III.

Walton's and Donne's accounts of Lord Herbert's

Mother.

The following extract from Walton's "Life of George Herbert," the poet (Lord Herbert's brother), throws additional light on Lord Herbert's relations with his mother while a student at the university: he does her fuller justice than Lord Herbert does her himself (see p. 18 et seq. supra). Walton's description of Lady Herbert's relations with Donne is one of the most beautiful passages in seventeenth century prose literature.

"In the time of her widowhood, she being desirous to give Edward, her eldest son, such advantages of learning and other education as might suit his birth and fortune, and thereby make him more fit for the service of his country, did, at his being of a fit age, remove from Montgomery Castle with him and some of her younger sons to Oxford; and having entered Edward into Queen's College 1 and provided him a fit tutor, she commended him to his care; yet she continued there with him, and still kept him in a moderate awe of herself, and so much under her own eye as to see and converse with him daily; but she managed this power over him without any such rigid sourness as might make her company a torment to her child, but

Ludlow," 1841; the first chapter of Mr. J. R. Phillip's "Civil War in Wales," and Lord Herbert's "History of Henry VIII," sub anno 1636. Churchyard, in his " Worthies of Wales,” 1589, patriotically insisted on the love of peace inherent among the Welsh, but his poetical picture is clearly overdrawn in order to refute the contrary opinion current among Englishmen.

1 This is an error. See p. 39, supra. Herbert was entered at University College.

with such a sweetness and compliance with the recreations and pleasures of youth, as did incline him willingly to spend much of his time in the company of his dear and careful mother; which was to her great content; for she would often say, 'That as our bodies take a nourishment suitable to the meat on which we feed, so our souls do as insensibly take in vice by the example or conversation with wicked company;' and would therefore often say, 'That ignorance of vice was the best preservation of virtue; and that the very knowledge of wickedness was as tinder to inflame and kindle sin, and keep it burning.' For these reasons she endeared him to her own company, and continued with him in Oxford for four years; in which time her great and harmless wit, her cheerful gravity, and her obliging behaviour gained her an acquaintance and friendship with most of any eminent worth or learning that were at that time in or near that University; and particularly with Mr. John Donne, who then came accidentally to that place, in this time of her being there. It was that John Donne who was after Dr. Donne and Dean of St. Paul's, London; and he, at his leaving Oxford, writ and left there, in verse, a character of the beauties of her body and mind. Of the first he says,

'No Spring nor Summer beauty has such grace,

As I have seen in an Autumnal face.'

Of the latter he says,

'In all her words, to every hearer fit,
You may at revels or at council sit.'

The rest of her character may be read in his printed poems, in that elegy which bears the name of 'The Autumnal Beauty;' for both he and she were then past the meridian of man's life.

"This amity, begun at this time and place, was not an

amity that polluted their souls, but an amity made up of a chain of suitable inclinations and virtues; an amity like that of St. Chrysostom's to his dear and virtuous Olympias, whom in his letters he calls his Saint; or an amity, indeed, more like that of St. Hierome to his Paula, whose affection to her was such, that he turned poet in his old age, and then made her epitaph, wishing all his body were turned into tongues, that he might declare her just praises to posterity. And this amity betwixt her and Mr. Donne was begun in a happy time for him, he being then near to the fortieth year of his age,—which was some years before he entered into Sacred Orders :-a time when his necessities needed a daily supply for the support of his wife, seven children, and a family. And in this time she proved one of his most bountiful benefactors, and he as grateful an acknowledger of it. You may take one testimony for what I have said of these two worthy persons from this following letter and sonnet :

"MADAM,-Your favours to me are everywhere: I use them and have them. I enjoy them at London, and leave them there; and yet find them at Mitcham. Such riddles as these become things inexpressible; and such is your goodness. I was almost sorry to find your servant here this day, because I was loath to have any witness of my not coming home last night, and indeed of my coming this morning. But my not coming was excusable, because earnest business detained me; and my coming this day is by the example of your St. Mary Magdalen, who rose early upon Sunday to seek that which she loved most; so did I. And from her and myself I return such thanks as are due to one to whom we owe all the good opinion that they whom we need most have of us. By this messenger and on this good day I commit the enclosed Holy Hymns and Sonnets-which for the matter, not the workmanship, have yet escaped the fire-to your judgment, and to your protection too, if you think them worthy

of it; and I have appointed this enclosed Sonnet to usher them to your happy hand.-Your unworthiest servant, unless your accepting him to be so have mended him,

'MITCHAM, July 11, 1607.

Jo. DONNE.

'To the Lady Magdalen Herbert, of St. Mary Magdalen.

'Her of your name, whose fair inheritance

Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo,

An active faith so highly did advance,

That she once knew more than the Church did know,
The Resurrection! so much good there is

Delivered of her, that some Fathers be

Loth to believe one woman could do this,

But think these Magdalens were two or three.
Increase their number, Lady, and their fame :
To their devotion add your innocence :
Take so much of th' example, as of the name;
The latter half; and in some recompense
That they did harbour Christ himself, a guest,

Harbour these Hymns, to his dear name addrest.-J. D.'

These Hymns are now lost to us; but doubtless they were such as they two now sing in heaven.

"There might be more demonstrations of the friendship and the many sacred endearments betwixt these two excellent persons, for I have many of their letters in my hand, and much more might be said of her great prudence and piety; but my design was not to write hers, but the life of her son; and therefore I shall only tell my reader that about that very day twenty years that this letter was dated and sent her, I saw and heard this Mr. John Donne -who was then Dean of St. Paul's-weep, and preach her funeral sermon in the parish church of Chelsea, near London,1 where she now rests in her quiet grave; and

1 On 1st July 1627. See p. 20, supra.

where we must now leave her, and return to her son George, whom we left in his study at Cambridge."

Dr. Donne's sermon gives similar testimony to Lady Herbert's sweetness of temper, and does not, with both Herbert and Walton, overlook the fact of her second marriage to Sir John Danvers. The following passages towards the close of the sermon are of special interest :

"From that worthy family from which she had her original extraction and birth, she sucked that love of hospitality (hospitality which hath celebrated that family for many generations successively) which dwelt in her to her end. But in that ground, her father's family, she grew not many years. Transplanted young from thence by marriage into another family of honour, as a flower that doubles and multiplies by transplantation, she multiplied into ten children,-Job's number and Job's distribution (as she would often remember), seven sons and three daughters. And in this ground she grew not many more years than were necessary for the providing of so many plants. And being then left to choose her own ground in her widowhood, having at home established and increased the estate with a fair and noble addition, proposing to herself, as her principal care, the education of her children; to advance that she came with them and dwelt with them in the university, and recompensed them the loss of a father in giving them two mothers her own personal care and the advantage of that place, where she contracted a friendship with divers reverend persons of eminency and estimation there, which continued to their ends. And as this was her greatest business, so she made this state a large period, for in this state of widowhood she continued twelve years. And then returning to a second marriage, that second marriage turns us to the consideration of another personal circumstance,

1 The Newports.