Sir Francis Bacon, "the great secretary of nature and all learning," courted his acquaintance; and good Bishop Andrews so admired him, that he carried about him a letter in Greek from Herbert to the last day of his life. And amongst other powerful friends we may here mention the Duke of Richmond and the Marquis of Hamilton.

Visions of earthly glory now rose before him. He found the University disagreed with him. Politics seemed a larger sphere, more suited to his taste and capacities; he had a ready wit and a subtle mind, and looked forward to occupying some high position in the State; but "God disposes." The glittering prospect opened but to close. Suddenly all his most powerful friends seemed to die or be taken away from him. The Duke of Richmond, and then the Marquis of Hamilton, and shortly afterwards his great patron, the king, were stricken down by his side; and he found himself in a changed Court, with a king that knew him not, and alien faces around him.

Whether about this time he grew tired of worldly vanities, saw the hollowness of earthly ambitions, or could not stoop to become one of a crowd of new and obsequious courtiers, it is not

easy to say; but most probably his deeply religious nature, which had been partially swamped by the pleasures and ambitions of Court life, now arose in its might, and clamoured for that supremacy which it speedily acquired, and which it so firmly retained to the close. He retired into the country. gave up, apparently not without a struggle, the prospects of a political career, and was for some time much unsettled and disturbed in his mind. He desired above all things to be useful :

"Now I am here, what wilt Thou do with me

None of my books will show ;

I read and sigh-I wish I were a tree,

For then sure I should grow."

But he discovered that his genius was above all religious, and that no sphere which did not bring him into constant contact with spiritual things would really meet the requirements of his soul. He must serve man, but he must serve God, and what tastes he had must be pressed into their service, not paraded for their own sakes. All attempts to rest in them were vain: "other lords may have had dominion over him," but their time was now passed.

He who had looked forward to being made

Secretary of State was now only ambitious to take holy orders; and to a Court friend, who rebuked him for desiring an occupation so far below his birth and great talents, he made the following beautiful reply: "It hath been formerly judged that the domestic servants of the King of Heaven should be of the noblest families on earth; and though the iniquity of late times hath made clergymen meanly valued, and the sacred name of priest contemptible, yet I will labour to make it honourable by consecrating all my learning and all my poor abilities to advance the glory of that God that gave them. And I will labour to be like my Saviour, by making humility lovely in the eyes of all men, and by following the merciful and meek example of my dear Jesus."

Thus chastened in spirit, he entered upon the small incumbency of Layton Ecclesia, in the diocese of Lincoln, in 1626.

He found the church nearly in ruins, and with characteristic energy resolved to rebuild it. He was not rich, and could only look about him for richer friends to help him. His mother's counsel was for once disregarded. "George," she said, "it is not for your weak body and empty purse to

undertake to build churches."

But Herbert

answered with all respect, that he had made a vow to God to rebuild the church; and with the assistance of his liberal friends, the Duke of Lennox, Sir Henry Herbert, Mr. Nicholas Farrer, and some few others, he was able to perform the task.

Isaak Walton tells us that he made the readingdesk and pulpit both the same height, “because,” said he, "prayer and preaching, being equally useful, should agree like brethren, and have an equal honour and estimation." In 1629, and in the thirtyfourth year of his age, he was seized with a sharp quotidian ague. His sufferings were at times intense, and he would often cry out, "Lord, abate my great affliction or increase my patience;" and finding the doctor's remedies of little use, he began to cure himself by nearly total abstinence from everything except a little salt meat. Being now reduced to great weakness, his friends vied with each other in providing him with change of air and every comfort. Lord Danvers loved him so dearly that he had rooms set apart at Dauntsey Hall, Wiltshire, and there Mr. Herbert enjoyed perfect rest, moderate study, and much delightful

social intercourse.

Here he fell in with a near

relation of the Earl's, one Mr. Danvers, who counselled him to marry, and indeed offered him every facility, for he himself had nine daughters, and openly declared that he would like no one better than Mr. Herbert for a son-in-law.

But

Jane appears to have been the favourite; and hearing so much of Mr. Herbert, she grew to love him, when her father suddenly died, and the family circle was thrown into confusion. they who had hitherto seen little of each other, and had been lovers in theory and after quite a Platonic fashion, were now to grow into a more dear and intimate relationship. In a very little time Jane became the wife of George Herbert, whose health and spirits seemed greatly to revive, and not long afterwards he was presented to his last living, Bemerton, in Wiltshire, and prepared to take priest's orders.

He had now but three years more to live, and he entered upon this last brief period with as much solemn preparation and earnest prayer as if he had known that the night was coming in which no man could work.

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