Born in 1583-twenty-two years after Bacon, and nineteen after Shakespeare-he was brought up in the luxury that became the eldest son of an old county family. He lost his father when he was thirteen or fourteen years old; was "exceedingly inclined" to his studies and to music; and at the age of fifteen or thereabouts was married, while still at Oxford, to a wealthy cousin far older than himself, in accordance with an unromantic family arrangement, in which his own inclinations were not considered. Herbert was not a very spirited boy; and his mother, who took great pride in him, governed him and his wife rigorously during his minority. When approaching manhood he avoided "the evil example " of other young men, but, in the closing years of Elizabeth's reign, "curiosity rather than ambition" brought him to court. Then temptation spread its net for him for the first time, and he enjoyed the entanglement. He came to recognise that he was singularly handsome. Queen Elizabeth suggested that it was a pity he should have married so young, and twice clapped him gently on the cheek, while he kissed her aged hands. He was one of a crowd of persons

sick (Letters, iv. 156, 252).

This is rather unfair to Lord Herbert; but the unique interest of the book is certainly not to be found in the early pages.

created Knight of the Bath at James I.'s coronation. "I could tell," he remarks on this occasion, "how much my person was commended by the lords and ladies that came to see the solemnity then used; but I shall flatter myself too much" -a tell-tale reservation-" if I believed it" (p. 83). He affected to take seriously the words of the formal oath, which bound him to defend all unprotected females, and he soon afterwards resolved to adopt the profession of knight-errantry. He had now, he boasts, lived with his wife in all conjugal loyalty for ten years, and had successfully resisted all allurements to the contrary. He was twenty-five years old, and deemed it desirable to see something more of the world. He told his wife that it became him to seek adventures "beyond sea." Mistress Herbert took another view of the situation, but her husband had his way, and in the next decade lived a very restless life.

He went first to France; made friends with the Duc de Montmorency, an elderly French beau, and while staying at his attractive castle of Merlou tried to find occasion for his first duel in the playful endeavour of a French chevalier to take "a knot of ribbon" from a little girl's head-dress. He rode the great horse, played the lute, and sang with great applause. He visited Henri IV. at the Tuileries, and the King "embraced him in his arms,

and held him some while there." The divorced Queen Margaret invited him to her balls, and gave him a place next her own chair, to the wonder and envy of the assembled company. He flirted with the Princess of Conti, who had a less than doubtful reputation. The ladies, however, did not confine their attention to him; they admired another man -one M. Balagni-" who could not be thought at most but ordinary handsome," and the puzzling circumstance caused Lord Herbert no little disquietude.

Having tasted of foreign travel, Lord Herbert returned home, only to set out again on another expedition in the Low Countries, where there was a prospect of war. The town of Juliers was to be besieged by Dutch, French, and English troops. No command was offered Herbert, and he performed no service of real importance in the campaign, although he hints at quite another conclusion. But he had the satisfaction of meeting M. Balagni again. He dared his gay rival to all manner of boyishly foolish escapades, in which he contrived that the Frenchman should come off second-best. But the exploit that made him most notorious in this campaign was a quarrel with Lord Howard of Walden. "There was liberal drinking" one night in Sir Horace Vere's quarters, and Lord Herbert spoke merrily to his companions, so merrily that one of them, Lord Howard, an English officer,

Such

took offence, and came towards him "in a violent manner." Some days later Herbert's sensitive honour was wounded by a Frenchman's taunt that he had not demanded satisfaction of Lord Howard. He therefore sent him a challenge, and the duel would have been fought had not the principals been arrested before they met, and the childish dispute been stayed by the Lords of the Council. accidents invariably terminated Herbert's duels. Men of sense complained that he was choleric and hasty. He admitted that this, generally speaking, was true, but with appalling boldness he added, amid all manner of protestations, that he never had a quarrel with a man for his own sake; he often hazarded himself for his friends, but when injury was offered him in his own person, he sheathed his sword, and contented himself with an inward feeling of resentment. On his return to England he describes himself as carrying with him the reputation of a hero: "And now, if I may say it, and without vanity, I was in great esteem both in court and city, many of the greatest desiring my company" (p. 127). The public generally had heard "so many brave things" of him that his portrait, which he had had painted very many times, was in great demand.1 Ladies, from the Queen

1 Lord Herbert describes below three portraits of himself —1. (p. 85) in the robes of a Knight of the Bath, by an

downwards, placed it in their cabinets or near their hearts, and gave occasion "of more discourse" than he (modest man!) could have wished. One lady (Lady Ayres), "a considerable person" according to Lord Herbert-although history has neglected her altogether-was discovered by the gallant, under circumstances reflecting little credit on himself (p. 129), looking upon his picture "with more earnestness and passion than he could have easily believed." He was the more surprised at her intense admiration of him, not because Lady Herbert was occupying any of his attention, but because at the moment his own affections were engaged by an anonymous beauty, whose attractions caused him real anxiety. But Lady Ayres' passion supplied him with congenial food for reflection until her husband treated him to a very uncomplimentary buffeting in Whitehall. In one place he protests before God that he had at court more favours (appa

unknown artist (now at Powis Castle); 2. (p. 111) mounted on a favourite horse; 3. (pp. 127, 128) a miniature painted by "one Larkin " (now at Charlecote). Of the first of these pictures an etching appears in this volume. Isaac Oliver is credited with the original painting of Lord Herbert lying on the ground after a duel, an etching of which also appears below. An engraving of this picture, which is now at Powis Castle, formed the frontispiece to Horace Walpole's edition of the autobiography in 1764. There is at Penshurst Castle a fifth portrait of Lord Herbert, attributed to Oliver.