VOL. II.

LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

		page
Table Of Contents		[vii]
Biographical Note		[xv]
Bibliography Of Henry Vaughan's Works		[lvii]
Poems With The Tenth Satire Of Juvenal Englished, 1646		[1]
	To all Ingenious Lovers of Poesy	[3]
	To my Ingenuous Friend, R. W.	[5]
	Les Amours	[8]
	To Amoret. The Sigh	[10]
	To his Friend, Being in Love	[11]
	Song: [Amyntas go, thou art Undone]	[12]
	To Amoret. Walking in a Starry Evening	[13]
	To Amoret Gone from him	[15]
	A Song to Amoret	[16]
	An Elegy	[17]
	A Rhapsodis	[18]
	To Amoret, of the Difference 'twixt him and other Lovers, >and what True Love is	[21]
	To Amoret Weeping	[23]
	Upon the Priory Grove, his Usual Retirement	[26]
	Juvenal's Tenth Satire Translated	[28]
Olor Iscanus. 1651.
	Ad Posteros	[51]
	To the ... Lord Kildare Digby	[53]
	The Publisher to the Reader	[55]
	Upon the Most Ingenious Pair of Twins, Eugenius Philalethes and the Author of those Poems [by T. Powell, Oxoniensis]	[57]
	To my Friend the Author upon these his Poems [by I. Rowlandson, Oxoniensis]	[58]
	Upon the following Poems [by Eugenius Philalethes, Oxoniensis]	[59]
	Olor Iscanus. To the River Isca	[61]
	The Charnel-House	[65]
	In Amicum Foeneratorem	[68]
	To his Friend ——	[70]
	To his Retired Friend, An Invitation to Brecknock	[73]
	Monsieur Gombauld	[77]
	An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. W., Slain in the late Unfortunate Differences at Routon Heath, near Chester, 1645	[79]
	Upon a Cloak lent him by Mr. J. Ridsley	[83]
	Upon Mr. Fletcher's Plays, Published 1647	[87]
	Upon the Poems and Plays of the Ever-Memorable Mr. William Cartwright	[90]
	To the Best and Most Accomplished Couple ——	[92]
	An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. Hall, Slain at Pontefract, 1648	[94]
	To my Learned Friend, Mr. T. Powell, upon his Translation of Malvezzi's Christian Politician	[97]
	To my Worthy Friend, Master T. Lewes	[99]
	To the Most Excellently Accomplished Mrs. K. Philips	[100]
	An Epitaph upon the Lady Elizabeth, Second Daughter to his Late Majesty	[102]
	To Sir William Davenant upon his Gondibert	[104]
Translations From Ovid.
	To his Fellow Poets at Rome, upon the Birthday of Bacchus	[106]
	To his Friends—after his Many Solicitations—Refusing to Petition Cæsar for his Releasement	[109]
	To his Inconstant Friend, Translated for the Use of all the Judases of this Touchstone Age	[112]
	To his Wife at Rome, when he was Sick	[115]
	Ausonii. Idyll vi. Cupido [Cruci Affixus]	[119]
	[Translations from Boethius]	[125]
	[Translations from Casimirus]	[144]
	The Praise of a Religious Life of Mathias Casimirus. In Answer to that Ode of Horace, Beatus Ille Qui Procul Negotiis.	[152]
	Ad Fluvium Iscam	[157]
	Venerabili Viro, Praeceptori Suo Olim Et Semper Colendissimo Magistro Mathaeo Herbert	[158]
	Praestantissimo Viro, Thomae Poëllo In Suum De Elementis Opticae Libellum	[159]
	Ad Echum	[160]
Thalia Rediviva. 1678.
	To ... Henry Lord Marquis and Earl of Worcester, &c. [by J. W.]	[163]
	To the Reader [by I. W.]	[167]
	To Mr. Henry Vaughan, the Silurist: upon These and his Former Poems. [By Orinda]	[169]
	Upon the Ingenious Poems of his Learned Friend, Mr. Henry Vaughan, the Silurist. [By Tho. Powell, D.D.]	[171]
	To the Ingenious Author of Thalia Rediviva [By N. W., Jes. Coll., Oxon.]	[172]
	To my Worthy Friend Mr. Henry Vaughan, the Silurist. [by I. W., A.M., Oxon.]	[175]
Choice Poems On Several Occasions.
	To his Learned Friend and Loyal Fellow-Prisoner, Thomas Powel of Cant[reff], Doctor of Divinity	[178]
	The King Disguised	[181]
	The Eagle	[184]
	To Mr. M. L. upon his Reduction of the Psalms into Method	[187]
	To the Pious Memory of C[harles] W[albeoffe] Esquire, Who Finished his Course Here, and Made his Entrance into Immortality upon the 13 of September, in the Year of Redemption, 1653	[189]
	In Zodiacum Marcelli Palingenii	[193]
	To Lysimachus, the Author Being with him in London	[195]
	On Sir Thomas Bodley's Library, the Author Being Then in Oxford	[197]
	The Importunate Fortune, Written to Dr. Powel, of Cant[reff]	[200]
	To I. Morgan of Whitehall, Esq., upon his Sudden Journey and Succeeding Marriage	[204]
	Fida; or, The Country Beauty. To Lysimachus	[206]
	Fida Forsaken	[209]
	To the Editor of the Matchless Orinda	[211]
	Upon Sudden News of the Much-Lamented Death of Judge Trevers	[213]
	To Etesia (for Timander); The First Sight	[214]
	The Character, to Etesia	[217]
	To Etesia Looking from her Casement at the Full Moon	[219]
	To Etesia Parted from Him, and Looking Back	[220]
	In Etesiam Lachrymantem	[221]
	To Etesia Going Beyond Sea	[222]
	Etesia Absent	[223]
Translations.
	Some Odes of the Excellent and Knowing [Anicius Manlius]	[224]
	Severinus [Boethius], Englished The Old Man of Verona, out of Claudian	[236]
	The Sphere of Archimedes, out of Claudian	[238]
	The Ph[oe]nix, out of Claudian	[239]
Pious Thoughts And Ejaculations.
	To his Books	[245]
	Looking Back	[247]
	The Shower	[248]
	Discipline	[249]
	The Eclipse	[250]
	Affliction	[251]
	Retirement	[252]
	The Revival	[254]
	The Day Spring	[255]
	The Recovery	[257]
	The Nativity	[259]
	The True Christmas	[261]
	The Request	[263]
	Jordanis	[265]
	Servilii Fatum, Sive Vindicta Divina	[266]
	De Salmone	[267]
	The World	[268]
	The Bee	[272]
	To Christian Religion	[276]
	Daphnis	[278]
Fragments And Translations. 1641-1661.		[287]
	From Eucharistica Oxoniensia (1641)	[289]
	From Of the Benefit we may get by our Enemies (1651)	[291]
	From Of the Diseases of the Mind and the Body (1651)	[293]
	From The Mount of Olives (1652)	[294]
	From Man in Glory (1652)	[298]
	From Flores Solitudinis (1654)	[299]
	From Of Temperance and Patience (1654)	[300]
	From Of Life and Death (1654)	[305]
	From Primitive Holiness (1654)	[307]
	From Hermetical Physic (1655)	[322]
	From Cerbyd Fechydwiaeth (1657)	[323]
	From Humane Industry (1661)	[324]
Notes To Vol. II		[329]
List Of First Lines		[355]

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

Recent inquiries into the life of Henry Vaughan have added but little to the information already contained in the memoirs of Mr. Lyte and Dr. Grosart. I have, however, been enabled to put together a few notes on this somewhat obscure subject, which may be taken as supplementary to Mr. Beeching's Introduction in Vol. I. It will be well to preface them by reprinting the account of Anthony à Wood, our chief original authority (Ath. Oxon., ed. Bliss, 1817, iv. 425):

"Henry Vaughan, called the Silurist from that part of Wales whose inhabitants were in ancient times called Silures, brother twin (but elder)[1] to Eugenius Philalethes, alias Tho. Vaughan ... was born at Newton S. Briget, lying on the river Isca, commonly called Uske, in Brecknockshire, educated in grammar learning in his own country for six years under one Matthew Herbert, a noted schoolmaster of his time, made his first entry into Jesus College in Mich. term 1638, aged 17 years; where spending two years or more in logicals under a noted tutor, was taken thence and designed by his father for the obtaining of some knowledge in the municipal laws at London. But soon after the civil war beginning, to the horror of all good men, he was sent for home, followed the pleasant paths of poetry and philology, became noted for his ingenuity, and published several specimens thereof, of which his Olor Iscanus was most valued. Afterwards applying his mind to the study of physic, became at length eminent in his own country for the practice thereof, and was esteemed by scholars an ingenious person, but proud and humorous.... [A list of Vaughan's works follows.] ... He died in the latter end of April (about the 29th day) in sixteen hundred ninety and five, and was buried in the parish church of Llansenfreid, about two miles distant from Brecknock, in Brecknockshire."

Anthony à Wood seems to have had some personal acquaintance with the poet, for in his account of Thomas Vaughan (Ath. Oxon. iii. 725) he says that "Olor Iscanus sent me a catalogue of his brother's works."

(a) THE VAUGHAN GENEALOGY.

Henry Vaughan's descent from the Vaughans of Tretower, County Brecon, has been accurately traced by Dr. Grosart and others. Little has been hitherto known about his immediate family. Theophilus Jones, in his History of Brecknockshire (1805-9), ii. 544, says: "Henry Vaughan died in 1695, aged 75,[2] leaving by his first wife two sons and three daughters, and by his second a daughter Rachel, who married John Turberville. His grand-daughter, Denys, or Dyenis, a corruption or abbreviation of Dyonisia, who was the daughter of Jenkin Jones of Trebinshwn, by Luce his wife, died single in 1780, aged 92, and is buried in the Priory churchyard.[3] What became of the remainder of his family, or whether they are extinct, I know not." To this statement Mr. Lyte added nothing but some errors, and Dr. Grosart nothing but the following hypothesis:—

"I am inclined to think that William Vaughan, censor of the College of Physicians, physician to William IIId., was one of the sons of our worthy mentioned by Mr. Lyte.... William Vaughan's 'age 20' in 1668 represents 1648 as the birth-date, and that fits in with the love-verse of the Poems of 1646."

Mr. G. T. Clark, in his Genealogies of Glamorgan, p. 240, gives the following account:—

Henry [Vaughan], ob. 1695, æt. 75, father by first wife of (1) a son, s. p.; (2) Lucy ob. 29 Aug., 1780, æt. 92,[4] m. Jenkin Jones of Trebinshwn. Their d. Denise Jones, died single, 1780, æt. 92. By second wife (3) Rachel, m. John Turberville; (4) Edmund; (5) Alexander, ob. 1622 [!], s. p.; (6) Catharine, m. Wm. Harris; (7) Mary, m. John Walbeoffe of Llanhamlach; (8) Elizabeth, m. John Arnold; (9) Frances, m. Wm. Johns of Cwm Dhu.

Unfortunately Mr. Clark is unable to remember his authority for this pedigree. I have found another, which differs from it in many ways, and is exceedingly interesting, inasmuch as it gives, for the first time, the names of Henry Vaughan's two wives, who appear to have been sisters. It is in a volume of Brecknockshire Pedigrees collected by the Welsh Herald, Hugh Thomas, and now amongst the Harleian MSS. Hugh Thomas was born and lived hard by Llansantffread, and must have known Vaughan and his family personally.

PEDIGREE OF VAUGHAN OF TRETOWER AND NEWTON

(From Harl. MS. 2289, f. 81.)

It will be observed that neither Mr. Clark's pedigree nor Hugh Thomas' agrees with the number of children assigned to each marriage by Theophilus Jones, and that neither of them helps out Dr. Grosart's hypothesis that Dr. William Vaughan was a son of the poet. Mr. W. B. Rye (Genealogist, iii. 33) has made it appear likely that this Dr. Vaughan, who married Anne Newton, of Romford in Essex, belonged to a branch of the Vaughans who had been settled in Romford since 1571.

I now proceed to confirm and illustrate the pedigrees by giving such further facts concerning Vaughan's immediate family as I have been able with Miss Morgan's assistance, to glean. I can trace no family of Wises in Staffordshire so early as the seventeenth century, nor any place in that county called Ritsonhall. It is possible that the R. W. of the Elegy (vol. ii., p. 79, note) may have been a Wise, and also that the connection between Vaughan and the Staffordshire Egertons may have been through this family (vol. ii., p. 294, note). Vaughan's first wife Catharine was probably dead before 1658. Thomas Vaughan, in his diary (MS. Sloane, 1741, f. 106 (b)), makes mention in that year of "eyewater made at the Pinner of Wakefield by my dear wife and my Sister Vaughan, who are both now with God." The second wife, Elizabeth, survived her husband. Administration of his goods was granted to her as the widow of an intestate in May, 1695.[5] The fine old manor-house at Newton was pulled down by a stupid land-agent within the memory of man, but a stone has been found built into the wall of a house half-a-mile from the site, bearing the inscription "HVE, 1689." This may well stand for H[enry and] E[lizabeth] V[aughan]. Newton probably passed to the poet's eldest son Thomas and his wife Frances.[6] Of their descendants, if any, we know nothing. There was a William Vaughan of Llansantffread who, later than 1714, married Mary Games of Tregaer in Llanfrynach. But this was probably a Vaughan not of Newton, but of Scethrog, also in Llansantffread (cf. footnote to p. xxv. below.) In 1733 William Vaughan was churchwarden of Llanfrynach. In 1740 William Vaughan of Tregaer was high sheriff of Brecknock. In 1760 Tregaer had passed by purchase to a Mr. Phillips. The registers of Llanfrynach from 1695-1756 are now lost. Lucy Greenleafe and her sister Catharine are quite obscure. One of them may have been the niece who was living with Thomas Vaughan when news came from the country in 1658 of his father's death (MS. Sloane, 1741, f. 89 (b)). Of the second family, Henry became Rector of Penderin in 1684, and vacated the living, probably through death, in 1713. A tablet to his memory hung during the present century in the church at Penderin, but when the church was restored the tablets were taken down and buried under the tiles of the chancel. His wife, a Walbeoffe of Talyllyn, belonged to the same family as the Walbeoffes of Llanhamlach (vol. ii., p. 189, note). The eldest girl, Grisill, married Roger Prosser. The Prossers were the younger branch of a Brecknockshire family who had become sadlers and mercers in Brecon. Many of their tombs are in the Priory church, but Theophilus Jones states that by his time they were extinct. Grisill Prosser was married a second time, in 1709, to Morgan Watkins, an attorney, and was buried on August 21, 1737. The second girl, Lucy, married Jenkin Jones of Trebinshwn, a cousin of Colonel Jenkin Jones, the local Parliamentary leader. Her daughter, Denise Jones, died single in 1780, as Theophilus Jones states, and her tombstone in the Priory church records her descent. The third girl, Rachel, married John Turberville, one of the Turbervilles of Llangattock, who claimed kinship with the Elizabethan poet of that name. The following pedigree shows the descendants of the three daughters of Henry Vaughan's second marriage, so far as they can be traced.[7]

It will be seen that I can give no evidence of the existence of any living descendants of Henry Vaughan.

Henry's grandfather, Thomas Vaughan, a younger son of Charles Vaughan of Tretower, seems to have come into the possession of Newton through his marriage with an heiress of the family of Gwillims or Williams. Newton, or in Welsh Trenewydd, is a farm of about 200 acres in the manor or lordship, and near the village of Scethrog, both being in the parish of Llansantffread and hundred of Penkelley. Williams is a common name in Breconshire, and I cannot trace the descent of Thomas Vaughan's wife. In the sixteenth century Newton belonged to a family who finally settled on the name of Howel, ap Howell or Powell.[8] The last of these is described on his tombstone in Llansantffread Church as "David Morgan David Howel, who married ... William of Llanhamoloch: and they had issue one daughter called Denys. He died 2nd June, 1598." Perhaps Newton passed in some way from David Morgan David Howel to his wife's family, and so to Thomas Vaughan, who married Denise Gwillims. Theophilus Jones (ii. 538) records that at a later date other Williams's, also apparently connected with Llanhamlach, were succeeded by other Vaughans at Scethrog, hard by Newton. His account is that David Williams, youngest brother of Sir Thomas Williams of Eltham, married a daughter of John Walbeoffe of Llanhamlach (cf. pedigree in vol. ii., p. 189, note), and bought Scethrog. Their son Charles died without issue, and the property passed to his wife Mary (Anne in Harl. MS., 2289, t. 39; cf. vol. ii., p. 204, note), the daughter of Morgan John of Wenallt.... She afterwards married Hugh Powell, clerk, parson of Llansanffread and precentor of St. David's, and her daughter Margaret married Charles Vaughan, son to Vaughan Morgan of Tretower.[9]

A trace of Thomas Vaughan is probably preserved in a window-head from the old church of Llansantffread, now destroyed, which has the inscription:—

T. V. may stand for T[homas] V[aughan].[10]

Of Henry Vaughan, the poet's father, very little is known. His name appears in a list of Breconshire magistrates for 1620. And we learn from Thomas Vaughan's diary in Sloane MS. 1741, f. 89 (b), that he died in August 1658.

The only additional definite fact which I can here record of the poet himself is that in 1691 he entered a caveat against any institution to the vicarage of Llandevalley, he claiming the next presentation under a grant from William Winter, Esq.[11] Mr. Rye has shown that the specimen of handwriting facsimiled by Dr. Grosart in his edition of Henry Vaughan's Works cannot possibly be the poet's. The signatures, however, on the margin of a copy of Olor Iscanus, once in the library of Lady Isham, might be genuine.

(b) VAUGHAN AND JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD.

Anthony à Wood's statement as to Vaughan's residence at Jesus College, Oxford, has been generally accepted, but I venture to doubt it on the following grounds:—

(1) Vaughan's name does not occur in the University Matriculation Register, although his brother Thomas Vaughan is duly entered as matriculating from Jesus on 14th December, 1638. The only College records which help us are the Battel-books for 1638 and 1640. That for 1639 is unfortunately missing. The Rev. Llewellyn Thomas kindly informs me that he can only trace one undergraduate Vaughan in the two books in question. The Christian name is not given, but I think that we must assume it to be Thomas.

(2) Vaughan does not describe himself on any title-page as of Jesus College; nor does he ever speak of himself as an Oxford man. This omission is the more noticeable as he would naturally have done so in the lines Ad Posteros (vol. ii., p. 51), and might well have done so in those On Sir Thomas Bodley's Library, the Author being then in Oxford (vol. ii., p. 197).

(3) Anthony à Wood cannot be depended on. He describes Thomas Carew, for instance, as of C.C.C., whereas he was a most certainly of Merton. And there was another Henry Vaughan of Jesus, who may have been confused with the poet. This Henry Vaughan, a son of John Vaughan of Cathlin, Merionethshire, matriculated at Oriel on July 4, 1634. He afterwards became a Scholar and Fellow of Jesus, taking his B.A. in 1637 and his M.A. in 1639. In 1643 he became vicar of Penteg, co. Monmouth, and died at Abergavenny in 1661. (Wood, Ath. Oxon., iii. 531; Foster, Alumni Oxon.)

(4) The only confirmation of Anthony à Wood's statement is the poem (vol. ii., p. 289) taken by Dr. Grosart from the Eucharistica Oxoniensia (1641), and signed "H. Vaughan, Jes. Col." If I am right, this may be by Vaughan's namesake. He has indeed another poem in that volume signed "Hen. Vaugh., Jes. Soc." but that is in Latin, and it is not unexampled for one man to contribute more than one poem, especially in different tongues, to such collections. Or it may be by Herbert Vaughan, who was a Gentleman-commoner of the College in 1641, and has, with Henry Vaughan the Fellow, verses in the προτέλεια Anglo Batava of the same year.

(c) VAUGHAN IN THE CIVIL WAR.

There are several passages which make it probable that Vaughan, like his brother Thomas, bore arms on the King's side in the Civil War. The most important is in the poem To Mr. Ridsley (vol. ii., p. 83), where he speaks of the time

"when this juggling fate
Of soldiery first seiz'd me."

In the same poem he mentions

"that day, when we
Left craggy Biston and the fatal Dee."

"Craggy Biston" is clearly Beeston Castle, one of the outlying defences of Chester, situated on a steep rock not very far east of the Dee. This castle was besieged on several occasions during the Civil War, especially during the campaign of 1645, when Chester was also besieged by the Parliamentarians.[12] Between Beeston and the Dee was fought, on September 24, 1645, the battle of Rowton Heath, after which Charles the First, who had hoped to raise the siege of Chester, was obliged to retreat to Denbigh.[13] The following lines from Vaughan's Elegy on Mr. R. W. (vol. ii., p. 79), who fell in that battle, seem to have been written by an eye-witness:

"O that day
When like the fathers in the fire and cloud
I miss'd thy face! I might in ev'ry crowd
See arms like thine, and men advance, but none
So near to lightning mov'd, nor so fell on.
Have you observ'd how soon the nimble eye
Brings th' object to conceit, and doth so vie
Performance with the soul, that you would swear
The act and apprehension both lodg'd there?
Just so mov'd he: like shot his active hand
Drew blood, ere well the foe could understand.
But here I lost him."

This appears to me pretty conclusive evidence; against it, however, must be set the passage on the Civil War in the autobiographical poem Ad Posteros (vol. ii., p. 51).

Vixi, divisos cum fregerat haeresis Anglos
Inter Tysiphonas presbyteri et populi.
His primum miseris per amoena furentibus arva
Prostravit sanctam vilis avena rosam.
Turbarunt fontes, et fusis pax perit undis,
Moestaque coelestes obruit umbra dies.
Duret ut integritas tamen, et pia gloria, partem
Me nullam in tanta strage fuisse, scias;
Credidimus nempe insonti vocem esse cruori,
Et vires quae post funera flere docent.
Hinc castae, fidaeque pati me more parentis
Commonui, et lachrimis fata levare meis;
Hinc nusquam horrendis violavi sacra procellis,
Nec mihi mens unquam, nec manus atra fuit.

The natural interpretation of this certainly is that Vaughan took no share in the disturbances of his time, except to grieve over them in retirement. Yet, in the first place, the lines may have been written before he took up arms in 1645, and, in the second, they may only mean that he had no share in bringing about the troubles of England, or in shedding innocent blood. Similarly when elsewhere, as in Abel's Blood (vol. i. p. 254), and in the prayer to be quoted below, he expresses horror of blood-guiltiness, this need not necessarily be taken as extending to the man who fights in a righteous cause.

Miss Morgan, I may add, suggests that Vaughan was at Rowton Heath, not as a combatant, but as a physician. The description which he gives of the battle reads like that of a man who saw it from some commanding point of view, but was not himself engaged. I think it not improbable that Vaughan was one of the garrison of Beeston Castle, which is described to me as "a sort of grand stand for the battle-field." Beeston Castle was invested by the Parliamentarians in the course of September 1645. On the approach of Charles the troops were drawn off on 19th September to Chester.[14] Charles no doubt took the opportunity to strengthen the garrison. After Rowton Heath Beeston Castle was again besieged, and on November 16th it surrendered. The garrison were allowed to march across the Dee to Denbigh. I think that this winter ride from the fallen fortress is the one described by Vaughan in the poem to Mr. Ridsley. It is the more probable that Vaughan took part in this campaign of 1645, in that Charles's force was largely recruited from Wales. After the battle of Naseby on June 14th, the King had marched through Wales, collecting such levies as he could. He was in Brecon on August 5th.[15] It is quite possible that Vaughan, whose kinsman Sir William Vaughan was in command of a brigade, volunteered on this occasion. From Brecon Charles marched through Radnorshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, and so to Oxford. In September he set out again, and after some delay at Hereford and Raglan, finally made for Chester.

It is just conceivable that it is to some occasion in this campaign that Vaughan refers when he calls Dr. Powell his "fellow-prisoner" (vol. ii., p. 178). The poet may even have been the Captain Vaughan whose name appears in the official list of prisoners taken at Rowton Heath.[16] Powell's name is not there, but then the list does not profess to be complete. But on the whole I think that Vaughan and Powell were only fellow-prisoners in the Platonic sense of imprisonment in the flesh, and even if a literal imprisonment is intended, it may have been due to some act of persecution which Vaughan had to suffer as a Royalist at a later date. There is in The Mount of Olives (1652) a Prayer in Adversity and Troubles occasioned by our Enemies (Grosart, vol. iii., p. 75), which, if it is to be taken—I think it is not—as autobiographical, seems to show that, at least for a time, he lost his estate. The prayer runs: "Thou seest, O God, how furious and implacable mine enemies are: they have not only robbed me of that portion and provision which Thou hast graciously given me, but they have also washed their hands in the blood of my friends, my dearest and nearest relations. I know, O God, and I am daily taught by that disciple whom Thou didst love, that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Keep me, therefore, O my God, from the guilt of blood, and suffer me not to stain my soul with the thoughts of recompense and vengeance, which is a branch of Thy great prerogative, and belongs wholly unto Thee. Though they persecute me unto death, and pant after the very dust upon the heads of Thy poor, though they have taken the bread out of Thy children's mouth, and have made me a desolation; yet, Lord, give me Thy grace, and such a measure of charity as may fully forgive them."

It may have been during some such time of trouble, or imprisonment, if imprisonment there was, that Vaughan's wife lived with Thomas Vaughan, as will be seen below, in London.

(d) THOMAS VAUGHAN.

It has not been thought necessary to reprint in this edition of Henry Vaughan's poems the scanty English and Latin verses of his brother, Thomas Vaughan. They may be found, together with verses by Virgil and Campion ascribed to him, in vol. ii. of Dr. Grosart's Fuller Worthies edition. But some account of so curious a person will not be out of place.

As for his brother, our chief authority is Anthony à Wood (Ath. Oxon., iii. 722), who says that he was the son of Thomas Vaughan of Llansantffread,[17] that he was born in 1621, educated under Matthew Herbert and at Jesus College, Oxford, of which he became Fellow, took orders and received [in 1640] the living of Llansanffread from his kinsman, Sir George Vaughan [of Fallerstone, Wilts]. He lost his living in the unquiet times of the Civil War, retired to Oxford, and became an eminent chemist, afterwards moving to London, where he worked under the patronage of Sir Robert Murray. He was a great admirer of Cornelius Agrippa, "a great chymist, a noted son of the fire, an experimental philosopher, a zealous brother of the Rosicrucian fraternity ... neither papist nor sectary, but a true resolute protestant in the best sense of the Church of England." In the great plague he fled with Murray from London to Oxford, and thence went to the house of Samuel Kem at Albury, where he died on February 27, 1665/6, of mercury accidentally getting into his nose while he was operating. He was buried at Albury on March 1st. Writing in 1673, Anthony à Wood gives a list of his alchemical and mystical treatises published between 1650 and 1655. Of these he had received a list from Olor Iscanus (Henry Vaughan). They all bear the name of Eugenius Philalethes, except the Aula Lucis (1652), which was issued as by S. N., i.e. [Thoma]S [Vaugha]N. Some of these pamphlets contain Vaughan's share of a vigorous and scurrilous controversy with Henry More, the Platonist. Anthony à Wood distinguishes from Vaughan another Eugenius Philalethes, author of the Brief Natural History (1669), also one Eirenaeus Philalethes, author of Ripley Redivivus and other works, and Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes, author of The Marrow of Alchemy (1654-5).[18]

A few facts, from well-known sources, may be added to Anthony à Wood's account. The University Registers show that "Thos. Vaughan, son of Thomas of Llansanfraid, co. Brecon, pleb., matriculated from Jesus College on 14 Dec, 1638, aged 16." He took his B.A. on 18 Feb., 1641/2, but does not appear to have taken his M.A., though he became Fellow of his College (Foster, Alumni Oxon.). John Walker (Sufferings of the Clergy (1714), p. 389) states that he was ejected from his living on the charges of "drunkenness, immorality, and bearing arms for the King."[19] This must have been in 1649, under the Act for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales. There exists a letter from Thomas Vaughan to a friend in London, dated from "Newtown, Ash Wednesday, 1653;"[20] and it appears from Jones' History of Brecknockshire (ii., 542), that at one time he lived with his brother Henry there. The allusions to Henry More, to Murray, and to the Isis and Thames seem to show that he is the Daphnis of his brother's Eclogue (vol. ii., p. 278). No trace of his death or burial can however be now found at Albury. Mr. Gordon Goodwin points out to me that Dr. Samuel Kem was a somewhat notorious character (Dict. Nat. Biog., s.v. Kem): perhaps this friendship, together with the personal confession quoted below, throws light on the charges which lost Vaughan his living. On the other hand Anthony à Wood speaks well of him, and the tone of his writings bears out this more kindly judgment, at any rate so far as his later years are concerned.

What has been said fairly well exhausted the available information on Thomas Vaughan until a few years ago, when Mr. A. E. Waite discovered in Sloane MS. 1741 a valuable manuscript of his, containing amongst other things a number of autobiographical memoranda. He printed some extracts from this in the preface to an edition of some of The Magical Writings of Thomas Vaughan (Redway, 1888), and has been kind enough to furnish me with a reference to the MS. itself, which I have carefully examined. It bears the title Aqua Vitae non Vitis, and the inscription "Ex libris Thomas et Rebecca Vaughan, 1651, Sept. 28. Quos Deus coniunxit quis separabit?" The contents are partly personal jottings and records of dreams, partly alchemical formulae. They appear to cover the period 1658-1662. We learn from them the following facts:—Vaughan was married on September 28, 1651, to a lady named Rebecca (f. 106 (b)). With her and his "Sister Vaughan" he lived and studied alchemy at the Pinner of Wakefield.[21] He had previously lodged at Mr. Coalman's in Holborn (f. 104 (b)). His wife died on Saturday, April 17, 1658, and was buried at Mappersall, in Bedfordshire (f. 106 (b)).[22] In 1658 his father and his brother W. were both dead, and he mentions the news of his father's death coming to his niece in a letter from the country (f. 89 (b)). On April 9, 1659, he saw his brother H. in a dream. On 16 July, 1658, he was living at Wapping (f. 103 (b)), and at an earlier period at Paddington. There is an inventory of his wife's goods left at Mrs. Highgate's, and mention of a Mr. Highgate and a Sir John Underhill (f. 107). He names his cousin, Mr. J. Walbeoffe, with whom he had some money transactions (f. 18), and speaks of "a certain person with whom I had in former times revelled away my years in drinking" (f. 103). Perhaps this also was John Walbeoffe, on whom see vol. ii., p. 189, note. The alchemical formulae and receipts are interesting. In one place (f. 12) Vaughan announces the discovery of the "Extract of Oil of Halcaly," which he had previously found in his wife's days and had lost again. This he calls "the greatest joy I can ever have in this world after her death." He seems to have regarded it as the key to an universal solvent. Nearly every receipt is followed by his and his wife's initials in the form T. R. V. or T. V. R., and by some expression of devotion to her or of religious piety.

I now come to the remarkable statements made with respect to Thomas Vaughan in the Mémoires d'une ex-Palladiste, now in course of publication by Miss Diana Vaughan. Miss Vaughan is a lady who has created a considerable sensation in Paris. Her own account of herself is that she was brought up as a worshipper of Lucifer, and was for some years a leading spirit amongst certain androgynous lodges of Freemasons, in which the worship of Lucifer is largely practised. She has now, owing to the direct interposition of Joan of Arc, become a Catholic, and has made it her mission to combat Luciferian Freemasonry in every way. Her Memoirs are partly a biography, partly an account of this cult.[23] Miss Vaughan claims to be a great-grand-daughter of Thomas Vaughan's. She declares him to have been a Luciferian, Grand-master of the Rosicrucian order, and the founder of modern Freemasonry; and gives an exhaustive account of his career on the authority of family archives. The following paragraphs contain the substance of her narrative, the "legend of Philalethes," as it was told to Miss Vaughan by her father and her uncle, who were intimate friends of Albert Pike.

The traditional accounts of Thomas Vaughan, says Miss Vaughan, contain serious errors. The dates of his birth and of his death, and the pseudonym under which he wrote are all incorrectly stated [24] (p. 110). He was born in Monmouth in 1612, being two years the elder of his brother Henry. The two boys were brought up at Oxford, after their father's death, by their uncle, Robert Vaughan the antiquary,[25] and entered at Jesus College (p. 114). In 1636, at the age of 24, Thomas Vaughan went to London, and became the disciple of Robert Fludd, who was a Rosicrucian (p. 148). The real nature of the Rosicrucians has hitherto been a mystery. They were in reality Luciferians, and carried on in secret during the seventeenth century that warfare against Adonai, the god of the Catholics, out of which had already sprung Wiclif, Luther, and the Reformation, and out of which was some day to spring, more deadly and more dangerous still, Freemasonry. The Fraternity of Rosie-Cross was founded by Faustus Socinus in 1597. He was succeeded as head of it by Caesar Cremonini (1604-1617), Michael Maier (1617-1622), Valentin Andreae (1622-1654), and Thomas Vaughan (1654-1678).[26] When Thomas Vaughan first came to London in 1636, Valentin Andreae was Summus Magister of the Fraternity, and amongst its leading members were Robert Fludd and Amos Komenski, or Comenius (pp. 129-148). Robert Fludd initiated Thomas Vaughan into the lower degrees of the Golden Cross (p. 148), and sent him to Andreae at Calw, near Stuttgart, with a letter in which he prophesied for him a miraculous future (p. 163). After this visit to Germany, Vaughan returned to London, and after Fludd's death, in 1637, undertook in 1638 his first visit to America. In many of his writings he speaks as a Christian minister, and at this time he probably passed as a Nonconformist (p. 164). He was back in London early in June, 1639 (p. 165), and in the same year visited Denmark, and made a report to Komenski on the mysterious golden horn found at Tondern in that country (p. 166). In 1640 Vaughan received from Komenski the first initiation of the Rosie Cross, and chose the pseudonym of Eirenaeus Philalethes.[27] He now became exceedingly active, going and coming upon the face of the earth. When in England, he divided his time between Oxford and London (p. 167). Between 1640 and 1644 he visited Hamburg, the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden (pp. 171-174). It was at this period that he conceived the design of obtaining a far wider circulation than they had yet met with for the ideas of Faustus Socinus. Some of the Rosicrucians were already "accepted masons." Vaughan determined to capture the vast organization of craft masonry by permeating the lodges with Luciferianism. His associate in this task was Elias Ashmole, with whose aid, a few years later, he composed the degrees of Apprentice (1646), Companion (1648), and Master (1649) (pp. 142, 169-175, 197-206). The Civil War had now approached. Oliver Cromwell was a freemason, a Rosicrucian, and a friend of Vaughan's (p. 176). With the execution of Laud came the crisis of Vaughan's life, his initiation into the highest degree of Rosie Cross by the hands of Lucifer himself. It took place in this wise. At the last moment Vaughan was substituted for the intended executioner of Laud.[28] He had prepared a sacramental cloth which he soaked in the martyr's blood, and on the same night he sacrificed the relic to Lucifer. The divinity appeared, consecrated Vaughan as Magus, named him as the next Summus Magister of the Fraternity, and signed a pact, granting him thirty-three years more life, at the end of which he should be borne away from earth without death (p. 177). In 1645 Vaughan wrote, but did not yet publish, his most important treatise, the Introitus Apertus ad Occlusum Regis Palatium. In 1645, still following the direct command of Lucifer, he departed for America. Here he met the apothecary George Starkey, and in his presence performed the alchemical feat of making gold (p. 179).[29] Here, too, he lived amongst the Lenni-Lennaps, where he was united to the demon Venus-Astarte in the form of a beautiful woman, who after eleven days bore him a daughter. This girl was brought up among the Lenni-Lennaps under the name of Diana Wulisso-Waghan, and became Miss Diana Vaughan's great-great-grandmother (p. 181). In 1648 Vaughan returned to England, and after composing the masonic degree of Master in 1649 (p. 197), he began the publication of a series of alchemical and, in reality, Luciferian writings. In 1650 appeared the Anthroposophia Theomagica and the Magia Adamica, in 1651 the Lumen de Lumine; in 1652 the Aula Lucis (p. 211). In 1654 Valentin Andreae died, and Vaughan succeeded him as Summus Magister of the Rosie Cross, the event being announced to him by the homage of three demons, Leviathan, Cerberus, and Belphegor (p. 214). In 1655 he published his Euphrates, and in 1656 made his head-quarters at Amsterdam or Eirenaeopolis. In 1659 came his Fraternity of R. C.; in 1664 his Medulla Alchymiae.[30] In 1666 he exhibited the philosopher's stone to Helvetius at La Haye and converted him to occultism: in 1667 he at last resolved to publish his Opus Magnum, the Introitus Apertus, already written in 1645 (p. 215). In 1668 this was followed by the Experimenta de Praeparatione Mercurii Sophici and the Tractatus Tres (p. 236). The time was now approaching when Vaughan, in fulfilment of the pact of 1644, must disappear from earth. He named Charles Blount as his successor (p. 237), and was granted a magical vision of his grandson, the child of Diana Wulisso-Waghan and a Lenni-Lennap (p. 239). He finished his Memoirs, published the Ripley Revised[31] and the Enarratio Methodica trium Gebri Medicinarum, left his poems to his brother Henry, who published them in the next year as the Thalia Rediviva,[32] and on March 25, 1678, disappeared in the company of Lucifer Dieu-Bon himself (p. 240). This event is vouched for, not only by a written statement of Henry Vaughan (p. 114), but also by the existence in a masonic triangle at Valetta of a magical talisman into which, when properly evoked, the spirit of Philalethes enters and records his glorious end for the edification of the Luciferians present [33] (p. 243).

I fear that I have taken Miss Vaughan with undue seriousness. Her account of Thomas Vaughan is not only unsupported by direct evidence,[34] but much of it is of a character which we should not be justified in accepting, even were direct evidence forthcoming. And it is all discordant with the little that we do happen to know of Thomas Vaughan from other sources. The whole thing is, in fact, a pretty obvious romance of very modern fabrication. It appears to have been compiled from such information as to the alchemical and mystical writers of the seventeenth century as was within the reach of Albert Pike and the brothers Vaughan about the year 1870.[35] It is always better to explain than to refute an error; and the nature of the Luciferian tradition of Thomas Vaughan is pretty clearly shown by the fact that it is not corroborated in a single particular by any of the new facts about him that have come to light since this probable date of its composition.[36] The fabricator put Thomas Vaughan's birth-place in Monmouth instead of Brecon, because he had never seen Dr. Grosart's Fuller Worthies Edition of Henry Vaughan. He makes no mention of any of the facts contained in Sloane MS. 1741, because that MS. was still unknown. And, most fatal of all, he puts Thomas Vaughan's birth in 1612 instead of 1621-2, because Foster's Alumni Oxonienses being yet unpublished, he was ignorant of the record of that date preserved in the University Registers. But we can go a step further. We can confute him, not only by pointing to the books he did not use, but by pointing to those he did. It has already been shown that the ascription to Vaughan of the English translation of Maier's Themis Aurea is due to a misunderstanding of a phrase used by Anthony à Wood. The Athenae Oxonienses then was one source of the compilation. Another was the Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique, written by Lenglet-Dufresnoy in 1742. Here is the proof. Miss Vaughan supports her statement as to the birth-date in 1612 by a quotation from the Introitus Apertus, in which the writer states it to have been composed "en l'an 1645 de notre salut, et le trente-troisième de mon age." This she professes to translate from the editio princeps published by Jean Lange in 1667. As a matter of fact it is taken from the version given in Lenglet-Dufresnoy's book. And Lenglet-Dufresnoy followed, not the edition of 1667, but the later edition published by J. M. Faust at Frankfort in 1706. In this the words are "trigesimo tertio," whereas in the editio princeps they are "vicesimo tertio," and in W. Cooper's English translation of 1669, "in the 23rd year of my age," thus bringing the date of the birth of Eirenaeus Philalethes not to 1612, but to 1622. The "legend of Philalethes" need detain us no longer. Miss Vaughan's narrative is a very insufficient basis for regarding the pious minister and mystic which Thomas Vaughan appears to have been as a secret enemy of Christianity and a worshipper of Lucifer.

But when the legend is set aside, there still remain certain questions suggested by it which may be considered without much reference to the statements of Miss Vaughan. Was Thomas Vaughan a Rosicrucian? And was he, admittedly the author of a series of tracts under the name of Eugenius Philalethes, also the author of those which bear the name of Eirenaeus Philalethes? The first question is, I am afraid, insoluble, until it has been decided whether the Fraternity of R. C. ever had an actual existence. Anthony à Wood states that Thomas Vaughan was a zealous Rosicrucian, but probably Anthony à Wood took the term in the general sense of mystic and alchemist. On the other hand Vaughan himself, in his preface to the English translation of the Rosicrucian manifestoes, seems to disavow any personal acquaintance with the members of the fraternity. Even this is not conclusive, for the Rosicrucian rule, as given in the Laws of the Brotherhood, published by Sincerus Renatus in 1710,[37] obliges the members to deny their membership.

There is more material for the discussion of the second question, but I do not know that it is more possible to come to a definite conclusion. The personality of the anonymous adept who took the name of Eirenaeus Philalethes was shrouded in mystery even to his contemporaries. The fullest account given of him on any of his title-pages is on that of the Experimenta de Praeparatione Mercurii Sophici (1668), which is said to be "ex manuscripto Philosophi Americani alias Eyrenaei Philalethis, natu Angli, habitatione Cosmopolitae."[38] We have also the description given by George Starkey, or whoever it was, in the Marrow of Alchemy (1654-5), p. 25. Starkey says:—

"His present place in which he doth abide
I know not, for the world he walks about,
Of which he is a citizen; this tide
He is to visit artists and seek out
Antiquities a voyage gone and will
Return when he of travel hath his fill.

"By nation an Englishman, of note
His family is in the place where he
Was born, his fortune's good, and eke his coat
Of arms is of a great antiquity;
His learning rare, his years scarce thirty-three;
Fuller description get you not from me."

Starkey gives the age of Eirenaeus Philalethes as 33 in 1654. This precisely confirms the writer's own statement in the earlier editions of the Introitus Apertus that he was 23 in 1645, and fixes the birth-date as 1621 or 1622. Now this agrees remarkably with the birth-date ascertained from other sources of Thomas Vaughan. But Thomas died in 1666, and it is usually asserted that Eirenaeus Philalethes lived until at least 1678. Miss Vaughan states that he must have been alive in that year, because he then published the Ripley Revived, and the Enarratio Trium Gebri Medicinarum. She declares that the author of the Enarratio mentions the pains taken about that edition (p. 240). I do not find any prefatory matter in this book at all. There is a preface to the Ripley Revived, but this was written long before 1678, for it mentions the Introitus Apertus, published in 1667, as still in manuscript. Neither Jean Lange, the editor of the Introitus Apertus of 1667, writing 9th December, 1666, nor William Cooper, the editor of the English translation [39] of 1669, writing 15th September, 1668, know whether the author is still alive. In fact he cannot be shown to have outlived Thomas Vaughan, for there is no proof that the adept who showed the philosopher's stone to Helvetius on December 27th, 1666,[40] was the same as he who showed it to George Starkey many years before. I will briefly enumerate a few other links which connect Eirenaeus Philalethes with Thomas Vaughan. A German translation of the Introitus Apertus, published at Hamburg under the title of Abyssus Alchemiae (1704), is said on the title-page to be "von T. de Vagan." Miss Vaughan states that a similar translation of the first of the Tres Tractatus, published at Hamburg in 1705, also bears this name (p. 237), and this is borne out by Lenglet-Dufresnoy (iii. 261-6), who speaks of a French MS. of the Tres Tractatus inscribed "par Thomas de Vagan, dit Philalèthe ou Martin Birrhius." Birrhius, however, was only the editor. These ascriptions are probably made on the authority of G. W. Wedelius, who in his preface, dated 2nd Sept., 1698, to an edition of the Introitus Apertus, published at Jena in 1699, says of the author:—"Ex Anglia tamen vulgo habetur oriundus ... et Thomas De Vagan appellatus." The English Three Tracts (1694) are stated on the title-page to have been written in Latin by Eirenaeus Philalethes; but there is a note in the British Museum Catalogue to the effect that the Latin original has the name Eugenius Philalethes. Unfortunately this Latin Tres Tractatus, published in 1668 by Martin Birrhius at Amsterdam, is not in the Library, and I cannot verify the statement. Finally, I may note that the Ripley Revived (1678) has an engraved title-page by Robert Vaughan, who also did the title-page to Olor Iscanus, and that Starkey's Marrow of Alchemy contains, at the end of the preface to Part ii., some lines by William Sampson, which mention

"Harry Mastix Moor
Who judged of Nature when he did not know her";

clearly an allusion to More's controversy with Thomas Vaughan.

It will be seen that there is some primâ facie evidence for identifying Eirenaeus Philalethes with Thomas Vaughan, whereas he was probably not George Starkey (Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes), and cannot be shown to have been anyone else. But I am not satisfied. We do not know that Thomas Vaughan was ever in America, and there is the strong evidence of Anthony à Wood, who distinguishes between Eirenaeus and Eugenius, and who appears to have had information from Henry Vaughan himself. Mr. A. E. Waite argues against the identification on the ground that Eirenaeus Philalethes was a "physical alchemist," whereas Thomas Vaughan's alchemy was spiritual and mystical. But we have Vaughan's authority for saying that he had pursued the physical alchemy also.[41] And he was clearly doing so when he wrote Sloane MS. 1741. A more pertinent objection is perhaps that Eirenaeus Philalethes appears to have been in possession of the grand secret when he wrote the Introitus Apertus in 1645, whereas Thomas Vaughan was still seeking it in 1658. To pursue the matter further would require a wide knowledge of the alchemical writings of the seventeenth century, which unfortunately I do not possess.[42]

My gratitude is due for help received in compiling the biographical and other notes in these volumes to Dr. Grosart, Mr. C. H. Firth, Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, Mr. A. E. Waite, and the Rev. Llewellyn Thomas; notably to Miss G. E. F. Morgan of Brecon, whose knowledge of local genealogy and antiquities has been invaluable.

July, 1896.E. K. Chambers.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Dr. Grosart, however, says (ii. 298), "In all the pedigrees that have been submitted to me, Thomas is placed as the first of the twins." But, as Henry inherited Newton, and Thomas took orders, Anthony à Wood is probably right.

[2] The tombstone says 73. G. T. Clark repeats Jones' error.

[3] The tombstone is actually in the north aisle of the church itself.

[4] Obviously Mr. Clark has confused Lucy Jones with her daughter, Denise Jones.

[5] This was noted by Mr W. B. Rye in The Genealogist, iii. 33, from the Entry Book of the Registry at Hereford. Since then Mr. Clark of Hereford has kindly sent me, through Miss Morgan, a copy of the bond entered into by the administratrix, Elizabetha Vaughan de Llansanfread, and her son-in-law and surety, Roger Prosser de Villa Brecon. The bond, or the copy, is dated in error "30 May, 1694, et 7th Wm. iii." Administration was granted on May 29, 1695. The inventory of the personal property amounted to £49 4s. 0d. The witnesses are Walter Prosser and David Thomas.

[6] An old alphabetical catalogue of wills in the Hereford Registry, between 1660-1677, has the following entries:—

Thomas Vaughan, Lansamfread, 11 Dec., 1660.
Franca Vaughan, Lansamfread, 16 Nov., 1677.

The wills cannot, in the present state of the Registry, be found (Genealogist, iii., 33). These dates are much too early for the poet's son and daughter-in-law; but whose are the wills?

[7] The Turberville and Jones lines are taken from Theophilus Jones' History of Brecknockshire (ii. 444), and from Harl. MS. 2289, f. 70, respectively. Miss Morgan has kindly traced the Prossers from the Registers of St. John's and St. Mary's Churches, Brecon.

[8] Miss Morgan tells me that David Morgan David Howel's father, Morgan ap Howel, is described in a pedigree as "of Trenewydd in Penkelley"; and I find from Harl. MS. 2289, ff. 84 (b), 85, that the Powells "of Newton Penkelley" were related to the Powells of Cantreff. (See vol. ii., p. 57, note.)

[9] The will of this Charles Vaughan has been abstracted by Mr. W. B. Rye (Genealogist, iii. 33) from the Hereford Will Office. It was made 9th April, 1707, and proved 29th May, 1707. The testator is described as of Skellrog, Llansanffread, and mention is made of his wife Margaret Powell, and of a son William. This William, therefore, and not a grandson of Henry Vaughan, may be the William Vaughan of Llansantffread, who married Mary Games of Tregaer (p. xxi). Skellrog appears to have passed to another and probably elder son, Charles.

[10] S. W. Williams, Llansaintffread Church in Archaeologia Cambrensis (1887.)

[11] W. B. Rye in Genealogist, iii. 36, from Entry Book in Hereford Will Office.

[12] An account of the part played by Beeston Castle during the Civil War will be found in Ormerod's History of Cheshire (ed. Helsby), ii. 272 sqq.

[13] Gardiner, The Great Civil War, ch. xxxvi.; J. R. Phillips, The Civil War in Wales and the Marches, i. 329; ii. 270.

[14] Ormerod, i. 243.

[15] Phillips, i. 314.

[16] Phillips, ii. 272.

[17] Both Wood and Foster give the father's name as Thomas, but it appears to be Henry in all the pedigrees.

[18] The following list of Vaughan's admitted prose treatises is mainly taken from Dr. Grosart:—Anthroposophia Theomagica (1650); Anima Magica Abscondita (1650); Magia Adamica with the Coelum Terrae (1650); The Man-Mouse taken in a Trap (1650); The Second Wash; or, the Moor scoured once more (1651) [These two are polemics against Henry More]; Lumen de Lumine, with the Aphorismi Magici Eugeniani (1651); The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity of R:C: (1653); Aula Lucis (1652); Euphrates (1655); Nollius' Chymist's Key (1657); A Brief Natural History (1669); [Wood ascribes this to another writer, as it was not in the list furnished him by Henry Vaughan].—Henry More's pamphlets against Vaughan are the Observations upon Anthroposophia Theomagica and Anima Magica Abscondita (1650), issued under the name of Alazonomastix Philalethes and The Second Lash of Alazonomastix (1651).

[19] Walker falls into the curious confusion of supposing that there were two Thomas Vaughans, one rector of Llansantffread, the other of Newton St. Bridget. But "St. Bridget" is only the English form of the Welsh "Santffread."

[20] Printed from the Rawl. MSS. in Thurloe's State Papers, ii. 120.

[21] Is this the inn of that name once in the Gray's Inn Road? (Cunningham and Wheatley, Handbook to London.)

[22] The Rev. Henry Howlett has kindly sent me the following extract from the registers of Meppershall:—

"1658.
Buried.
Rebecka, the Wife of Mr. Vahanne
the 26th of Aprill."

[23] An entire literature has grown up in Paris during the last year around the question whether the cultus of Lucifer is practised in certain Masonic Lodges. A number of Catholic journalists and pamphleteers assert very categorically that this is the case, that the centre of this cultus, containing the full Luciferian initiates, is the 33rd degree of a so-called New and Reformed Palladian Rite, having its head-quarters at Charlestown, and that the chiefs of this Rite have obtained a controlling influence over the whole of Freemasonry. The creed is described as Manichaean in character, with Lucifer as Dieu-Bon and Adonai, the God of the Catholics, as Dieu-Mauvais. Adonai is the principle of asceticism, Lucifer of natural humanity and la joie de vivre. The rituals and the accepted interpretation of the Masonic symbolism used in the lodges, or "triangles," are of a phallic type. Women are admitted to membership. Immorality, a parody of the Eucharist, known as the black mass, and the practice of black magic, take place at the meetings. Lucifer is worshipped in the form of Baphomet, but from time to time he is personally evoked, and manifested to his followers. Luciferianism tends to become identical with Satanism, in which Lucifer and Satan are identified and frankly worshipped as evil. The first mention of Luciferian Freemasonry was in the Y-a-t-il des Femmes dans la Franc Maçonnerie? (1891), of the somewhat notorious Leo Taxil. But the case rests mainly on the alleged revelations of writers who claim to have themselves been members of the Palladian Rite. The chief of these are Dr. Hacke or Bataille, Signor Margiotta and Miss Diana Vaughan. Unfortunately very little evidence is forthcoming as to the identity of any of these personages. Many leading Masons, e.g., M. Papus in his Le Diable et l'Occultisme, deny that Luciferian Freemasonry exists at all, and it is freely stated (cf. Light for 27 June and 4 July, 1896, pp. 305, 322) that Miss Diana Vaughan is a myth, and that her Mémoires with the rest of the revelations are the ingenious concoction of a band of irresponsible journalists of whom Leo Taxil is the chief. No one appears to have seen Miss Vaughan, and she is alleged to be hiding in some convent from the vengeance of the Luciferians. Probably there will be some further light thrown on the matter before long: in the meantime a good summary of the evidence up-to-date may be found in A. E. Waite's Devil-Worship in France (1896). Assuming that Luciferianism really exists, I do not for a moment believe that it has the antiquity which Miss Vaughan claims for it. The various Rites of modern Freemasonry, with their fantastic and high-sounding degrees, are comparatively recent excrescences upon the original Craft Masonry. The New and Reformed Palladian Rite is said to have been founded at Charlestown by the well-known Mason, Albert Pike, in 1870. It is based on the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, which dates from the beginning of the century. If there is such a thing as Luciferianism, I do not think we need look further back than 1870 for its origin. As expounded by Miss Vaughan and others, it is pretty clearly a compilation from Eliphaz Levi and other occultist and Cabbalistic writers, with a good deal of modern American Spiritualism thrown in. Albert Pike, a man of considerable learning, could easily have invented it. Masonic symbolism lends itself readily enough to a wide range of interpretations. I do not say that seventeenth-century occultism has left no traces upon Freemasonry which modern ritual-mongers may have elaborated; but it is a far cry from this to the belief that Thomas Vaughan and Luther were Manichaean worshippers of Lucifer and Protestantism an organized warfare on Adonai.

[24] Miss Vaughan quotes from Allibone's History of English Literature. Allibone only repeats Anthony à Wood's account.

[25] Robert Vaughan belonged to quite a different branch from the Vaughans of Newton: and, as Sl. MS. 1741 shows, the father of Henry and Thomas Vaughan did not die until 1658.

[26] Miss Vaughan gives an elaborate account of the Rosicrucians and of their famous manifestoes, which I have no room to reproduce.

[27] Miss Vaughan states that Thomas Vaughan signed "not Eugenius Philalethes, but Eirenaeus Philalethes" (p. 114). But she ascribes to him the Anthroposophia Theomagica and other writings which are signed, though she does not mention it, Eugenius Philalethes (p. 211). She quotes from Anthony à Wood the assertion, which he does not make, that the English translations of the Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis (1652) and of Maier's Themis Aurea (1656) both bear the name of Eugenius, and were by another Thomas Vaughan! The manuscripts of both are, she says, signed Eirenaeus (p. 163). What Wood says is that he has seen a translation of Maier's tract, dedicated to Elias Ashmole by [N. L.]/[T. S.] H. S., and that Ashmole has forgotten whose the initials are. He does not suggest that this translation is by a Thomas Vaughan. (Ath. Oxon., iii. 724.)

[28] This episode has previously done duty in the Vingt Ans Après (vol. iii., ch. 8-10), of Alexandre Dumas, in which Mordaunt acts as the executioner of Charles. There is a Latin poem amongst Vaughan's remains in Thalia Rediviva entitled Epitaphium Gulielmi Laud Episcopi Cantuariensis, full of sorrow for the archbishop's death.

[29] Miss Vaughan refers to Lenglet-Dufresnoy's Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique as an authority on Starkey's relations with Eirenaeus Philalethes. Lenglet-Dufresnoy probably took his account from The Marrow of Alchemy (1654-5). The prefaces to this are signed with anagrams of George Starkey's name. But he ascribes the poem to a friend, who is called in the Breve Manuductorium ad Campum Sophiae Agricola Rhomaeus. Perhaps Starkey himself was the real author. The title-page has the name Eirenaeus Philoponus Philalethes, apparently a distinct designation from that of Eirenaeus Philalethes.

[30] The Medulla Alchemiae (1664) is only a Latin translation of the Marrow of Alchemy (1654-5) of Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes.

[31] The actual name of the tract is Ripley Revived.

[32] The Thalia Rediviva was actually published in 1678, not 1679.

[33] Miss Vaughan has herself witnessed this, in the presence of Lucifer. Moreover, the spirit of Philalethes has appeared, and conversed with her (pp. 257-267).

[34] Miss Vaughan refers to several family documents, but does not offer them for inspection. They include (a) the will of her grandfather James, enumerating the proofs of his descent (p. 111); (b) the autobiographical Memoirs of Philalethes, from which Miss Vaughan quotes largely (pp. 174, 240); (c) a letter from Fludd to Andreae (pp. 114, 149); (d) a MS. of the Introitus Apertus, of which the margin has been covered by Vaughan with a comment for Luciferian initiates (pp. 111, 217, 225); (e) a letter from Andreae in the archives of the Sovereign Patriarchal Council of Hamburg (p. 197); (f) Henry Vaughan's account of his brother's disappearance in the archives of the Supreme Dogmatic Directory of Charleston (p. 114); (g) Masonic rituals in the archives of Masonic chapters at Bristol and Gibraltar (p. 200); (h) Rosicrucian rituals drawn up by one Nick Stone in the hands of Dr. W. W. W[estcott] of London (p. 141). The documents in Masonic hands are presumably, like the Valetta talisman, now out of Miss Vaughan's reach. A communication signed Q. V. in Light for May 16, 1896, denies, on Dr. Westcott's authority, that his rituals have anything to do with Nick Stone, or that Miss Vaughan ever saw them. Dr. Westcott is the head of the modern Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. This body does not even pretend to be the Fraternity of R. C. Finally, there is (i) Thomas Vaughan's original pact with Lucifer, now, according to Miss Vaughan, in holy hands, and to be destroyed on the day she takes the veil.

[35] Miss Vaughan somewhat naïvely gives us a lead. After describing Thomas Vaughan's sojourn with Venus-Astarte among the Lenni-Lennaps, she adds: "This legend is not accepted by all the Elect Mages; there are those who regard it as fabricated by my grandfather James of Boston, who was, they believe, of Delaware origin, or, at any rate, a half-breed; and they even assert that, in the desire to Anglicize himself, he invented an entirely false genealogy, by way of justifying his change of the Lennap name Waghan into Vaughan. Herein the opponents of the Luciferian legend of Thomas Vaughan go too far" (p. 181).

[36] I have already pointed out that Miss Vaughan is quite possibly a myth. But, if she exists, I do not see any reason to suppose that she personally invented the "legend of Philalethes." It lies between Leo Taxil and his friends in 1895, and the alleged founders of Palladism in or about 1870, that is Albert Pike and Miss Vaughan's father and uncle. And, so far as it goes, the ignorance shown in the legend of all books published in the last twenty years is evidence for the earlier date, and therefore, to some extent, for the actual existence of Luciferianism.

[37] Cf. A. E. Waite, Real History of the Rosicrucians, p. 274.

[38] The principal writings ascribed to Eirenaeus Philalethes are Introitus Apertus in Occlusum Regis Palatium (1667), Tres Tractatus (1668), Experimenta de Praeparatione Mercurii Sophici (1668), Ripley Revived (1678), Enarratio Trium Gebri Medicinarum (1678). The works of Eirenaeus Philoponos Philalethes (George Starkey?) are often attributed to him in error. The B. M. Catalogue, s.vv. Philaletha, Philalethes, is a mass of confusions. Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique (iii. 261-266), gives a long list of printed and manuscript works. Most of these he had probably never seen. He probably took many items in his list from one in J. M. Faust's edition of the Introitus Apertus (Frankfort, 1706); and this, in its turn, was based on what Eirenaeus Philalethes himself says he has written in the preface to Ripley Revived. He there says, after naming other works: "Two English Poems I wrote, declaring the whole secret, which are lost. Also an Enchiridion of Experiments, together with a Diurnal of Meditations, in which were many Philosophical receipts, declaring the whole secret, with an Aenigma annexed; which also fell into such hands which I conceive will never restore it. This last was written in English." Can this Enchiridion and Diurnal be Sl. MS. 1741? I find no "Aenigma." Can Starkey have stolen the poems and published them as the Marrow of Alchemy?

[39] The preface to Ripley Revived makes it clear that the Introitus Apertus was originally written in Latin, not in English.

[40] This is recorded in Helvetius' Vitulus Aureus (1667). Helvetius describes his master as 43 or 44 years old, and calls him Elias Artistes.

[41] See the passage from the Epistle to Euphrates, quoted by Grosart (Vol. ii., p. 312).

[42] The "legend of Philalethes" has already been exposed by Mr. A. E. Waite in his Devil Worship in France (ch. xiii.). I am also indebted to what Mr. Waite has written on Eirenaeus Philalethes in that book, as well as in his True History of the Rosicrucians (1887) and his Lives of Alchymistical Philosophers (1888).

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HENRY VAUGHAN'S WORKS.

(1)

The translation from Juvenal has a separate title-page.

(2)

(3)

The Preface is dated "Newton by Usk this 17 of Decemb. 1647."

The prose translations in this volume have separate title-pages:

(4)

The preface is dated "Newton by Usk this first of October 1651."

The translation from Anselm has a separate title-page:

(5)

The Preface is dated "Newton by Usk, in South-Wales, April 17, 1652." The pieces have separate title-pages:

The Preface is dated "Newton by Uske neare Sketh-Rock. 1653."

(6)

A reissue, with additions and a fresh title-page, of (2). The Preface is dated "Newton by Usk, near Sketh-rock Septem. 30, 1654."

(7)

(8)

The Remains of Eugenius Philalethes [Thomas Vaughan] have a separate title-page.

(9)

Olor Iscanus. A collection of some Select Poems, Together with these Translations following, etc. All Englished by H. Vaughan, Silurist. London: Printed and are to be sold by Peter Parker ... 1679. [8vo.]

A reissue, according to Dr. Grosart (ii. 59) and W. C. Hazlitt (Supplement to Third Series Of Collections, p. 106), of the 1651 Olor Iscanus, with a fresh title-page. I have not seen a copy.

(10)

[Miss L. I. Guiney writes in her essay on Henry Vaughan, the Silurist (Atlantic Monthly, May, 1894): "Mr. Carew Hazlitt has been fortunate enough to discover the advertisement of an eighteenth-century Vaughan reprint."

As to this Mr. Hazlitt writes to me: "I cannot tell where Miss Guiney heard about the Vaughan—not certainly from me. But there is an edition of his 'Spiritual Songs,' 8vo, 1706, of which, however, I don't at present know the whereabouts.">[

(11)

Silex Scintillans: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations of Henry Vaughan, with Memoir by the Rev. H. F. Lyte. London: William Pickering, 1847. [12mo.]

An edition of (6) and part of (8).

(12)

The Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations of Henry Vaughan, with a Memoir by the Rev. H. F. Lyte. Boston [U. S. A.]: Little, Brown and Company, 1856. [8vo.]

A reprint of (11).

(13)

Silex Scintillans, etc.: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations, by Henry Vaughan. London: Bell and Daldy. 1858.

A reprint, with a revised text, of (11).

(14)

The Fuller Worthies' Library. The Works in Verse and Prose complete of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, for the first time collected and edited: with Memorial-Introduction: Essay on Life and Writings: and Notes: by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, St. George's, Blackburn, Lancashire. In four Volumes.... Printed for Private Circulation. 1871.

A reprint of the original editions, with biographical and critical matter. Only 50 4to, 106 8vo, and 156 12mo copies printed. In Vol. II. are included the Poems of Thomas Vaughan, with a separate title-page.

The English and Latin Verse-Remains of Thomas Vaughan ('Eugenius Philalethes'), twin-brother of the Silurist. For the first time collected and edited: with Memorial-Introduction and Notes: by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart [etc.].

(15)

Silex Scintillans, etc. Sacred Poems and Pious Ejaculations. By Henry Vaughan, "Silurist." With a Memoir by the Rev. H. F. Lyte. Job xxxv. 10, 11 [in full]. London: George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1883. [8vo.]

A reprint, with a text further revised, of (11) and (13), forming a volume of the Aldine Poets. Since reprinted in 1891.

(16)

The Jewel Poets. Henry Vaughan. Edinburgh. Macniven and Wallace. 1884.

A selection, with a short preface by W. R. Nicoll.

(17)

Silex Scintillans. Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations, by Henry Vaughan (Silurist). Being a facsimile of the First Edition, published in 1650, with an Introduction by the Rev. William Clare, B.A. (Adelaide). London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row. 1885. [12mo.]

A facsimile reprint of (2).

(18)

Secular Poems by Henry Vaughan, Silurist. Including a few pieces by his twin-brother Thomas ("Eugenius Philalethes"). Selected and arranged, with Notes and Bibliography, by J. R. Tutin, Editor of "Poems of Richard Crashaw," etc. Hull: J. R. Tutin. 1893.

A selection from Vol. II. of (14).

(19)

The Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist. With an Introduction by H. C. Beeching, Rector of Yattendon. [Publishers' Device.] London: Lawrence and Bullen, 16, Henrietta Street, W.C. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 153-157 Fifth Avenue. 1896. [Two vols. 8vo.]

The present edition. A hundred copies are printed on large paper.

POEMS,
WITH THE
TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL
ENGLISHED.
1646.

TO ALL INGENIOUS LOVERS OF POESY.

Gentlemen,

To you alone, whose more refined spirits out-wing these dull times, and soar above the drudgery of dirty intelligence, have I made sacred these fancies: I know the years, and what coarse entertainment they afford poetry. If any shall question that courage that durst send me abroad so late, and revel it thus in the dregs of an age, they have my silence: only,

Languescente seculo, liceat ægrotari.

My more calm ambition, amidst the common noise, hath thus exposed me to the world: you have here a flame, bright only in its own innocence, that kindles nothing but a generous thought: which though it may warm the blood, the fire at highest is but Platonic; and the commotion, within these limits, excludes danger. For the satire, it was of purpose borrowed to feather some slower hours; and what you see here is but the interest: it is one of his whose Roman pen had as much true passion for the infirmities of that state, as we should have pity to the distractions of our own: honest—I am sure—it is, and offensive cannot be, except it meet with such spirits that will quarrel with antiquity, or purposely arraign themselves. These indeed may think that they have slept out so many centuries in this satire and are now awakened; which, had it been still Latin, perhaps their nap had been everlasting. But enough of these,—it is for you only that I have adventured thus far, and invaded the press with verse; to whose more noble indulgence I shall now leave it, and so am gone.—

H. V.

TO MY INGENUOUS FRIEND, R. W.

When we are dead, and now, no more
Our harmless mirth, our wit, and score
Distracts the town; when all is spent
That the base niggard world hath lent
Thy purse, or mine; when the loath'd noise
Of drawers, 'prentices and boys
Hath left us, and the clam'rous bar
Items no pints i' th' Moon or Star;
When no calm whisp'rers wait the doors,
To fright us with forgotten scores;
And such aged long bills carry,
As might start an antiquary;
When the sad tumults of the maze,
Arrests, suits, and the dreadful face
Of sergeants are not seen, and we
No lawyers' ruffs, or gowns must fee:
When all these mulcts are paid, and I
From thee, dear wit, must part, and die;
We'll beg the world would be so kind,
To give's one grave as we'd one mind;
There, as the wiser few suspect,
That spirits after death affect,
Our souls shall meet, and thence will they,
Freed from the tyranny of clay,
With equal wings, and ancient love
Into the Elysian fields remove,
Where in those blessèd walks they'll find
More of thy genius, and my mind.
First, in the shade of his own bays,
Great Ben they'll see, whose sacred lays
The learnèd ghosts admire, and throng
To catch the subject of his song.
Then Randolph in those holy meads,
His Lovers and Amyntas reads,
Whilst his Nightingale, close by,
Sings his and her own elegy.
From thence dismiss'd, by subtle roads,
Through airy paths and sad abodes,
They'll come into the drowsy fields
Of Lethe, which such virtue yields,
That, if what poets sing be true,
The streams all sorrow can subdue.
Here, on a silent, shady green,
The souls of lovers oft are seen,
Who, in their life's unhappy space,
Were murder'd by some perjur'd face.
All these th' enchanted streams frequent,
To drown their cares, and discontent,
That th' inconstant, cruel sex
Might not in death their spirits vex.
And here our souls, big with delight
Of their new state, will cease their flight:
And now the last thoughts will appear,
They'll have of us, or any here;
But on those flow'ry banks will stay,
And drink all sense and cares away.
So they that did of these discuss,
Shall find their fables true in us.

LES AMOURS

Tyrant, farewell! this heart, the prize
And triumph of thy scornful eyes,
I sacrifice to heaven, and give
To quit my sins, that durst believe
A woman's easy faith, and place
True joys in a changing face.
Yet ere I go: by all those tears
And sighs I spent 'twixt hopes and fears;
By thy own glories, and that hour
Which first enslav'd me to thy power;
I beg, fair one, by this last breath,
This tribute from thee after death.
If, when I'm gone, you chance to see
That cold bed where I lodgèd be,
Let not your hate in death appear,
But bless my ashes with a tear:
This influx from that quick'ning eye,
By secret pow'r, which none can spy,
The cold dust shall inform, and make
Those flames, though dead, new life partake
Whose warmth, help'd by your tears, shall bring
O'er all the tomb a sudden spring
Of crimson flowers, whose drooping heads
Shall curtain o'er their mournful beds:
And on each leaf, by Heaven's command,
These emblems to the life shall stand
Two hearts, the first a shaft withstood;
The second, shot and wash'd in blood;
And on this heart a dew shall stay,
Which no heat can court away;
But fix'd for ever, witness bears
That hearty sorrow feeds on tears.
Thus Heaven can make it known, and true
That you kill'd me, 'cause I lov'd you.

TO AMORET.

The Sigh.

Nimble sigh, on thy warm wings,
Take this message and depart;
Tell Amoret, that smiles and sings,
At what thy airy voyage brings,
That thou cam'st lately from my heart.

Tell my lovely foe that I
Have no more such spies to send,
But one or two that I intend,
Some few minutes ere I die,
To her white bosom to commend.

Then whisper by that holy spring,
Where for her sake I would have died,
Whilst those water-nymphs did bring
Flowers to cure what she had tried;
And of my faith and love did sing.

That if my Amoret, if she
In after-times would have it read,
How her beauty murder'd me,
With all my heart I will agree,
If she'll but love me, being dead.

TO HIS FRIEND BEING IN LOVE.

Ask, lover, ere thou diest; let one poor breath
Steal from thy lips, to tell her of thy death;
Doating idolater! can silence bring
Thy saint propitious? or will Cupid fling
One arrow for thy paleness? leave to try
This silent courtship of a sickly eye.
Witty to tyranny, she too well knows
This but the incense of thy private vows,
That breaks forth at thine eyes, and doth betray
The sacrifice thy wounded heart would pay;
Ask her, fool, ask her; if words cannot move,
The language of thy tears may make her love.
Flow nimbly from me then; and when you fall
On her breast's warmer snow, O may you all,
By some strange fate fix'd there, distinctly lie,
The much lov'd volume of my tragedy.
Where, if you win her not, may this be read,
The cold that freez'd you so, did strike me dead.

SONG.

Amyntas go, thou art undone,
Thy faithful heart is cross'd by fate;
That love is better not begun,
Where love is come to love too late.[43]

Had she professèd [44] hidden fires,
Or show'd one [45] knot that tied her heart,
I could have quench'd my first desires,
And we had only met to part.

But, tyrant, thus to murder men,
And shed a lover's harmless blood,
And burn him in those flames again,
Which he at first might have withstood.

Yet, who that saw fair Chloris weep
Such sacred dew, with such pure [46] grace;
Durst think them feignèd tears, or seek
For treason in an angel's face.

This is her art, though this be true,
Men's joys are kill'd with [47] griefs and fears,
Yet she, like flowers oppress'd with dew,
Doth thrive and flourish in her tears.

This, cruel, thou hast done, and thus
That face hath many servants slain,
Though th' end be not to ruin us,
But to seek glory by our pain.[48]

FOOTNOTES:

[43] MS. Whose pure offering comes too late.

[44] MS. profess'd her.

[45] MS. the.

[46] MS. such a.

[47] MS. by.

[48]

MS. Your aime is sure to ruine us.
Seeking your glory by our paine

TO AMORET.

Walking in a Starry Evening.

If, Amoret, that glorious eye,
In the first birth of light,
And death of Night,
Had with those elder fires you spy
Scatter'd so high,
Receivèd form and sight;

We might suspect in the vast ring,
Amidst these golden glories,
And fiery stories;[49]
Whether the sun had been the king
And guide of day,
Or your brighter eye should sway.

But, Amoret, such is my fate,
That if thy face a star
Had shin'd from far,
I am persuaded in that state,
'Twixt thee and me,
Of some predestin'd sympathy.[50]

For sure such two conspiring minds,
Which no accident, or sight,
Did thus unite;
Whom no distance can confine,
Start, or decline,
One for another were design'd.

FOOTNOTES:

[49]

MS. We may suspect in the vast ring,
Which rolls those fiery spheres
Thro' years and years.

[50] MS. There would be perfect sympathy.

TO AMORET GONE FROM HIM.

Fancy and I, last evening, walk'd,
And Amoret, of thee we talk'd;
The West just then had stolen the sun,
And his last blushes were begun:
We sate, and mark'd how everything
Did mourn his absence: how the spring
That smil'd and curl'd about his beams,
Whilst he was here, now check'd her streams:
The wanton eddies of her face
Were taught less noise, and smoother grace;
And in a slow, sad channel went,
Whisp'ring the banks their discontent:
The careless ranks of flowers that spread
Their perfum'd bosoms to his head.
And with an open, free embrace,
Did entertain his beamy face,
Like absent friends point to the West,
And on that weak reflection feast.
If creatures then that have no sense,
But the loose tie of influence,
Though fate and time each day remove
Those things that element their love,
At such vast distance can agree,
Why, Amoret, why should not we?

A SONG TO AMORET.

If I were dead, and in my place
Some fresher youth design'd
To warm thee with new fires, and grace
Those arms I left behind;

Were he as faithful as the sun,
That's wedded to the sphere;
His blood as chaste and temp'rate run,
As April's mildest tear;

Or were he rich, and with his heaps
And spacious share of earth,
Could make divine affection cheap,
And court his golden birth:

For all these arts I'd not believe,
—No, though he should be thine—
The mighty amorist could give
So rich a heart as mine.

Fortune and beauty thou might'st find,
And greater men than I:
But my true resolvèd mind
They never shall come nigh.[51]

For I not for an hour did love,
Or for a day desire,
But with my soul had from above
This endless, holy fire.

FOOTNOTES:

[51]

MS. But with my true steadfast minde
None can pretend to vie.

AN ELEGY.

'Tis true, I am undone: yet, ere I die,
I'll leave these sighs and tears a legacy
To after-lovers: that, rememb'ring me,
Those sickly flames which now benighted be,
Fann'd by their warmer sighs, may love; and prove
In them the metempsychosis of love.
'Twas I—when others scorn'd—vow'd you were fair,
And sware that breath enrich'd the coarser air,
Lent roses to your cheeks, made Flora bring
Her nymphs with all the glories of the spring
To wait upon thy face, and gave my heart
A pledge to Cupid for a quicker dart,
To arm those eyes against myself; to me
Thou ow'st that tongue's bewitching harmony.
I courted angels from those upper joys,
And made them leave their spheres to hear thy voice.
I made the Indian curse the hours he spent
To seek his pearls, and wisely to repent
His former folly, and confess a sin,
Charm'd by the brighter lustre of thy skin.
I borrow'd from the winds the gentler wing
Of Zephyrus, and soft souls of the spring;
And made—to air those cheeks with fresher grace—
The warm inspirers dwell upon thy face.
Oh! jam satis ...

A RHAPSODIS:

Occasionally written upon a meeting with some of his friends at the Globe Tavern, in a chamber painted overhead with a cloudy sky and some few dispersed stars, and on the sides with landscapes, hills, shepherds and sheep.

Darkness, and stars i' th' mid-day! They invite
Our active fancies to believe it night:
For taverns need no sun, but for a sign,
Where rich tobacco and quick tapers shine;
And royal, witty sack, the poet's soul,
With brighter suns than he doth gild the bowl;
As though the pot and poet did agree,
Sack should to both illuminator be.
That artificial cloud, with its curl'd brow,
Tells us 'tis late; and that blue space below
Is fir'd with many stars: mark! how they break
In silent glances o'er the hills, and speak
The evening to the plains, where, shot from far,
They meet in dumb salutes, as one great star.
The room, methinks, grows darker; and the air
Contracts a sadder colour, and less fair.
Or is't the drawer's skill? hath he no arts
To blind us so we can't know pints from quarts?
No, no, 'tis night: look where the jolly clown
Musters his bleating herd and quits the down.
Hark! how his rude pipe frets the quiet air,
Whilst ev'ry hill proclaims Lycoris fair.
Rich, happy man! that canst thus watch and sleep,
Free from all cares, but thy wench, pipe and sheep!
But see, the moon is up; view, where she stands
Sentinel o'er the door, drawn by the hands
Of some base painter, that for gain hath made
Her face the landmark to the tippling trade.
This cup to her, that to Endymion give;
'Twas wit at first, and wine that made them live.
Choke may the painter! and his box disclose
No other colours than his fiery nose;
And may we no more of his pencil see
Than two churchwardens, and mortality.
Should we go now a-wand'ring, we should meet
With catchpoles, whores and carts in ev'ry street:
Now when each narrow lane, each nook and cave,
Sign-posts and shop-doors, pimp for ev'ry knave,
When riotous sinful plush, and tell-tale spurs
Walk Fleet Street and the Strand, when the soft stirs
Of bawdy, ruffled silks, turn night to day;
And the loud whip and coach scolds all the way;
When lust of all sorts, and each itchy blood
From the Tower-wharf to Cymbeline, and Lud,
Hunts for a mate, and the tir'd footman reels
'Twixt chairmen, torches, and the hackney wheels.
Come, take the other dish; it is to him
That made his horse a senator: each brim
Look big as mine: the gallant, jolly beast
Of all the herd—you'll say—was not the least.
Now crown the second bowl, rich as his worth
I'll drink it to; he, that like fire broke forth
Into the Senate's face, cross'd Rubicon,
And the State's pillars, with their laws thereon,
And made the dull grey beards and furr'd gowns fly
Into Brundusium to consult, and lie.
This, to brave Sylla! why should it be said
We drink more to the living than the dead?
Flatt'rers and fools do use it: let us laugh
At our own honest mirth; for they that quaff
To honour others, do like those that sent
Their gold and plate to strangers to be spent.
Drink deep; this cup be pregnant, and the wine
Spirit of wit, to make us all divine,
That big with sack and mirth we may retire
Possessors of more souls, and nobler fire;
And by the influx of this painted sky,
And labour'd forms, to higher matters fly;
So, if a nap shall take us, we shall all,
After full cups, have dreams poetical.

Let's laugh now, and the press'd grape drink,
Till the drowsy day-star wink;
And in our merry, mad mirth run
Faster, and further than the sun;
And let none his cup forsake,
Till that star again doth wake;
So we men below shall move
Equally with the gods above.

TO AMORET, OF THE DIFFERENCE
'TWIXT HIM AND OTHER LOVERS,
AND WHAT TRUE LOVE IS.

Mark, when the evening's cooler wings
Fan the afflicted air, how the faint sun,
Leaving undone,
What he begun,
Those spurious flames suck'd up from slime and earth
To their first, low birth,
Resigns, and brings.

They shoot their tinsel beams and vanities,
Threading with those false fires their way;
But as you stay
And see them stray,
You lose the flaming track, and subtly they
Languish away,
And cheat your eyes.

Just so base, sublunary lovers' hearts
Fed on loose profane desires,
May for an eye
Or face comply:
But those remov'd, they will as soon depart,
And show their art,
And painted fires.

Whilst I by pow'rful love, so much refin'd,
That my absent soul the same is,
Careless to miss
A glance or kiss,
Can with those elements of lust and sense
Freely dispense,
And court the mind.

Thus to the North the loadstones move,
And thus to them th' enamour'd steel aspires:
Thus Amoret
I do affect;
And thus by wingèd beams, and mutual fire,
Spirits and stars conspire:
And this is Love.

TO AMORET WEEPING.

Leave Amoret, melt not away so fast
Thy eyes' fair treasure; Fortune's wealthiest cast
Deserves not one such pearl; for these, well spent,
Can purchase stars, and buy a tenement
For us in heaven; though here the pious streams
Avail us not; who from that clue of sunbeams
Could ever steal one thread? or with a kind
Persuasive accent charm the wild loud wind?
Fate cuts us all in marble, and the Book
Forestalls our glass of minutes; we may look
But seldom meet a change; think you a tear
Can blot the flinty volume? shall our fear
Or grief add to their triumphs? and must we
Give an advantage to adversity?
Dear, idle prodigal! is it not just
We bear our stars? What though I had not dust
Enough to cabinet a worm? nor stand
Enslav'd unto a little dirt, or sand?
I boast a better purchase, and can show
The glories of a soul that's simply true.
But grant some richer planet at my birth
Had spied me out, and measur'd so much earth
Or gold unto my share: I should have been
Slave to these lower elements, and seen
My high-born soul flag with their dross, and lie
A pris'ner to base mud, and alchemy.
I should perhaps eat orphans, and suck up
A dozen distress'd widows in one cup;
Nay, further, I should by that lawful stealth,
Damn'd usury, undo the commonwealth;
Or patent it in soap, and coals, and so
Have the smiths curse me, and my laundress too;
Geld wine, or his friend tobacco; and so bring
The incens'd subject rebel to his king;
And after all—as those first sinners fell—
Sink lower than my gold, and lie in hell.
Thanks then for this deliv'rance! blessed pow'rs,
You that dispense man's fortune and his hours,
How am I to you all engag'd! that thus
By such strange means, almost miraculous,
You should preserve me; you have gone the way
To make me rich by taking all away.
For I—had I been rich—as sure as fate,
Would have been meddling with the king, or State,
Or something to undo me; and 'tis fit,
We know, that who hath wealth should have no wit,
But, above all, thanks to that Providence
That arm'd me with a gallant soul, and sense,
'Gainst all misfortunes, that hath breath'd so much
Of Heav'n into me, that I scorn the touch
Of these low things; and can with courage dare
Whatever fate or malice can prepare:
I envy no man's purse or mines: I know
That, losing them, I've lost their curses too;
And Amoret—although our share in these
Is not contemptible, nor doth much please—
Yet, whilst content and love we jointly vie,
We have a blessing which no gold can buy.

UPON THE PRIORY GROVE,
HIS USUAL RETIREMENT.

Hail, sacred shades! cool, leafy house!
Chaste treasurer of all my vows
And wealth! on whose soft bosom laid
My love's fair steps I first betray'd:
Henceforth no melancholy flight,
No sad wing, or hoarse bird of night,
Disturb this air, no fatal throat
Of raven, or owl, awake the note
Of our laid echo, no voice dwell
Within these leaves, but Philomel.
The poisonous ivy here no more
His false twists on the oak shall score;
Only the woodbine here may twine,
As th' emblem of her love, and mine;
The amorous sun shall here convey
His best beams, in thy shades to play;
The active air the gentlest show'rs
Shall from his wings rain on thy flowers;
And the moon from her dewy locks
Shall deck thee with her brightest drops.
Whatever can a fancy move,
Or feed the eye, be on this grove!
And when at last the winds and tears
Of heaven, with the consuming years,
Shall these green curls bring to decay,
And clothe thee in an aged grey
—If ought a lover can foresee,
Or if we poets prophets be—
From hence transplanted, thou shalt stand
A fresh grove in th' Elysian land;
Where—most bless'd pair!—as here on earth
Thou first didst eye our growth, and birth;
So there again, thou'lt see us move
In our first innocence and love;
And in thy shades, as now, so then,
We'll kiss, and smile, and walk again.

JUVENAL'S TENTH SATIRE TRANSLATED.

In all the parts of earth, from farthest West,
And the Atlantic Isles, unto the East
And famous Ganges, few there be that know
What's truly good, and what is good, in show,
Without mistake: for what is't we desire,
Or fear discreetly? to whate'er aspire,
So throughly bless'd, but ever as we speed,
Repentance seals the very act, and deed?
The easy gods, mov'd by no other fate
Than our own pray'rs, whole kingdoms ruinate,
And undo families: thus strife, and war
Are the sword's prize, and a litigious bar
The gown's prime wish. Vain confidence to share
In empty honours and a bloody care
To be the first in mischief, makes him die
Fool'd 'twixt ambition and credulity.
An oily tongue with fatal, cunning sense,
And that sad virtue ever, eloquence,
Are th' other's ruin, but the common curse;
And each day's ill waits on the rich man's purse;
He, whose large acres and imprison'd gold
So far exceeds his father's store of old,
As British whales the dolphins do surpass.
In sadder times therefore, and when the laws
Of Nero's fiat reign'd, an armèd band
Seiz'd on Longinus, and the spacious land
Of wealthy Seneca, besieg'd the gates
Of Lateranus, and his fair estate
Divided as a spoil: in such sad feasts
Soldiers—though not invited—are the guests.
Though thou small pieces of the blessèd mine
Hast lodg'd about thee, travelling in the shine
Of a pale moon, if but a reed doth shake,
Mov'd by the wind, the shadow makes thee quake.
Wealth hath its cares, and want has this relief,
It neither fears the soldier nor the thief;
Thy first choice vows, and to the gods best known,
Are for thy stores' increase, that in all town
Thy stock be greatest, but no poison lies
I' th' poor man's dish; he tastes of no such spice.
Be that thy care, when, with a kingly gust,
Thou suck'st whole bowls clad in the gilded dust
Of some rich mineral, whilst the false wine
Sparkles aloft, and makes the draught divine.
Blam'st thou the sages, then? because the one
Would still be laughing, when he would be gone
From his own door; the other cried to see
His times addicted to such vanity?
Smiles are an easy purchase, but to weep
Is a hard act; for tears are fetch'd more deep.
Democritus his nimble lungs would tire
With constant laughter, and yet keep entire
His stock of mirth, for ev'ry object was
Addition to his store; though then—alas!—
Sedans, and litters, and our Senate gowns,
With robes of honour, fasces, and the frowns
Of unbrib'd tribunes were not seen; but had
He liv'd to see our Roman prætor clad
In Jove's own mantle, seated on his high
Embroider'd chariot 'midst the dust and cry
Of the large theatre, loaden with a crown,
Which scarce he could support—for it would down,
But that his servant props it—and close by
His page, a witness to his vanity:
To these his sceptre and his eagle add,
His trumpets, officers, and servants clad
In white and purple; with the rest that day,
He hir'd to triumph, for his bread, and pay;
Had he these studied, sumptuous follies seen,
'Tis thought his wanton and effusive spleen
Had kill'd the Abderite, though in that age
—When pride and greatness had not swell'd the stage
So high as ours—his harmless and just mirth
From ev'ry object had a sudden birth.
Nor was't alone their avarice or pride,
Their triumphs or their cares he did deride;
Their vain contentions or ridiculous fears,
But even their very poverty and tears.
He would at Fortune's threats as freely smile
As others mourn; nor was it to beguile
His crafty passions; but this habit he
By nature had, and grave philosophy.
He knew their idle and superfluous vows,
And sacrifice, which such wrong zeal bestows,
Were mere incendiaries; and that the gods,
Not pleas'd therewith, would ever be at odds.
Yet to no other air, nor better place
Ow'd he his birth, than the cold, homely Thrace;
Which shows a man may be both wise and good,
Without the brags of fortune, or his blood.
But envy ruins all: what mighty names
Of fortune, spirit, action, blood, and fame,
Hath this destroy'd? yea, for no other cause
Than being such; their honour, worth and place,
Was crime enough; their statues, arms and crowns
Their ornaments of triumph, chariots, gowns,
And what the herald, with a learnèd care,
Had long preserv'd, this madness will not spare.
So once Sejanus' statue Rome allow'd
Her demi-god, and ev'ry Roman bow'd
To pay his safety's vows; but when that face
Had lost Tiberius once, its former grace
Was soon eclips'd; no diff'rence made—alas!—
Betwixt his statue then, and common brass,
They melt alike, and in the workman's hand
For equal, servile use, like others stand.
Go, now fetch home fresh bays, and pay new vows
To thy dumb Capitol gods! thy life, thy house,
And state are now secur'd: Sejanus lies
I' th' lictors' hands. Ye gods! what hearts and eyes
Can one day's fortune change? the solemn cry
Of all the world is, "Let Sejanus die!"
They never lov'd the man, they swear; they know
Nothing of all the matter, when, or how,
By what accuser, for what cause, or why,
By whose command or sentence he must die.
But what needs this? the least pretence will hit,
When princes fear, or hate a favourite.
A large epistle stuff'd with idle fear,
Vain dreams, and jealousies, directed here
From Caprea does it; and thus ever die
Subjects, when once they grow prodigious high.
'Tis well, I seek no more; but tell me how
This took his friends? no private murmurs now?
No tears? no solemn mourner seen? must all
His glory perish in one funeral?
O still true Romans! State-wit bids them praise
The moon by night, but court the warmer rays
O' th' sun by day; they follow fortune still,
And hate or love discreetly, as their will
And the time leads them. This tumultuous fate
Puts all their painted favours out of date.
And yet this people that now spurn, and tread
This mighty favourite's once honour'd head,
Had but the Tuscan goddess, or his stars
Destin'd him for an empire, or had wars,
Treason, or policy, or some higher pow'r
Oppress'd secure Tiberius; that same hour
That he receiv'd the sad Gemonian doom,
Had crown'd him emp'ror of the world and Rome
But Rome is now grown wise, and since that she
Her suffrages, and ancient liberty
Lost in a monarch's name, she takes no care
For favourite or prince; nor will she share
Their fickle glories, though in Cato's days
She rul'd whole States and armies with her voice.
Of all the honours now within her walls,
She only dotes on plays and festivals.
Nor is it strange; for when these meteors fall,
They draw an ample ruin with them: all
Share in the storm; each beam sets with the sun,
And equal hazard friends and flatt'rers run.
This makes, that circled with distractive fear
The lifeless, pale Sejanus' limbs they tear,
And lest the action might a witness need,
They bring their servants to confirm the deed;
Nor is it done for any other end,
Than to avoid the title of his friend.
So falls ambitious man, and such are still
All floating States built on the people's will:
Hearken all you! whom this bewitching lust
Of an hour's glory, and a little dust
Swells to such dear repentance! you that can
Measure whole kingdoms with a thought or span!
Would you be as Sejanus? would you have,
So you might sway as he did, such a grave?
Would you be rich as he? command, dispose,
All acts and offices? all friends and foes?
Be generals of armies and colleague
Unto an emperor? break or make a league?
No doubt you would; for both the good and bad
An equal itch of honour ever had.
But O! what state can be so great or good,
As to be bought with so much shame and blood?
Alas! Sejanus will too late confess
'Twas only pride and greatness made him less:
For he that moveth with the lofty wind
Of Fortune, and Ambition, unconfin'd
In act or thought, doth but increase his height,
That he may loose it with more force and weight;
Scorning a base, low ruin, as if he
Would of misfortune make a prodigy.
Tell, mighty Pompey, Crassus, and O thou
That mad'st Rome kneel to thy victorious brow,
What but the weight of honours, and large fame
After your worthy acts, and height of name,
Destroy'd you in the end? The envious Fates,
Easy to further your aspiring States,
Us'd them to quell you too; pride, and excess.
In ev'ry act did make you thrive the less.
Few kings are guilty of grey hairs, or die
Without a stab, a draught, or treachery.
And yet to see him, that but yesterday
Saw letters first, how he will scrape, and pray;
And all her feast-time tire Minerva's ears
For fame, for eloquence, and store of years
To thrive and live in; and then lest he dotes,
His boy assists him with his box and notes.
Fool that thou art! not to discern the ill
These vows include; what, did Rome's consul kill
Her Cicero? what, him whose very dust
Greece celebrates as yet; whose cause, though just,
Scarce banishment could end; nor poison save
His free-born person from a foreign grave?
All this from eloquence! both head and hand
The tongue doth forfeit; petty wits may stand
Secure from danger, but the nobler vein
With loss of blood the bar doth often stain.

}

Carmen

Ciceronianum

Had all been thus, thou might'st have scorn'd the sword
Of fierce Antonius; here is not one word
Doth pinch; I like such stuff, 'tis safer far
Than thy Philippics, or Pharsalia's war.
What sadder end than his, whom Athens saw
At once her patriot, oracle, and law?
Unhappy then is he, and curs'd in stars
Whom his poor father, blind with soot and scars,
Sends from the anvil's harmless chine, to wear
The factious gown, and tire his client's ear
And purse with endless noise. Trophies of war,
Old rusty armour, with an honour'd scar,
And wheels of captiv'd chariots, with a piece
Of some torn British galley, and to these
The ensign too, and last of all the train
The pensive pris'ner loaden with his chain,
Are thought true Roman honours; these the Greek
And rude barbarians equally do seek.
Thus air, and empty fame, are held a prize
Beyond fair virtue; for all virtue dies
Without reward; and yet by this fierce lust
Of fame, and titles to outlive our dust,
And monuments—though all these things must die
And perish like ourselves—whole kingdoms lie
Ruin'd and spoil'd: put Hannibal i' th' scale,
What weight affords the mighty general?
This is the man, whom Afric's spacious land
Bounded by th' Indian Sea, and Nile's hot sand
Could not contain—Ye gods! that give to men
Such boundless appetites, why state you them
So short a time? either the one deny,
Or give their acts and them eternity.
All Æthiopia, to the utmost bound
Of Titan's course,—than which no land is found
Less distant from the sun—with him that ploughs
That fertile soil where fam'd [52] Iberus flows,
Are not enough to conquer; pass'd now o'er
The Pyrrhene hills, the Alps with all its store
Of ice, and rocks clad in eternal snow,
—As if that Nature meant to give the blow—
Denies him passage; straight on ev'ry side
He wounds the hill, and by strong hand divides
The monstrous pile; nought can ambition stay.
The world and Nature yield to give him way.
And now pass'd o'er the Alps, that mighty bar
'Twixt France and Rome, fear of the future war
Strikes Italy; success and hope doth fire
His lofty spirits with a fresh desire.
All is undone as yet—saith he—unless
Our Pænish forces we advance, and press
Upon Rome's self; break down her gates and wall,
And plant our colours in Suburra's vale.
O the rare sight! if this great soldier we
Arm'd on his Getick elephant might see!
But what's the event? O glory, how the itch
Of thy short wonders doth mankind bewitch!
He that but now all Italy and Spain
Had conquer'd o'er, is beaten out again;
And in the heart of Afric, and the sight
Of his own Carthage, forc'd to open flight.
Banish'd from thence, a fugitive he posts
To Syria first, then to Bithynia's coasts,
Both places by his sword secur'd, though he
In this distress must not acknowledg'd be;
Where once a general he triumphed, now
To show what Fortune can, he begs as low.
And thus that soul which through all nations hurl'd
Conquest and war, and did amaze the world,
Of all those glories robb'd, at his last breath,
Fortune would not vouchsafe a soldier's death.
For all that blood the field of Cannæ boasts,
And sad Apulia fill'd with Roman ghosts,
No other end—freed from the pile and sword—
Than a poor ring would Fortune him afford.
Go now, ambitious man! new plots design,
March o'er the snowy Alps and Apennine;
That, after all, at best thou may'st but be
A pleasing story to posterity!
The Macedon one world could not contain,
We hear him of the narrow earth complain,
And sweat for room, as if Seriphus Isle
Or Gyara had held him in exile;
But Babylon this madness can allay,
And give the great man but his length of clay.
The highest thoughts and actions under heaven
Death only with the lowest dust lays even.
It is believed—if what Greece writes be true—
That Xerxes with his Persian fleet did hew
Their ways through mountains, that their sails full blown
Like clouds hung over Athos and did drown
The spacious continent, and by plain force
Betwixt the mount and it, made a divorce;
That seas exhausted were, and made firm land,
And Sestos joined unto Abydos strand;
That on their march his Medes but passing by
Drank thee, Scamander, and Melenus dry;
With whatsoe'er incredible design
Sostratus sings, inspir'd with pregnant wine.
But what's the end? He that the other day
Divided Hellespont, and forc'd his way
Through all her angry billows, that assign'd
New punishments unto the waves, and wind,
No sooner saw the Salaminian seas
But he was driven out by Themistocles,
And of that fleet—supposed to be so great,
That all mankind shar'd in the sad defeat—
Not one sail sav'd, in a poor fisher's boat,
Chas'd o'er the working surge, was glad to float,
Cutting his desp'rate course through the tir'd flood,
And fought again with carcases, and blood.
O foolish mad Ambition! these are still
The famous dangers that attend thy will.
Give store of days, good Jove, give length of years,
Are the next vows; these with religious fears
And constancy we pay; but what's so bad
As a long, sinful age? what cross more sad
Than misery of years? how great an ill
Is that which doth but nurse more sorrow still?
It blacks the face, corrupt and dulls the blood,
Benights the quickest eye, distastes the food,
And such deep furrows cuts i' th' checker'd skin
As in th' old oaks of Tabraca are seen.
Youth varies in most things; strength, beauty, wit,
Are several graces; but where age doth hit
It makes no difference; the same weak voice,
And trembling ague in each member lies:
A general hateful baldness, with a curs'd
Perpetual pettishness; and, which is worst,
A foul, strong flux of humours, and more pain
To feed, than if he were to nurse again;
So tedious to himself, his wife, and friends,
That his own sons, and servants, wish his end.
His taste and feeling dies; and of that fire
The am'rous lover burns in, no desire:
Or if there were, what pleasure could it be,
Where lust doth reign without ability?
Nor is this all: what matters it, where he
Sits in the spacious stage? who can nor see,
Nor hear what's acted, whom the stiller voice
Of spirited, wanton airs, or the loud noise
Of trumpets cannot pierce; whom thunder can
But scarce inform who enters, or what man
He personates, what 'tis they act, or say?
How many scenes are done? what time of day?
Besides that little blood his carcase holds
Hath lost [53] its native warmth, and fraught with colds
Catarrhs, and rheums, to thick black jelly turns,
And never but in fits and fevers burns.
Such vast infirmities, so huge a stock
Of sickness and diseases to him flock,
That Hyppia ne'er so many lovers knew,
Nor wanton Maura; physic never slew
So many patients, nor rich lawyers spoil
More wards and widows; it were lesser toil
To number out what manors and domains
Licinius' razor purchas'd: one complains
Of weakness in the back, another pants
For lack of breath, the third his eyesight wants;
Nay, some so feeble are, and full of pain,
That infant-like they must be fed again.
These faint too at their meals; their wine they spill,
And like young birds, that wait the mother's bill,
They gape for meat; but sadder far than this
Their senseless ignorance and dotage is;
For neither they, their friends, nor servants know,
Nay, those themselves begot, and bred up too,
No longer now they'll own; for madly they
Proscribe them all, and what, on the last day,
The misers cannot carry to the grave
For their past sins, their prostitutes must have.
But grant age lack'd these plagues: yet must they see
As great, as many: frail mortality,
In such a length of years, hath many falls,
And deads a life with frequent funerals.
The nimblest hour in all the span can steal
A friend, or brother from's; there's no repeal
In death, or time; this day a wife we mourn,
To-morrow's tears a son; and the next urn
A sister fills. Long-livers have assign'd
These curses still, that with a restless mind,
An age of fresh renewing cares they buy,
And in a tide of tears grow old and die.
Nestor,—if we great Homer may believe—
In his full strength three hundred years did live:
Happy—thou'lt say—that for so long a time
Enjoy'd free nature, with the grape and wine
Of many autumns; but, I prithee thee, hear
What Nestor says himself, when he his dear
Antilochus had lost; how he complains
Of life's too large extent, and copious pains?
Of all he meets, he asks what is the cause
He liv'd thus long; for what breach of their laws
The gods thus punish'd him? what sin had he
Done worthy of a long life's misery.
Thus Peleus his Achilles mourned, and he
Thus wept that his Ulysses lost at sea.
Had Priam died before Phereclus' fleet
Was built, or Paris stole the fatal Greek,
Troy had yet stood, and he perhaps had gone
In peace unto the lower shades; his son
Sav'd with his plenteous offspring, and the rest
In solemn pomp bearing his fun'ral chest.
But long life hinder'd this: unhappy he,
Kept for a public ruin, liv'd to see
All Asia lost, and ere he could aspire,
In his own house saw both the sword and fire;
All white with age and cares, his feeble arm
Had now forgot the war; but this alarm
Gathers his dying spirits; and as we
An aged ox worn out with labour see
By his ungrateful master, after all
His years of toil, a thankless victim fall:
So he by Jove's own altar; which shows we
Are nowhere safe from heaven, and destiny:
Yet died a man; but his surviving queen,
Freed from the Greekish sword, was barking seen.
I haste to Rome, and Pontus' king let pass,
With Lydian Crœsus, whom in vain—alas!—
Just Solon's grave advice bad to attend,
That happiness came not before the end.
What man more bless'd in any age to come
Or past, could Nature show the world, or Rome,
Than Marius was? if amidst the pomp of war,
And triumphs fetch'd with Roman blood from far,
His soul had fled; exile and fetters then
He ne'er had seen, nor known Minturna's fen;
Nor had it, after Carthage got, been said
A Roman general had begg'd his bread.
Thus Pompey th' envious gods, and Rome's ill stars
—Freed from Campania's fevers, and the wars—
Doom'd to Achilles' sword: our public vows
Made Cæsar guiltless; but sent him to lose
His head at Nile: this curse Cethegus miss'd:
This Lentulus, and this made him resist
That mangled by no lictor's axe, fell dead
Entirely Catiline, and sav'd his head.
The anxious matrons, with their foolish zeal,
Are the last votaries, and their appeal
Is all for beauty; with soft speech, and slow,
They pray for sons, but with a louder vow
Commend a female feature: all that can
Make woman pleasing now they shift, and scan
And when [54] reprov'd, they say, Latona's pair
The mother never thinks can be too fair.
But sad Lucretia warns to wish no face
Like hers: Virginia would bequeath her grace
To crook-back Rutila in exchange; for still
The fairest children do their parents fill
With greatest cares; so seldom chastity
Is found with beauty; though some few there be
That with a strict, religious care contend
Th' old, modest, Sabine customs to defend:
Besides, wise Nature to some faces grants
An easy blush, and where she freely plants
A less instruction serves: but both these join'd,
At Rome would both be forc'd or else purloin'd.
So steel'd a forehead Vice hath, that dares win,
And bribe the father to the children's sin;
But whom have gifts defiled not? what good face
Did ever want these tempters? pleasing grace
Betrays itself; what time did Nero mind
A coarse, maim'd shape? what blemish'd youth confin'd
His goatish pathic? whence then flow these joys
Of a fair issue? whom these sad annoys
Wait, and grow up with; whom perhaps thou'lt see
Public adulterers, and must be
Subject to all the curses, plagues, and awe
Of jealous madmen, and the Julian law;
Nor canst thou hope they'll find a milder star,
Or more escapes than did the god of war.
But worse than all, a jealous brain confines
His fury to no law; what rage assigns
Is present justice: thus the rash sword spills
This lecher's blood; the scourge another kills.
But thy spruce boy must touch no other face
Than a patrician? is of any race
So they be rich; Servilia is as good,
With wealth, as she that boasts Iulus' blood.
To please a servant all is cheap; what thing
In all their stock to the last suit, and king,
But lust exacts? the poorest whore in this
As generous as the patrician is.
But thou wilt say what hurt's a beauteous skin
With a chaste soul? Ask Theseus' son, and him
That Stenobœa murder'd; for both these
Can tell how fatal 'twas in them to please.
A woman's spleen then carries most of fate,
When shame and sorrow aggravate her hate.
Resolve me now, had Silius been thy son,
In such a hazard what should he have done?
Of all Rome's youth, this was the only best,
In whom alone beauty and worth did rest.
This Messalina saw, and needs he must
Be ruin'd by the emp'ror, or her lust.
All in the face of Rome, and the world's eye
Though Cæsar's wife, a public bigamy
She dares attempt; and that the act might bear
More prodigy, the notaries appear,
And augurs to't; and to complete the sin
In solemn form, a dowry is brought in.
All this—thou'lt say—in private might have pass'd
But she'll not have it so; what course at last?
What should he do? If Messaline be cross'd,
Without redress thy Silius will be lost;
If not, some two days' length is all he can
Keep from the grave; just so much as will span
This news to Hostia, to whose fate he owes
That Claudius last his own dishonour knows.
But he obeys, and for a few hours' lust
Forfeits that glory should outlive his dust;
Nor was it much a fault; for whether he
Obey'd or not, 'twas equal destiny.
So fatal beauty is, and full of waste.
That neither wanton can be safe, nor chaste.
What then should man pray for? what is't that he
Can beg of Heaven, without impiety?
Take my advice: first to the gods commit
All cares; for they things competent and fit
For us foresee; besides, man is more dear
To them than to himself; we blindly here,
Led by the world and lust, in vain assay
To get us portions, wives and sons; but they
Already know all that we can intend,
And of our children's children see the end.
Yet that thou may'st have something to commend
With thanks unto the gods for what they send;
Pray for a wise and knowing soul; a sad,
Discreet, true valour, that will scorn to add
A needless horror to thy death; that knows
'Tis but a debt which man to nature owes;
That starts not at misfortunes, that can sway
And keep all passions under lock and key;
That covets nothing, wrongs none, and prefers
An honest want, before rich injurers.
All this thou hast within thyself, and may
Be made thy own, if thou wilt take the way;
What boots the world's wild, loose applause? what [can]
Frail, perilous honours add unto a man?
What length of years, wealth, or a rich fair wife?
Virtue alone can make a happy life.
To a wise man nought comes amiss: but we
Fortune adore, and make our deity.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] The original has framed.

[53] The original has low.

[54] The original has why

OLOR ISCANUS.
1651.

——O quis me gelidis in vallibus Iscæ
Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra!

AD POSTEROS.

Diminuat ne sera dies præsentis honorem
Quis, qualisque fui, percipe Posteritas.
Cambria me genuit, patulis ubi vallibus errans
Subjacet aeriis montibus Isca pater.
Inde sinu placido suscepit maximus arte
Herbertus, Latiæ gloria prima scholæ.
Bis ternos, illo me conducente, per annos
Profeci, et geminam contulit unus opem;
Ars et amor, mens atque manus certare solebant,
Nec lassata illi mensue, manusue fuit.
Hinc qualem cernis crevisse: sed ut mea certus
Tempora cognoscas, dura mere, scias.
Vixi, divisos cum fregerat hæresis Anglos
Inter Tysiphonas presbyteri et populi.
His primum miseris per amœna furentibus arva
Prostravit sanctam vilis avena rosam,
Turbarunt fontes, et fusis pax perit undis,
Moestaque coelestes obruit umbra dies.
Duret ut integritas tamen, et pia gloria, partem
Me nullam in tanta strage fuisse, scias;
Credidimus nempe insonti vocem esse cruori,
Et vires quæ post funera flere docent.
Hinc castæ, fidæque pati me more parentis
Commonui, et lachrymis fata levare meis;
Hinc nusquam horrendis violavi sacra procellis,
Nec mihi mens unquam, nec manus atra fuit.
Si pius es, ne plura petas; satur ille recedat
Qui sapit et nos non scripsimus insipidis.

TO THE TRULY NOBLE AND MOST EXCELLENTLY ACCOMPLISHED, THE LORD KILDARE DIGBY.

My Lord,

It is a position anciently known, and modern experience hath allowed it for a sad truth, that absence and time,—like cold weather, and an unnatural dormition—will blast and wear out of memory the most endearing obligations; and hence it was that some politicians in love have looked upon the former of these two as a main remedy against the fondness of that passion. But for my own part, my Lord, I shall deny this aphorism of the people, and beg leave to assure your Lordship, that, though these reputed obstacles have lain long in my way, yet neither of them could work upon me: for I am now—without adulation—as warm and sensible of those numerous favours and kind influences received sometimes from your Lordship, as I really was at the instant of fruition. I have no plot by preambling thus to set any rate upon this present address, as if I should presume to value a return of this nature equal with your Lordship's deserts, but the design is to let you see that this habit I have got of being troublesome flows from two excusable principles, gratitude and love. These inward counsellors—I know not how discreetly—persuaded me to this attempt and intrusion upon your name, which if your Lordship will vouchsafe to own as the genius to these papers, you will perfect my hopes, and place me at my full height. This was the aim, my Lord, and is the end of this work, which though but a pazzarello to the voluminose insani, yet as jessamine and the violet find room in the bank as well as roses and lilies, so happily may this, and—if shined upon by your Lordship—please as much. To whose protection, sacred as your name and those eminent honours which have always attended upon it through so many generations, I humbly offer it, and remain in all numbers of gratitude,

My honoured Lord,
Your most affectionate, humblest Servant,
Vaughan.
Newton by Usk this
17 of Decemb. 1647.

THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.

It was the glorious Maro that referred his legacies to the fire, and though princes are seldom executors, yet there came a Cæsar to his testament, as if the act of a poet could not be repealed but by a king. I am not, Reader, Augustus vindex: here is no royal rescue, but here is a Muse that deserves it. The Author had long ago condemned these poems to obscurity, and the consumption of that further fate which attends it. This censure gave them a gust of death, and they have partly known that oblivion which our best labours must come to at last. I present thee then not only with a book, but with a prey, and in this kind the first recoveries from corruption. Here is a flame hath been sometimes extinguished, thoughts that have been lost and forgot, but now they break out again like the Platonic reminiscency. I have not the Author's approbation to the fact, but I have law on my side, though never a sword. I hold it no man's prerogative to fire his own house. Thou seest how saucy I am grown, and it thou dost expect I should commend what is published, I must tell thee, I cry no Seville oranges. I will not say, Here is fine or cheap: that were an injury to the verse itself, and to the effects it can produce. Read on, and thou wilt find thy spirit engaged: not by the deserts of what we call tolerable, but by the commands of a pen that is above it.

UPON THE MOST INGENIOUS PAIR OF TWINS, EUGENIUS PHILALETHES, AND THE AUTHOR OF THESE POEMS.

What planet rul'd your birth? what witty star?
That you so like in souls as bodies are!
So like in both, that you seem born to free
The starry art from vulgar calumny.
My doubts are solv'd, from hence my faith begins,
Not only your faces but your wits are twins.

When this bright Gemini shall from Earth ascend,
They will new light to dull-ey'd mankind lend,
Teach the star-gazers, and delight their eyes,
Being fix'd a constellation in the skies.

T. Powell, Oxoniensis.

TO MY FRIEND THE AUTHOR UPON THESE HIS POEMS.

I call'd it once my sloth: in such an age
So many volumes deep, I not a page?
But I recant, and vow 'twas thrifty care
That kept my pen from spending on slight ware,
And breath'd it for a prize, whose pow'rful shine
Doth both reward the striver, and refine.
Such are thy poems, friend: for since th' hast writ,
I can't reply to any name, but wit;
And lest amidst the throng that make us groan,
Mine prove a groundless heresy alone,
Thus I dispute, Hath there not rev'rence been
Paid to the beard at door, for Lord within?
Who notes the spindle-leg or hollow eye
Of the thin usher, the fair lady by?
Thus I sin freely, neighbour to a hand
Which, while I aim to strengthen, gives command
For my protection; and thou art to me
At once my subject and security.

I. Rowlandson, Oxoniensis.

UPON THE FOLLOWING POEMS.

I write not here, as if thy last in store
Of learnèd friends; 'tis known that thou hast more;
Who, were they told of this, would find a way
To raise a guard of poets without pay,
And bring as many hands to thy edition,
As th' City should unto their May'r's petition.
But thou wouldst none of this, lest it should be
Thy muster rather than our courtesy;
Thou wouldst not beg as knights do, and appear
Poet by voice and suffrage of the shire;
That were enough to make my Muse advance
Amongst the crutches; nay, it might enhance
Our charity, and we should think it fit
The State should build an hospital for wit.
But here needs no relief: thy richer verse
Creates all poets, that can but rehearse,
And they, like tenants better'd by their land,
Should pay thee rent for what they understand.
Thou art not of that lamentable nation
Who make a blessed alms of approbation,
Whose fardel-notes are briefs in ev'rything,
But, that they are not Licens'd by the king.
Without such scrape-requests thou dost come forth
Arm'd—though I speak it—with thy proper worth,
And needest not this noise of friends, for we
Write out of love, not thy necessity.
And though this sullen age possessèd be
With some strange desamour to poetry,
Yet I suspect—thy fancy so delights—
The Puritans will turn thy proselytes,
And that thy flame, when once abroad it shines,
Will bring thee as many friends as thou hast lines.

Eugenius Philalethes, Oxoniensis.

OLOR ISCANUS.

TO THE RIVER ISCA.

When Daphne's lover here first wore the bays,
Eurotas' secret streams heard all his lays,
And holy Orpheus, Nature's busy child,
By headlong Hebrus his deep hymns compil'd;
Soft Petrarch—thaw'd by Laura's flames—did weep
On Tiber's banks, when she—proud fair!—could sleep;
Mosella boasts Ausonius, and the Thames
Doth murmur Sidney's Stella to her streams;
While Severn, swoln with joy and sorrow, wears
Castara's smiles mix'd with fair Sabrin's tears.
Thus poets—like the nymphs, their pleasing themes—
Haunted the bubbling springs and gliding streams;
And happy banks! whence such fair flow'rs have sprung,
But happier those where they have sat and sung!
Poets—like angels—where they once appear
Hallow the place, and each succeeding year
Adds rev'rence to't, such as at length doth give
This aged faith, that there their genii live.
Hence th' ancients say, that from this sickly air
They pass to regions more refin'd and fair,
To meadows strew'd with lilies and the rose,
And shades whose youthful green no old age knows;
Where all in white they walk, discourse, and sing
Like bees' soft murmurs, or a chiding spring.
But Isca, whensoe'er those shades I see,
And thy lov'd arbours must no more know me,
When I am laid to rest hard by thy streams,
And my sun sets, where first it sprang in beams,
I'll leave behind me such a large, kind light,
As shall redeem thee from oblivious night,
And in these vows which—living yet—I pay,
Shed such a previous and enduring ray,
As shall from age to age thy fair name lead,
'Till rivers leave to run, and men to read.
First, may all bards born after me
—When I am ashes—sing of thee!
May thy green banks or streams,—or none—
Be both their hill and Helicon!
May vocal groves grow there, and all
The shades in them prophetical,
Where laid men shall more fair truths see
Than fictions were of Thessaly!
May thy gentle swains—like flow'rs—
Sweetly spend their youthful hours,
And thy beauteous nymphs—like doves—
Be kind and faithful to their loves!
Garlands, and songs, and roundelays,
Mild, dewy nights, and sunshine days,
The turtle's voice, joy without fear,
Dwell on thy bosom all the year!
May the evet and the toad
Within thy banks have no abode,
Nor the wily, winding snake
Her voyage through thy waters make!
In all thy journey to the main
No nitrous clay, nor brimstone-vein
Mix with thy streams, but may they pass
Fresh on the air, and clear as glass,
And where the wand'ring crystal treads
Roses shall kiss, and couple heads!
The factor-wind from far shall bring
The odours of the scatter'd Spring,
And loaden with the rich arrear,
Spend it in spicy whispers there.
No sullen heats, nor flames that are
Offensive, and canicular,
Shine on thy sands, nor pry to see
Thy scaly, shading family,
But noons as mild as Hesper's rays,
Or the first blushes of fair days!
What gifts more Heav'n or Earth can add,
With all those blessings be thou clad!
Honour, Beauty,
Faith and Duty,
Delight and Truth,
With Love and Youth,
Crown all about thee! and whatever Fate
Impose elsewhere, whether the graver state
Or some toy else, may those loud, anxious cares
For dead and dying things—the common wares
And shows of Time—ne'er break thy peace, nor make
Thy repos'd arms to a new war awake!
But freedom, safety, joy and bliss,
United in one loving kiss,
Surround thee quite, and style thy borders
The land redeem'd from all disorders!

THE CHARNEL-HOUSE.

Bless me! what damps are here! how stiff an air!
Kelder of mists, a second fiat's care,
Front'spiece o' th' grave and darkness, a display
Of ruin'd man, and the disease of day,
Lean, bloodless shamble, where I can descry
Fragments of men, rags of anatomy,
Corruption's wardrobe, the transplantive bed
Of mankind, and th' exchequer of the dead!
How thou arrests my sense! how with the sight
My winter'd blood grows stiff to all delight!
Torpedo to the eye! whose least glance can
Freeze our wild lusts, and rescue headlong man.
Eloquent silence! able to immure
An atheist's thoughts, and blast an epicure.
Were I a Lucian, Nature in this dress
Would make me wish a Saviour, and confess.
Where are you, shoreless thoughts, vast tenter'd hope,
Ambitious dreams, aims of an endless scope,
Whose stretch'd excess runs on a string too high,
And on the rack of self-extension die?
Chameleons of state, air-monging band,
Whose breath—like gunpowder—blows up a land,
Come see your dissolution, and weigh
What a loath'd nothing you shall be one day.
As th' elements by circulation pass
From one to th' other, and that which first was
I so again, so 'tis with you; the grave
And Nature but complot; what the one gave
The other takes; think, then, that in this bed
There sleep the relics of as proud a head,
As stern and subtle as your own, that hath
Perform'd, or forc'd as much, whose tempest-wrath
Hath levell'd kings with slaves, and wisely then
Calm these high furies, and descend to men.
Thus Cyrus tam'd the Macedon; a tomb
Check'd him, who thought the world too straight a room.
Have I obey'd the powers of face,
A beauty able to undo the race
Of easy man? I look but here, and straight
I am inform'd, the lovely counterfeit
Was but a smoother clay. That famish'd slave
Beggar'd by wealth, who starves that he may save,
Brings hither but his sheet; nay, th' ostrich-man
That feeds on steel and bullet, he that can
Outswear his lordship, and reply as tough
To a kind word, as if his tongue were buff,
Is chap-fall'n here: worms without wit or fear
Defy him now; Death hath disarm'd the bear.
Thus could I run o'er all the piteous score
Of erring men, and having done, meet more,
Their shuffled wills, abortive, vain intents,
Fantastic humours, perilous ascents,
False, empty honours, traitorous delights,
And whatsoe'er a blind conceit invites;
But these and more which the weak vermins swell,
Are couch'd in this accumulative cell,
Which I could scatter; but the grudging sun
Calls home his beams, and warns me to be gone;
Day leaves me in a double night, and I
Must bid farewell to my sad library.
Yet with these notes—Henceforth with thought of thee
I'll season all succeeding jollity,
Yet damn not mirth, nor think too much is fit;
Excess hath no religion, nor wit;
But should wild blood swell to a lawless strain,
One check from thee shall channel it again.

IN AMICUM FŒNERATOREM.

Thanks, mighty Silver! I rejoice to see
How I have spoil'd his thrift, by spending thee.
Now thou art gone, he courts my wants with more,
His decoy gold, and bribes me to restore.
As lesser lode-stones with the North consent,
Naturally moving to their element,
As bodies swarm to th' centre, and that fire
Man stole from heaven, to heav'n doth still aspire,
So this vast crying sum draws in a less;
And hence this bag more Northward laid I guess,
For 'tis of pole-star force, and in this sphere
Though th' least of many, rules the master-bear.
Prerogative of debts! how he doth dress
His messages in chink! not an express
Without a fee for reading; and 'tis fit,
For gold's the best restorative of wit.
Oh how he gilds them o'er! with what delight
I read those lines, which angels do indite!
But wilt have money, Og? must I dispurse
Will nothing serve thee but a poet's curse?
Wilt rob an altar thus? and sweep at once
What Orpheus-like I forc'd from stocks and stones?
'Twill never swell thy bag, nor ring one peal
In thy dark chest. Talk not of shreeves, or gaol;
I fear them not. I have no land to glut
Thy dirty appetite, and make thee strut
Nimrod of acres; I'll no speech prepare
To court the hopeful cormorant, thine heir.
For there's a kingdom at thy beck if thou
But kick this dross: Parnassus' flow'ry brow
I'll give thee with my Tempe, and to boot
That horse which struck a fountain with his foot.
A bed of roses I'll provide for thee,
And crystal springs shall drop thee melody.
The breathing shades we'll haunt, where ev'ry leaf
Shall whisper us asleep, though thou art deaf.
Those waggish nymphs, too, which none ever yet
Durst make love to, we'll teach the loving fit;
We'll suck the coral of their lips, and feed
Upon their spicy breath, a meal at need:
Rove in their amber-tresses, and unfold
That glist'ring grove, the curled wood of gold;
Then peep for babies, a new puppet play,
And riddle what their prattling eyes would say.
But here thou must remember to dispurse,
For without money all this is a curse.
Thou must for more bags call, and so restore
This iron age to gold, as once before.
This thou must do, and yet this is not all,
For thus the poet would be still in thrall,
Thou must then—if live thus—my nest of honey
Cancel old bonds, and beg to lend more money.

TO HIS FRIEND ——

I wonder, James, through the whole history
Of ages, such entails of poverty
Are laid on poets; lawyers—they say—have found
A trick to cut them; would they were but bound
To practise on us, though for this thing we
Should pay—if possible—their bribes and fee.
Search—as thou canst—the old and modern store
Of Rome and ours, in all the witty score
Thou shalt not find a rich one; take each clime,
And run o'er all the pilgrimage of time,
Thou'lt meet them poor, and ev'rywhere descry
A threadbare, goldless genealogy.
Nature—it seems—when she meant us for earth
Spent so much of her treasure in the birth
As ever after niggards her, and she,
Thus stor'd within, beggars us outwardly.
Woful profusion! at how dear a rate
Are we made up! all hope of thrift and state
Lost for a verse. When I by thoughts look back
Into the womb of time, and see the rack
Stand useless there, until we are produc'd
Unto the torture, and our souls infus'd
To learn afflictions, I begin to doubt
That as some tyrants use from their chain'd rout
Of slaves to pick out one whom for their sport
They keep afflicted by some ling'ring art;
So we are merely thrown upon the stage
The mirth of fools and legend of the age.
When I see in the ruins of a suit
Some nobler breast, and his tongue sadly mute
Feed on the vocal silence of his eye,
And knowing cannot reach the remedy;
When souls of baser stamp shine in their store,
And he of all the throng is only poor;
When French apes for foreign fashions pay,
And English legs are dress'd th' outlandish way,
So fine too, that they their own shadows woo,
While he walks in the sad and pilgrim shoe;
I'm mad at Fate, and angry ev'n to sin,
To see deserts and learning clad so thin;
To think how th' earthly usurer can brood
Upon his bags, and weigh the precious food
With palsied hands, as if his soul did fear
The scales could rob him of what he laid there.
Like devils that on hid treasures sit, or those
Whose jealous eyes trust not beyond their nose,
They guard the dirt and the bright idol hold
Close, and commit adultery with gold.
A curse upon their dross! how have we sued
For a few scatter'd chips? how oft pursu'd
Petitions with a blush, in hope to squeeze
For their souls' health, more than our wants, a piece?
Their steel-ribb'd chests and purse—rust eat them both!—
Have cost us with much paper many an oath,
And protestations of such solemn sense,
As if our souls were sureties for the pence.
Should we a full night's learnèd cares present,
They'll scarce return us one short hour's content.
'Las! they're but quibbles, things we poets feign,
The short-liv'd squibs and crackers of the brain.
But we'll be wiser, knowing 'tis not they
That must redeem the hardship of our way.
Whether a Higher Power, or that star
Which, nearest heav'n, is from the earth most far,
Oppress us thus, or angell'd from that sphere
By our strict guardians are kept luckless here,
It matters not, we shall one day obtain
Our native and celestial scope again.

TO HIS RETIRED FRIEND, AN INVITATION TO BRECKNOCK.

Since last we met, thou and thy horse—my dear—
Have not so much as drunk, or litter'd here;
I wonder, though thyself be thus deceas'd,
Thou hast the spite to coffin up thy beast;
Or is the palfrey sick, and his rough hide
With the penance of one spur mortified?
Or taught by thee—like Pythagoras's ox—
Is then his master grown more orthodox
Whatever 'tis, a sober cause't must be
That thus long bars us of thy company.
The town believes thee lost, and didst thou see
But half her suff'rings, now distress'd for thee,
Thou'ldst swear—like Rome—her foul, polluted walls
Were sack'd by Brennus and the savage Gauls.
Abominable face of things! here's noise
Of banged mortars, blue aprons, and boys,
Pigs, dogs, and drums, with the hoarse, hellish notes
Of politicly-deaf usurers' throats,
With new fine Worships, and the old cast team
Of Justices vex'd with the cough and phlegm.
'Midst these the Cross looks sad, and in the Shire-
Hall furs of an old Saxon fox appear,
With brotherly ruffs and beards, and a strange sight
Of high monumental hats, ta'en at the fight
Of 'Eighty-eight; while ev'ry burgess foots
The mortal pavement in eternal boots.
Hadst thou been bach'lor, I had soon divin'd
Thy close retirements, and monastic mind;
Perhaps some nymph had been to visit, or
The beauteous churl was to be waited for,
And like the Greek, ere you the sport would miss,
You stay'd, and strok'd the distaff for a kiss.
But in this age, when thy cool, settled blood
Is ti'd t'one flesh, and thou almost grown good,
I know not how to reach the strange device,
Except—Domitian-like—thou murder'st flies.
Or is't thy piety? for who can tell
But thou may'st prove devout, and love a cell,
And—like a badger—with attentive looks
In the dark hole sit rooting up of books.
Quick hermit! what a peaceful change hadst thou,
Without the noise of haircloth, whip, or vow!
But there is no redemption? must there be
No other penance but of liberty?
Why, two months hence, if thou continue thus,
Thy memory will scarce remain with us,
The drawers have forgot thee, and exclaim
They have not seen thee here since Charles, his reign,
Or if they mention thee, like some old man,
That at each word inserts—"Sir, as I can
Remember"—so the cyph'rers puzzle me
With a dark, cloudy character of thee.
That—certs!—I fear thou wilt be lost, and we
Must ask the fathers ere't be long for thee.
Come! leave this sullen state, and let not wine
And precious wit lie dead for want of thine.
Shall the dull market-landlord with his rout
Of sneaking tenants dirtily swill out
This harmless liquor? shall they knock and beat
For sack, only to talk of rye and wheat?
O let not such prepost'rous tippling be
In our metropolis; may I ne'er see
Such tavern-sacrilege, nor lend a line
To weep the rapes and tragedy of wine!
Here lives that chymic, quick fire which betrays
Fresh spirits to the blood, and warms our lays.
I have reserv'd 'gainst thy approach a cup
That were thy Muse stark dead, shall raise her up,
And teach her yet more charming words and skill
Than ever Cœlia, Chloris, Astrophil,
Or any of the threadbare names inspir'd
Poor rhyming lovers with a mistress fir'd.
Come then! and while the slow icicle hangs
At the stiff thatch, and Winter's frosty pangs
Benumb the year, blithe—as of old—let us
'Midst noise and war of peace and mirth discuss.
This portion thou wert born for: why should we
Vex at the time's ridiculous misery?
An age that thus hath fool'd itself, and will
—Spite of thy teeth and mine—persist so still.
Let's sit then at this fire, and while we steal
A revel in the town, let others seal,
Purchase or cheat, and who can, let them pay,
Till those black deeds bring on the darksome day.
Innocent spenders we! a better use
Shall wear out our short lease, and leave th' obtuse
Rout to their husks; they and their bags at best
Have cares in earnest; we care for a jest.

MONSIEUR GOMBAULD.

I've read thy soul's fair nightpiece, and have seen
Th' amours and courtship of the silent Queen,
Her stoln descents to Earth, and what did move her
To juggle first with Heav'n, then with a lover,
With Latmos' louder rescue, and—alas!—
To find her out a hue and cry in brass;
Thy journal of deep mysteries, and sad
Nocturnal pilgrimage, with thy dreams clad
In fancies darker than thy cave, thy glass
Of sleepy draughts; and as thy soul did pass
In her calm voyage what discourse she heard
Of spirits, what dark groves and ill-shap'd guard
Ismena led thee through, with thy proud flight
O'er Periardes, and deep, musing night
Near fair Eurotas' banks; what solemn green
The neighbour shades wear, and what forms are seen
In their large bowers, with that sad path and seat
Which none but light-heel'd nymphs and fairies beat;[55]
Their solitary life, and how exempt
From common frailty, the severe contempt
They have of man, their privilege to live
A tree, or fountain, and in that reprieve
What ages they consume, with the sad vale
Of Diophania, and the mournful tale,
Of th' bleeding vocal myrtle; these and more
Thy richer thoughts, we are upon the score
To thy rare fancy for, nor dost thou fall
From thy first majesty, or ought at all
Betray consumption; thy full vig'rous bays
Wear the same green, and scorn the lean decays
Of style, or matter. Just so have I known
Some crystal spring, that from the neighbour down
Deriv'd her birth, in gentle murmurs steal
To their next vale, and proudly there reveal
Her streams in louder accents, adding still
More noise and waters to her channel, till
At last swoln with increase she glides along
The lawns and meadows in a wanton throng
Of frothy billows, and in one great name
Swallows the tributary brooks' drown'd fame.
Nor are they mere inventions, for we
In th' same piece find scatter'd philosophy
And hidden, dispers'd truths that folded lie
In the dark shades of deep allegory;
So neatly weav'd, like arras, they descry
Fables with truth, fancy with history.
So that thou hast in this thy curious mould
Cast that commended mixture wish'd of old,
Which shall these contemplations render far
Less mutable, and lasting as their star,
And while there is a people or a sun,
Endymion's story with the moon shall run.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] So Grosart, for the heat of the original.

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MR. R. W.,
SLAIN IN THE LATE UNFORTUNATE DIFFERENCES
AT ROUTON HEATH, NEAR CHESTER, 1645.

I am confirmed, and so much wing is given
To my wild thoughts, that they dare strike at heav'n.
A full year's grief I struggled with, and stood
Still on my sandy hopes' uncertain good,
So loth was I to yield; to all those fears
I still oppos'd thee, and denied my tears.
But thou art gone! and the untimely loss
Like that one day hath made all others cross.
Have you seen on some river's flow'ry brow
A well-built elm or stately cedar grow,
Whose curled tops gilt with the morning-ray
Beckon'd the sun, and whisper'd to the day,
When unexpected from the angry North
A fatal sullen whirlwind sallies forth,
And with a full-mouth'd blast rends from the ground
The shady twins, which rushing scatter round
Their sighing leaves, whilst overborn with strength
Their trembling heads bow to a prostrate length?
So forc'd fell he; so immaturely Death
Stifled his able heart and active breath.
The world scarce knew him yet, his early soul
Had but new-broke her day, and rather stole
A sight than gave one; as if subtly she
Would learn our stock, but hide his treasury.
His years—should Time lay both his wings and glass
Unto his charge—could not be summ'd—alas!—
To a full score; though in so short a span
His riper thoughts had purchas'd more of man
Than all those worthless livers, which yet quick
Have quite outgone their own arithmetic.
He seiz'd perfections, and without a dull
And mossy grey possess'd a solid skull;
No crooked knowledge neither, nor did he
Wear the friend's name for ends and policy,
And then lay't by; as those lost youths of th' stage
Who only flourish'd for the Play's short age
And then retir'd; like jewels, in each part
He wore his friends, but chiefly at his heart.
Nor was it only in this he did excel,
His equal valour could as much, as well.
He knew no fear but of his God; yet durst
No injury, nor—as some have—e'er purs'd
The sweat and tears of others, yet would be
More forward in a royal gallantry
Than all those vast pretenders, which of late
Swell'd in the ruins of their king and State.
He weav'd not self-ends and the public good
Into one piece, nor with the people's blood
Fill'd his own veins; in all the doubtful way
Conscience and honour rul'd him. O that day
When like the fathers in the fire and cloud
I miss'd thy face! I might in ev'ry crowd
See arms like thine, and men advance, but none
So near to lightning mov'd, nor so fell on.
Have you observ'd how soon the nimble eye
Brings th' object to conceit, and doth so vie
Performance with the soul, that you would swear
The act and apprehension both lodg'd there;
Just so mov'd he: like shot his active hand
Drew blood, ere well the foe could understand.
But here I lost him. Whether the last turn
Of thy few sands call'd on thy hasty urn,
Or some fierce rapid fate—hid from the eye—
Hath hurl'd thee pris'ner to some distant sky,
I cannot tell, but that I do believe
Thy courage such as scorn'd a base reprieve.
Whatever 'twas, whether that day thy breath
Suffer'd a civil or the common death,
Which I do most suspect, and that I have
Fail'd in the glories of so known a grave;
Though thy lov'd ashes miss me, and mine eyes
Had no acquaintance with thy exequies,
Nor at the last farewell, torn from thy sight
On the cold sheet have fix'd a sad delight,
Yet whate'er pious hand—instead of mine—
Hath done this office to that dust of thine,
And till thou rise again from thy low bed
Lent a cheap pillow to thy quiet head,
Though but a private turf, it can do more
To keep thy name and memory in store
Than all those lordly fools which lock their bones
In the dumb piles of chested brass, and stones
Th'art rich in thy own fame, and needest not
These marble-frailties, nor the gilded blot
Of posthume honours; there is not one sand
Sleeps o'er thy grave, but can outbid that hand
And pencil too, so that of force we must
Confess their heaps show lesser than thy dust.
And—blessed soul!—though this my sorrow can
Add nought to thy perfections, yet as man
Subject to envy, and the common fate,
It may redeem thee to a fairer date.
As some blind dial, when the day is done,
Can tell us at midnight there was a sun,
So these perhaps, though much beneath thy fame,
May keep some weak remembrance of thy name,
And to the faith of better times commend
Thy loyal upright life, and gallant end.

Nomen et arma locum servant, te, amice, nequivi
Conspicere——————

UPON A CLOAK LENT HIM BY MR. J. RIDSLEY.

Here, take again thy sackcloth! and thank heav'n
Thy courtship hath not kill'd me; Is't not even
Whether we die by piecemeal, or at once?
Since both but ruin, why then for the nonce
Didst husband my afflictions, and cast o'er
Me this forc'd hurdle to inflame the score?
Had I near London in this rug been seen
Without doubt I had executed been
For some bold Irish spy, and 'cross a sledge
Had lain mess'd up for their four gates and bridge.
When first I bore it, my oppressèd feet
Would needs persuade me 'twas some leaden sheet;
Such deep impressions, and such dangerous holes
Were made, that I began to doubt my soles,
And ev'ry step—so near necessity—
Devoutly wish'd some honest cobbler by;
Besides it was so short, the Jewish rag
Seem'd circumcis'd, but had a Gentile shag.
Hadst thou been with me on that day, when we
Left craggy Biston, and the fatal Dee,
When beaten with fresh storms and late mishap
It shar'd the office of a cloak, and cap,
To see how 'bout my clouded head it stood
Like a thick turban, or some lawyer's hood,
While the stiff, hollow pleats on ev'ry side
Like conduit-pipes rain'd from the bearded hide:
I know thou wouldst in spite of that day's fate
Let loose thy mirth at my new shape and state,
And with a shallow smile or two profess
Some Saracen had lost the clouted dress.
Didst ever see the good wife—as they say—
March in her short cloak on the christ'ning day,
With what soft motions she salutes the church,
And leaves the bedrid mother in the lurch;
Just so jogg'd I, while my dull horse did trudge
Like a circuit-beast, plagu'd with a gouty judge.
But this was civil. I have since known more
And worser pranks: one night—as heretofore
Th' hast known—for want of change—a thing which I
And Bias us'd before me—I did lie
Pure Adamite, and simply for that end
Resolv'd, and made this for my bosom-friend.
O that thou hadst been there next morn, that I
Might teach thee new Micro-cosmo-graphy!
Thou wouldst have ta'en me, as I naked stood,
For one of the seven pillars before the flood.
Such characters and hieroglyphics were
In one night worn, that thou mightst justly swear
I'd slept in cere-cloth, or at Bedlam, where
The madmen lodge in straw. I'll not forbear
To tell thee all; his wild impress and tricks
Like Speed's old Britons made me look, or Picts;
His villanous, biting, wire-embraces
Had seal'd in me more strange forms and faces
Than children see in dreams, or thou hast read
In arras, puppet-plays, and gingerbread,
With angled schemes, and crosses that bred fear
Of being handled by some conjurer;
And nearer, thou wouldst think—such strokes were drawn—
I'd been some rough statue of Fetter-lane.
Nay, I believe, had I that instant been
By surgeons or apothecaries seen,
They had condemned my raz'd skin to be
Some walking herbal, or anatomy.
But—thanks to th' day!—'tis off. I'd now advise
Thee, friend, to put this piece to merchandise.
The pedlars of our age have business yet,
And gladly would against the Fair-day fit
Themselves with such a roof, that can secure
Their wares from dogs and cats rained in shower.
It shall perform; or if this will not do
'Twill take the ale-wives sure; 'twill make them two
Fine rooms of one, and spread upon a stick
Is a partition, without lime or brick.
Horn'd obstinacy! how my heart doth fret
To think what mouths and elbows it would set
In a wet day! have you for twopence ere
Seen King Harry's chapel at Westminster,
Where in their dusty gowns of brass and stone
The judges lie, and mark'd you how each one,
In sturdy marble-pleats about the knee,
Bears up to show his legs and symmetry?
Just so would this, that I think't weav'd upon
Some stiffneck'd Brownist's exercising loom.
O that thou hadst it when this juggling fate
Of soldiery first seiz'd me! at what rate
Would I have bought it then; what was there but
I would have giv'n for the compendious hut?
I do not doubt but—if the weight could please—
'Twould guard me better than a Lapland-lease.
Or a German shirt with enchanted lint
Stuff'd through, and th' devil's beard and face weav'd in't.
But I have done. And think not, friend, that I
This freedom took to jeer thy courtesy.
I thank thee for't, and I believe my Muse
So known to thee, thou'lt not suspect abuse.
She did this, 'cause—perhaps—thy love paid thus
Might with my thanks outlive thy cloak, and us.

UPON MR. FLETCHER'S PLAYS, PUBLISHED 1647.

I knew thee not, nor durst attendance strive,
Label to wit, verser remonstrative,
And in some suburb-page—scandal to thine—
Like Lent before a Christmas scatter mine.
This speaks thee not, since at the utmost rate
Such remnants from thy piece entreat their date;
Nor can I dub the copy, or afford
Titles to swell the rear of verse with lord;
Nor politicly big, to inch low fame,
Stretch in the glories of a stranger's name,
And clip those bays I court; weak striver I,
But a faint echo unto poetry.
I have not clothes t'adopt me, nor must sit
For plush and velvet's sake, esquire of wit.
Yet modesty these crosses would improve,
And rags near thee, some reverence may move.
I did believe—great Beaumont being dead—
Thy widow'd Muse slept on his flow'ry bed;
But I am richly cozen'd, and can see
Wit transmigrates: his spirit stay'd with thee;
Which, doubly advantag'd by thy single pen,
In life and death now treads the stage again.
And thus are we freed from that dearth of wit
Which starv'd the land, since into schisms split,
Wherein th' hast done so much, we must needs guess
Wit's last edition is now i' th' press.
For thou hast drain'd invention, and he
That writes hereafter, doth but pillage thee.
But thou hast plots; and will not the Kirk strain
At the designs of such a tragic brain?
Will they themselves think safe, when they shall see
Thy most abominable policy?
Will not the Ears assemble, and think't fit
Their Synod fast and pray against thy wit?
But they'll not tire in such an idle quest;
Thou dost but kill, and circumvent in jest;
And when thy anger'd Muse swells to a blow
'Tis but for Field's, or Swansted's overthrow.
Yet shall these conquests of thy bays outlive
Their Scottish zeal, and compacts made to grieve
The peace of spirits: and when such deeds fail
Of their foul ends, a fair name is thy bail.
But—happy thou!—ne'er saw'st these storms, our air
Teem'd with even in thy time, though seeming fair.
Thy gentle soul, meant for the shade and ease,
Withdrew betimes into the Land of Peace.
So nested in some hospitable shore
The hermit-angler, when the mid-seas roar,
Packs up his lines, and—ere the tempest raves—
Retires, and leaves his station to the waves.
Thus thou died'st almost with our peace, and we
This breathing time thy last fair issue see,
Which I think such—if needless ink not soil
So choice a Muse—others are but thy foil.
This, or that age may write, but never see
A wit that dares run parallel with thee.
True, Ben must live! but bate him, and thou hast
Undone all future wits, and match'd the past.

UPON THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF THE EVER-MEMORABLE MR. WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT.

I did but see thee! and how vain it is
To vex thee for it with remonstrances,
Though things in fashion; let those judge, who sit
Their twelve pence out, to clap their hands at wit
I fear to sin thus near thee; for—great saint!—
'Tis known true beauty hath no need of paint.
Yet, since a label fix'd to thy fair hearse
Is all the mode, and tears put into verse
Can teach posterity our present grief
And their own loss, but never give relief;
I'll tell them—and a truth which needs no pass—
That wit in Cartwright at her zenith was.
Arts, fancy, language, all conven'd in thee,
With those grand miracles which deify
The old world's writings, kept yet from the fire
Because they force these worst times to admire.
Thy matchless genius, in all thou didst write,
Like the sun, wrought with such staid heat and light,
That not a line—to the most critic he—
Offends with flashes, or obscurity.
When thou the wild of humours track'st, thy pen
So imitates that motley stock in men,
As if thou hadst in all their bosoms been,
And seen those leopards that lurk within.
The am'rous youth steals from thy courtly page
His vow'd address, the soldier his brave rage;
And those soft beauteous readers whose looks can
Make some men poets, and make any man
A lover, when thy slave but seems to die,
Turn all his mourners, and melt at the eye.
Thus thou thy thoughts hast dress'd in such a strain
As doth not only speak, but rule and reign;
Nor are those bodies they assum'd dark clouds,
Or a thick bark, but clear, transparent shrouds,
Which who looks on, the rays so strongly beat
They'll brush and warm him with a quick'ning heat;
So souls shine at the eyes, and pearls display
Through the loose crystal-streams a glance of day.
But what's all this unto a royal test?
Thou art the man whom great Charles so express'd!
Then let the crowd refrain their needless hum,
When thunder speaks, then squibs and winds are dumb.

TO THE BEST AND MOST ACCOMPLISHED COUPLE ——

Blessings as rich and fragrant crown your heads
As the mild heav'n on roses sheds,
When at their cheeks—like pearls—they wear
The clouds that court them in a tear!
And may they be fed from above
By Him which first ordain'd your love!

Fresh as the hours may all your pleasures be,
And healthful as eternity!
Sweet as the flowers' first breath, and close
As th' unseen spreadings of the rose,
When he unfolds his curtain'd head,
And makes his bosom the sun's bed!

Soft as yourselves run your whole lives, and clear
As your own glass, or what shines there!
Smooth as heav'n's face, and bright as he
When without mask or tiffany!
In all your time not one jar meet
But peace as silent as his feet!

Like the day's warmth may all your comforts be,
Untoil'd for, and serene as he,
Yet free and full as is that sheaf
Of sunbeams gilding ev'ry leaf,
When now the tyrant-heat expires
And his cool'd locks breathe milder fires!

And as those parcell'd glories he doth shed
Are the fair issues of his head,
Which, ne'er so distant, are soon known
By th' heat and lustre for his own;
So may each branch of yours we see
Your copies and our wonders be!

And when no more on earth you must remain,
Invited hence to heav'n again,
Then may your virtuous, virgin-flames
Shine in those heirs of your fair names,
And teach the world that mystery,
Yourselves in your posterity!

So you to both worlds shall rich presents bring,
And, gather'd up to heav'n, leave here a spring.

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MR. R. HALL,
SLAIN AT PONTEFRACT, 1648.

I knew it would be thus! and my just fears
Of thy great spirit are improv'd to tears.
Yet flow these not from any base distrust
Of a fair name, or that thy honour must
Confin'd to those cold relics sadly sit
In the same cell an obscure anchorite.
Such low distempers murder; they that must
Abuse thee so, weep not, but wound thy dust.
But I past such dim mourners can descry
Thy fame above all clouds of obloquy,
And like the sun with his victorious rays
Charge through that darkness to the last of days.
'Tis true, fair manhood hath a female eye,
And tears are beauteous in a victory,
Nor are we so high-proof, but grief will find
Through all our guards a way to wound the mind;
But in thy fall what adds the brackish sum
More than a blot unto thy martyrdom?
Which scorns such wretched suffrages, and stands
More by thy single worth than our whole bands.
Yet could the puling tribute rescue ought
In this sad loss, or wert thou to be brought
Back here by tears, I would in any wise
Pay down the sum, or quite consume my eyes.
Thou fell'st our double ruin; and this rent
Forc'd in thy life shak'd both the Church and tent.
Learning in others steals them from the van,
And basely wise emasculates the man,
But lodg'd in thy brave soul the bookish feat
Serv'd only as the light unto thy heat.
Thus when some quitted action, to their shame,
And only got a discreet coward's name,
Thou with thy blood mad'st purchase of renown,
And died'st the glory of the sword and gown.
Thy blood hath hallow'd Pomfret, and this blow
—Profan'd before—hath church'd the Castle now.
Nor is't a common valour we deplore,
But such as with fifteen a hundred bore,
And lightning-like—not coop'd within a wall—
In storms of fire and steel fell on them all.
Thou wert no woolsack soldier, nor of those
Whose courage lies in winking at their foes,
That live at loopholes, and consume their breath
On match or pipes, and sometimes peep at death;
No, it were sin to number these with thee,
But that—thus pois'd—our loss we better see.
The fair and open valour was thy shield,
And thy known station, the defying field.
Yet these in thee I would not virtues call,
But that this age must know that thou hadst all.
Those richer graces that adorn'd thy mind
Like stars of the first magnitude, so shin'd,
That if oppos'd unto these lesser lights
All we can say is this, they were fair nights.
Thy piety and learning did unite,
And though with sev'ral beams made up one light,
And such thy judgment was, that I dare swear
Whole councils might as soon and synods err.
But all these now are out! and as some star
Hurl'd in diurnal motions from far,
And seen to droop at night, is vainly said
To fall and find an occidental bed,
Though in that other world what we judge West
Proves elevation, and a new, fresh East;
So though our weaker sense denies us sight,
And bodies cannot trace the spirit's flight,
We know those graces to be still in thee,
But wing'd above us to eternity.
Since then—thus flown—thou art so much refin'd
That we can only reach thee with the mind,
I will not in this dark and narrow glass
Let thy scant shadow for perfections pass,
But leave thee to be read more high, more quaint,
In thy own blood a soldier and a saint.

——Salve æternum mihi maxime Palla!
Æternumque vale!——

TO MY LEARNED FRIEND, MR. T. POWELL,
UPON HIS TRANSLATION OF
MALVEZZI'S CHRISTIAN POLITICIAN.

We thank you, worthy Sir, that now we see
Malvezzi languag'd like our infancy,
And can without suspicion entertain
This foreign statesman to our breast or brain;
You have enlarg'd his praise, and from your store
By this edition made his worth the more.
Thus by your learnèd hand—amidst the coil—
Outlandish plants thrive in our thankless soil,
And wise men after death, by a strange fate,
Lie leiger here, and beg to serve our State.
Italy now, though mistress of the bays,
Waits on this wreath, proud of a foreign praise;
For, wise Malvezzi, thou didst lie before
Confin'd within the language of one shore,
And like those stars which near the poles do steer
Were't but in one part of the globe seen clear.
Provence and Naples were the best and most
Thou couldst shine in; fix'd to that single coast,
Perhaps some cardinal, to be thought wise,
And honest too, would ask, what was thy price?
Then thou must pack to Rome, where thou mightst lie
Ere thou shouldst have new clothes eternally,
For though so near the sev'n hills, ne'ertheless
Thou cam'st to Antwerp for thy Roman dress.
But now thou art come hither, thou mayst run
Through any clime as well known as the sun,
And in thy sev'ral dresses, like the year,
Challenge acquaintance with each peopled sphere.
Come then, rare politicians of the time,
Brains of some standing, elders in our clime,
See here the method. A wise, solid State
Is quick in acting, friendly in debate,
Joint in advice, in resolutions just,
Mild in success, true to the common trust.
It cements ruptures, and by gentle hand
Allays the heat and burnings of a land;
Religion guides it, and in all the tract
Designs so twist, that Heav'n confirms the act.
If from these lists you wander as you steer,
Look back, and catechize your actions here.
These are the marks to which true statesmen tend,
And greatness here with goodness hath one end.

TO MY WORTHY FRIEND, MASTER T. LEWES.

Sees not my friend, what a deep snow
Candies our country's woody brow?
The yielding branch his load scarce bears,
Oppress'd with snow and frozen tears;
While the dumb rivers slowly float,
All bound up in an icy coat.
Let us meet then! and while this world
In wild eccentrics now is hurl'd,
Keep we, like nature, the same key,
And walk in our forefathers' way.
Why any more cast we an eye
On what may come, not what is nigh?
Why vex ourselves with fear, or hope
And cares beyond our horoscope?
Who into future times would peer,
Looks oft beyond his term set here,
And cannot go into those grounds
But through a churchyard, which them bounds.
Sorrows and sighs and searches spend
And draw our bottom to an end,
But discreet joys lengthen the lease,
Without which life were a disease;
And who this age a mourner goes,
Doth with his tears but feed his foes

TO THE MOST EXCELLENTLY ACCOMPLISHED MRS. K. PHILIPS.

Say, witty fair one, from what sphere
Flow these rich numbers you shed here?
For sure such incantations come
From thence, which strike your readers dumb.
A strain, whose measures gently meet
Like virgin-lovers or Time's feet;
Where language smiles, and accents rise
As quick and pleasing as your eyes;
The poem smooth, and in each line
Soft as yourself, yet masculine;
Where not coarse trifles blot the page
With matter borrow'd from the age,
But thoughts as innocent and high
As angels have, or saints that die.
These raptures when I first did see
New miracles in poetry,
And by a hand their good would miss
His bays and fountains but to kiss,
My weaker genius—cross to fashion—
Slept in a silent admiration:
A rescue, by whose grave disguise
Pretenders oft have pass'd for wise.
And yet as pilgrims humbly touch
Those shrines to which they bow so much,
And clouds in courtship flock, and run
To be the mask unto the sun,
So I concluded it was true
I might at distance worship you,
A Persian votary, and say
It was your light show'd me the way.
So loadstones guide the duller steel,
And high perfections are the wheel
Which moves the less, for gifts divine
Are strung upon a vital line,
Which, touch'd by you, excites in all
Affections epidemical.
And this made me—a truth most fit—
Add my weak echo to your wit;
Which pardon, Lady, for assays
Obscure as these might blast your bays;
As common hands soil flow'rs, and make
That dew they wear weep the mistake.
But I'll wash off the stain, and vow
No laurel grows but for your brow.

AN EPITAPH UPON THE LADY ELIZABETH, SECOND DAUGHTER TO HIS LATE MAJESTY.

Youth, beauty, virtue, innocence,
Heav'n's royal and select expense,
With virgin-tears and sighs divine
Sit here the genii of this shrine;
Where now—thy fair soul wing'd away—
They guard the casket where she lay.
Thou hadst, ere thou the light couldst see,
Sorrows laid up and stor'd for thee;
Thou suck'dst in woes, and the breasts lent
Their milk to thee but to lament;
Thy portion here was grief, thy years
Distill'd no other rain but tears,
Tears without noise, but—understood—
As loud and shrill as any blood.
Thou seem'st a rosebud born in snow,
A flower of purpose sprung to bow
To headless tempests, and the rage
Of an incensèd, stormy age.
Others, ere their afflictions grow,
Are tim'd and season'd for the blow,
But thine, as rheums the tend'rest part,
Fell on a young and harmless heart.
And yet, as balm-trees gently spend
Their tears for those that do them rend,
So mild and pious thou wert seen,
Though full of suff'rings; free from spleen,
Thou didst not murmur, nor revile,
But drank'st thy wormwood with a smile.
As envious eyes blast and infect,
And cause misfortunes by aspèct,
So thy sad stars dispens'd to thee
No influx but calamity;
They view'd thee with eclipsèd rays,
And but the back side of bright days.
········
These were the comforts she had here,
As by an unseen Hand 'tis clear,
Which now she reads, and, smiling, wears
A crown with Him who wipes off tears.

TO SIR WILLIAM D'AVENANT UPON HIS GONDIBERT.

Well, we are rescued! and by thy rare pen
Poets shall live, when princes die like men.
Th' hast clear'd the prospect to our harmless hill,
Of late years clouded with imputed ill,
And the soft, youthful couples there may move,
As chaste as stars converse and smile above.
Th' hast taught their language and their love to flow
Calm as rose-leaves, and cool as virgin-snow,
Which doubly feasts us, being so refin'd,
They both delight and dignify the mind;
Like to the wat'ry music of some spring,
Whose pleasant flowings at once wash and sing.
And where before heroic poems were
Made up of spirits, prodigies, and fear,
And show'd—through all the melancholy flight—
Like some dark region overcast with night,
As if the poet had been quite dismay'd,
While only giants and enchantments sway'd;
Thou like the sun, whose eye brooks no disguise,
Hast chas'd them hence, and with discoveries
So rare and learnèd fill'd the place, that we
Those fam'd grandezas find outdone by thee,
And underfoot see all those vizards hurl'd
Which bred the wonder of the former world.
'Twas dull to sit, as our forefathers did,
At crumbs and voiders, and because unbid,
Refrain wise appetite. This made thy fire
Break through the ashes of thy aged sire,
To lend the world such a convincing light
As shows his fancy darker than his sight.
Nor was't alone the bars and length of days
—Though those gave strength and stature to his bays—
Encounter'd thee, but what's an old complaint
And kills the fancy, a forlorn restraint.
How couldst thou, mur'd in solitary stones,
Dress Birtha's smiles, though well thou mightst her groans?
And, strangely eloquent, thyself divide
'Twixt sad misfortunes and a bloomy bride?
Through all the tenour of thy ample song,
Spun from thy own rich store, and shar'd among
Those fair adventurers, we plainly see
Th' imputed gifts inherent are in thee.
Then live for ever—and by high desert—
In thy own mirror, matchless Gondibert,
And in bright Birtha leave thy love enshrin'd
Fresh as her em'rald, and fair as her mind,
While all confess thee—as they ought to do—
The prince of poets, and of lovers too.

VOL. II.

LONDON:GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITEDNEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

(a) THE VAUGHAN GENEALOGY.

(b) VAUGHAN AND JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD.

(c) VAUGHAN IN THE CIVIL WAR.

(d) THOMAS VAUGHAN.

FOOTNOTES:

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HENRY VAUGHAN'S WORKS.

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

(10)

(11)

(12)

(13)

(14)

(15)

(16)

(17)

(18)

(19)

POEMS,WITH THETENTH SATIRE OF JUVENALENGLISHED.1646.

TO ALL INGENIOUS LOVERS OF POESY.

TO MY INGENUOUS FRIEND, R. W.

LES AMOURS

TO AMORET.

The Sigh.

TO HIS FRIEND BEING IN LOVE.

SONG.

FOOTNOTES:

TO AMORET.

Walking in a Starry Evening.

FOOTNOTES:

TO AMORET GONE FROM HIM.

A SONG TO AMORET.

FOOTNOTES:

AN ELEGY.

A RHAPSODIS:

TO AMORET, OF THE DIFFERENCE'TWIXT HIM AND OTHER LOVERS,AND WHAT TRUE LOVE IS.

TO AMORET WEEPING.

UPON THE PRIORY GROVE,HIS USUAL RETIREMENT.

JUVENAL'S TENTH SATIRE TRANSLATED.

FOOTNOTES:

OLOR ISCANUS.1651.

AD POSTEROS.

TO THE TRULY NOBLE AND MOST EXCELLENTLY ACCOMPLISHED, THE LORD KILDARE DIGBY.

THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.

UPON THE MOST INGENIOUS PAIR OF TWINS, EUGENIUS PHILALETHES, AND THE AUTHOR OF THESE POEMS.

TO MY FRIEND THE AUTHOR UPON THESE HIS POEMS.

UPON THE FOLLOWING POEMS.

TO THE RIVER ISCA.

THE CHARNEL-HOUSE.

IN AMICUM FŒNERATOREM.

TO HIS FRIEND ——

TO HIS RETIRED FRIEND, AN INVITATION TO BRECKNOCK.

MONSIEUR GOMBAULD.

FOOTNOTES:

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MR. R. W.,SLAIN IN THE LATE UNFORTUNATE DIFFERENCESAT ROUTON HEATH, NEAR CHESTER, 1645.

UPON A CLOAK LENT HIM BY MR. J. RIDSLEY.

UPON MR. FLETCHER'S PLAYS, PUBLISHED 1647.

UPON THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF THE EVER-MEMORABLE MR. WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT.

TO THE BEST AND MOST ACCOMPLISHED COUPLE ——

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MR. R. HALL,SLAIN AT PONTEFRACT, 1648.

TO MY LEARNED FRIEND, MR. T. POWELL,UPON HIS TRANSLATION OFMALVEZZI'S CHRISTIAN POLITICIAN.

TO MY WORTHY FRIEND, MASTER T. LEWES.

TO THE MOST EXCELLENTLY ACCOMPLISHED MRS. K. PHILIPS.

AN EPITAPH UPON THE LADY ELIZABETH, SECOND DAUGHTER TO HIS LATE MAJESTY.

TO SIR WILLIAM D'AVENANT UPON HIS GONDIBERT.

LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

POEMS,
WITH THE
TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL
ENGLISHED.
1646.

TO AMORET, OF THE DIFFERENCE
'TWIXT HIM AND OTHER LOVERS,
AND WHAT TRUE LOVE IS.

UPON THE PRIORY GROVE,
HIS USUAL RETIREMENT.

OLOR ISCANUS.
1651.

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MR. R. W.,
SLAIN IN THE LATE UNFORTUNATE DIFFERENCES
AT ROUTON HEATH, NEAR CHESTER, 1645.

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF MR. R. HALL,
SLAIN AT PONTEFRACT, 1648.

TO MY LEARNED FRIEND, MR. T. POWELL,
UPON HIS TRANSLATION OF
MALVEZZI'S CHRISTIAN POLITICIAN.