The subject of our sketch was born at Montgomery Castle, in Wales, April 3, 1593. He was educated at Westminster school, and being a king’s scholar, was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, about the year 1608. He took both degrees in the Arts, and became a Fellow in the college. In 1619 he was chosen orator for the University, which post he held eight years. This office he is said to have filled with great honor to himself and to the University. And this was no wonder, for, to use the quaint language of his biographer, old Izaak Walton, “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 pew.” When that royal pedant, King James, published his “Basilicon Doron,” he sent a copy to the University of Cambridge. Herbert, in his capacity as orator, was called upon to acknowledge its receipt on behalf of the institution, which he did in a most elegant manner, by a letter written in Latin, closing with the following lines: Quid vaticanam Bodleianamque objicis hospes! Unicus est nobis Bibliotheca Liber. The excellence of its Latinity, and the complimentary allusions plentifully sprinkled through it, so pleased the vanity of the king, that he inquired of the Earl of Pembroke if he knew the learned scholar who penned the epistle. His answer was, “That he knew him very well, and that he was his kinsman; but that he loved him more for his learning and virtue, than that he was of his name and family.” At which answer the king smiled, and asked the earl leave that he might love him too, for he took him to be the jewel of that University. The complimentary remark of the king, coming to the ears of Herbert, no doubt first turned his thoughts toward court preferment; for about this time we find him applying himself to the study of the Italian, French, and Spanish languages, in which he is said to have attained great proficiency; and by means of the attainment of which, to use his own language, “he hoped to secure the place of Secretary of State, as his predecessor, Sir Francis Nethersole had done.” This, and the love of court conversation, with the laudable ambition to be something more than he then was, drew him often from Cambridge to attend his majesty, King James.