GEORGE HERBERT. GEORGE HERBERT, "Holy George Herbert," as he is often called, was born April 3, 1593, in the castle of Montgomery, in Wales. He was of gentle birth, and was a younger brother of Lord Edward Herbert, of Cherbury, the famous diplomatist and philosopher. George was educated at Westminster and at Cambridge, where "he consecrated the first fruits of his early age to virtue and a serious study of learning." He was chosen a fellow of Trinity College in 1615, and in 1619 was made public orator, which was then considered a very distinguished honor, much coveted by aspiring men, as it was a high-road to preferment at court. Herbert for some years was a zealous courtier, and was high in favor with King James I., who gave him a valuable sinecure in 1623. But the death of 'that monarch in 1625, and of two of Herbert's most powerful friends among the high nobility, put an end to his ambitious hopes, and led him to take holy orders. The date of his ordination is not known, but in 1626 he was made prebendary of Leighton Ecclesia, in the diocese of Lincoln. About three years later he married Jane Danvers, after an acquaintance of three days, an instance of "marrying in haste which was not accompanied by the usual result of "repenting at leisure," for the match proved an unusually happy one—“ so happy," says Walton, "that there never was any opposition betwixt them, unless it were a contest which should most incline to a compliance with the other's desires." In 1630 King Charles I. presented Herbert with the rectory of Bemerton, near Salisbury, where he remained during the rest of his life. He was a most exemplary and pious pastor, and was greatly beloved and reverenced by his flock, His career, however, was cut short by consumption, of which he died in February, 1632, at the age of thirty-nine. His life was written by Izaak Walton, the famous author of "The Complete Angler." His poems, which were very popular in his own day, are chiefly comprised in a series called "The Temple." Of this work twenty thousand copies were sold within a few years after its publication-a prodigious number for those days. This great popularity was owing not only to the poet's sweetness of fancy and vigorous sense, but to the fact that he is preeminently a poet of the Church of England. "His similes are drawn from her ceremonial; his most solemn thoughts are born of her mysteries; his tenderest lessons are taught by her prayers." During the last century his works fell into neglect; but in this more discerning age their high merits have been recognized, and George Herbert stands to-day among the foremost of the minor poets of England. His lines entitled "Virtue "are especially popular. There is a good edition of his poems, in one volume, in the Boston collection of the British poets. EDMUND WALLER. EDMUND WALLER was born at Coleshill, Hertfordshire, March 3, 1605. He was of an ancient and wealthy family, and his mother was a sister of the celebrated John Hampden. During his infancy his father died, leaving him an estate of £3,500 a year. He was educated at Cambridge, and entered Parliament at the age of eighteen. At twenty-six he married a London heiress, who died soon after. He then paid court to Lady Dorothea Sydney, to whom he addressed innumerable poems, in which he gives her the name of "Sacharissa," and also to Lady Sophia Murphy, whom he styled "Amoret." These suits being unsuccessful, he speedily sought and found a second wife elsewhere. In politics, as in love, Waller adapted himself to circumstances with the utmost facility. In the Long Parliament he acted with the party of Hampden, and was one of the commissioners to negotiate with the king; then he was won over by the royalists, and joined in a conspiracy to raise an open and armed resistance to Parliament, for which he was fined £10,000 and banished, after he had made an abject confession which sent three of his colleagues to the gallows. He spent ten years in France, living by the sale of his wife's jewels, and was then permitted to return. He at once became a flatterer of Cromwell; and after the restoration was quite as melodious in praise of Charles II. He reentered Parliament, and remained in it until his eightieth year, one of its wittiest and most forcible debaters. He died at Beaconsfield, October 21, 1687. Waller was about the earliest of our poets who, without great genius, gave to their conceits and amorous strains something of the gracefulness of modern verse. One of the most striking and frequently quoted of Byron's images is borrowed from him; it is contained in the last of the poems here selected. TO AMORET. FAIR! that you may truly know, Joy salutes me, when I set If sweet Amoret complains, And, those scorching beams to shun, To thy gentle shadow run. If the soul had free election 'Tis amazement more than love, Heaven (as eas'ly scal'd) does know!. As the most delicious food, Scarce can I to Heaven excuse Which, though not so fierce a flame, Then smile on me, and I will prove Wonder is shorter-liv'd than love. OF LOVE. ANGER, in hasty words, or blows, For women, born to be controll'd, With tyrants' force, whose law is will, While her high pride does scarce descend So the tall stag, upon the brink OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE DWARFS. DESIGN or Chance make others wive, To him, for whom Heav'n seem'd to frame, Thrice happy is that humble pair, To him the fairest nymphs do show Ah! Chloris! that kind Nature thus A PANEGYRIC TO MY LORD PROTECTOR, Of the Present Greatness, and Joint Interest, of his WHILE with a strong, and yet a gentle, hand, Let partial spirits, still aloud complain, Above the waves as Neptune show'd his face, To chide the winds, and save the Trojan race. So has your highness, rais'd above the rest Storms of ambition, tossing us, represt. Your drooping country, torn with civil have, The sea's our own: and now, all nations greet, Heaven (that hath plac'd this island to give law Hither th' oppressed shall henceforth resort, With such a chief the meanest nation blest, Lords of the world's great waste, the ocean, we Angels and we have this prerogative, Our little world, the image of the great, |