he did, says Walton, with so sweet a humility as seemed to exalt him, bow down to Mr. Duncon, and with a thoughtful and contented look, say, "Sir, I pray deliver this little book to my dear brother Ferrar, and tell him he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between 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 poor, dejected soul, let it be made public; if not, let him burn it. For I, and it, are less than the least of God's mercies." His poetical character has been drawn, with considerable accuracy, by Baxter. This celebrated non-conformist had, in his youth, been introduced to the notice of Sir Henry Herbert, by whom he was kindly received: but he had not resided at Whitehall more than a month, when he was "glad to be gone," being offended with the negligent observance of the Sabbath. "But I must confess," he says, "after all, that next the Scripture Poems, there are none so savoury to me, as Mr. George Herbert's. I know that Cowley, and others, far excel Herbert in wit and accurate composure; but as Seneca takes with me above all his contemporaries, because he speaketh things by words feelingly and seriously, like a man that is past jest, so Herbert speaks to God, like a man that really believeth in God, and whose business in the world is most with God: heart-work and heaven-work make up his books*."

If Herbert had been less enthusiastic in his devotional feelings, his poems would have been more generally interesting; they are, for the most part, brief prayers,

• From Poetical Fragments, &c., 1681.

or paraphrases on Scripture, expressed in verse; and when they were composed, their author must have been frequently in a higher state "than poetry can confer." Yet there is nothing in the Temple to authorize the assertion of a modern critic*, that it is "a compound of enthusiasm without sublimity, and conceit without ingenuity or imagination." The pathetic lines on Employ ment, surely demand a more favourable judgment:

If, as a flower doth spread and die,
Thou would'st extend me to some good,
Before I were by frost's extremity
Nipt in the bud;

The sweetness and the praise were Thine,
But the extension and the room,

Which in Thy garland I should fill, were mine
At the great doom.

For as thou dost impart Thy grace,

The greater shall our glory be,

The measure of our joys is in this place,

The stuff with Thee.

Let me not languish, then, and spend

A life as barren to Thy praise,

As is the dust to which that life doth tend,
But with delays.

All things are busy, only I

Neither bring honey with the bees,

Nor flowers to make that, nor the husbandry

I am no link of thy great chain,

For all my company is as a weed;

Lord, place me in Thy comfort, give one strain
To my poor reed.

And these lines upon Grace are equally plaintive and

• Headley, in Select Specimens.

harmonious; the thought in the third stanza is very pleasing, and the concluding prayer of the poet is the more affecting, from the remembrance of its speedy fulfilment :

My stock lies dead, and no increase
Doth my dull husbandry improve;
O, let Thy graces, without cease,

This stanza, from Content, has much grace and melody:

Give me the pliant mind, whose gentle measure

Complies and suits with all estates,

Which can let loose to a crown; and yet with pleasure
Take up within a cloister's gate.

The poem on Life is, in the conception, very beautiful, and some of the lines could only have emanated from a mind of true poetical feeling; but the same affected taste, which marred the verses upon Virtue, is also discoverable here:

I made a posie while the day ran by;

Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
My life within this band:

But time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away
And wither in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart.
I took, without more thinking, in good part,
Time's gentle admonition:

Who did so sweetly Death's sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day,
Yet sug'ring the suspicion.

Farewell, dear flowers! Sweetly your time ye spent,
Fit while ye lived, for smell and ornament,

And after death for cures.

I follow straight, without complaints or grief,
Since if my scent be good, I care not if
It be as brief as yours.

Of the epithets and individual thoughts that ever distinguish the work of a true poet, the Temple affords more specimens than I have space to enumerate. But one exquisite verse may be quoted, in which the appearance of the Church of God is contrasted with the pomps of earth :—

And when I view abroad both regiments,

The world's and Thine;

Thine clad with simpleness and sad events,

The other fine, &c.

Frailty.

How the blessed names of those who have suffered and died in defence of our religion arise to our remembrance, when we read these words! We think of Latimer, of Cranmer, and Ridley, and the glorious company of sainted martyrs, whom they guided unto eternal glory.

The next poem is given only as an example of the meek and Scriptural tone of the author's mind.

UNKINDNESS.

Lord, make me coy and tender to offend;
In friendship, first I think if that agree
Which I intend,

Unto my friend's intent and end
I would not use a friend as I use Thee.

If any touch my friend, or his good name,
It is my honour and my love to free
His blasted fame

From the least spot or thought of blame.
I could not use a friend as I use Thee.

When that my friend pretendeth to a place,
I quit my interest and leave it free;
But when Thy grace

Sues for my heart, I Thee displace;
Nor would I use a friend as I use Thee.

Yet, can a friend what Thou hast done fulfil?
Or write in brass, "My God upon a tree,
"His blood did spill,

"Only to purchase my good will:"
Yet use I not my foes as I use Thee.

These specimens from the Temple cannot be brought to a close in more appropriate words than Walton's eloquent eulogy of the work, in the Life of Donne. "It is a book," he says, "in which, by declaring his own spiritual conflicts, he hath comforted and raised many a dejected and discomposed soul, and charmed them into sweet and quiet thoughts; a book, by the reading whereof, and the assistance of that spirit that seemed to inspire the author, the reader may attain habits of peace and piety, and all the gifts of the Holy Ghost and heaven, and may, by still reading, still keep those sacred fires burning upon the altar of so pure a heart