were, as a royal gamekeeper, with sole power to destroy the royal game. In land enclosed without such authority the animals were, as in unenclosed land, wild beasts, feræ naturæ, and no action would lie against any one for killing them, but for trespass only. Of course harbingers could not 'dispark,' except as king's messengers sent with special mandate to that effect. But the thought that Death's harbingers are dispossessing the whole family of a man for new tenants, that is, for worms, naturally leads to the thought of new possession under altered tenure.

Line 9,' passe'=I passe not, exactly equivalent to let it pass [me], let it go by=I care not. So Cotgrave, 'je ne m'en soucie point.'

Line 26, canvas.' See previous Note on The Church Porch, st. xlv. 1. 6. Arras was the best kind of tapestry or woven hangings, which reached its perfection in the Gobelin tapestry. Canvas the painted cloths which, as cheaper, came to be used instead of arras-canvas painted with figures and moral sayings in prose and verse. Falstaff recommends them when the hostess says she will have to pawn her plate and tapestry [arras, &c.] to furnish him with money (2 King Henry IV., act ii. scene 1). And in As You Like It, act iii. scene 2, Orlando says, 'I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions;' and in Lucrece we have,

Who fears a sentence or an old man's saw,
Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe.'

Line 35, chalk the doore.' See Note and quotation on 1. 1. 149. Discipline, p. 205. See new Latin Poems in Vol. II. 150. The Invitation, p. 207. Line 8, define'=give an (ill) character to, by the qualities it dulls and the qualities it brings out. Cf. The Church Porch, st. vi.; and see Note on third glasse.' It would not be unaccordant with Herbert's style and the word-conceits of the time (as witness the same in Shakespeare) to suppose a kind of pun or double meaning intended, where 'define' would not only suggest define him by his then qualities, but also that his fineness or propriety peculiar to man is taken (de) away or from him-a sub-play also on 'finis.' Line 18, the fright'=frightfulness, terror.

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151. The Banquet, p. 208. Line 4, 'neatnesse.' 'Milton has the word in his sonnet to Mr. Lawrence:

"What neat repast shall feast in light and choice."' Willmott.

Line 25, 'pomanders.' See on 145, 1. 16. In both instances the accent is on the first syllable.

152. The Posie, p. 210. Lines 3, 4. From Genesis xxxii. 10. 153. A Parodie, p. 211. Used in the sense of the Greek verb, well defined by Jones in his Lexicon, as 'I cite the words of a poet, and apply them slightly changed to another purpose.' The original is a love-lyric by Donne (vol. ii. pp. 235-6. of our edition). After the first verse, however, Herbert diverges both as to words and sense. Cf. too Marvell's Parodia to Charles, after Horace (Works by us, vol. i. pp. 398-9).

154. The Elixir, p. 212. See our Essay for Archbishop Leighton's reference to this poem.

Line 7, prepossest' make Thee possest of it beforehand. 15, 'his tincture.' So in Williams мs. and the Bodleian, 1632-3 edition, and all the earlier save 1656 and 1674, which read 'this.' Unhappily Bell and Daldy's (1865, &c.) follows the misprint. His-its, as usual with Herbert. Nothing so mean with its (his) tincture (viz. 'for Thy sake') but will grow bright, &c.; i.e. by the admixed colouring or virtues of the ingredient 'for Thy sake.' Dr. Macdonald thus speaks of Herbert's use of the word tincture' here: 'The Elixir was an imagined liquid sought by the old physical investigators, in order that by its means they might turn every common metal into gold, a pursuit not quite so absurd as it has since appeared. They called this something, when regarded as a solid, the Philosopher's stone. In the poem it is also called a tincture' (Antiphon, p. 175). So too Dr. Donne's use of the word is pointed out by the same critic, as follows: As an individual specimen of the grotesque form holding a fine sense, regard for a moment the words, "He was all gold when He lay down, but rose

All tincture."

Which means that, entirely good when He died, He was something yet greater when He rose, for He had gained the power of making others good. The tincture intended here was a substance whose touch would turn the basest metal into gold' (Ibid. p. 124). Cf. our edition of VAUGHAN, i. 193. Thankful for Dr. Macdonald's all-too-few critical remarks, and speaking under correction, I rather think he is mistaken in making the Philosopher's stone, Elixir, and Tincture synonyms. The stone is the transmuting stone, as in last stanza. The Elixir is the elixir vitæ, that which refreshed and prolonged life. A Tincture, again, is neither one nor the other, but an admixture in VOL. I.

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painting, dyeing, chemistry, &c., where one part, the vehicle, receives the colour, or the properties or virtues of the other part, forming such a compound as is fitted for the use intended, or such as possesses or appears to possess the purer and subtler parts of the substance whose virtues are extracted. Hence, first in general usage it came to mean the effects of such admixture, and was equivalent to staining or colouring. Secondly, it was used sometimes in a low sense, as when it is said a man has a tincture of learning-meaning an outward colouring or staining. Thirdly, a tincture in the arts, medicine, or alchemy, represented something more refined than the original substance; and in this view what were called the tinctures of the metals were employed in the processes for obtaining transmutation and the philosopher's stone and elixir. Here in Herbert it appears to be used in the sense of purifying the baser material to which it was applied or with which it was incorporated.

157. Doom's-Day, p. 214. Line 22-and through the violence of the winds a friend may drown at sea. Herbert had no knowledge of unseaworthy ships that drown without the accessories of winds and waves.

Line 26-Relieve us in, or from, our state of decay. 158. Judgement, p. 216. Line 7, 'heare tell.' See our Essay for Coleridge's mistaken reading of this line, which originated in the misprint here' of 1674 and 1679 for 'heare.' G.

* The Editor very earnestly asks the Reader to correct these two inadvertencies: p. 56, 1. 34, put comma, not period, after them'; p. 158, 1. 40, place semicolon or colon=If they ['comforts'] did-At all times fall: a Herbertian ellipse. G.

END OF VOL. 1.

LONDON:

KOBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, FANCRAS ROAD, N.W.