e Gidding, and of
Laud, he took orders in 1626 and, after serving for a few years as
prebendary of Layton Ecclesia, or Leighton Broomswold, he became in 1630
Rector of Bemerton, Wilts, where he passed the remainder of his life,
discharging the duties of a parish priest with conscientious assiduity.
His health, however, failed, and he _d._ in his 40th year. His chief
works are _The Temple, or Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations_ (1634),
_The Country Parson_ (1652), and _Jacula Prudentium_, a collection of
pithy proverbial sayings, the two last in prose. Not _pub._ until the
year after his death, _The Temple_ had immediate acceptance, 20,000
copies, according to I. Walton, who was H.'s biographer, having been sold
in a few years. Among its admirers were Charles I., Cowper, and
Coleridge. H. wrote some of the most exquisite sacred poetry in the
language, although his style, influenced by Donne, is at times
characterised by artificiality and conceits. He was an excellent
classical scholar, and an accomplished musician.

Works with _Life_ by Izaak Walton, ed. by Coleridge, 1846, etc.

HERBERT, SIR THOMAS (1606-1682).--Traveller and historian, belonged to an
old Yorkshire family, studied at Oxf. and Camb., and went in connection
with an embassy to Persia, of which, and of other Oriental countries, he
_pub._ a description. On the outbreak of the Civil War he was a
Parliamentarian, but was afterwards taken into the household of the King,
to whom he became much attached, was latterly his only attendant, and was
with him on the scaffold. At the Restoration he was made a Baronet, and
in 1678 _pub._ _Threnodia Carolina_, an account of the last two years of
the King's life.

HERD, DAVID (1732-1810).--Scottish anthologist, _s._ of a farmer in
Kincardineshire, was clerk to an accountant in Edin., and devoted his
leisure to collecting old Scottish poems and songs, which he first _pub._
in 1769 as _Ancient Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc._ Other and
enlarged ed. appeared in 1776 and 1791. Sir W. Scott made use of his MS.
collections in his _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_.

HERRICK, ROBERT (1591-1674).--Poet, _b._ in London, was apprenticed as a
goldsmith to his uncle, Sir William H., with whom he remained for 10
years. Thereafter he went to Camb., took orders, and was in 1629
presented by Charles I. to the living of Dean Prior, a remote parish in
Devonshire, from which he was ejected in 1647, returning in 1662. In the