A Further Echo of George Herbert in Edward Benlowes’ Poetry

Scholars have identified a number of allusions to or echoes of George Herbert in the poetry of Edward Benlowes. Elsie Duncan-Jones first noted some of these in Benlowes' major work Theophila, Or Loves Sacrifice , many further ones from the same work were identified by Robert H. Ray and Richard F. Kennedy. Hitherto unnoticed, however, is a playful adaptation of the concluding line of Herbert's "The Size" in a much earlier Benlowes poem: his manuscript funeral elegy on Lady Anne Rich. "The Size" concludes with this word-play on "heaven/haven." In the opening section of Benlowes' elegy he recalls a dangerous sea-voyage he took with John Gauden. In Herbert's poem, the earthly sufferings are transcended, and the physical safety of a marine haven is supplanted by "heaven." Benlowes inverts Herbert's word-play and "heaven" becomes the vehicle of a metaphor in which physical safety is the tenor.