The purpose of this thesis is to examine the works of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury in order to assess the influence of his philoshophical thinking upon his poetry. The ideas and attitudes of this complex and apparently self-contradictory writer are studied both in their relation to one another and against the background of contemporary thought and literary practice. The first chapter includes a brief outline of Lord Herbert's life and introduces some of his most prominent ideas. The following three chapters examine in turn those of his works which may loosely be called 'historical': the autobiography, The Expedition to the Isle of Rhe, and The Life and Reign of King Henry VIII. Certain common themes and underlying assumptions are identified, particularly those associated with their author's central preoccupation: the nature of Truth. The fifth chapter provides an account of Herbert's chief philosophical writings, and begins to suggest the ways in which his complicated and often dauntingly abstract mode of thought both stimulates and informs his poetry as well as his other prose works. In the final chapter, where Herbert's poetry is studied more closely, these suggestions are developed in detail. They are found to have profound implications not only for the confident assessment of Life and Truth offered by Herbert's poems, but also for the whole body of his work insofar as it contributes to the emergence of a new and controversial view of the bearing of religion and philosophy upon human nature.