Herbert was about the first to perceive that poems should have solid structure. He knew when to stop. He supplies his pieces with a beginning, middle, and end. No superfluity enters into their unified form. Herbert, in short, is a conscious artist; and before his time literary artistry was little sought or understood. The mastery of firm poetic form is one of the distinctive contributions made by him to English verse.

A second is that to which I have already referred, the development of the religious love-lyric. Common enough to-day is poetry which speaks the vicissitudes of the individual soul seeking to yield itself to its divine lover. But we forget that it was Herbert who set the pattern of such poetry. With what truthful freshness too and precision does he utter his fervors! In his daring, picturesque, and condensed words we feel such power of the aphoristic phrase as was had previously only by his friend Lord Bacon or by Shakspere himself. Religious verse is seldom transparently sincere. The temptation is strong to say what is expected. But how convincingly, surprisingly, true are Herbert's lines! To use the test by which Mill distinguished poetry from eloquence, we rather over-hear than hear him. Whoever will once work his way into acquaintance with this strange poet will find him a perpetual friend, endowed with noble speech, exact and unusual thought, and a heartfelt, if humanly wayward, allegiance to God's insistent call.

DATES

1593. Herbert born at Montgomery Castle.

1597. Herbert's father dies and mother moves to

Oxford.

1603. James I King. Lady Herbert moves to Lon

don.

1605. Herbert enters Westminster School.

1609. Lady Herbert marries Sir John Danvers.

Herbert enters Trinity College, Cambridge.

1610. Herbert's two sonnets to his mother. 1612. Herbert takes B.A. Degree and publishes two Latin poems on death of Prince Henry.

1616. Herbert takes M.A. and is appointed Major Fellow of Trinity.

1619. Herbert appointed Public Orator at Cambridge. Publishes Latin poem on death of Queen Anne.

1623. Herbert receives from King the sinecure Lay Rectorship of Whitford. Publishes Latin Oration on reception of Buckingham. 1625. King James dies. Bacon dedicates to Herbert certain psalms.

1626. Herbert appointed Prebendary of Leighton in Lincolnshire. His Latin Poem on Bacon's death.

1627. Herbert's mother dies. He resigns Oratorship. His Latin Parentalia published.

1628. Williams Manuscript of Herbert's Poems probably written about this time.

1629. Herbert marries Jane Danvers.

1630. Herbert takes priest's orders and the Parish

of Bemerton, Wiltshire.

1632. Herbert writes notes on Ferrar's translation

of Valdesso's Considerations.

1633. Death of Herbert at Bemerton. Ferrar publishes The Temple at Cambridge.

1634. Cornaro's Treatise on Temperance, translated by Herbert; published.

1652. Herbert's Remains, containing his Country Parson and Jacula Prudentum, published. 1662. Herbert's early Latin poems, attacking Andrew Melville, published.

1670. Izaak Walton's Life of Herbert, published.