Rev. George Herbert, MP and Poet

George Herbert (3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633) was a Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest. Herbert's poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognized as "a pivotal figure: enormously popular, deeply and broadly influential, and arguably the most skillful and important British devotional lyricist."[1]

Born into an artistic and wealthy family, Herbert received a good education that led to his holding prominent positions at Cambridge University and Parliament. As a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, Herbert excelled in languages and music. He went to college with the intention of becoming a priest, but his scholarship attracted the attention of King James I/VI. Herbert served in Parliament for two years. After the death of King James and at the urging of a friend, Herbert's interest in ordained ministry was renewed. In 1630, in his late thirties he gave up his secular ambitions and took holy orders in the Church of England, spending the rest of his life as the rector of the little parish of Fugglestone St Peter with Bemerton St Andrew, near Salisbury. He was noted for unfailing care for his parishioners, bringing the sacraments to them when they were ill, and providing food and clothing for those in need. Henry Vaughan said of him "a most glorious saint and seer".[2]

Throughout his life, he wrote religious poems characterized by a precision of language, a metrical versatility, and an ingenious use of imagery or conceits that was favoured by the metaphysical school of poets.[3] Charles Cotton described him as a "soul composed of harmonies".[4] Herbert himself, in a letter to Nicholas Ferrar, said of his writings, "they are a picture of spiritual conflicts between God and my soul before I could subject my will to Jesus, my Master".[5] Some of Herbert's poems have endured as hymns, including "King of Glory, King of Peace" (Praise): "Let All the World in Every Corner Sing" (Antiphon) and "Teach me, my God and King" (The Elixir).[6] His first biographer, Izaak Walton, described Herbert on his death-bed as "composing such hymns and anthems as he and the angels now sing in heaven".[7]

Contents [hide] 1 Biography 1.1 Early life and education 1.2 Priesthood 2 Writings 3 Legacy 3.1 Influence 3.2 Commemorations 4 Works 5 See also 6 References 6.1 Notes 6.2 Further reading 7 External links

[edit] Biography[edit] Early life and educationGeorge Herbert was born 3 April 1593 in Montgomery in Powys, Wales, the son of Richard Herbert, Lord of Cherbury (d. 1596) and his wife Magdalen née Newport, the daughter of Sir Richard Newport (1511–1570). George was one of ten children. The Herbert family was wealthy and influential in local government and descended collaterally from the family of the Earls of Pembroke. His father was a Member of Parliament, a justice of the peace, and later served for several years as High Sheriff and later Custos rotulorum (keeper of the rolls) of Montgomeryshire. His mother, Magdalen, was a patron and friend of clergyman and poet John Donne and other poets, writers and artists. Donne would stand-in as George's godfather after Lord Herbert's death when George was three years old.[8][9] In later years, Herbert's older brother Edward (who assumed his late father's barony) was a soldier, diplomat, historian, poet, and philosopher whose religious writings led to his reputation as the "father of English deism".[10]

Herbert entered Westminster School at or around the age of 12 where he became a day student.[11] Though sometime after he was elevated to the level of scholar Herbert was admitted on scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1609 where he graduated first with a Bachelor's and then with a Master's degree in 1613 at the age of 20.[12] After Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge (where he achieved degrees with distinction), Herbert was elected a major fellow of his college. In 1618 he was appointed Reader in Rhetoric at Cambridge and in 1620 he was elected to the post of Cambridge University orator, whose duties would be served by poetic skill. He held this position until 1628.[13]

In 1624 he became a Member of Parliament, representing Montgomery.[14] While these positions were suited to a career at court, and James I had shown him favour, circumstances worked against him: the King died in 1625, and two influential patrons of Herbert died later in the decade. However George Herbert's only service to parliament may have already ended in 1624 or since, although a Mr Herbert is mentioned as a committee member, there is no record in the Commons Journal for 1625 of Mr. George Herbert (a distinction carefully made in the records of the preceding parliament).[12]

[edit] Priesthood From 1629–1633, Herbert served the small parish of St Andrew Church in Bemerton, Wiltshire and was buried here.He took up his duties in serving the small rural parishes of Fugglestone St Peter and Bemerton in Wiltshire about 75 miles southwest of London. He served for four years from 1629 until his death in 1633. St Andrew's contains a stained-glass memorial window portraying Herbert and Nicholas Ferrar.

Here he preached and wrote poetry; also helping to rebuild the church out of his own funds.[15]

In 1633 Herbert finished a collection of poems entitled The Temple, which imitates the architectural style of churches through both the meaning of the words and their visual layout. The themes of God and love are treated by Herbert as much as psychological forces as metaphysical phenomena.

Suffering from poor health, Herbert died of tuberculosis only three years after taking holy orders. On his deathbed, he reportedly gave the manuscript of The Temple to Nicholas Ferrar, the founder of a semi-monastic Anglican religious community at Little Gidding (a name best known today through the poem Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot), telling him to publish the poems if he thought they might "turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul", and otherwise, to burn them.

[edit] Writings Herbert's "Easter Wings", a pattern poem in which the work is not only meant to be read, but its shape is meant to be appreciated. In this case, the poem was printed (original image here shown) on two facing pages of a book, sideways, so that the lines suggest two birds flying upward, with wings spread out.In 1633 all of Herbert's poems were published in The Temple: Sacred poems and private ejaculations, edited by Nicholas Ferrar. The book went through eight editions by 1690.[16]

Barnabas Oley edited in 1652 Herbert's Remains, or sundry pieces of that Sweet Singer, Mr. George Herbert, containing A Priest to the Temple, or the countrey parson, Jacula Prudentum, &c. Prefixed was an unsigned preface by Oley. The second edition appeared in 1671 as A Priest to the Temple or the Country Parson, with a new preface, signed Barnabas Oley. These pieces were reprinted in later editions of Herbert's Works. The manuscript of The Country Parson was the property of Herbert's friend, Arthur Wodenoth, who gave it to Oley; the prefaces were a source for Izaak Walton's memoir of Herbert.

All of Herbert's English surviving poems are religious, and some have been used as hymns, William Cowper said of them I found in them a strain of piety which I could not but admire.[17] They are characterised by directness of expression and some conceits which can appear quaint. Many of the poems have intricate rhyme schemes, and variations of lines within stanzas described as 'a cascade of form floats through the temple'.[18]

An example of Herbert’s religious poetry is “The Altar.” A "pattern poem in which the words of the poem itself form a shape suggesting an altar, and this altar becomes his conceit for how one should offer himself as a sacrifice to the Lord. He also makes allusions to scripture, such as Psalm 51:17, where it states that the Lord requires the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

Herbert also wrote A Priest to the Temple (or The Country Parson) offering practical advice to clergy. In it, he advises that "things of ordinary use" such as ploughs, leaven, or dances, could be made to "serve for lights even of Heavenly Truths".

His Jacula Prudentium (sometimes seen as Jacula Prudentum), a collection of pithy proverbs published in 1651, included many sayings still repeated today, for example "His bark is worse than his bite" and "Living well is the best revenge." Similarly oft quoted is his Outlandish Proverbs[19] published in 1640.

Richard Baxter said, "Herbert speaks to God like one that really believeth a God, and whose business in the world is most with God. Heart-work and heaven-work make up his books". Dame Helen Gardner adds "head-work" because of his "intellectual vivacity".

Herbert also wrote poems in Greek and in Latin. The latter mainly concern ceremonial controversy with the Puritans, but include a response to Pope Urban VIII's treatment of the ROMA AMOR anagram. He wrote in many poetic forms, appropriate to their theme, and invented, as it were, to embody them [20]

[edit] Legacy[edit] InfluenceHerbert influenced his fellow metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan who, in turn, influenced William Wordsworth.

Herbert's poetry has been set to music by several composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Henry Purcell, Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten, Judith Weir, Randall Thompson, William Walton and Patrick Larley.

The modern Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert is distantly related to George Herbert.[21]

[edit] CommemorationsHe is commemorated on 27 February throughout the Anglican Communion and on 1 March of the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Herbert has a window honouring him in Westminster Abbey.[22] and a statue in niche 188 on the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral.

[edit] Works Scan of the poem "Anagram" from the 1633 edition of George Herbert's The Temple1623: Oratio Qua auspicatissimum Serenissimi Principis Caroli. 1627: Memoriae Matris Sacrum, printed with A Sermon of commemoracion of the ladye Danvers by John Donne ... with other Commemoracions of her by George Herbert (London: Philemon Stephens and Christopher Meredith). 1633: The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations. (Cambridge: Printed by Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel). 1652: Herbert's Remains, Or, Sundry Pieces Of that sweet Singer of the Temple (London: Printed for Timothy Garthwait, 1652)—consisting of his collected writings from Priest to the Temple: Or, The Country Parson His Character, and Rule of Holy Life and Jacula Prudentum Or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, & c., as well as a letter, several prayers, and three Latin poems. [edit] See also Anglicanism portal

Saints portal 

Poetry portal  List of poetry groups and movements Metaphysical poetry Saints in Anglicanism [edit] References[edit] Notes1.^ "George Herbert 1593–1633" (Biography) at the Poetry Foundation's website. Retrieved 11 April 2013. 2.^ Henry Vaughan, Mount of Olives, 1652 3.^ The Grolier 1996 Multimedia Encyclopedia, Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc. 4.^ Schmidt, Michael, Poets on Poets, [essay on George Herbert], Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1997 ISBN 1-85754-339-4 5.^ Maycock, A. L., Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding. London: S. P. C. K., 1938 6.^ The Baptist Hymn Book, London: Poems and Hymn Trust, 1962 7.^ Walton, Izaak Life of George Herbert Part VII, 1670 8.^ schoolforteachers.org 9.^ Charles, Amy M. A Life of George Herbert. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1977), 28. 10.^ Waligore, Joseph. [doi:10.1080/17496977.2012.693742 "The Piety of the English Deists"] in Intellectual History Review 22:2 (July 2012), 181-197. Retrieved 11 April 2013. 11.^ Charles, Amy M. (1977). A Life of George Herbert. Cornell University Press. p. 52.  12.^ a b Charles, Amy M. (1977). A Life of George Herbert. Cornell University Press.  13.^ Venn, J.; Venn, J. A., eds. (1922–1958). "Herbert, George". Alumni Cantabrigienses (10 vols) (online ed.). Cambridge University Press.  14.^ W. R. Williams, Parliamentary History of the Principality of Wales, p. 149 15.^ Charles, Amy M. A Life of George Herbert (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1977), 154. 16.^ Cox, Michael, editor, The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-860634-6; p. 92 17.^ William Cowper,Memoirs of the Early Life of William Cowper,written by Himself, 1816 18.^ Vendler H, The Poetry of George Herbert, Harvard Universiry Press, 1975 ISBN 978-0-674-67959-7

Family and Education b. 3 Apr. 1593,1 5th s. of Richard Herbert† (d.1596) of Montgomery Castle, Mont. and Magdalen, da. of Sir Richard Newport† of Eyton, Wroxeter, Salop; bro. of Sir Edward* and Sir Henry*.2 educ. privately; Westminster sch. 1605-9; Trin., Camb. 1609, BA 1613, MA 1616.3 m. 5 Mar. 1629, Jane (d.1653), da. of Charles Danvers of Baynton, Wilts., s.p.4 Ordained deacon 1626, priest 1630.5 bur. 3 Mar. 1633.6 sig. George Herbert.

Offices Held

Fell., Trin. Camb. 1614-27; praelector, rhetoric sch., Camb. univ. 1618, dep. orator 1618, orator 1619-27.7

Prebend, Leighton Ecclesia, Hunts. 1626-d.; rect., Bemerton, Wilts. 1630-d.8

Biography Herbert received his early education at his maternal grandfather’s house at Eyton, Salop and was sent to Westminster School in 1605, whence he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge as a king’s scholar four years later. Both his brother Sir Edward and his early biographer, Izaak Walton, claimed that Herbert was a noted classicist from an early age, and indeed his BA degree was ranked second in the university for his year; thus his fellowship at Trinity seems to have been gained more by merit than birth. His studies were funded by an annuity of 40 marks bequeathed by his father, but this fell into arrears after his mother remarried the notoriously impecunious Sir John Danvers*: Herbert’s earliest surviving letter was an academic’s cri de coeur, a claim that he had to forgo meals in order to buy books. In fact, as a fellow of Trinity, Herbert was not actually dependent on his annuity for subsistence, and a few years later he could afford to ship books from Paris.9

Herbert’s annuity had only been intended to prime his career, and from Michaelmas 1619 it fell to a mere £10 a year. Impelled by this financial incentive he began lobbying to succeed Sir Francis Nethersole* as the university’s public orator, an office to which he was peculiarly suited by his linguistic skills, and which he described to Danvers as

the finest place in the university, though not the gainfullest: yet that will be about £30 per annum. But the commodiousness is beyond the revenue; for the orator writes all the university letters, makes all orations, be it to king, prince or whatever comes to the university; to requite these pains, he takes place next the doctors, is at all their assemblies and meetings ... and such like gaynesses, which will please a young man well. Following a trial of his abilities at an hour-long oration to the University’s Convocation, Herbert was appointed deputy orator in October 1618, succeeding Nethersole three months later when the latter resigned his post to enter the service of Elizabeth of Bohemia.10

Upon his appointment, Herbert noted Nethersole’s concern that the oratorship ‘may divert me too much from divinity’, a fear which proved to be well founded: the king was a regular visitor to the university on his many hunting trips to Royston and Newmarket, and Herbert increasingly gave over his official duties to a deputy while pursuing favour at Court. James, who delighted in the company of intellectuals, was happy to encourage Herbert, informing his distant relative, lord chamberlain Pembroke, ‘that he found the orator’s learning and wisdom much above his age or wit’. Sir Robert Naunton*, Nethersole’s predecessor as orator, had quickly gone on to become secretary of state, and Walton later claimed that Herbert learned Italian, French and Spanish with an eye to this post if it should become vacant. This was not an entirely fanciful notion, as Naunton and Sir Edward Herbert, then ambassador in Paris, were heavily involved in the promotion of a French bride for Prince Charles, a scheme sponsored by Pembroke and Archbishop Abbot as an antidote to the king’s preference for a Spanish Match. Naunton was suspended from office in January 1621 for exceeding his brief in this matter, and it might have suited Pembroke to have another client available for the post if Naunton were dismissed. Nothing came of this, but the same conjunction of interests doubtless explains why Herbert was tipped to succeed William Beecher* in the less exalted post of clerk to the Privy Council about two years later.11 At Prince Charles’s return from Spain without a bride in October 1623, Herbert was sent to James at Royston to express the university’s gratitude for this deliverance. His Latin oration, which was published by the university, probably reflected Pembroke’s views in advising against a headlong rush into war with Spain.12

Under the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that Herbert sought election to the Parliament summoned to discuss the breach with Spain in 1624. Returned for Montgomery Boroughs on the interest of his elder brother, he did not pass any recorded comment on matters of state during the session, but was named to two committees relating to university business. One of these concerned a bill to restore the lucrative Covent Garden estate to Magdalene College, which had been pressured into granting its interest to Queen Elizabeth at a fixed annual rent of £15 (9 Mar.), while the other considered various petitions, including one from a fellow of his own college against the master, Dr. Richardson (28 April). He was also named to attend two conferences with the Lords, one about the repeal of the prerogative clause of the Welsh Act of Union (15 Apr.), and the other concerning amendments to the bill for limitation of legal actions (1 May). Returned to Parliament once again in May 1625, Herbert left no trace on its records, unless he was the ‘Mr. Herbert’ named to the committee for the alienations bill; in view of the subject matter, this is more likely to have been his lawyer relative Edward Herbert, MP for Downton, and it is debateable whether Herbert attended the session at all.13

Herbert came to a turning point in his personal life during the next few years, apparently provoked by the deaths of two of Pembroke’s allies, the dukes of Richmond and Hamilton, followed by that of the king. After this, Walton claimed, ‘he presently betook himself to a retreat from London to a friend in Kent’ to contemplate ‘whether he should return to the painted pleasures of a Court life, or betake himself to a study of divinity and enter into sacred orders’. All questions of a clerical vocation aside, alterations in factional alignments during 1624-5 left Herbert’s prospects of a Court career in tatters, as failure to support a breach with Spain in his oration of 1623 is unlikely to have recommended him to the new king, while Buckingham’s ascendancy at Court meant that Pembroke’s patronage could do no good for the foreseeable future.14

Although he turned his back on courtly preferment, Herbert delayed for some time before entering the ministry. In 1626 he was ordained deacon and installed as a prebend at Lincoln by the bishop, John Williams, but his spiritual crisis and the death of his mother in 1627 seem to have undermined his health, and he was laid low for most of the following year by ‘a sharp quotidian ague’, recuperating on the Essex estate of his brother, Sir Henry Herbert. In 1629 he moved to Wiltshire, where he married a relative of his stepfather, and in the spring of 1630 Pembroke persuaded the king to appoint him rector of Bemerton, near Salisbury. After experiencing ‘such spiritual conflicts as none can think, but only those that have endured them’, and a lengthy conversation with Bishop Laud, Herbert accepted the living; with a little dramatic licence, Walton claims that Pembroke (who died a few weeks before Herbert’s appointment) insisted that Herbert was measured for his cassock immediately and installed in the living the following day.15

Pembroke’s instinct proved to be well founded, for Herbert discovered his true vocation in tending to the needs of his flock. Much of his poetry dates from this period, and, the odd disparaging reference to ‘new doctrines’ or the emigration of true religion to the Americas notwithstanding, his writings, particularly the Country Parson, first published in 1652, became key texts of an uniquely Anglican form of pietism. He also achieved a more material fame through the reconstruction of the church which served his prebendal cure at Leighton Bromswold, Huntingdonshire, soliciting donations from Pembroke, the latter’s brother the 1st earl of Montgomery (Philip Herbert*) and the widowed duchess of Richmond, who had been raised in the parish. Herbert may never have visited his prebend, but in his absence the work was overseen by his friend Nicholas Ferrar*, who had founded a spiritual retreat a few miles away at Little Gidding.16

Herbert was buried at Bemerton on 3 Mar. 1632. His will, which concentrated upon providing for two of his wife’s nieces who come to live at Bemerton, was proved only nine days later by Arthur Woodnoth, a London Goldsmith, who was bequeathed £20 on the understanding that £15 of this would be spent on the repair of Leighton church. His widow took his writings with her when she remarried Sir Robert Cooke† of Highnam, Gloucestershire; many were said to have been lost at the destruction of Highnam in March 1643.17

Ref Volumes: 1604-1629 Author: Simon Healy Notes 1. I. Walton, Lives of John Donne etc. ed. V. Blackburn, 178. 2. Ped. at end of Herbert Corresp. ed. W.J. Smith (Univ. Wales, Bd. of Celtic Studs., Hist. and Law ser. xxi). 3. Walton, 180; Al. Cant.; G. Herbert, Poetical Works ed. A.B. Grosart, pp. xxii-xxiii. 4. Walton, 199-200. 5. Ibid. 193, 200-1. 6. N and Q (ser. 1), ii. 157. 7. Herbert, Poetical Works, xxii-xxv. 8. Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae ed. D.M. Horn and J.M. Smith, ix. 86; Walton, 201. 9. Walton, 180-1; Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury ed. J.M. Shuttleworth, 8-9; W.P. Griffith, Learning, Law and Religion, 107; C142/247/84; G. Herbert, Eng. Works ed. G.H. Palmer, i. 394-6, 397-8. 10. Eng. Works, i. 399-402; Poetical Works, pp. xxiv-xxv. 11. Eng. Works, i. 401; Walton, 189-90; R.E. Schreiber, Naunton, 68-84; Harl. 1581, f. 278. 12. Oratio ... Principis Caroli Reditum ex Hispanijis (Camb. 1623); Eng. Works, i. 32 (citing S.R. Gardiner); T. Cogswell, Blessed Revolution, 8, 127-131. 13. CJ, i. 680a, 692b, 695a, 767a; ‘Holland 1624’, ii. ff. 55-6; Kyle thesis, 477-8; Procs. 1625, p. 246. 14. Walton, 192; Cogswell, 103-4; C. Russell, PEP, 217-18. 15. J. Hacket, Scrinia Reserata (1693), i. 175; Fasti, ix. 86; Walton, 193, 198-201. 16. Walton, 202-26; Eng. Works, i. 409-12; ii. 375; J. Maltby, Prayer Bk. and People; VCH Hunts. iii. 90; Nicholas Ferrar. Two Lives ed. J.E.B. Mayor, i. 48-52. 17. N and Q (ser. 1), ii. 157; PROB 11/163, f. 204; Walton, 227-8; A. Warmington, Civil War, Interregnum and Restoration in Glos, 46.

Other References

• "George Herbert", Westminster Abbey
• Gaisford, John (2015) Capital in the countryside: social change in West Wiltshire, 1530-1680. PhD thesis, Birkbeck, University of London. Page 299. PDF Pedigree 6: Danvers of Dauntsey.