Ruskin entertained a lifelong enthusiasm for Herbert 's work, claiming as early as 1840 that he admired Herbert 'above everything' and that he intended to memorize poems included in The Temple ( Works, 1.409). He confessed in Praeterita that the 'most innocent' of his childhood ambitions was to try to 'write like Hooker and George Herbert' ( Works, 35.14). Ruskin often quoted Herbert and briefly toyed with the idea of editing his works for publication ( Works, 1.466). In an appendix to Modern Painters III Ruskin expatiated on Herbert's influence on his own literary style and thought, although his greatest admiration was reserved for his conviction that Herbert embodied Protestantism 'in a perfectly central and deeply spiritual manner,'( Works, 35.344). In 1845 Ruskin had devoted several letters sent from Italy to his mother, Margaret Ruskin, to a comparison of Herbert and Bunyan, to the latter's disadvantage ( Works, 4.348-49).
Ruskin delivered a lecture at Oxford on 1 December 1874 as part of a series on "The Aesthetic and Mathematic Schools of Art in Florence" in which he asserted that 'Perfect Christianty is the Christianity of Sir Philip Sidney and George Herbert, not of John Knox or Calvin' (Works, 23.252).