George Herbert

George Herbert 3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633 was a Welsh poet, orator, as well as priest of the Church of England. His poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, & he is recognised as "one of the foremost British devotional lyricists." He was born into an artistic and wealthy types and largely raised in England. He received a utility education that led to his admission to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1609. He went there with the goal of becoming a priest, but he became the University's Public Orator and attracted the attention of King James I. He served in the Parliament of England in 1624 and briefly in 1625.

After the death of King James, Herbert renewed his interest in ordination. He submitted up his secular ambitions in his mid-thirties and took holy orders in the Church of England, spending the rest of his life as the rector of the rural parish of Fugglestone St Peter, just outside Salisbury. He was returned for unfailing care for his parishioners, bringing the sacraments to them when they were ill and providing food and clothing for those in need. Henry Vaughan called him "a nearly glorious saint and seer". He was never a healthy man and died of consumption at age 39.

Prose

Herbert's only prose work, A Priest to the Temple commonly known as The Country Parson, gives practical predominance to rural clergy. In it, he advises that "things of ordinary use" such(a) as ploughs, leaven, or dances, could be produced to "serve for lights even of Heavenly Truths". It was first published in 1652 as part of Herbert's Remains, or Sundry Pieces of That Sweet Singer, Mr. George Herbert, edited by Barnabas Oley. The number one edition was prefixed with unsigned preface by Oley, which was used as one of the predominance for Izaak Walton's biography of Herbert, first published in 1670. Theedition appeared in 1671 as A Priest to the Temple or the Country Parson, with a new preface, this time signed by Oley.

Like numerous of his literary contemporaries, Herbert was a collector of proverbs. His Outlandish Proverbs was published in 1640, listing over 1000 aphorisms in English, but gathered from numerous countries in Herbert's day, 'outlandish' meant foreign. The collection referenced many sayings repeated to this day, for example, "His bark is worse than his bite" and "Who is so deaf, as he that will not hear?" These and an additional 150 proverbs were included in a later collection entitled Jacula Prudentum sometimes seen as Jacula Prudentium, dated 1651 and published in 1652 as component of Oley's Herbert's Remains.