Yea, what by men is done, or fuffered,
Either for God, or else for one another,
Though in itself it be much blemished
With many imperfections, which smother,

And drown, the worth, and weight of it; yet, fall What will, or can, love makes amends for all.

Deep,

Love doth unite, and knit, both make, and keep
Things one together, which were otherwise,
Or would be both diverse, and distant.
High, long, and broad, or whatsoever fize
Eternity is of, or happiness,

Love comprehends it all, be 't more or less.

Give me this threefold cord of graces then,
Faith, hope, and love, let them poffefs mine heart,
And gladly I'll refign to other men

All I can claim by nature or by art.

To mount a foul, and make it still stand stable, These are alone Engines incomparable.

HERBERT is a true poet, but a poet fui generis, the

G. never fym

pathy with the mind and character of the man. To appreciate this volume, it is not enough that the reader poffeffes a cultivated judgment, claffical tafte, or even poetic fenfibility, unless he be likewise a Chriftian, and both a zealous and an orthodox, both a devout and a devotional, Chriftian. But even this will not quite fuffice. He must be an affectionate and dutiful child of the Church, and from habit, conviction, and a conftitutional predifpofition to ceremonioufness, in piety as in manners, find her forms and ordinances aids of religion, not fources of formality; for religion is the element in which he lives, and the region in which he moves.

The Church, fay rather, the Churchmen of England under the first two Stuarts, have been charged with a yearning after the Romish fopperies and even the Papiftic ufurpations, but we shall decide more correctly, as well as more charitably, if for the Romish and Papiftic we fubftitute the Patriftic leaven. There even was (natural enough from their diftinguished learning, and knowledge of ecclefiaftical antiquities) an overrating of the Church and of the Fathers, for the firft five or even fix centuries; the lines on the Egyptian monks, "Holy Macarius and great Anthony" [p. 202] fupply a striking inftance and illuftration of this.

P. 11, laft ftanza.

I do not underftand this ftanza.

A A

P. 39. My flesh began unto my foul in pain.' Either a mifprint, or a noticeable idiom of the word 'began? Yes! and a very beautiful idiom it is ;—the first colloquy or address of the flesh.

P. 44. "With an exact and most particular truft, &c. I find few hiftorical facts fo difficult of solution as the continuance, in Proteftantifm, of this anti-Scriptural superstition.

P. 52. This verse marks that,' &c. The spiritual unity of the Bible=the order and connexion of organic forms, in which the unity of life is shown, though as widely dispersed in the world of the mere fight as the text.

P. 52. Then, as dispersed herbs do watch a potion.' Some mifprint.

P. 85. A box where,' &c. Neft.

P. 90. Distinguished.' I understand this but imperfectly. Diftinguished-they form an island? and the next lines refer perhaps to the then belief that all fruits grow and are nourished by water? but then how is the afcending fap our cleanlinefs?"

66

P. 138. But he doth bid us take his blood for wine.' Nay, the contrary; take wine to be blood, and the blood of a man who died 1800 years ago. This is the faith which even the Church of England demands; for Consubstantiation only adds a mystery to that of Transubstantiation, which it implies. P. 173. The Flower.' A delicious poem.

P. 173. The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.'

Epitritus primus + Dactyl + Trochee + a long monofyllable, which, together with the pause intervening between it and the preceding trochee, equals JU U2 form a pleafing variety in the Pentameter Iambic with rhymes. Ex. gr.

cer -3

The late past frōfts | trībutes of | pleāsure | brīng. N.B. First, the difference between 51 — and an amphimaand this not always or neceffarily arising out of the latter being one word. It may even confist of three words: yet the effect be the fame. It is the pause that makes the difference. Secondly, the expediency if not neceffity that the first syllable both of the Dactyl and the Trochee should be short by quantity, and only long by force of accent or pofition-the Epitrite being true lengths. Whether the last fyllable be long or fhort, the force of the rhymes renders indifferent.

P. 173. fuch thing.

P. 179.

'As if there were no

fuch cold thing. Had been no

"That choice,' &c. Their.

P. 182. P. 199. 'That they in merit fhall excel.' I should not have expected from Herbert so open an avowal of Romanism in the article of merit. In the fame spirit is boly Macarius and great Anthony, p. 202.*

E'en in my enemies' fight.' Foemen's.

P. 286. Although it be of touch." Tuch rhyming to much, from the German tuch, cloth ;-I never met with it before, as an English word. So I find platt for foliage in Stanley's Hift. of Philosophy, p. 22.

P. 301. Though bishops without presbyteries many.' An inftance of proving too much.

P. 302. To several perfons,' &c.

Functions of times, but not perfons, of neceffity? Ex. Bishop to Archbishop.

P. 304. That he loves God, or heaven, or happiness.' Equally unthinking and uncharitable ;-I approve of them;

*The Rev. Dr. Blifs has kindly furnished the following judicious remark, and which is proved to be correct, as the word is printed heare' in the first edition (1633). He says, "Let me take this opportunity of mentioning what a very learned and able friend pointed out on this note. The fact is, Coleridge has been misled by an error of the prefs.

What others mean to do, I know not well,
Yet I here tell, &c. &c.

fhould be bear tell. The fenfe is then obvious, and Herbert is not made to do that which he was the last man in the world to have done, namely, to avow 'Romanism in the article of merit;' on the contrary, he says, although I know not the intention of others, yet I am told that there are who will plead their freedom from fin and the excellence of their own deeds-not fo with me, when my account is called for, so far from laying claim to any merit, I shall at once tender the New Testament, by which we learn that Christ hath taken upon himself our fins. Herbert does not avow the article of merit; he hears that fome do, but refolves that to decline.'"