38 LIFE OF WALTON, 



famous Edward lord Herbert of Cherbury . He was a 

 king's scholar at Westminster, and, after that, a fellow 

 of Trinity College, in Cambridge. In 1619, he was chos- 

 en university orator ; and, while in that station, studied 

 the modern languages, with a view to the office nf se* 

 cretary of state : but being of a constitution that indicated 

 a consumption, and withal of an ascetic turn of mind, he 

 gave up the thoughts of a court life, and entered into 

 holy orders. His first preferment in the church was a 

 prebend in the cathedral of Lincoln ; and Ins next and 

 last, the rectory of Bemerton, near Salisbury. About 

 1630, he married a near relation of the earl of Danby ; 

 and died about 1635, aged forty-two, without issue. 



His elder brother, lord Herbert of Cherbury, mentions 

 him in his own Life ; and gives his character in the 

 following words : " My brother George was so excellent 

 <c a scholar, that he was made the publick orator of the 

 a university in Cambridge: some of whose English 

 <c works are extant, which, though they be rare in their 

 cc kind, yet are far short of expressing those perfections 

 i( he had in the Greek and Latin tongues, and all di 

 ** vine and human literature. His life was most holy 

 <c and exemplary; insomuch that about Salisbury, 

 <e where he lived beneficed for many years, he was little 

 <c less than sainted : he was not exempt from passion and 

 <c choler, being infirmities to which all our race is sub- 



ject, but, that one excepted, without reproach in 

 actions." 



" ject 

 " his 



book, and the religious opinions of the author, I shall here take occasion 

 to mention a fact that I find related in a collection of periodical papers, 

 entitled the Weekly Miscellany, published in 1736, in two vols. 8vo. Lord 

 Herbert, of Cherbury, being dangerously ill, and apprehensive that his 

 end was approaching, sent for Dr. Jeremy Taylor, and signified a desire 

 of receiving the sacrament at his hands . the doctor objected to him the 

 tenets contained in his writings, particularly those wherein he asserts the 

 sufficiency and absolute perfection of natural religion, with a view to shew 

 that any extraordinary revelation is needless ; and exhorted him to retract 

 them ; but his lordship refusing, the doctor declared that he could not ad- 

 minister so holy and solemn a right to an unbeliever. 



The doctor upon this left him; and, conceiving hopes that his lordship's 

 sickness was not mortal, he wrote that discourse proving that the reli- 

 gion of Jesus Christ is from God which is printed in his Ductor Dubitam 

 tium, and has lately been republished by the truly reverend and learned 

 )r, Hurd, now [1784] bishop of Worcester. 



