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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 author'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 idiomatic 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 England was then inundated.

WE have said that one of the most distinguished of Herbert's contemporaries was JOSEPH HALL. Hall was born at Bristow Park, in the parish of Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire, on the 1st of July 1574. His parentage was, to use his own language, "honest and well allowed;" for his father held office under the Earl of Huntingdon. He was poor, indeed, and his "not very large cistern had to feed many pipes" besides Joseph's. Joseph, therefore, was placed at the village school, and, not without difficulty, removed, at the age of fifteen, to Cambridge. In due course he was elected first a scholar, and then a Fellow of his College. "And now," says Hall in one of his epistles, "now was I called to public disputations often, with no ill success; for never durst I appear in any of those exercises of scholarship, till I had from my knees looked up to heaven for a blessing, and renewed my actual dependence upon that divine hand. In this while, two years together I was chosen to the rhetoric lecture in the public schools, when I was encouraged with a sufficient frequence of auditors; but finding that well-applauded work somewhat out of my way, not without a secret blame of myself for so much excursion, I fairly gave up that task in the midst of those poor acclamations to a worthy successor, Dr. Dod, and betook myself to those serious studies which might fit me for the high calling whereunto I was destined, wherein, after I had carefully bestowed myself for a time, I took the boldness to enter into sacred orders; the honour whereof having once attained, I was no niggard of that talent which God had entrusted to

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me, preaching often, as occasion was offered, both in country villages abroad, and at home in the most awful auditory of the University."

It was indeed as a dialectician that Hall first distinguished himself. His thesis Mundus Senescit was long held in high esteem amongst the learned, though, as Fuller, with his usual quaintness, remarked, "his position in somewhat confuted his position; the wit and quickness whereof did argue an increase rather than a decay of parts in this latter age."

Hall was in his twenty-third year when he published his Satires. He had early acquired at the University considerable poetical repute, and the Virgidemium established it on greatly firmer ground. Subsequent critics have concurred in placing the work amongst the most remarkable productions of the age. Such especially was the opinion of Jeffrey. Such also was the opinion of Campbell, as true a critic as he was a graceful and ingenious poet. In his Specimens of the British Poets, he has said of the Virgidemium, that Hall discovered in its production "not only the early vigour of his own genius, but the powers and pliability of his native tongue.

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In the point, and volubility, and vigour of Hall's numbers, we might frequently imagine ourselves perusing Dryden. His Satires

are neither cramped by personal hostility, nor spun out to vague declamations on vice, but give us the form and pressure of the times, exhibited in the faults of coeval literature, and in the foppery or sordid traits of prevailing manners. The age was undoubtedly fertile in eccentricity. From the literature of the age, Hall proceeds to its manners and prejudices, and among the latter derides the prevalent confidence in alchymy and astrology. To us this ridicule appears an ordinary effort of reason; but it was in him a common sense above the level of the times."

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Shortly after the publication of his Satires, Hall took orders, and was presented to the living of Halsted, in Suffolk, while he was on the eve of accepting the head-mastership of. the Grammar School of Tiverton. But it is not good for man to be alone; and so Hall soon discovered. It will be well, however, that we should let him tell his own story. "Being now settled," he says, in one of his valuable letters, "in that sweet and civil country of Suffolk, near to St. Edmund's-Bury, my first work was to build up my house, which was then extremely ruinous; which done, the uncouth solitariness of my life, and the extreme incommodity of that single housekeeping, drew my thoughts, after two years, to condescend to the necessity of a married estate, which God no less strangely provided for me. For walking from the church on Monday in the Whitsunweek, with a grave and reverend minister, Mr. Grandidge, I saw a comely modest gentlewoman standing at the door of that house where we were invited to a wedding-dinner, and inquiring of that worthy friend whether he knew her, 'Yes,' quoth he, 'I know her

* Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxi.

well, and have bespoken her for your wife.' When I further demanded an account of that answer, he told me she was the daughter of a gentleman whom he much respected, Mr. George Winniff of Bretenham; that out of an opinion he had of the fitness of that match for me, he had already treated with her father about it, whom he found very apt to entertain it, advising me not to neglect the opportunity, and not concealing the just praises of the modesty, piety, good disposition, and other virtues that were lodged in that seemly presence; I listened to the motion as sent from God, and at last, upon due prosecution, happily prevailed, enjoying the comfortable society of that meet help for forty-nine years.'

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He had not been long married, before he accepted an invitation from Sir Edmund Bacon to accompany him on a continental tour. "The amount of enterprise and resources which such an enterprise then demanded, can scarcely now be understood. In those days the travelling retinue of a nobleman resembled the Mecca caravan, and he marched under an escort which showed that he was taking his pleasure in an enemy's country." Sir Edmund, therefore, travelled under "the protection of the English ambassador; and for further concealment, Hall exchanged his canonicals for the silken robes and gay colours of a fashionable English gentleman."* From Calais the travellers passed to Brussels, and afterwards visited Spa, and thence proceeded, by way of Antwerp, to Middleburgh. At Brussels Hall got into controversy with Father Costerus, a famous Jesuit, an old man, more testy than subtle, and more able to wrangle than to satisfy. Our discourse," continues the Bishop, "was long and roving, and on his part full both of words and vehemency. He spoke as at home, I as a stranger; yet so as he saw me modestly peremptory." At Spa he composed the second of his three centuries of Meditations and Vows. From Middleburgh he returned to England.

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A difference with Sir Robert Drury regarding his stipend, which was so small that he was forced "to write books to buy books," prepared Hall to accept any preferment that might offer. An opportunity soon presented itself. Prince Henry had been so delighted with the Meditations, that he was anxious to hear Hall preach. Hall was then confined to his lodgings by indisposition. It was not, therefore, without some importunity, that he consented to officiate. "I did preach," he says, "and through the favour of my God, that sermon was so well given as taken; insomuch as that sweet prince desired to hear me again the Tuesday following; which done, that labour gave more contentment than the former, so as that prince both gave me his hand, and commanded me to his service. My patron seeing me, upon my return to London, looked after by some great persons, began to wish me at home, and told me that some or other would be snatching me up. I answered, it was in his power to prevent: would he be pleased to make my maintenance but so competent as in right it should

* Hamilton's Life of Bishop Hall.

be, I would never stir from him. Instead of condescending, it pleased him to fall into an expostulation of the rate of competencies, affirming the variableness thereof according to our own estimation, and our either raising or moderating the causes of our expenses. I showed him the insufficiency of my means; but a harsh and unpleasing answer so disheartened me, that I resolved to embrace the very first opportunity of my remove.

"Now, whilst I was taken up with these anxious thoughts, a messenger came to me from my Lord Denny, my after most honourable patron, entreating me from his lordship to speak with him. No sooner came I thither, than after a glad and noble welcome, I was entertained with the earnest offer of Waltham. The conditions were, like the mover of them, free and bountiful. I received them as from the munificent hand of my God; and returned full of the cheerful acknowledgments of a gracious providence over me. Too late now did my former noble patron relent, and offer me those terms which had before fastened me for ever. I returned home happy in a new master, and in a new patron; betwixt whom I divided myself and my labours, with much comfort, and no less acceptation."

For two years he continued in his attendance at court. The death of Henry in the winter of 1612 at length released him, and on the 1st of January 1613 Hall discharged the last duties of his office by preaching a farewell sermon to his deceased master's household, then dissolved at St. James's.

For sixteen quiet and laborious years Hall resided amongst his parishioners at Waltham-every day a little life, and his whole life but a day repeated.* Thrice, indeed, was he called to bear a part in public-once when he accompanied the English ambassador, Lord Doncaster, to France; again when he followed in the retinue of James, on that prince's visit to Scotland; and lastly, when he was deputed by his brethren as one of the representatives of the Anglican Church in the Synod of Dort.

At length, in 1627, Dr. Hall, having previously refused the bishopric of Gloucester, was elevated to the See of Exeter. Dissensions, caused principally by his unwillingness to tender to his clergy the famous et cetera oath, induced him, in 1641, to accept the offer of a translation to Norwich. At the period of his translation, popular indignation had risen high against the bishops; and although Hall had never complied with the semi-papistical requisitions of Laud, he shared in the general odium directed against his order. At length, on the 30th of January 1642, "in all the extremity of frost, at eight o'clock in the dark evening," Hall, after having, with eleven of his brethren, been brought to the bar of the House of Commons on a charge of high treason, was committed to the Tower.

The Bishop has left upon record a defence against the charges brought against him on this occasion, from which we cannot refrain quoting :

*Hall's Epistles.

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