Chapter I: W., A.M. Oxon (3)

The plenteous evils of frail life fill the old:
Their wasted limbs the loose skin in dry folds
Doth hang about: their joints are numb'd, and through
Their veins, not blood, but rheums and waters flow.
Their trembling bodies with a staff they stay,
Nor do they breathe, but sadly sigh all day.
Thoughts tire their hearts, to them their very mind
Is a disease; their eyes no sleep can find.

3. [MIMNERMUS.]

Against the virtuous man we all make head,
And hate him while he lives, but praise him dead.

4. [INCERTI.]

Long life, oppress'd with many woes,
Meets more, the further still it goes.

5. [JUVENAL. SATIRE X. 278-286.]

What greater good had deck'd great Pompey's crown
Than death, if in his honours fully blown,
And mature glories he had died? those piles
Of huge success, loud fame, and lofty styles
Built in his active youth, long lazy life
Saw quite demolish'd by ambitious strife.
He lived to wear the weak and melting snow
Of luckless age, where garlands seldom grow,
But by repining Fate torn from the head
Which wore them once, are on another shed.

6. [MENANDER. FRAGM. CXXVIII.]

Whom God doth take care for, and love,
He dies young here, to live above.

7. [INCERTI.]

Sickness and death, you are but sluggish things,
And cannot reach a heart that hath got wings.

From _Primitive Holiness, set forth in the Life of Blessed Paulinus_
(1654).

1. [AUSONIUS. EPIST. XXIV. 115-16.]

Let me not weep to see thy ravish'd house
All sad and silent, without lord or spouse,
And all those vast dominions once thine own
Torn 'twixt a hundred slaves to me unknown.

2. [AUSONIUS. EPIST. XXIII. 30-1; XXV. 5-9, 14, 17.]

How could that paper sent,
That luckless paper, merit thy contempt?
Ev'n foe to foe--though furiously--replies,
And the defied his enemy defies.
Amidst the swords and wounds, there's a salute,
Rocks answer man, and though hard are not mute.
Nature made nothing dumb, nothing unkind:
The trees and leaves speak trembling to the wind.
If thou dost fear discoveries, and the blot
Of my love, Tanaquil shall know it not.

3. [PAULINUS. CARM. XI. 1-5; X. 189-92.]

Obdurate still and tongue-tied, you accuse
--Though yours is ever vocal--my dull muse;
You blame my lazy, lurking life, and add
I scorn your love, a calumny most sad;
Then tell me, that I fear my wife, and dart
Harsh, cutting words against my dearest heart.
Leave, learned father, leave this bitter course,
My studies are not turn'd unto the worse;
I am not mad, nor idle, nor deny
Your great deserts, and my debt, nor have I
A wife like Tanaquil, as wildly you
Object, but a Lucretia, chaste and true.

4. [PAULINUS. CARM. XXXI. 581-2, 585-90, 601-2, 607-12.]

This pledge of your joint love, to heaven now fled,
With honey-combs and milk of life is fed.
Or with the Bethlem babes--whom Herod's rage
Kill'd in their tender, happy, holy age--
Doth walk the groves of Paradise, and make
Garlands, which those young martyrs from him take.
With these his eyes on the mild Lamb are fix'd,
A virgin-child with virgin-infants mix'd.
Such is my Celsus too, who soon as given,
Was taken back--on the eighth day--to heaven
To whom at Alcala I sadly gave
Amongst the martyrs' tombs a little grave.
He now with yours--gone both the blessed way--
Amongst the trees of life doth smile and play;
And this one drop of our mix'd blood may be
A light for my Therasia, and for me.

5. [AUSONIUS. EPIST. XXV. 50, 56-7, 60-2.]

Sweet Paulinus, and is thy nature turn'd?
Have I so long in vain thy absence mourn'd?
Wilt thou, my glory, and great Rome's delight,
The Senate's prop, their oracle, and light,
In Bilbilis and Calagurris dwell,
Changing thy ivory-chair for a dark cell?
Wilt bury there thy purple, and contemn
All the great honours of thy noble stem?

6. [PAULINUS. CARM. X. 110-331.]

Shall I believe you can make me return,
Who pour your fruitless prayers when you mourn,
Not to your Maker? Who can hear you cry,
But to the fabled nymphs of Castaly?
You never shall by such false gods bring me
Either to Rome, or to your company.
As for those former things you once did know,
And which you still call mine, I freely now
Confess, I am not he, whom you knew then;
I have died since, and have been born again.
Nor dare I think my sage instructor can
Believe it error, for redeemed man
To serve his great Redeemer. I grieve not
But glory so to err. Let the wise knot
Of worldlings call me fool; I slight their noise,
And hear my God approving of my choice.
Man is but glass, a building of no trust,
A moving shade, and, without Christ, mere dust.
His choice in life concerns the chooser much:
For when he dies, his good or ill--just such
As here it was--goes with him hence, and stays
Still by him, his strict judge in the last days.
These serious thoughts take up my soul, and I,
While yet 'tis daylight, fix my busy eye
Upon His sacred rules, life's precious sum
Who in the twilight of the world shall come
To judge the lofty looks, and show mankind
The diff'rence 'twixt the ill and well inclin'd.
This second coming of the world's great King
Makes my heart tremble, and doth timely bring
A saving care into my watchful soul,
Lest in that day all vitiated and foul
I should be found--that day, Time's utmost line,
When all shall perish but what is divine;
When the great trumpet's mighty blast shall shake
The earth's foundations, till the hard rocks quake
And melt like piles of snow; when lightnings move
Like hail, and the white thrones are set above:
That day, when sent in glory by the Father,
The Prince of Life His blest elect shall gather;
Millions of angels round about Him flying,
While all the kindreds of the Earth are crying;
And He enthron'd upon the clouds shall give
His last just sentence, who must die, who live.
This is the fear, this is the saving care
That makes me leave false honours, and that share
Which fell to me of this frail world, lest by
A frequent use of present pleasures I
Should quite forget the future, and let in
Foul atheism, or some presumptuous sin.
Now by their loss I have secur'd my life,
And bought my peace ev'n with the cause of strife.
I live to Him Who gave me life and breath,
And without fear expect the hour of death.
If you like this, bid joy to my rich state,
If not, leave me to Christ at any rate.

7. [PAULINUS.]

And is the bargain thought too dear,
To give for heaven our frail subsistence here?
To change our mortal with immortal homes,
And purchase the bright stars with darksome stones?
Behold! my God--a rate great as His breath!--
On the sad cross bought me with bitter death,
Did put on flesh, and suffer'd for our good,
For ours--vile slaves!--the loss of His dear blood.

8. [EPITAPH ON MARCELLINA.]

Life, Marcellina, leaving thy fair frame,
Thou didst contemn those tombs of costly fame,
Built by thy Roman ancestors, and liest
At Milan, where great Ambrose sleeps in Christ.
Hope, the dead's life, and faith, which never faints,
Made thee rest here, that thou mayst rise with saints.

9. [PAULINUS. VERSUS APUD EPIST. XXXII. 3.]

You that to wash your flesh and souls draw near,
Ponder these two examples set you here:
Great Martin shows the holy life, and white,
Paulinus to repentance doth invite;
Martin's pure, harmless life, took heaven by force,
Paulinus took it by tears and remorse;
Martin leads through victorious palms and flow'rs,
Paulinus leads you through the pools and show'rs;
You that are sinners, on Paulinus look,
You that are saints, great Martin is your book;
The first example bright and holy is,
The last, though sad and weeping, leads to bliss

10. [PAULINUS. VERSUS APUD EPIST. XXXII. 5.]

Here the great well-spring of wash'd souls with beams
Of living light quickens the lively streams;
The Dove descends, and stirs them with her wings,
So weds these waters to the upper springs.
They straight conceive; a new birth doth proceed
From the bright streams by an immortal seed.
O the rare love of God! sinners wash'd here
Come forth pure saints, all justified and clear.
So blest in death and life, man dies to sins,
And lives to God: sin dies, and life begins
To be reviv'd: old Adam falls away
And the new lives, born for eternal sway.

11. [PAULINUS. VERSUS APUD EPIST. XXXII. 12.]

Through pleasant green fields enter you the way
To bliss; and well through shades and blossoms may
The walks lead here, from whence directly lies
The good man's path to sacred Paradise.

12. [PAULINUS. VERSUS APUD EPIST. XXXII. 14.]

The painful cross with flowers and palms is crown'd,
Which prove, it springs; though all in blood 'tis drown'd;
The doves above it show with one consent,
Heaven opens only to the innocent.

13. [PAULINUS. CARM. XXVII. 387-92.]

You see what splendour through the spacious aisle,
As if the Church were glorified, doth smile.
The ivory-wrought beams seem to the sight
Engraven, while the carv'd roof looks curl'd and bright.
On brass hoops to the upmost vaults we tie
The hovering lamps, which nod and tremble by
The yielding cords; fresh oil doth still repair
The waving flames, vex'd with the fleeting air.

14. [PAULINUS. VERSUS APUD EPIST. XXXII. 17.]

The pains of Saints and Saints' rewards are twins,
The sad cross, and the crown which the cross wins.
Here Christ, the Prince both of the cross and crown,
Amongst fresh groves and lilies fully blown
Stands, a white Lamb bearing the purple cross:
White shows His pureness, red His blood's dear loss.
To ease His sorrows the chaste turtle sings,
And fans Him, sweating blood, with her bright wings;
While from a shining cloud the Father eyes
His Son's sad conflict with His enemies,
And on His blessed head lets gently down
Eternal glory made into a crown.
About Him stand two flocks of diff'ring notes,
One of white sheep, and one of speckled goats;
The first possess His right hand, and the last
Stand on His left; the spotted goats are cast
All into thick, deep shades, while from His right
The white sheep pass into a whiter light.

15. [PAULINUS.]

Those sacred days by tedious Time delay'd,
While the slow years' bright line about is laid,
I patiently expect, though much distrest
By busy longing and a love-sick breast.
I wish they may outshine all other days;
Or, when they come, so recompense delays
As to outlast the summer hours' bright length;
Or that fam'd day, when stopp'd by divine strength
The sun did tire the world with his long light,
Doubling men's labours, and adjourning night.
As the bright sky with stars, the field with flow'rs,
The years with diff'ring seasons, months and hours,
God hath distinguished and mark'd, so He
With sacred feasts did ease and beautify
The working days: because that mixture may
Make men--loth to be holy ev'ry day--
After long labours, with a freer will,
Adore their Maker, and keep mindful still
Of holiness, by keeping holy days:
For otherwise they would dislike the ways
Of piety as too severe. To cast
Old customs quite off, and from sin to fast
Is a great work. To run which way we will,
On plains is easy, not so up a hill.
Hence 'tis our good God--Who would all men bring
Under the covert of His saving wing--
Appointed at set times His solemn feasts,
That by mean services men might at least
Take hold of Christ as by the hem, and steal
Help from His lowest skirts, their souls to heal.
For the first step to heaven is to live well
All our life long, and each day to excel
In holiness; but since that tares are found
In the best corn, and thistles will confound
And prick my heart with vain cares, I will strive
To weed them out on feast-days, and so thrive
By handfuls, 'till I may full life obtain,
And not be swallow'd of eternal pain.

16. [PAULINUS (?). CARM. APP. I.]

Come, my true consort in my joys and care!
Let this uncertain and still wasting share
Of our frail life be giv'n to God. You see
How the swift days drive hence incessantly,
And the frail, drooping world--though still thought gay[69]--
In secret, slow consumption wears away.
All that we have pass from us, and once past
Return no more; like clouds, they seem to last,
And so delude loose, greedy minds. But where
Are now those trim deceits? to what dark sphere
Are all those false fires sunk, which once so shin'd,
They captivated souls, and rul'd mankind?
He that with fifty ploughs his lands did sow,
Will scarce be trusted for two oxen now;
His rich, loud coach, known to each crowded street,
Is sold, and he quite tir'd walks on his feet.
Merchants that--like the sun--their voyage made
From East to West, and by wholesale did trade,
Are now turn'd sculler-men, or sadly sweat
In a poor fisher's boat, with line and net.
Kingdoms and cities to a period tend;
Earth nothing hath, but what must have an end;
Mankind by plagues, distempers, dearth and war,
Tortures and prisons, die both near and far;
Fury and hate rage in each living breast,
Princes with princes, States with States contest;
An universal discord mads each land,
Peace is quite lost, the last times are at hand.
But were these days from the Last Day secure,
So that the world might for more years endure,
Yet we--like hirelings--should our term expect,
And on our day of death each day reflect.
For what--Therasia--doth it us avail
That spacious streams shall flow and never fail,
That aged forests hie to tire the winds,
And flow'rs each Spring return and keep their kinds!
Those still remain: but all our fathers died,
And we ourselves but for few days abide.
This short time then was not giv'n us in vain,
To whom Time dies, in which we dying gain,
But that in time eternal life should be
Our care, and endless rest our industry.
And yet this task, which the rebellious deem
Too harsh, who God's mild laws for chains esteem,
Suits with the meek and harmless heart so right
That 'tis all ease, all comfort and delight.
"To love our God with all our strength and will;
To covet nothing; to devise no ill
Against our neighbours; to procure or do
Nothing to others, which we would not to
Our very selves; not to revenge our wrong;
To be content with little, not to long
For wealth and greatness; to despise or jeer
No man, and if we be despised, to bear;
To feed the hungry; to hold fast our crown;
To take from others naught; to give our own,"
--These are His precepts: and--alas!--in these
What is so hard, but faith can do with ease?
He that the holy prophets doth believe,
And on God's words relies, words that still live
And cannot die; that in his heart hath writ
His Saviour's death and triumph, and doth yet
With constant care, admitting no neglect,
His second, dreadful coming still expect:
To such a liver earthy things are dead,
With Heav'n alone, and hopes of Heav'n, he's fed,
He is no vassal unto worldly trash,
Nor that black knowledge which pretends to wash,
But doth defile: a knowledge, by which men
With studied care lose Paradise again.
Commands and titles, the vain world's device,
With gold--the forward seed of sin and vice--
He never minds: his aim is far more high,
And stoops to nothing lower than the sky.
Nor grief, nor pleasures breed him any pain,
He nothing fears to lose, would nothing gain,
Whatever hath not God, he doth detest,
He lives to Christ, is dead to all the rest.
This Holy One sent hither from above
A virgin brought forth, shadow'd by the Dove;
His skin with stripes, with wicked hands His face
And with foul spittle soil'd and beaten was;
A crown of thorns His blessed head did wound.
Nails pierc'd His hands and feet, and He fast bound
Stuck to the painful Cross, where hang'd till dead,
With a cold spear His heart's dear blood was shed.
All this for man, for bad, ungrateful man,
The true God suffer'd! not that suff'rings can
Add to His glory aught, Who can receive
Access from nothing, Whom none can bereave
Of His all-fulness: but the blest design
Of His sad death was to save me from mine:
He dying bore my sins, and the third day
His early rising rais'd me from the clay.
To such great mercies what shall I prefer,
Or who from loving God shall me deter?
Burn me alive, with curious, skilful pain,
Cut up and search each warm and breathing vein;
When all is done, death brings a quick release,
And the poor mangled body sleeps in peace.
Hale me to prisons, shut me up in brass,
My still free soul from thence to God shall pass.
Banish or bind me, I can be nowhere
A stranger, nor alone; my God is there.
I fear not famine; how can he be said
To starve who feeds upon the Living Bread?
And yet this courage springs not from my store,
Christ gave it me, Who can give much, much more
I of myself can nothing dare or do,
He bids me fight, and makes me conquer too.
If--like great Abr'ham--I should have command
To leave my father's house and native land,
I would with joy to unknown regions run,
Bearing the banner of His blessed Son.
On worldly goods I will have no design,
But use my own, as if mine were not mine;
Wealth I'll not wonder at, nor greatness seek,
But choose--though laugh'd at--to be poor and meek.
In woe and wealth I'll keep the same staid mind,
Grief shall not break me, nor joys make me blind:
My dearest Jesus I'll still praise, and He
Shall with songs of deliv'rance compass me.
Then come, my faithful consort! join with me
In this good fight, and my true helper be;
Cheer me when sad, advise me when I stray,
Let us be each the other's guide and stay;
Be your lord's guardian: give joint aid and due,
Help him when fall'n, rise, when he helpeth you,
That so we may not only one flesh be,
But in one spirit and one will agree.

FOOTNOTES:

[69] The original has _gry_.

From _Hermetical Physic_: translated from Henry Nollius (1655).

1. [HORACE. EPIST. I. 1, 14-5.]

Where'er my fancy calls, there I go still,
Not sworn a slave to any master's will.

2. [INCERTI.]

There's need, betwixt his clothes, his bed and board,
Of all that Earth and Sea and Air afford.

3. [INCERTI.]

With restless cares they waste the night and day,
To compass great estates, and get the sway.

4. [JUVENAL. SATIRE XV. 160-164.]

Whenever did, I pray,
One lion take another's life away?
Or in what forest did a wild boar by
The tusks of his own fellow wounded die?
Tigers with tigers never have debate;
And bears among themselves abstain from hate

5. [JUVENAL. SATIRE XV. 169-171.]

[Some] esteem it no point of revenge to kill,
Unless they may drink up the blood they spill:
Who do believe that hands, and hearts, and heads,
Are but a kind of meat, etc.

6. [INCERTI.]

The strongest body and the best
Cannot subsist without due rest.

From Thomas Powell's _Cerbyd Fechydwiaeth_ (1657).

1. [THE LORD'S PRAYER.]

Y Pader, pan trier, Duw-tri a'i dododd
O'i dadol ddaioni,
Yn faen-gwaddan i bob gweddi,
Ac athrawieth a wnaeth i ni.

Ol[or] Vaughan.

From Thomas Powell's _Humane Industry_ (1661).

1. [CAMPION. EPIGR. I. 151.]

Time's-Teller wrought into a little round,
Which count'st the days and nights with watchful sound;
How--when once fix'd--with busy wheels dost thou
The twice twelve useful hours drive on and show;
And where I go, go'st with me without strife,
The monitor and ease of fleeting life.

2. [GROTIUS. LIB. EPIGR. II.]

The untired strength of never-ceasing motion,
A restless rest, a toilless operation,
Heaven then had given it, when wise Nature did
To frail and solid things one place forbid;
And parting both, made the moon's orb their bound,
Damning to various change this lower ground.
But now what Nature hath those laws transgress'd,
Giving to Earth a work that ne'er will rest?
Though 'tis most strange, yet--great King--'tis not new:
This work was seen and found before, in you.
In you, whose mind--though still calm--never sleeps,
But through your realms one constant motion keeps:
As your mind--then--was Heaven's type first, so this
But the taught anti-type of your mind is.

3. [JUVENAL. SATIRE III.]

How oft have we beheld wild beasts appear
From broken gulfs of earth, upon some part
Of sand that did not sink! How often there
And thence, did golden boughs o'er-saffron'd start!
Nor only saw we monsters of the wood,
But I have seen sea-calves whom bears withstood;
And such a kind of beast as might be named
A horse, but in most foul proportion framed.

4. [MARTIAL. EPIGR. I. 105.]

That the fierce pard doth at a beck
Yield to the yoke his spotted neck,
And the untoward tiger bear
The whip with a submissive fear;
That stags do foam with golden bits.
And the rough Libyc bear submits
Unto the ring; that a wild boar
Like that which Calydon of yore
Brought forth, doth mildly put his head
In purple muzzles to be led;
That the vast, strong-limb'd buffles draw
The British chariots with taught awe,
And the elephant with courtship falls
To any dance the negro calls:
Would not you think such sports as those
Were shows which the gods did expose?
But these are nothing, when we see
That hares by lions hunted be, etc.

NOTES TO VOL. II.

POEMS WITH THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL ENGLISHED.

Most of the poems in this volume of 1646 appear to belong to Vaughan's sojourn as a law-student in London: that, however, on the Priory Grove must have been written after he had retired to Wales on the outbreak of the Civil War.

P. 5. To my Ingenious Friend, R. W.

It is probable that this is the R. W. of the Elegy in _Olor Iscanus_ (p. 79). On the attempts to identify him, see the note to that poem. The _Poems_ of 1646 must have been published while his fate was still unknown.

_Pints i' th' Moon or Star._ These are names of rooms, rather than of inns. _Cf._ Shakespeare, 1 _Henry IV._, ii. 4, 30, "Anon, anon, sir! Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon."

P. 6. _Randolph._

The works of Randolph here referred to are his comedy _The Jealous Lovers_, his pastoral _Amyntas; or, The Impossible Dowry_, and the following verses _On the Death of a Nightingale_:--

"Go, solitary wood, and henceforth be
Acquainted with no other harmony
Than the pie's chattering, or the shrieking note
Of boding owls, and fatal raven's throat.
Thy sweetest chanter's dead, that warbled forth
Lays that might tempests calm, and still the north,
And call down angels from their glorious sphere,
To hear her songs, and learn new anthems there.
That soul is fled, and to Elysium gone,
Thou a poor desert left; go then and run.
Beg there to want a grove, and if she please
To sing again beneath thy shadowy trees,
The souls of happy lovers crowned with blisses
Shall flock about thee, and keep time with kisses."

P. 8. Les Amours.

Lines 22-24 are misprinted in the original; they there run:--

"O'er all the tomb a sudden spring:
If crimson flowers, whose drooping heads
Shall curtain o'er their mournful heads:"

P. 10. To Amoret.

The Amoret of these _Poems_ may or may not be the Etesia of _Thalia Rediviva_; and she may or may not have been the poet's first wife. _Cf._ _Introduction_ (vol. i, p. xxxiii).

_To her white bosom._ _Cf._ _Hamlet_, ii. 2, 113, where Hamlet addresses a letter to Ophelia, "in her excellent white bosom, these."

P. 12. Song.

The MS. variant readings to this and to two of the following poems are written in pencil on a copy of the _Poems_ in the British Museum, having the press-mark 12304, a 24. There is no indication of their author, or of the source from which they are taken.

P. 13. To Amoret.

_The vast ring._ _Cf._ _Silex Scintillans_ (vol. i., pp. 150, 284).

P. 18. _A Rhapsodis._

_The Globe Tavern._ This appears to have been near, or even a part of, the famous theatre. There exists a forged letter of George Peele's, in which it is mentioned as a resort of Shakespeare's, but there is no authentic allusion to it by name earlier than an entry in the registers of St. Saviour's, Southwark, for 1637. An "alehouse" is, however, alluded to in a ballad on the burning of the old Globe in 1613. (Rendle and Norman, _Inns of Old Southwark_, p. 326.)

_Tower-Wharf to Cymbeline and Lud_; that is, from the extreme east to the extreme west of the City. Statues of the mythical kings of Britain were set up in 1260 in niches on Ludgate. They were renewed when the gate was rebuilt in 1586. It stood near the Church of St. Martin's, Ludgate.

_That made his horse a senator_; _i.e._ Caligula. _Cf._ Suetonius Vit. Caligulae, 55: "_Incitato equo, cuius causa pridie circenses, ne inquietaretur, viciniae silentium per milites indicere solebat, praeter equile marmoreum et praesepe eburneum praeterque purpurea tegumenta ac monilia e gemmis, domum etiam et familiam et suppellectilem dedit, quo lautius nomine eius invitati acciperentur; consulatum quoque traditur destinasse._"

_he that ... crossed Rubicon_, _i.e._ Julius Caesar.

P. 21. To Amoret.

The third stanza is closely modelled on Donne; _cf._ Introduction (vol. i., p. xxi). The curious reader may detect many other traces of Donne's manner of writing in these _Poems_ of 1646.

P. 23. To Amoret Weeping.

_Eat orphans ... patent it._ The ambition of a courtier under the Stuarts was to get the guardianship of a royal ward, or the grant of a monopoly in some article of necessity. Dr. Grosart quotes from Tustin's _Observations; or, Conscience Emblem_ (1646): "By me, John Tustin, who hath been plundered and spoiled by the patentees for white and grey soap, eighteen several times, to his utter undoing."

P. 26. Upon the Priory Grove, his usual Retirement.

Mr. Beeching, in the _Introduction_ (vol. i., p. xxiii), states following Dr. Grosart, that the Priory Grove was "the home of a famous poetess of the day, Katherine Phillips, better known as 'the Matchless Orinda.'" Vaughan was certainly a friend of Mrs. Phillips (_cf._ pp. 100, 164, 211, with notes), whose husband, Colonel James Phillips, lived at the Priory, Cardigan; but she was not married until 1647.

Miss Morgan points out that there is still a wood on the outskirts of Brecon which is known as the Priory Grove. It is near the church and remains of a Benedictine Priory on the Honddu.

P. 28. Juvenal's Tenth Satire Translated.

This translation has a separate title-page; _cf._ the _Bibliography_ (vol. ii., p. lvii).

OLOR ISCANUS.

This volume, published in 1651, contains, besides the poems here reprinted, some prose translations from Plutarch and other writers. The separate title-pages of these are given in the _Bibliography_ (vol. ii., p. lviii): the incidental scraps of verse in them appear on pp. 291-293 of the present volume. The edition of 1651 has, besides the printed title-page, an engraved title-page by the well-known engraver, who may or may not have been a kinsman of the poet, Robert Vaughan. It represents a swan on a river shaded by trees. The _Olor Iscanus_ was reissued with a fresh title-page in 1679.

P. 52. Ad Posteros.

On the account of Vaughan's life here given, see the _Biographical note_ (vol. ii., p. xxx).

_Herbertus._ Matthew Herbert, Rector of Llangattock. Cf. the poem to him on p. 158, with its note.

_Castae fidaeque ... parentis_, _i.e._, perhaps, his mother the Church.

_Nec manus atra fuit._ Dr. Grosart omitted the _fuit_, together with the final _s_ of the preceding line. In this he is naively followed by Mr. J. R. Tutin, in his selection of Vaughan's _Secular Poems_.

P. 53. To the ... Lord Kildare Digby.

Lord Kildare Digby was the eldest son of Robert, first Baron Digby, in the peerage of Ireland. He succeeded to the title in 1642. He was about 21 at the time of this dedication, and died in 1661 (Dr. Grosart)

The date of the dedication is 17th of December, 1647. A volume was therefore probably prepared for publication at that date, and afterwards, as we learn from the publisher's preface, "condemned to obscurity," and given surreptitiously to the world. At the same time, as Miss Morgan points out to me, some of the poems in _Olor Iscanus_ must be of later date than 1647. The death of Charles I. is apparently alluded to in the lines _Ad Posteros_, and certainly in the "since Charles his reign" of the _Invitation to Brecknock_ (p. 74). This event took place on January 30th, 1648/9. The _Epitaph upon the Lady Elizabeth_ (p. 102), again, cannot be earlier than her death on September 8th, 1650.

P. 54. The Publisher to the Reader.

_Augustus vindex._ The lives of Vergil attributed to Donatus and others relate that the poet, in his will, directed that his unfinished _Aeneid_ should be burnt. Augustus, however, interfered and ordered its publication.

P. 57. Commendatory Verses.

These are signed by _T. Powell, Oxoniensis_; _I. Rowlandson, Oxoniensis_; and _Eugenius Philalethes, Oxoniensis_. Thomas Powell, one of the Powells of Cantreff, in Breconshire, was born in 1608. He matriculated from Jesus College on January 25th, 1627/8, took his B.A. in 1629 and his M.A. in 1632, and became a Fellow of the College. He was Rector of Cantreff and Vicar of Brecknock, but was ejected by the Commissioners for the Propagation of the Gospel and went abroad. At the Restoration he returned to Cantreff and was made D.D. and Canon of St. David's. But for his death, on the 31st December, 1660, he would probably have become Bishop of Bristol. He was the author of several books of no great importance. He appears to have been a close friend of Vaughan, who addresses various poems to him, and contributed others to his books. See _Olor Iscanus_, pp. 97, 159; _Thalia Rediviva_, pp. 178, 200, 267; _Fragments and Translations_, pp. 323-326. Powell, in return, wrote commendatory poems to both the _Olor Iscanus_ and the _Thalia Rediviva_.

_I. Rowlandson._ This may have been John Rowlandson, of Queen's College, Oxford, who matriculated the 17th October, 1634, aged 17, took his B.A. in 1636, and his M.A. in 1639. Either he or his father, James Rowlandson, also of Queen's College, was sequestered by the Westminster Assembly to the vicarage of Battle, Sussex, in 1644. He left it shortly after and "returned to his benefice from whence he was before thence driven by the forces raised against the parliament." (_See_ Addl. MS. 15,669, f. 17). There was also another James Rowlandson, son of James Rowlandson, D.D., Canon of Windsor, who matriculated from Queen's College on the 9th November, 1632, aged 17, and took his B.A. in 1637.--G. G.

_Eugenius Philalethes._ The author's brother, Thomas Vaughan. See the _Biographical Note_ (vol. ii., p. xxxiii).

P. 39. _that lamentable nation_, _i.e._ the Scotch.

P. 61. Olor Iscanus.

_Ausonius._ The famous schoolmaster, rhetorician and courtier of the early fourth century, was born at Bordeaux. One of his most famous poems is the _Mosella_ (Idyll X), a description of the river and its fish.

_Castara_, Lucy, daughter of William Herbert, Lord Powys, and wife of the Worcestershire poet, William Habington, who celebrated her in his poems under that name. The _Castara_ was published in 1634.

_Sabrina_, the tutelar nymph of the Severn. _Cf._ the invocation of her in Milton's "Comus."

_May the evet and the toad._ This passage is imitated from W. Browne's _Britannia's Pastorals_, Bk. I., Song 2, II., 277 _sqq._:

"May never evet nor the toad
Within thy banks make their abode!
Taking thy journey from the sea,
May'st thou ne'er happen in thy way
On nitre or on brimstone mine,
To spoil thy taste! this spring of thine
Let it of nothing taste but earth,
And salt conceived, in their birth
Be ever fresh! Let no man dare
To spoil thy fish, make lock or ware;
But on thy margent still let dwell
Those flowers which have the sweetest smell.
And let the dust upon thy strand
Become like Tagus' golden sand.
Let as much good betide to thee,
As thou hast favour show'd to me."

G. G.

_flames that are ... canicular. Cf. A Dialogue between Sir Henry Wotton and Mr. Donne_ (Poems of John Donne, _Muse's Library_, Vol. I., p. 79):

"I'll never dig in quarry of a heart
To have no part,
Nor roast in fiery eyes, which always are
Canicular."

P. 65. The Charnel-house.

_Kelder_, a caldron; cf. J. Cleveland, _The King's Disguise_:

"The sun wears midnight; day is beetle-brow'd,
And lightning is in kelder of a cloud."

_A second fiat's care._ The allusion is to _Genesis_ i. 3: "And God said, Let there be light (in the Vulgate, _Fiat lux_), and there was light"; _cf._ Donne, _The Storm_ (_Muses' Library_, II. 4):

"Since all forms uniform deformity
Doth cover; so that we, except God say
Another _Fiat_, shall have no more day."

P. 70. To his Friend ----.

Miss Morgan thinks that the "friend" of this poem, whose name is shown by the first line to have been James, may perhaps be identified with the James Howell of the _Epistolae Ho-Elianae_. Howell had Vaughans amongst his cousins and correspondents, but these appear to have been of the Golden Grove family.

P. 73. To his retired Friend--an Invitation to Brecknock.

_her foul, polluted walls._ Miss Morgan quotes a statement from Grose's _Antiquities_ to the effect that the walls of Brecknock were pulled down by the inhabitants during the Civil War in order to avoid having to support a garrison or stand a siege.

_the Greek_, _i.e._ Hercules when in love with Omphale.

_Domitian-like_: _Cf._ Suetonius, _Vita Domitiani_, 3: "_Inter initia principatus cotidie secretum sibi horarum sumere solebat, nec quicquam amplius quam muscas captare ac stilo praeacuto configere._"

_Since Charles his reign._ This poem must date from after the execution of Charles I., on January 30, 1648/9. It would appear therefore that Vaughan was living in Brecknock and not at Newton about the time that the _Olor Iscanus_ was published.

P. 77. Monsieur Gombauld.

The writer referred to is John Ogier de Gombauld (1567-1666). His prose tale of _Endymion_ was translated by Richard Hurst in 1637. _Ismena_ and _Diophania_ who was metamorphosed into a myrtle, are characters in the story. _Periardes_ is a hill in Armenia whence the Euphrates takes its course.

P. 79. An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. W., slain in the late unfortunate differences at Routon Heath, near Chester.

The battle of Routon, or Rowton, Heath took place on September 24, 1645. The Royalist forces, under Charles I. and Sir Marmaduke Langdale, advancing to raise the siege of Chester, were met and routed by the Parliamentarians under Poyntz. The contemporary pamphlets give a long list of the prisoners taken at Routon Heath, but name hardly any of those slain. It is therefore difficult to say who R. W., evidently a dear friend of Vaughan's, may have been. He appears to have been missing for a year before he was finally given up. From lines 25-27 we learn that he was a young man of only twenty. The most likely suggestion for his identification seems to me that of Mr. C. H. Firth, who points out to me that the name of one Roger Wood occurs in the list of Catholics who fell in the King's service as having been slain at Chester. Miss Southall (_Songs of Siluria_, 1890, p. 124) suggests that he may have been either Richard Williams, a nephew of Sir Henry Williams, of Gwernyfed, who died unmarried, or else a son of Richard Winter, of Llangoed. He might also, I think, have been one of Vaughan's wife's family, the Wises, and possibly also a Walbeoffe. A reference to the Walbeoffe pedigree in the note to p. 189 will show that there was a Robert Walbeoffe, brother of C. W. Miss Morgan thinks that he is a generation too old, and that the unnamed son of C. W., who, according to his tombstone, did not survive him, may have been a Robert, and the R. W. in question. On the question whether Vaughan was himself present at Routon Heath, _see_ the _Biographical Note_ (vol. ii., p. xxviii).

P. 83. Upon a Cloak lent him by Mr. J. Ridsley.

I do not know who Mr. Ridsley was. On the references to Vaughan's "juggling fate of soldiery" in this poem, _see_ the _Biographical Note_ (vol. ii., p. xxviii).

_craggy Biston, and the fatal Dee._ Chester stands, of course, on the Dee, which is "fatal" as the scene of disasters to the Royalist cause. Dr. Grosart explains Biston as "Bishton (or Bishopstone) in Monmouthshire," and adds, "'Craggie Biston' refers, no doubt, to certain caves there. The Poet's school-boy rambles from Llangattock doubtless included Bishton." I think that Biston is clearly Beeston Castle, one of the outlying defences of Chester, which played a considerable part in the siege. It surrendered on November 5, 1645, and the small garrison was permitted to march to Denbigh (J. R. Phillips, _The Civil War in Wales and the Marshes_, vol. i., p. 343).

_Micro-cosmography_, the world represented on a small scale in man. Vaughan means that he had as many lines on him as a map.

_Speed's Old Britons._ John Speed (1555-1629) published his _History of Great Britain_ in 1614.

_King Harry's Chapel at Westminster_, with its tombs, was already one of the sights of London.

_Brownist._ The Brownists were the religious followers of Robert Browne (c. 1550-c. 1633); they were afterwards known as Independents or Congregationalists.

P. 86. Upon Mr. Fletcher's Plays.

The first folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's _Comedies and Tragedies_ was published in 1647. Vaughan's lines are not, however, amongst the commendatory verses there given.

_Field's or Swansted's overthrow._ Nathaniel Field and Eliard Swanston, who appears to be meant by Swansted, were well-known actors. They were both members of the King's Company about 1633.

P. 90. Upon the Poems and Plays of the ever-memorable Mr. William Cartwright.

This was printed, together with verses by Tho. Vaughan and many other writers, in William Cartwright's _Comedies, Tragi-comedies, with other Poems_, 1651.

P. 94. An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. Hall, slain at Pontefract, 1648.

Miss Southall thinks that the subject of this elegy may have been a son of Richard Hall, of High Meadow, in the Forest of Dean, co. Gloucester. These Halls were connected with the Winters, a Breconshire family. Mr. C. H. Firth ingeniously suggests to me that for R. Hall we should read R. Hall[ifax], and points out that a Robert Hallyfax was one of the garrison at the first siege of Pontefract in 1645. He may have been at the second siege also. (R. Holmes, _Sieges of Pontefract_, p. 20.)

P. 97. To my learned Friend, Mr. T. Powell, upon his Translation of Malvezzi's "Christian Politician."

The book referred to is _The Pourtract of the Politicke Christian-Favourite_. By Marquesse Virgilio Malvezzi, 1647. This is a translation of _Il Ritratto del Privato Politico Christiano_, published at Bologna in 1635. It does not contain Vaughan's verses, and no translator's name is given. The preface of another translation from Malvezzi, the _Stoa Triumphans_ (1651), is, however, signed "T. P."

P. 99. To my worthy Friend, Master T. Lewes.

Some of the lines in this poem are borrowed from Horace's verses, _Ad Thaliarcham_ (Book I., Ode 9):

"Vides, ut alta stet nive candida
Soracte, nec iam sustineant onus
Sylvae laborantes, geluque
Flumina constiterint acuto?

* * * * *

Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quaerere;
Quam sors dierum cunque debit; lucro
Appone."

G. G.

Dr. Grosart thinks that T. Lewes was "probably of Maes-mawr, opposite Newton, on the south side of the Usk." Miss Southall identifies him with Thomas Lewis, incumbent in 1635 of Llanfigan, near Llansantffread. He was expelled from his living, but returned to it at the Restoration.

P. 100. To the most excellently accomplished Mrs. K. Philips.

Katherine Philips, by birth Katherine Fowler, became the wife in 1647 of Colonel James Philips, of the Priory, Cardigan. She was a wit and poetess, and well-known to a large circle of friends as "the matchless Orinda." Each member of her coterie had a similar fantastic pseudonym, and it is possible that this may account for the Etesia and Timander, the Fida and Lysimachus, of Vaughan's poems. The poems of Orinda were surreptitiously published in 1664, and in an authorised version in 1667. They include her poem on Vaughan, afterwards prefixed to _Thalia Rediviva_ (cf. p. 169), but are not accompanied by the present verses nor by those to her editor in _Thalia Rediviva_ (p. 211).

_A Persian votary_--_i.e._, a Parsee, or fire-worshipper.

P. 102. An Epitaph upon the Lady Elizabeth, Second Daughter to his late Majesty.

Elizabeth, second daughter of Charles I., was born in 1635. She suffered from ill-health and grief after her father's execution, and died at Carisbrooke on September 8, 1650. This poem, therefore, like others in the volume, must be of later date than the dedication.

P. 104. To Sir William Davenant, upon his Gondibert.

Davenant's _Gondibert_ was first published in 1651. It does not contain Vaughan's verses.

_thy aged sire._ Is this an allusion to the story that Davenant was in reality the son of William Shakespeare?

_Birtha_, the heroine of _Gondibert_.

P. 119. Cupido [Cruci Affixus].

Another translation of Ausonius' poems was published by Thomas Stanley in 1649. There is nothing in the original corresponding to the last four lines of Vaughan's translation.

Ll. 89-94. The Latin is:

"Se quisque absolvere gestit,
Transferat ut proprias aliena in crimina culpas."

Vaughan's simile is borrowed from Donne's _Fourth Elegy_ (_Muses' Library_, I., 107):

"as a thief at bar is questioned there,
By all the men that have been robb'd that year."

P. 125. Translations from Boethius.

These translations are from the _De Consolatione Philosophiae_, a medley of prose and verse. Vaughan has translated all the verse in the first two books except the Metrum 3 of Book I. and Metrum 6 of Book II. The headings of Metra 7 and 8 of Book II. are given in error in _Olor Iscanus_ as Metra 6 and 7. Some further translations from Books III. and IV. will be found in _Thalia Rediviva_, pp. 224-235.

P. 144. Translations from Casimirus.

These translations are from the Polish poet Mathias Casimirus Sarbievius, or Sarbiewski (1595-1640). His Latin _Lyrics_ and _Epodes_, modelled on Horace, were published in 1625-1631. Sarbiewski was a Jesuit, and a complete edition of his poems was published by the Jesuits in 1892.

P. 158. Venerabili viro, praeceptori suo olim et semper colendissimo Magistro Mathaeo Herbert.

Matthew Herbert was Rector of Llangattock, and apparently acted as tutor to the young Vaughans. He is mentioned in the lines _Ad Posteros_ (p. 51). Thomas Vaughan also has two sets of Latin verses to him (Grosart, II., 349), and dedicated to him his _Man-Mouse taken in a Trap_ (1650). On July 19, 1655, he petitioned for the discharge of the sequestration on his rectory, which had been sequestered for the delinquency of the Earl of Worcester (_Cal. Proc. Ctee. for Compositions_, p. 1713). He died in 1660.

P. 159. Praestantissimo viro Thomae Poello in suum de Elementis Opticae Libellum.

The _Elementa Opticae_ appeared in 1649. It has no name on the title-page, but the preface is signed "T. P.," and dated 1649. It contains the present prefatory verses, together with some others, also in Latin, by Eugenius Philalethes (Thomas Vaughan).

THALIA REDIVIVA.

This volume, published in 1578, at a late date in Henry Vaughan's life, twenty-three years after the second part of _Silex Scintillans_, must have been written, at least in part, much earlier. The poem on _The King Disguised_, for instance, goes back to 1646. At the end of the volume, with a separate title-page (_cf. Bibliography_), come the Verse Remains of the poet's brother, Thomas Vaughan. This is the rarest of Vaughan's collections of poems. The copy once in Mr. Corser's collection, and now in the British Museum, was believed to be unique. It was used both by Lyte and Dr. Grosart. But Miss Morgan has come across two other copies, one in Mr. Locker-Lampson's library at Rowfant, the other in that of Mr. Joseph, at Brecon.

P. 163. The Epistle-Dedicatory.

Henry Somerset, third Marquis of Worcester, was created Duke of Beaufort in 1682. He was a distant kinsman of Vaughan's, whose great-great-grandfather, William Vaughan of Tretower, married Frances Somerset, granddaughter of Henry, Earl of Worcester. He was a firm adherent of the Stuarts, and refused to take the oath of allegiance to William III. (Dr. Grosart).

P. 164. Commendatory Verses.

These are signed by _Orinda_; _Tho. Powell, D.D._; _N. W., Ies. Coll., Oxon._; _I. W., A.M. Oxon._

On Orinda, _cf._ the note to p. 100, and on Dr. Powell, that to P. 57.

Mr. Firth suggests that N. W., of Jesus, probably a young man, who imitates Cowley's _Pindarics_, and does not claim any personal acquaintance with Vaughan, may be N[athaniel] W[illiams], son of Thomas Williams, of Swansea, who matriculated in 1672, or N[icholas] W[adham], of Rhydodyn, Carmarthen, who matriculated in 1669.