Here George Herbert, "the most
devotional of the English poets," was rector from 1630 to 1632, having
been presented to the living by Charles I. Herbert was born at
Montgomery Castle, near the Shropshire border, and came of a noble
family, being a brother of the statesman and writer Lord Herbert of
Chirbury, one of the Shropshire Herberts. He restored the parsonage at
Bemerton, but did not live long to enjoy it. He seems to have had a
presentiment that some one else would have the benefit of it, as he
caused the following lines to be engraved above the chimneypiece in the
hall, giving good advice to the rector who was to follow him:
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 thee store
And then my labour's not lost.
It was here that he composed most of his hymns, and here he died at what
his friend Izaak Walton described in 1632 as "the good and more pleasant
than healthful parsonage." A tablet inscribed "G.H. 1633" was all that
marked the resting-place of "the sweetest singer that ever sang God's
praise." Bemerton, we thought, was a lovely little village, and there
was a fig-tree and a medlar-tree in the rectory garden, which Herbert
himself was said to have planted with his own hands.
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