student of foreign languages. But his hopes were blasted by the death of James, who had, however, previously bestowed upon his favourite a sinecure, once the property of Sir Philip Sydney. With the profits arising from his post, which were valued at £120 a-year, an annuity which he enjoyed from his family, and the income he derived from his College and his Oratorship, Herbert was enabled to gratify what Walton calls his genteel humour for clothes and court-like company. How long he resided in London is not known. But shortly after the King’s death he retired into Kent, “where he lived very privately, and was such a lover of solitariness as was judged to impair his health nore 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.”{2}

It was on his return to London that this resolution was first announced. The date of his ordination is unknown; but Walton discovered, from the records of Lincoln, that the prebend of Layton Ecclesia, in that diocese, was conferred upon him by Bishop Williams in the summer of 1626. At the period of his appointment, the parish church of Layton was in so dilapidated a condition that the parishioners could not meet in it for public worship. Herbert’s first step was to undertake its restoration, and “he lived,” says Walton, “to see it so wainscotted as to be exceeded by none.”

In 1627 he lost his mother, who, in the twelfth year of her widowhood, had married the brother and heir of the Earl of Danby. For years before her death she seems to have suffered much; but she had a tender consoler in her son. “For the afflictions of the body, dear madam,” he wrote, in a letter still extant, “remember the holy martyrs of God, how they have been burned by thousands, and have endured such other tortures as the very mention of them might beget amazement; but their fiery trials have had an end; and yours, which, praised be God, are less, are not like to continue long. I beseech you, let such thoughts as these moderate your present fear and sorrow; and know, that if any of yours should prove a Goliah-like trouble, yet you may say with David, ‘That God, who delivered me out of the paws of the lion and bear, will also deliver me out of the hands of this uncircumcised Philistine.’ Lastly, for those afflictions of the soul; consider that God intends that to be as a sacred temple for Himself to dwell in, and will not allow any room there for such an inmate as grief, or allow that any sadness shall be his competitor. And, above all, if any care of future things molest you, remember those admirable words of the Psalmist,—‘Cast thy care on the Lord, and he shall nourish thee.’”{3}

Two years later, when Herbert was in his thirty-ninth year, he was himself seized with quotidian ague, and for change of air removed to Woodford, in Essex, where his brother, Sir Henry Herbert, and some other friends were residing. At Woodford ho remained about a year, and by “forbearing drink, and not eating any meat,” he cured himself of his disorder, although a tendency to consumption now began to manifest itself. To counteract this tendency, he removed to Dauntsey in Wiltshire, a seat of the Earl of Danby. There, by a spare diet, moderate exercise, and abstinence from study, his health apparently improved. He therefore, in compliance with the long-expressed wishes of his mother, determined to marry and enter on the priesthood. The story of his courtship is curious. There resided near Dauntsey a gentleman named Danvers, a near kinsman of Herbert’s friend Lord Danby. Mr. Danvers had a family of nine daughters, and had often and publicly expressed a wish that Herbert would marry one of them, “but rather his daughter Jane than any other, because his daughter Jane was his favourite daughter.” “And he had often said the same to Mr. Herbert himself; and that if he could like her for a wife, and she him for a husband, Jane should have a double blessing: and Mr. Danvers had so often said the like to Jane, and so much commended Mr. Herbert to her, that Jane became so much a Platonic as to fall in love with Mr. Herbert unseen.” “This,” adds Walton, from whom we have been quoting, “was a fair preparation for a marriage; but alas! her father died before Mr. Herbert’s retirement to Dauntsey: yet some friends to both parties procured their meeting; at which time a mutual affection entered into both of their hearts, as a conqueror enters into a surprised city: and love having got such possession, governed, and made there such laws and resolutions, as neither party was able to resist; insomuch that she changed her name into Herbert the third day after this first interview.” The marriage proved eminently happy; for, as Walton beautifully says, “the Eternal Lover of mankind made them happy in each other’s mutual and equal affections and compliance; indeed, so happy, that there never was any opposition betwixt them, unless it were a contest which should most incline to a compliance with the other’s desires. And though this begot, and continued in them, such a mutual love, and joy, and content, as was no way defective; yet this mutual content, and love, and joy, did receive a daily augmentation by such daily obligingness to each other, as still added new affluences to the former fulness of these divine souls, as was only improvable in heaven, where they now enjoy it.”

About three months after the marriage, the rectory of Bemerton, in Wiltshire, fell vacant through the elevation of the incumbent, Dr. Curll, to the see of Bath and Wells. Through the influence of the Earl of Pembroke with the King, the living was offered to Herbert. Not without much prayer and fasting did he at last accept it. “And in this time of considering he endured, as he would often say, such spiritual conflicts as none can think but only those that have endured them.”{4}

At length, principally through the interposition of Laud, then Bishop of London, Herbert was prevailed upon to lay his presentation before the Bishop of Salisbury, who at once gave him institution. Walton tells an interesting story in connection with the induction. Being shut up in the church to toll the bell, as the law then required, he staid so much longer than the ordinary time that his friends became anxious, and one of them, Mr. Woodnot, looking in at the church window, saw him lie prostrate on the ground before the altar. Not for some time was it known that he was then setting rules for the government of his life, and making a vow to keep them.

And now commenced the most interesting period of Herbert’s life. The care of his parish became the engrossing topic of his thoughts. From repairing the parish church and rebuilding the parsonage house, he turned away to give rules to himself and his parishioners, “for their Christian carriage both to God and man.” How he laboured in his vocation, and how his labours were so blest, that, while the better class of his parishioners, and many of the neighbouring gentry, were attending on his daily ministrations in the church, “some of the meaner sort did so love him, that they would let their plough rest when Mr. Herbert’s saints’-bell rung to prayers, that they might also offer their devotions to God with him,”—we read in the quaint but eloquent page of Walton. Herbert’s chief if not sole recreation was music, “in which heavenly art,” says his affectionate biographer, “he was a most excellent master, and did himself compose many divine hymns and anthems, which he set and sung to his lute or viol; and though he was a lover of retiredness, yet his love to music was such, that he went usually twice every week, on certain appointed days, to the cathedral church in Salisbury; and at his return would say, that his time spent in prayer and cathedral music elevated his soul, and was his heaven upon earth. But before his return thence to Bemerton, he would usually sing and play his part at an appointed private music-meeting; and to justify this practice, he would often say, ‘Religion does not banish mirth, but only moderates and sets rules to it.’”

At length, after a residence at Bemerton of about two years, his health became so much impaired that he was forced to confine himself for the most part to the house. But still, in spite of his increasing weakness, he continued as formerly to read prayers in public twice a-day, sometimes at home and sometimes in the church which immediately adjoined. “In one of which times of his reading, his wife observed him to read in pain, and told him so, and that it wasted his spirits, and weakened him; and he confessed it did, but said his life could not be better spent than in the service of his master Jesus, who had done and suffered so much for him. “But,” said he, “I will not be wilful; for though I find my spirit be willing, yet I find my flesh is weak; and therefore Mr. Bostock{5} shall be appointed to read prayers for me to-morrow; and I will now be only a hearer of them, till this mortal shall put on immortality.’ And Mr. Bostock,” says Walton, “did the next day undertake and continue this happy employment, till Mr. Herbert’s death.”

A few weeks before his death, Herbert was visited by his friend Mr. Duncon, afterwards rector of Friar Barnet in Middlesex. To him, at parting, the dying man delivered The Temple, with instructions to place it in the hands of their common friend Nicholas Farrer, the “Protestant Monk” of Little Gidding, saying, as he did so, “Sir, I pray you deliver this little book to my dear brother Farrer, and tell him he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed betwixt God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my master; in whose service I have now found perfect freedom. Desire him to read it; and then, if he can think it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be made public; if not, let him burn it; for I and it are the least of God’s mercies.” “Thus meanly,” adds Walton, who reports the words, “did this humble man think of this excellent book, of which Mr. Farrer would say, there was in it the picture of a divine soul in every page; and that the whole book was such a harmony of holy passions, as would enrich the world with pleasure and piety.”

The closing scene of this good man’s life cannot be better told than in the language of Walton. He had now become very “restless,” says Izaak, “and his soul seemed to be weary of her earthly tabernacle, and this uneasiness became so visible, that his wife, his three nieces, and Mr. Woodnot, stood constantly about his bed, beholding him with sorrow, and an unwillingness to lose the sight of him, whom they could not hope to see much longer. . . . . And when he looked up, and saw his wife and nieces weeping to an extremity, he charged them, if they loved him, to withdraw into the next room, and there pray every one alone for him; for nothing but their lamentations could make his death uncomfortable. To which request their sighs and tears would not suffer them to make any reply; but they yielded him a sad obedience, leaving only with him Mr. Woodnot and Mr. Bostock. Immediately after they had left him, he said to Mr. Bostock, ‘Pray, sir, open that door, then look into that cabinet, in which you may easily find my last will, and give it into my hand:’ which being done, Mr. Herbert delivered it into the hand of Mr. Woodnot, and said, ‘My old friend, I here deliver you my last will, in which you will find that I have made you sole executor for the good of my wife and nieces; and I desire you to show kindness to them, as they shall need it. I do not desire you to be just, for I know you will be so for your own sake; but I charge you, by the religion of our friendship, to be careful of them.’ And having obtained Mr. Woodnot’s promise to be so, he said, ‘I am now ready to die.’ After which words, he said, ‘Lord, forsake me not, now my strength faileth me; but grant me mercy for the merits of my Jesus. And now, Lord—Lord, now receive my soul!’ And with these words he breathed forth his divine soul, without any apparent disturbance, Mr. Woodnot and Mr. Bostock attending his last breath, and closing his eyes.”

So died George Herbert. Let our last hope be that of his artless and affectionate biographer—“If God shall be so pleased, may I be so happy as to die like him!”

The Temple was published at Cambridge shortly after its anther’s death, with a preface by Nicholas Farrer. It immediately became popular—to such an extent, indeed, that when Walton published his lives, upwards of twenty thousand copies had been sold. Cowley alone enjoyed a greater popularity. But while the works of Cowley are now half forgotten, those of Herbert are still highly esteemed and widely read. And they are worthy of the distinction. The Temple may be disfigured by conceits which may sometimes displease us, and by obscurities which may seem to partake of the mysticism of the later Schoolmen. But our displeasure bears no proportion to the delight with which we contemplate the richness of his fancy and the idiomatio beauties of his language; while the deep devotion with which the poem is instinct warrants us in believing, with Henry Vaughan, that the “holy life and verse” of Herbert did much to divert that “foul and overflowing stream” of impurity by which the literature of Eng-, land was then inundated.

‘More sweet than odours caught by him who sails

Near spicy shores of Araby the blest,

A thousand times more exquisitely meet,

The freight of holy feeling which we meet,

In thoughtful moments, wafted by the gale

From fields where good man walk, or bowers wherein they rest.’

WORDSWORTH.”