It is gratifying to see that some of your correspondents are taking, an
interest in the "worthy, lowly, and lovely" (as Isaac Walton called him)
Mr. George Herbert (Vol. ii., pp. 103. 414.). It may tend to increase that
interest, if I send you a note I made a few years ago, when I visited
Bemerton, and had the pleasure of officiating within the walls of that
celebrated little church. The rector kindly showed me the whole Parsonage
House; the parts rebuilt by Herbert were traceable; but the inscription set
up by him on that occasion is not there, nor had it been found, viz.:
"TO MY SUCCESSOR.
"If thou chance for to find,
A new house to thy mind,
And built without thy cost;
Be good to the poor,
As God gives the store,
And then my labour's not lost."
It may truly be said to stand near the chapel (as his biographer calls it),
being distant only the width of the road, thirty-four feet, which in
Herbert's time was forty feet, as the building shows. On the south is a
grass-plat sloping down to the river, whence is a beautiful view of Sarum
Cathedral in the distance. A very aged fig-tree grows against the end of
the house, and a medlar in the garden, both, traditionally, planted by
Herbert.
The whole length and breadth of the church is forty-five feet by eighteen.
The south and west windows are of the date called Decorated, say 1300. They
are two-light windows, and worthy of imitation. The east window is modern.
The walls have much new brickwork and brick buttresses, after the manner
recommended in certain _Hints to Churchwardens_, Lond. 1825. A little
square western turret contains an ancient bell of the fourteenth century
(diameter, twenty-four inches), the daily sound of which used to charm the
ploughmen from their work, that they "might offer their devotions to God
with him."
"Note, it was a saying of his 'That his time spent in prayer and
cathedral music elevated his soul, and was his heaven upon
earth.'"--WALTON.
The doorway is Jacobean, as is the chest or parish coffer, and also the
pulpit canopy; the old sittings had long been removed. The font is
circular, of early English date, lined with lead, seventeen inches
diameter, by ten inches deep. The walls were (1841) very dilapidated.
It cannot but be a surprise to every admirer of George Herbert and to all
visitors to this highly favoured spot, to find no monument whatever to the
memory of that bright example of an English parish priest. This fact need
surely only to be made known to insure ample funds for rebuilding the
little church, and "beautifying" it in all things as Herbert would desire
(he once did it "at his own cost"), retaining, if I may be allowed to
suggest, the decorated windows, with the font and bell, which, from my
Notes and Recollections, seem to be all that remains of what he must have
so often looked upon and cherished.
From the register I was permitted to extract this entry:
"Mr. George Herbert, Esq., Parson, of Ffoughlston and Bemerton, was
buried 3 day of March, 1632."
The _locus in quo_ is by this still left doubtful. May I, in conclusion,
add a quotation from Isaac Walton:
"He lived and died like a saint, unspotted from the world, full of alms
deeds, full of humility, and all the examples of a virtuous life. 'I
wish (if God shall be so pleased) that I may be so happy as to die like
him.'"