take? 
  Such poor invention burns in their low mind
    Whose fire is wild, and doth not upward go
    To praise, and on thee, Lord, some ink bestow. 
  Open the bones, and you shall nothing find
   In the best face but filth; when, Lord, in Thee
   The beauty lies in the discovery. 
  G.H.

This was his resolution at the sending this letter to his dear Mother, about which time he was in the seventeenth year of his age:  and as he grew older, so he grew in learning, and more and more in favour both with God and man:  insomuch that, in this morning of that short day of his life, he seemed to be marked out for virtue, and to become the care of Heaven; for God still kept his soul in so holy a frame, that he may, and ought to be a pattern of virtue to all posterity, and especially to his brethren of the Clergy, of which the Reader may expect a more exact account in what will follow.

[Sidenote:  College honours]

I need not declare that he was a strict student, because, that he was so, there will be many testimonies in the future part of his life.  I shall therefore only tell, that he was made Minor Fellow in the year 1609, Bachelor of Arts in the year 1611; Major Fellow of the College, March 15th, 1615:  and that in that year he was also made Master of Arts, he being then in the 22nd year of his age; during all which time, all, or the greatest diversion from his study, was the practice of Music, in which he became a great master; and of which he would say, “That it did relieve his drooping spirits, compose his distracted thoughts, and raised his weary soul so far above earth, that it gave him an earnest of the joys of Heaven, before he possessed them.”  And it may be noticed, that from his first entrance into the College, the generous Dr. Nevil was a cherisher of his studies, and such a lover of his person, his behaviour, and the excellent endowments of his mind, that he took him often into his own company; by which he confirmed his native gentleness:  and if during his time he expressed any error, it was, that he kept himself too much retired, and at too great a distance with all his inferiors; and his clothes seemed to prove, that he put too great a value on his parts and parentage.

[Sidenote:  Orator]

This may be some account of his disposition, and of the employment of his time till he was Master of Arts, which was anno 1615, and in the year 1619 he was chosen Orator for the University.  His two precedent Orators were Sir Robert Naunton,[7] and Sir Francis Nethersole.[8] The first was not long after made Secretary of State, and Sir Francis, not very long after his being Orator, was made Secretary to the Lady Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.  In this place of Orator our George Herbert continued eight years; and managed it with as becoming and grave a gaiety, as any had ever before or since his time.  For “he had acquired great learning, and was blessed with a high fancy, a civil and sharp wit; and with a natural elegance, both in his behaviour, his tongue, and his pen.”  Of all which there might be very many particular evidences; but I will limit myself to the mention of but three.