And mend my rhyme.

It had been hardly worth the space to point out these, were not the
matter itself precious.

Before making further remark on George Herbert, let me present one of his
poems in which the oddity of the visual fancy is only equalled by the
beauty of the result.

THE PULLEY.

When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessing standing by,
"Let us," said he, "pour on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span."

So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed; then wisdom, honour, pleasure.
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
_Rest_ in the bottom lay.

"For if I should," said he,
"Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in nature, not the God of nature:
So both should losers be.

"Yet let him keep the rest--
But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that, at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast."

Is it not the story of the world written with the point of a diamond?

There can hardly be a doubt that his tendency to unnatural forms was
encouraged by the increase of respect to symbol and ceremony shown at
this period by some of the external powers of the church--Bishop Laud in
particular. Had all, however, who delight in symbols, a power, like
George Herbert's, of setting even within the horn-lanterns of the more
arbitrary of them, such a light of poetry and devotion that their dull
sides vanish in its piercing shine, and we forget the symbol utterly in
the truth which it cannot obscure, then indeed our part would be to take
and be thankful. But there never has been even a living true symbol which
the dulness of those who will see the truth only in the symbol has not
degraded into the very cockatrice-egg of sectarianism. The symbol is by
such always more or less idolized, and the light within more or less
patronized. If the truth, for the sake of which all symbols exist, were
indeed the delight of those who claim it, the sectarianism of the church
would vanish. But men on all sides call that _the truth_ which is but its
form or outward sign--material or verbal, true or arbitrary, it matters
not which--and hence come strifes and divisions.

Although George Herbert, however, could thus illumine all with his