. Herbert's life is so quiet and uneventful that to relate a few
biographical facts can be of little advantage. Only as one reads the whole
story by Izaak Walton can he share the gentle spirit of Herbert's poetry.
He was born at Montgomery Castle,[163] Wales, 1593, of a noble Welsh
family. His university course was brilliant, and after graduation he waited
long years in the vain hope of preferment at court. All his life he had to
battle against disease, and this is undoubtedly the cause of the long delay
before each new step in his course. Not till he was thirty-seven was he
ordained and placed over the little church of Bemerton. How he lived here
among plain people, in "this happy corner of the Lord's field, hoping all
things and blessing all people, asking his own way to Sion and showing
others the way," should be read in Walton. It is a brief life, less than
three years of work before being cut off by consumption, but remarkable for
the single great purpose and the glorious spiritual strength that shine
through physical weakness. Just before his death he gave some manuscripts
to a friend, and his message is worthy of John Bunyan:

Deliver this little book to my dear brother Ferrar, 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 less than the least of God's mercies.

HERBERT'S POEMS. Herbert's chief work, _The Temple_, consists of over one
hundred and fifty short poems suggested by the Church, her holidays and
ceremonials, and the experiences of the Christian life. The first poem,
"The Church Porch," is the longest and, though polished with a care that
foreshadows the classic school, the least poetical. It is a wonderful
collection of condensed sermons, wise precepts, and moral lessons,
suggesting Chaucer's "Good Counsel," Pope's "Essay on Man," and Polonius's
advice to Laertes, in _Hamlet;_ only it is more packed with thought than
any of these. Of truth-speaking he says:

Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie;
A fault which needs it most grows two thereby.

and of calmness in argument:

Calmness is great advantage: he that lets
Another chafe may warm h