Izaak Walton says that on the Sunday before his death Herbert rose up suddenly from his bed, called for one of his instruments, tuned it, and sang this verse: “Thus he sung on earth such hymns and anthems as the angels and he ... now sing in Heaven.” The bells, the sunshine after storm, the elm trees, and the memory of that pious poet, put me into what was perhaps an unconscious imitation of a religious humour. And in that humour, repeating the verses with a not wholly sham unction, I rode away from Bemerton. The Other Man, however, overtook me, and upset the humour. For he repeated in his turn, with unction exaggerated to an incredibly ridiculous degree, the sonnet on Sin which comes next to that on Nature in Herbert’s “Temple,”—
“Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round.
Parents first season us: then schoolmasters
Deliver us to laws; they send us bound
To rules of reason, holy messengers,
Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin,
Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in,
Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,