Herbert, George

The Temple. Sacred Poems, And Private Ejaculations. By Mr. George Herbert, Late Orator of the University of Cambridge. Together with His Life. Psal. xxix. In his Temple doth every Man speak of his Honour. The Twelfth Edition Corrected, with the Addition of an Alphabetical Table.[bound with] The Synagogue: Or, The Shadow Of The Temple. Sacred Poems, And Private Ejaculations. In Imitation of Mr. George Herbert

London: 1703: Printed by J. Barber, for Jeffery Wale, at the Angel in St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1703.

Printed: 1703 1593-1633 Duodecimo, 61 x 375 inches The twelfth edition of the Herbert and the eighth edition of the Harvey A-K12; A-E12, F6 The fine engraved portrait of George Herbert by Stuart is bound before the title The poems entitled "The Church Porch" and "The Altar" appear in this edition as full paged engravings This copy is bound in contemporary panelled calf, spine gilt with red label, worn at corners and spine ends, and cracked at joints but holding, boards very scratched, internally quite sound and clean We may partly distinguish two poets in Herbert There is, first, the parish priest of early seventeenth-century England who revered his Church as a chaste mother neither 'painted' nor 'undrest;' who deplored the worm of schism eating away the English rose and (to the disturbance of the Cambridge licenser in 1633) saw Religion standing "on tip-toe in our land, Readie to passe to the American strand;" who celebrated with loving particularity and complete security of belief the meaning of God's temple and worship It is this poet who can be fully appreciated, in Coleridge's works, only by 'an affectionate and dutiful child of the Church;' and it is to Herbert's writings and life that we owe much of our picture of the order, strength, and beauty of seventeenth-century Anglicanism at its best But church-bells are heard beyond the stars, and the Anglican parish priest merges with the larger poet, with the very human saint who gives fresh and moving utterance to the aspirations and failures of the spiritual life This is the Herbert we know through 'Aaron,' 'Discipline,' 'The Collar,' 'The Pulley,' and many other poems in which he strives to subdue the willful or kindle the apathetic self His principal themes are those 'two vast, spacious things Sinne and Love' There is nothing soft in the poet who seeks to engrave divine love in steel; and a catalogue of gratuitous, untempered, and short-lived sweets leads up to the magnificent contrast of the disciplined soul that 'never gives'

"As the Anglican merges with the greater poet, so the 'quaint' writer merges with the metaphysical Herbert had his share of the age's passion for anagrams and the like, which Addison was to condemn as 'false Wit' But the poet who could shape a poem in the physical likeness of 'The Altar' or 'Easter Wings' had, even more than most of his fellows, a functional sense of meter and rhythm The technical experimentalist and master was, we remember, a skilled and devoted musician The movement of his verse, taut or relaxed, can suggest all his fluctuating moods, from self-will or weakness to joyful surrender and assured strength He moves from this world to the world of the spirit 'As from one room t'another, or dwells simultaneously in both, and it is in keeping with that habit of mind, and with metaphysical origins in general, that many of his poems should be allegorical anecdotes, transfigured emblems Apart from some of his fine dramatic openings, Herbert does not attempt the high pitch of Donne's 'Divine Poems' His great effects are all the greater for rising out of a homely, colloquial quietness of tone; and peace brings quiet endings- 'So I did sit and eat;' 'And I reply'd, My Lord' Though the friend and admirer of Donne (and of Bacon), Herbert did not cultivate scholastic or scientific imagery; mature and everyday life, the Bible and the liturgy were his chief sources The highest truth, as he said more than once, must be plainly dressed In spite of his classical learning and his Latin and Greek verse, he avoided the common surface classicism of the time Of the elements of a deeper classicism, if we care to use that name, he had muscular density, precision, deceptive simplicity, and a dynamic sense of form At times his structure may be a winding stair, but it is all built of seasoned timber" (Bush)

. Item #227F

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