網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

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.

Melvin at Hampton-Court Conference ;* he there appeared to be a man of an unruly wit, of a strange confidence, of so furious a zeal, and of so ungoverned passions, that his insolence to the King, and others at this Conference, lost him both his Rectorship of St. Andrew's and his liberty too; for his former verses, and his present reproaches there used against the Church and State, caused him to be committed prisoner to the Tower of London; where he remained very angry for three years. At which time of his commitment, he found the Lady Arabella† an innocent prisoner there; and he pleased himself much in sending, the next day after his commitment, these two verses to the good lady; which I will underwrite, because they may give the Reader a taste of his others, which were like these.

Causa tibi mecum est communis, carceris, Ara-
Bella, tibi causa est, Araque sacra mihi.

I shall not trouble my Reader with an account of his enlarge. ment from that prison, or his death; but tell him Mr. Herbert's verses were thought so worthy to be preserved, that Dr. Duport,‡

* Andrew Melville was not present at the celebrated conference held at Hampton-Court, in the first year of King James I. upon the complaint of the Puritans against the ceremonies and the liturgy of the Church of England. He was summoned to appear before the King and Council in 1604. In the first edition of " Mr. Walton's Life of Mr. George Herbert," Melville is described to be " Master of a great wit; a wit full of knots and clenches; a wit sharp and satirical; exceeded, I think, by none of that nation, but their Buchanan." + Daughter of Charles Stuart, Earl of Lenox, the younger brother of Henry, Earl of Darnley, father of King James I. She was born at Hampstead in 1577, and received a very liberal education; added to which, she possessed a large estate, and, the English succession being doubtful, she was supposed to be a probable heir to the crown. She incurred the displeasure of James by marrying Mr. William Seymour, grandson of the Earl of Hertford, for which she was sent to the Tower; and although she had made her escape thence, she was overtaken, brought back, and died there in 1615.

James Duport, the learned son of a learned father, John Duport, Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, was Greek Professor in that University. On the promotion of Dr. Edward Rainbow to the See of Carlisle, he was appointed Dean of Peterborough, and in 1668 was elected Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge.

the learned Dean of Peterborough, hath lately collected and caused many of them to be printed, as an honourable memorial of his friend Mr. George Herbert, and the cause he undertook.

And in order to my third and last observation of his great abilities, it will be needful to declare, that about this time King James came very often to hunt at Newmarket and Royston, and was almost as often invited to Cambridge, where his entertainment was comedies suited to his pleasant humour; and where Mr. George Herbert, was to welcome him with gratulations, and the applauses of an Orator; which he always performed so well, that he still grew more into the King's favour, insomuch that he had a particular appointment to attend his Majesty at Royston; where, after a discourse with him, his Majesty declared to his kinsman, the Earl of Pembroke, that he found the Orator's learning and wisdom much above his age or wit. The year following, the King appointed to end his progress at Cambridge, and to stay there certain days; at which time he was attended by the great Secretary of Nature and all learning, Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, and by the ever-memorable and learned Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, both which did at that time begin a desired friendship with our Orator. Upon whom, the first put such a value on his judgment, that he usually desired his approbation before he would expose any of his books to be printed; and thought him so worthy of his friendship, that having translated many of the Prophet David's Psalms into English verse, he made George Herbert his patron, by a public dedication of them to him, as the best judge of Divine Poetry. And for the learned Bishop, it is observable, that at that time there fell to be a modest debate betwixt them two about Predestination, and Sanctity of life; of both of which the Orator did, not long after, send the Bishop some safe and useful aphorisms, in a long letter, written in Greek; which letter was so remarkable for the language and reason of it, that, after the reading of it, the Bishop put it into his bosom, and did often shew it to many Scholars, both of this and foreign na. tions; but did always return it back to the place where he first lodged it, and continued it so near his heart till the last day of his life.

To this I might add the long and entire friendship betwixt him

and Sir Henry Wotton, and Dr. Donne; but I have promised to contract myself, and shall therefore only add one testimony to what is also mentioned in the Life of Dr. Donne; namely, that a little before his death he caused many Seals to be made, and in them to be engraven the figure of Christ, crucified on an Anchor,— the emblem of Hope,-and of which Dr. Donne would often say, "Crux mihi anchora."-These Seals he gave or sent to most of those friends on which he put a value: and, at Mr. Herbert's death, these verses were found wrapt up with that seal, which was by the Doctor given to him ;

When my dear friend could write no more,
He gave this Seal and so gave o'er.

When winds and waves rise highest I am sure,
This Anchor keeps my faith, that, me secure.

At this time of being Orator, he had learned to understand the Italian, Spanish, and French tongues very perfectly: hoping, that as his predecessors, so he might in time attain the place of a Secretary of State, he being at that time very high in the King's favour, and not meanly valued and loved by the most eminent and most powerful of the Court Nobility. This, and the love of a Court-conversation, mixed with a laudable ambition to be something more than he then was, drew him often from Cambridge, to attend the King wheresoever the Court was, who then gave him a sinecure, which fell into his Majesty's disposal, I think, by the death of the Bishop of St. Asaph.* It was the same that Queen Elizabeth had formerly given to her favourite Sir Philip Sidney, and valued to be worth an hundred and twenty pounds per anWith this, and his annuity, and the advantage of his College, and of his Oratorship, he enjoyed his genteel humour for clothes, and Court-like company, and seldom looked towards Cambridge, unless the King were there, but then he never failed; and, at other times, left the manage of his Orator's place to his learned

num.

* Dr. Richard Parry, who died September 26, 1623.

« 上一頁繼續 »