A Well-Tuned Heart

A road accident made parish priest George Herbert late for his musical evening, but he was not a bit sorry.

1630-33

King Charles I 1625-1649

Introduction

Welshman and poet George Herbert was a country clergyman in Bemerton near Salisbury. Quiet, sensitive, and not much enamoured of the cold new Protestantism, his ministered gently to his parish until his death in 1633 at the age of just 39. Izaak Walton told this story as an illustration of the kind of man he was.

by Izaak Walton 1593-1683

In another walk to Salisbury, he saw a poor man with a poorer horse, that was fallen under his load: they were both in distress, and needed present help; which Mr Herbert perceiving, put off his canonical coat, and helped the poor man to unload, and after to load, his horse. The poor man blessed him for it, and he blessed the poor man; and was so like the Good Samaritan,* that he gave him money to refresh both himself and his horse; and told him, “That if he loved himself he should be merciful to his beast.”

Thus he left the poor man: and at his coming to his musical friends at Salisbury, they began to wonder that Mr George Herbert, which used to be so trim and clean, came into that company so soiled and discomposed: but he told them the occasion.

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* A reference to one of the parables of Jesus, in Luke 10.

* See A Change of Heart, in which William Wilberforce also had a run-in with a carter on the road.

Précis

On a walk to Salisbury for an evening of music, country clergyman George Herbert stumbled across a waggon that had shed its load. He doffed his coat, helped the carter reload the waggon, and gave him money towards a meal for himself and his horse. All this exertion meant that on reaching his destination, Herbert was not looking his best.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

How did Herbert get dirty?

Suggestion

By helping a man reload his cart.

Clay Lane The Copybook