At both Westminster and Trinity College, Herbert showed himself to be a good student with a demeanor comparable to the angels, it appears. He then proceeded to study at Trinity College, Cambridge. On choirs at Westminster Abbey in general see Edward Pine, The Westminster Abbey Singers (London: Dennis Dobson, 1953). Smith, ed., John Donne: The Complete English Poems (London: Penguin Books, 1971), 105.Īs a child Herbert was tutored at home but he began attending the Westminster School in London when he was twelve, gaining proficiency in Latin and Greek, as well as in choral singing, for the students at the school provided music for liturgical services at Westminster Abbey, which was next door. 1-2): and of her mind, “In all her words to every hearer fit,/You may at revels, or at council sit” (ll. Magdalen Herbert and Donne’s friendship is commemorated in Donne’s poem “The Autumnal,” wherein he writes of Magdalen’s beauty: “No Spring, nor Summer Beauty hath such grace/As I have seen in one autumnal face” (ll. John Donne.” John Tobin, ed., George Herbert: The Complete English Poems (London: Penguin Books, 1991), 271. George Herbert’s biographer Izaak Walton writes, “her great and harmless wit, her cheerful gravity and her obliging behaviour gained her an acquaintance and friendship with most of any eminent worth or learning, that were at that time in or near that University and particularly with Mr. Moreover, she was decently well-connected, in that she ran a kind of literary and academic salon that is, she managed a room used for the reception of guests that became a gathering place of Oxford University professors and dons and literary figures, including the poet John Donne. Though his father died when he was only three years old, Herbert’s mother, Magdalen, took responsibility for the education of her children.

George Herbert was born on April 3, 1593, one of ten children.

Essay / Literature The Architecture of George Herbert’s Poetry

The agonie george herbert