The English Works of George Herbert Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 Excerpt: ...of plain, prudent, and useful Rules that that Country Parson that can spare 12 d. and yet wants it is scarce excusable." Herbert himself seems to sanction this second name, and to be ignorant of any other. He opens thirty-four of the thirty-seven chapters with the words The Country Parson, printed in capitals. And though throughout the book he uses the word priest as freely as he does pastor or minister, it nowhere has the prominence of The Country Parson. I suspect, therefore, the title A Priest to the Temple is a happy invention of Oley's. When he edited the book, six editions of The Temple were already in circulation. Apparently hoping that the popularity of the poems might help to float the prose, he emphasized the relation ship. Walton, however, and most modern writers have preferred the more exact designation. That Herbert intended publication is evident from his words in The Authour To The Reader, dated 1632. Why the book remained so long unpublished is unknown. One might suppose the delay due to a belief that so vivid a picture of a punctilious priest would be unwelcome and unsalable at a season of Puritan domination. But the time of its unopposed and successful issue was the culmination of the Puritan triumph, three years after the execution of the King, and a year before Cromwell became Protector. Oley's long first Preface, devoted more to abuse of Puritanism than to description of Herbert, seems to have aroused no hostility. The causes of delay must, therefore, have been of a private nature. There are two hardly reconcilable accounts of the history of the manuscript. Walton writes in 1670, "At the death of Mr. Herbert this Book fell into the hands of his friend, Mr. Woodnot; and he commended it into the trusty hands of Mr. Barnabas Oley...