98 IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 



was ordained in 1626. He was a friend of 

 Bacon. His poems were published under the 

 title of The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private 

 Ejaculations" The book was issued to the 

 public in 1633, and read by King Charles I. 

 when in prison. Walton, in his Life of Herbert, 

 says his verses were thought so worthy to be 

 preserved, "that Dr Duport, the learned Dean of 

 Peterborough, had collected and caused many of 

 them to be printed, as an honourable memorial 

 of his friend Mr George Herbert, and the cause 

 he undertook." Richard Baxter loved Herbert's 

 poetry. A writer in the Times newspaper of the 

 1st of August 1902 makes the following excellent 

 remarks upon the poems : — 



"Widely as Herbert is read for the sake of 

 his piety, we doubt whether he is reckoned at his 

 full value. The temptation is to stop short at 

 his conceits ; to take them for all he has to offer, 

 and to smile or close the book according to the 

 reader's taste and knowledge. These conceits are 

 not of the essence ; they are the accidents of the 

 age, and in particular, perhaps, of the influence 

 of his mother's friend, Donne. Beneath them lies 

 subtle and piercing thought, masterly insight into 

 the spiritual nature, rare tenderness, a delight in 

 things of beauty that his asceticism cannot conceal, 

 and technical attainments of the highest order." 

 Herbert wrote a prose sequel to The Temple as 



