HE1U1KUT, OKORGK. 



KUT, KT. HON. SIDNEY, M.P. 



Ml 



tablet, or to the UbuU ra*a of the schoolmen, but to a closed volume 

 which opeu* itself at the toliciution of outward nature acting upon 

 UM aauea. Thus acted upon, the mind produces out of itself certain 

 general or unirenal principle* (communes notionea), by reference to 

 which all debateable questions in theology and philosophy may be 

 determined, since upon these principle* at least all men ore unanimous. 

 Consistently with these views, he does not, with Hobbes, make religion 

 to be founded on revelation or historical tradition, but upon an imme- 

 diate consciousness of Ood and of divine things. Tho religion of 

 rvaaon therefore, reeling on such grounds, is, be argues, the criterion 

 of every positive religion which claims a foundation in revelation. 

 No man can appeal to revelation as an immediate evidence of the 

 s of his 



his faith, except those to whom that revelation has 

 been directly given; for all others, the fact of revelation is a matter 

 of mere tradition or testimony. Even the recipient of a. revelation may 

 himself be easily deceived, since he possesses no means of convincing 

 himself of tho reality or authenticity of his admitted revelation. 

 Herbert made his own religion of reason to rest upon the following 

 grounds : There is a God whom man ought to honour and reverence; 

 a life of holiness is the most acceptable worship that can be offered 

 him ; sinner* must repent them of their sins, and strive to become 

 better ; and after death every one must expect the rewards or penalties 

 befitting the acts of this life. 



Lord Herbert is one of the numerous instances on record of the little 

 influence which speculative opinions exercise upon the conduct of life. 

 Maintaining that no revelation is credible which is imparted to a 

 portion only of mankind, he nevertheless claims the belief of his 

 hearers when he tells them that bis doubts as to the publication of his 

 work were removed by a direct manifestation of the divine will. Not- 

 withstanding the little favour which has been shown to his works, 

 which is partly indeed attributable to the obscurity both of his style 

 and diction, but chieSy to the predominant inclination for the empiri- 

 cal philosophy of Bacon and Hobbes, the skill and sagacity with which 

 he has pursued his researches on a purely rational method ore alone 

 sufficient, even had we not a Qlanvill and a few others to boast of, to 

 refute the objection which has been urged against us of a total absence 

 in the national mind of all pure and reflex reasoning. The doctrine 

 that outward objects are but the occasions of educing all general 

 knowledge is the foundation of the fame of Kant; mid there is much 

 also in the writings of Jacobi which reminds the reader of the prin- 

 ciples and method of the philosopher of Cherbury. 



HERBERT, GEORGE, born April 3, 1593, was the fifth brother of 

 Lord Herbert of Cherbury. He was educated at Westminster, and 

 elected thence to Trinity College, Cambridge, about the year 1608. 

 In 1615 he became Fellow of the college, and in 1619 was elected to 

 the office of public orator, a post in those times of considerably more 

 importance than at present. While at Cambridge he made the 

 acquaintance of Lord Bacon, but the pleasures of the court and some 

 hope* of preferment led him to spend much of his time away from 

 that seat of learning. His expectations however failing on the death 

 of James I., he turned his attention to divinity, of which he had before 

 been a laborious student, and took holy orders. He was made pre- 

 bendary of Leigh tou Bromswold, or Lay ton Koclesia, in 1626. He 

 married in 1630, and in the same year accepted the rectory of Bemer- 

 ton ; but the effects of a quotidian ague, which had attacked him the 

 year before, soon made themselves again apparent, and he died in 1 632. 

 His poetical works are well and deservedly known. Under a quaint 

 guise they convey sometimes profound and very often beautiful 

 thoughts. They belong to the same school with those of Donne, 

 Quarles, and Herrick, and remind us forcibly of certain poems which 

 some years ago appeared at Oxford under the title of ' The Christian 

 Year, and the tame analogy may be traced betweeu that school of 

 divines to whom these poems are owing and our author ; there is the 

 same real and energy in pastoral duties, the same love of paradox in 

 language, the same reverence for antiquity and for the ceremonies of 

 the Church. 



Herbert's chief prose work is ' The Priest to the Temple,' a sequel 

 to his work called ' The Temple : Sacred Poems mid Private Ejacula- 

 tions.' It lays down rules, and very good rules, for the life which a 

 country clergyman ought to lead. He also wrote a translation of 

 Cornaro ' On Temperance,' and some Latin poems. 



(Icaak Walton, Life of Herbert.) 



HEKBERT, JOHN ROGERS, R.A., was born in 1810 at Maiden 

 in Essex. Having pasted through the Royal Academy as a student, 

 he for some yean practised portrait-painting. In 1835 he had a 

 picture entitled 'Prayer' in the Academy exhibition; bat he first 

 attracted attention by one originally exhibited at the British Institu- 

 tion called ' The Appointed Hour ' a young lover lying assassinated 

 at the foot of the stairs down which his mistress, to whom his fate is 

 unknown, is descending to meet him : a " telling " incident, which, 

 when the picture was engraved, caused the print to become an exceed- 

 ingly popular one. His studies in Italy led Mr. Herbert about this 

 time to paint numerous subject* from Venetian history, as the 

 ' Bride* of Venice, Procession of 1628 ' (1839), ' Pirates of Istria 

 bearing off the Bride* of Venice,' ic., and he made numerous drawings 

 of Venetian subject* for engraving in one or more of the annual publi- 

 cations, then BO much in request But bis pencil was by no menns 

 confined to Venetian subjects, he having exhibited among others, some 



of a melodramatic character, corresponding to his 'Appointed Hour,' 

 as 'Constancy Love outwatchod the drowsy Guard,' Ac., and in a 

 different style, ' The Monastery in the 14th century Boar Hunters 

 refreshed at St. Augustine's Monastery, Canterbury.' 



In 1841 Mr. Herbert was elected A.R.A., but somewhat earlier a 

 circumstance had occurred (too publicly announced, and too often 

 referred to, to make mention of it here improper) which probably 

 had n far more powerful influence on his character as a painter than 

 the acquisition of the academic honours ; this was, his passing over 

 with his family to tho Romish Church, having been led thereto, as is 

 generally said, by the influence of that zealous Roman Catholic and 

 medievalist, the late Welby Pugin. From that time Mr. Herbert's 

 stylo of [tainting and choice of subjects underwent a very marked 

 change. He turned to the Scriptures or ti ecclesiastical history fur his 

 themes, and he treated them in a mediaeval manner, somewhat hard, 

 but with great purity and refinement of feeling, and withcoi^cii ntiutiH 

 attention to costume and to details. He was, in fact, the first English 

 painter of ability, who seemed to have looked to the modern German, 

 rather than the great Italian masters for guidance. He has since 

 considerably modified his style, but he still loves to paint scriptural 

 subjects as they may be imagined to present themselves to the mind 

 of a Romish ecclesiastic, well imbued with church traditions, deep in 

 missal and symbolic lore, but equally well acquainted with the fruits 

 of recent investigations. The results of his new views and studies, 

 appeared in the exhibition of 1842, to which he contributed a very 

 remarkable work, 'The First Introduction of Christianity into 

 Britain,' and a portrait of Dr. Wiseman. In 1843 appeared 'Christ 

 and the Woman of Samaria;' in 1644 'Sir Thomas More and his 

 Daughter,' for the Veruon collection, and 'The Trial of the Seven 

 Bishops ' an old-standing commission we believe, but at any rate the 

 picture presented an almost ludicrous contrast to other works in his 

 recent manner ; in 1845 ' St. Gregory teaching his chant to the Roman 

 Boys'; 1846, a portrait of his friend Pugin; in 1847 'Our Saviour 

 subject to his Parents at Nazareth ' one of the most characteristic of 

 his works; and in 1848 'St. John the Baptist reproving Herod,' also a 

 work of great po*rer. 



Thus far Mr. Herbert's pictures for the lost six years had been all 

 of a similar order. In 1S46 he had been elected an academician, and 

 now, 1848, he was called upon by the Royal Commission to assist in 

 decorating the new palace at Westminster a circumstance which gave 

 a somewhat new direction to his pencil, and perhaps a not unuseful 

 diversion to his thoughts. To him was assigned the painting of 

 certain spaces in the Poet's Hall, with subjects from Shakspere's 

 'King Lear.' In 1849 he exhibited at the Academy his study in oil 

 for the first of them ' Lear disinheriting Cordelia,' a second a large 

 and highly finished oil picture, ' Lear recovering his Reason, at tho 

 sight of Cordelia,' was exhibited in 1855 : both were works of a high 

 order of merit. So well satisfied were the commissioners with his 

 first frescoes, that they have since directed him to execute nine fresco 

 paintings on the walls of the Peers' Robing Room, the subjects being 

 taken from the Old Testament a commission honourable to all con- 

 cerned, and one which affords to the painter an opportunity he is well 

 qualified to turn to profit. - The pictures are to represent ' Moses 

 bringing down the Tables of the Law to the Israelites ;' ' The Fall of 

 Man ;' ' Man's Condemnation to Labour ;' ' The Judgment of Solomon;' 

 ' The Visit of the Queen of Sheba ;' ' The Building of the Temple ;' 

 'The Judgment of Daniel;' 'Daniel in the Lion's Den;' and 'The 

 Vision of Daniel.' Since his employment on the House of Lords, 

 Mr. Herbert has found time to paint but few works for the Academy 

 exhibitions. Besides those mentioned above his only contributions 

 have been 'The Outcast of the People' (1S49); 'Study for the Judg- 

 ment of Daniel,' and a ' Head of a Scribe ' both studies for the 

 frescoes in the Peers' Robing Room ; and a very peculiar portrait of 

 the great French painter Horace Vernet in 1855. 



Mr. Herbert's eldest son, AUTHOR JOHN HI:HIII;KT, contributed to 

 the Royal Academy Exhibition, 1855, a somewhat quaint but very 

 promising picture entitled ' Don Quixote's first impulse to lead the 

 life of a Knight-errant;' and to that of 1856 one of 'Philip IV. of 

 Spain knighting Velasquez," a work displaying greatly increased power ; 

 but unhappily the promise was cut short by the young artist's pre- 

 mature death of typhoid fever, at Muriac, in Auverguc, September loth, 

 1856, at the age of twenty-two. 



HERBERT, RIGHT HON. SIDNEY, M.P. for South Wilts, second 

 son of the eleventh Eurl of Pembroke, by a daughter of the late Count 

 Worouzow of Russia, was born in 1S10. He received his education 

 at Harrow and at Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated in classical 

 honours in 1831. He first entered public life in December 1832 as 

 member for the southern division of Wilts, for which he has continued 

 to sit without interruption down to the present time (October 1S5G). 

 His parliamentary career exhibits an apt illustration of the gradual 

 tendency of thinking minds to liberalise their political opinions, and to 

 abandon narrow prejudices for wider and more enlightened principles. 

 In 1834 he made his first speech in the House of Commons, when he 

 seconded a resolution for the exclusion of Dissenters from tho 

 University of Oxford. In 1838 he opposed the motion of Mr. Grots 

 in favour of tho ballot, and strenuously opposed all the measures of 

 the Melbourne ministry down to its fall in the year 1841, including the 

 motions on the affairs of Spain and on the opium trade and war with 



