James Hervey, like the Wesleys and Gambold, was the son of a country clergyman. He was born at Hardingstone, near Northampton, on the 26th of February, 1714; his father holding the two neighbouring livings of Weston-Favel and Collingtree. His ancestors appear to have been highly respectable. One of them was a judge; another had been member of Parliament for the town of Northampton; and the patronage of the above-mentioned livings had been, for many years, in the possession of the family.
Until the age of seven, Hervey was under the tuition of his mother. He then became a day-scholar in the free grammar school at Northampton, where he displayed great dexterity in the usual gymnastic exercises of boys like himself; and where, in the course of ten years, he learned enough of the Latin and Greek languages, to enable him to matriculate at the Oxford University. His progress, however, would probably have been greater than what it was, had it not been for the execrable conduct of his master, who determined that no one in the school should learn faster than his own stupid son. “Hervey himself told me,” says Mr. Ryland, “that his master never made but one remark in reading the Greek Testament, and that was a very foolish one.”
When only a boy, seventeen years of age, Hervey, full of youthful frolic, left the quietude of his father’s house for the animated scenes, the high advantages, and peculiar dangers of collegiate life. It was something infinitely more sacred than an accident which led to his admission into Lincoln College, where Wesley was a fellow and a tutor, and where, for the last two years, the Methodists had frequently held their meetings.[142]
The effects of the idleness enforced upon him at the Northampton free grammar school, were felt at Oxford. It was difficult for a sprightly and clever boy, like Hervey, to lay aside, all at once, the unstudious habits of the last ten years, and to devote himself, with unflagging earnestness, to the academical pursuits which now demanded his attention. For two years, from 1731 to 1733, he was idle at Oxford, as he had been obliged to be idle at Northampton. At the end of that time, he became acquainted with the Methodists, and distinguished himself, as they also did, by his devotion to the duties of religion, and to his collegiate studies. Wesley rendered him considerable assistance, especially by giving him instructions in the Hebrew language.
“Oxon, Sept. 2, 1736. I hereby thank you, as for all other favours, so especially for teaching me Hebrew.”
Thus wrote Hervey, at the age of twenty-two, when he had taken his degree of Bachelor of Arts, and was leaving the university to enter upon the duties of the Christian ministry. Eleven years afterwards, when in the midst of the fame arising from the recent publication of his “Meditations among the Tombs,” etc., he wrote to Wesley another letter:—
“Weston, near Northampton, December 30, 1747.
“Assure yourself, dear sir, that I can never forget the tender-hearted and generous Fellow of Lincoln, who condescended to take such compassionate notice of a poor under-graduate, whom almost everybody condemned; and when no man cared for my soul.”[143]
Here we pause, to take a glance at Hervey during his five years’ residence at Oxford. John Gambold, writing of him, while he was still at college, says:—
“He is a man of surprising greatness of soul; and, if you look for his virtues, you will not be able to discover them one by one, but you will see that he walks before God with a reverence and alacrity which includes them all.”[144]