The Life of the Rev. James Hervey
jy/fR. HERVEY was born at Hardingstone, a village about a mile from Northampton, on Feb. 26, 1713-14. His father was minister of the parish of Collingtree, within two miles of Hardingstone.
He received his early education at the free grammar-school of Northampton, where he attended for nearly ten years, learning the Latin and Greek languages; and would have made a much greater progress, if he had not been impeded by an odd whim of the master, who, it is said, would not suffer any of his boys iv LIFE OF IIERVEY.
to learn faster than his own son. At the age of seventeen he was entered of Lincoln-college, Oxford, and resided in the university about seven years, but without proceeding farther than his bachelor’s degree. His time, however, was not mispent. Besides a very considerable stock of learning which he accumulated here, he imbibed those habits of regularity and principles of piety, which gave a colour to his future life and writings, and made him one of the most useful and popular preachers of his time.
His liberality and independence of mind began to appear while at Oxford, where he had a small exhibition of twenty pounds a year. When his father, after he entered the church, urged him to take some curacy in or near Oxford, and to hold his exhibition, he would by no means comply, as he thought it unjust to detain it, after he was in orders, from some other person who might want it to further his education. He then, in 1736, left Oxford, and became his father’s curate, and afterwards went to London; but, after a short stay, accepted the curacy of Dummer, in
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Hampshire. Here he continued about a year, until he was invited to Stoke Abbey, in Devonshire, the seat of his worthy friend Paul Orchard, esq. with whom he lived upwards of two years. It was to this gentleman’s son that he dedicated the second volume of his Meditations.
From 1738 to 1743 he resided either at Stoke Abbey or at Biddeford; and during this period he planned, and probably wrote a considerable part of that very popular work which is now before the reader. An excursion to Kilkhampton, in Cornwall, occasioned him to lay the scene of his Meditations among the Tombs, in that church. In 1743 he returned to Weston- Favel, and officiated as curate to his father till the year 1750; when his health became so much impaired by his study and duty, that his friends conveyed him to London for change of air and scene. The purpose was not, however, answered; for he was seized in April 1752, with a severe illness, which nearly proved fatal. On his recovery, and his father’s death, which happened about the same time, he returned to Weston; where vi LIFE OF HERVEY.
he constantly resided during the remainder of his life, having accepted the two livings of Weston- Favel and Collingtree.
His labours, both in the ministerial office and in his study, were pursued by him as long as possible; but his constitution, originally weak, and greatly injured by his late illness, soon exhibited the usual symptoms and concomitants of rapid decay, attended with a hectic cough, which proved fatal on Christmas-day 1758, in the forty-fourth year of his age. His death, throughout the district over which he extended his services, was deemed a public loss. By the poor it was felt to be so in every sense. In the exercise of his charity he was unbounded, but he was also judicious. He chose to clothe the poor, rather than to give them money; and intrusted some friend to buy linen, coarse cloth, stockings, shoes, &c. for them at the best hand, alleging that the poor could not purchase on such good terms what they wanted, at the little shops, and with small sums of money. But when money promised to be serviceable to a family distressed by sickness or misfortune, he would frequently give
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five or more guineas at a time, taking care that 1 1 should not be known whence the money came. It would be endless to enumerate the personal virtues of Mr. Hervey: he was the father, the instructor, the guide, and the friend of all to whom kindness or instruction was necessary. His piety was constant, ardent, and sincere: it appears in all his writings, but not in them more than in his life and conversation. He viewed every object of art or nature only as it made part of the great Creator’s works, and was ever ready to give such a turn to common incidents or appearances as might suggest some pious reflection or useful hint.
His learning was of the superior kind. Greek was almost as familiar to him as his native language. He was master of the classics, and in the younger part of his life had written some verses which showed no contemptible genius for poetry. His Meditations are, indeed, a species of poetical composition, as far as respects imagery and fancy. He had, too, a critical knowledge of the Hebrew tongue, and delighted in those studies which tend to explain the sacred text.
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His writings are very numerous. They consist principally of the Meditations; Theron and Aspasio; a Collection of Letters; Sermons and Tracts; and some controversial pieces. By some he has been accounted a Calvinist, and by others supposed to lean to Antinomianism, But Calvinism, with superficial thinkers, is reproached, although it enters deeply into the principles of the Church of England; and as to Antinomianism, no man could be more free from it, or contend more earnestly for holiness of life, which he placed on what he thought its true foundation — not the poor and imperfect attempts of a variable and inconstant being, but the aid of power from on high.
Of all his works none has enjoyed a more extensive and uninterrupted share of popularity than his Meditations. They were first published in 1748, and have since gone through so many editions in England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, that it is no longer possible to take account of them. It has always been one of the first books placed by serious parents in the hands of their children, because it unites the reflections of piety with much of the plea-LIFE OF IIERVEY. i*
sures of imagination. Those glittering passages, which more mature critics object to, have been no inconsiderable means of guiding the taste in infancy; and some who have made a distinguished figure as writers, have acknowledged, that they owed not a little to the early perusal of Hervey’s Meditations. Yet this with the author was but a secondary intention. That which lay nearest his heart, and what he has executed with most success, was to lead the young mind to serious reflection, and to render the visible objects of nature subservient to the honour and praise of the Creator.
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