HERBERT, SIR THOMAS (1606-82 ), English traveller and author, born at York in 1606, became a commoner of Jesus college, Oxford, in 1621, but afterwards removed to Cambridge. In 1627 he joined the suite of Sir Dodmore Cotton, then starting as ambassador for Persia with Sir Robert Shirley. Sailing in March they visited the Cape, Madagascar, Goa and Surat; landing at Gambrun (Jan. 1 o, 16 2 7-28) , they travelled inland to Ashraf and thence to Kazvin, where both Cotton and Shirley died, and whence Herbert made extensive travels in the Persian Hinterland, visiting Kashan, Bagdad, etc. On his return voyage he touched at Ceylon, the Coromandel coast, Mauritius and St. Helena. He reached England in 1629, travelled in Europe in 163o-31, married in 1632 and retired from court in 1634. After this he resided on his Tin tern estate and elsewhere till the Civil War, siding with the parlia ment till his appointment to attend on the king in 1646. He was rewarded with a baronetcy at the Restoration (166o). He died at Petergate house, York, on March 1, 1682.
Herbert's chief work is the Description of the Persian Monarchy now beinge: the Orientall Indyes, Iles and other parts of the Greater Asia and Africk (1634), reissued with additions, etc., in 1638 as Some Yeares Travels into Africa and Asia the Great (also into divers parts of Asia and A f rique) ; a third edition followed in 1664, and a fourth in 1677. Among its illustrations are remark able sketches of the dodo, cuneiform inscriptions and Persepolis.