of us. By this messenger, and on this good day, I commit the inclosed Holy Hymns and Sonnets-which for the matter, not the workmanship, have yet escaped the fire-to your judgment, and to your protection too, if you think them worthy of it; and I have appointed this inclosed Sonnet to usher them to your happy hand. Your unworthiest servant,

Unless your accepting him to be so

Mitcham, July 11, 1607.

have mended him,

Jo. DONNE.

To the Lady Magdalen Herbert: Of St. Mary Magdalen.

Her of your name, whose fair inheritance

Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo,

An active faith so highly did advance,

That she once knew more than the Church did know, The Resurrection! so much good there is

Delivered of her, that some Fathers be

Loth to believe one woman could do this :

But think these Magdalens were two or three.
Increase their number, Lady, and their fame:
To their devotion add your innocence:
Take so much of th' example, as of the name;
The latter half; and in some recompense
That they did harbour Christ himself, a guest,
Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addrest.

J. D.

These Hymns are now lost to us; but doubtless they were such, as they two now sing in Heaven.

There might be more demonstrations of the friendship, and the many sacred endearments betwixt these two excellent persons,— for I have many of their letters in my hand,—and much more might be said of her great prudence and piety: but my design was not to write her's, but the life of her son; and therefore I shall only tell my Reader, that about that very day twenty years that this letter was dated, and sent her, I saw and heard this Mr. John Donne-who was then Dean of St. Paul's-weep, and preach

her Funeral Sermon, in the Parish Church of Chelsea, near London, where she now rests in her quiet grave: and where we must now leave her, and return to her son George, whom we left in his study in Cambridge.

And in Cambridge we may find our George Herbert's behaviour to be such, that we may conclude he consecrated the firstfruits of his early age to virtue, and a serious study of learning. And that he did so, this following Letter and Sonnet, which were, in the first year of his going to Cambridge, sent his dear Mother for a New-year's gift, may appear to be some testimony.

-"But I fear the heat of my late ague hath dried up those springs, by which scholars say the Muses use to take up their habitations. However, I need not their help to reprove the vanity of those many love-poems, that are daily writ, and consecrated to Venus; nor to bewail that so few are writ, that look towards God and Heaven. For my own part, my meaning-dear Mother—is, in these Sonnets, to declare my resolution to be, that my poor abilities in Poetry, shall be all and ever consecrated to God's glory and I beg you to receive this as one testimony."

My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee,
Wherewith whole shoals of Martyrs once did burn,
Besides their other flames? Doth Poetry

Wear Venus' livery? only serve her turn?
Why are not Sonnets made of thee? and lays
Upon thine altar burnt? Cannot thy love
Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise
As well as any she? Cannot thy Dove
Outstrip their Cupid easily in flight?

Or, since thy ways are deep, and still the same,

Will not a verse run smooth that bears thy name?

Why doth that fire, which by thy power and might

Each breast does feel, no braver fuel choose

Than that, which one day, worms may chance refuse?

Sure, Lord, there is enough in thee to dry

Oceans of ink; for as the Deluge did
Cover the Earth, so doth thy Majesty ;
Each cloud distils thy praise, and doth forbid

Poets to turn it to another use.

Roses and lilies speak Thee; and to make
A pair of cheeks of them, is thy abuse.
Why should I women's eyes for crystal take?
Such poor invention burns in their low mind

Whose fire is wild, and doth not upward go
To praise, and on thee, Lord, some ink bestow.
Open the bones, and you shall nothing find

In the best face but filth; when, Lord, in Thee
The beauty lies, in the discovery.

G. H.

This was his resolution at the sending this letter to his dear Mother, about which time he was in the seventeenth year of his age; and as he grew older, 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, of which the Reader may expect a more exact account in what will follow.

I need not declare that he was a strict student, because, that he was so, there will be many testimonies in the future part of his life. I shall therefore only tell, that he was made Bachelor of Arts in the year 1611; Major Fellow of the College, March 15th, 1615: and, that in that year he was also made Master of Arts, he being then in the 22d year of his age; during all which time, 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 raised his weary soul so far above earth, that it gave him an earnest of the joys of Heaven, before he possessed them.' And it may be noted, that from his first entrance into the College, the generous Dr. Nevil was a cherisher of his studies, and such a lover of his person, his behaviour, and the excellent endowments of his mind, that he took him often into his own company; by which he confirmed his native gentleness:

and if during his time he expressed any error, it was, that he kept himself too much retired, and at too great a distance with all his inferiors; and his clothes seemed to prove, that he put too great a value on his parts and parentage.

This may be some account of his disposition, and of the employment of his time, till he was Master of Arts, which was anno 1615, and in the year 1619 he was chosen Orator for the University. His two precedent Orators were Sir Robert Naunton,* and Sir Francis Nethersole.† The first was not long after made Secretary of State, and Sir Francis not very long after his being Orator, was made Secretary to the Lady Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia. In this place of Orator our George Herbert continued eight years; and managed it with as becoming and grave a gaiety, as any had ever before or since his time. For "he had acquired great learning, and was blessed with a high fancy, a civil and sharp wit, and with a natural elegance, both in his behaviour, his tongue, and his pen." Of all of which there might be very many particular evidences; but I will limit myself to the mention of but three.

And the first notable occasion of shewing his fitness for this employment of Orator was manifested in a letter to King James, upon the occasion of his sending that University his book called "Basilicon Doron ;" and their Orator was to acknowledge this great honour, and return their gratitude to his Majesty for such a condescension; at the close of which letter he writ,

Quid Vaticanam Bodleianamque objicis hospes !
Unicus est nobis Bibliotheca Liber.

This letter was writ in such excellent Latin, was so full of con

* This gentleman was born in Suffolk, in 1563, and was descended from a very ancient family in that County. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and on January 8th, 1617-18, was made Secretary of State. King James I. having been previously so well pleased with his eloquence and learning, as to appoint him Master of the Court of Wards. Sir Robert Naunton was the Author of the interesting "Fragmenta Regalia, or Observations on Queen Elizabeth and her Favourites." He died on Good Friday, 1633-34. + Sir Francis Nethersole was a native of Kent, Ambassador to the Princes of the Union, and Secretary to the Queen of Bohemia, and was equally remarkable for his doings and sufferings in her behalf.

ceits, and all the expressions so suited to the genius of the King, that he inquired the Orator's name, and then asked William Earl of Pembroke, if he knew him? whose answer was "That he knew him very well, and that he was his kinsman; but he loved him more for his learning and virtue, than for that he was of his name and family." At which answer the King smiled, and asked the Earl leave that he might love him too, for he took him to be the jewel of that University.

The next occasion he had and took to shew his great abilities, was, with them, to shew also his great affection to that Church in which he received his baptism, and of which he professed himself a member; and the occasion was this: There was one Andrew Melvin,* a Minister of the Scotch Church, and Rector of St. Andrew's; who, by a long and constant converse with a discontented part of that Clergy which opposed Episcopacy, became at last to be a chief leader of that faction; and had proudly appeared to be so to King James, when he was but King of that nation, who, the second year after his Coronation in England, convened a part of the Bishops, and other learned Divines of his Church, to attend him at Hampton-Court, in order to a friendly conference with some dissenting brethren, both of this and the Church of Scotland: of which Scotch party Andrew Melvin was one; and he being a man of learning, and inclined to satirical poetry, had scattered many malicious, bitter verses against our Liturgy, our ceremonies, and our Church-government; which were by some of that party so magnified for the wit, that they were therefore brought into Westminster School, where Mr. George Herbert, then, and often after, made such answers to them, and such reflections on him and his Kirk, as might unbeguile any man that was not too deeply pre-engaged in such a quarrel.-But to return to Mr.

* Andrew Melville procured the Basilicon Doron in Manuscript, and circulated it in Scotland, which produced a libel against it and first caused its publication in 1599. This celebrated person, was born Aug. 1, 1547, and was educated at the University of St. Andrews, which he left with an eminent character for learning, and travelled through France to Geneva. He was elected principal Master of Glasgow College in 1574, when he began to enforce the Presbyterian System; and after much opposition, and two years imprisonment, he died Professor of Divinity to the Protestants of Sedan, in 1621.