Widely recognized as an influential philosopher because of his seminal tract on deism, De Veritate (1624), Edward Herbert has nevertheless remained a poet known primarily by association: as the older brother of poet-divine George Herbert and as an imitator of John Donne's secular Metaphysical poetry. Critics disagree about the merit of Edward Herbert's poetry, some troubled by its sometimes perplexing syntax and peculiar diction, others by its impersonal abstractness and lack of engaging imagery. Indeed, Herbert at times appears more concerned with metaphysics than with aesthetics. G. C. Moore Smith, editor of the standard edition (1923) of Herbert's poetry, disagrees, however, and steadfastly contends that "in poetic feeling and art, Edward Herbert soars above his brother George." Admittedly, the corpus of Herbert's poetry includes works of uneven quality, but Herbert's persistently abstract and philosophical mode, with individualistic and often iconoclastic perspectives, gives his poetry a distinct voice amid the Metaphysical...