XXIV
When I heard of any new Kingdom beyond the seas the light and glory of it entered into me, it rose up within me, and I was enlarged wonderfully. I entered into it, I saw its commodities, springs, meadows, riches, inhabitants, and became possessor of that new room as if it had been prepared for me, so much was I magnified and delighted in it. When the Bible was read my spirit was present in other ages. I saw the light and splendour of them, the Land of Canaan, the Israelites entering into it, the ancient glory of the Amorites, their peace and riches, their cities, houses, vines, and fig-trees, the long prosperity of their Kings, their milk and honey, their slaughter and destruction, with the joys and triumphs of God's people. All which entered into me, and God among them. I saw all and felt all in such a lively manner as if there had been no other way to those places but in spirit only. This shewed me the liveliness of interior presence, and that all ages were for most glorious ends accessible to my understanding, yea with it, yea within it. For without changing place in myself I could behold and enjoy all those. Anything, when it was proposed, though it was a thousand ages ago being always before me.
Some few other passages relating to Traherne's boyhood might be quoted; but as I hope soon to publish the "Centuries of Meditations" in complete form, it is hardly necessary to give further extracts here. I have quoted enough, I trust, to create a desire in the reader's mind to see the whole work in print. I have found the narrative so interesting myself that I would fain hope it will be not less so to others. It displays with a vividness seldom equalled the eager, enthusiastic, thoughtful, affectionate, and, above all, poetic character of its author. It was doubtless because he retained in his manhood so much of the fresh, unspoiled, and uncorrupted spirit of his youth that he was able to give such an engaging picture of his early years. It bears the stamp of veracity and sincerity in every line; and leaves no room in the reader's mind (as so many autobiographies do) for the suspicion that the author was posing himself in the most favourable light, and suppressing the darker shades of his portraiture. I do not think there is anything resembling it in English literature; nor could more than one or two other English poets have written such a narrative. It is fortunate indeed that the "Centuries of Meditations," which so narrowly escaped destruction or oblivion, should have been preserved to afford us this valuable record of the inner life of a spirit touched to such fine issues as was that of Thomas Traherne.
Turning from the brilliant illumination of our author's own account of his youthful experiences it is very disappointing to find that no information about him from external sources can be discovered before the time when he became an Oxford undergraduate. But we may, I think, conclude with little chance of error that the course of his early life was somewhat as follows: His parents, seeing the precocity and unusual promise of their child, determined to give him the best education within their power, and therefore sent him to the local Grammar School. This was founded by Bishop Gilbert in 1386. While there he must have distinguished himself so much by his good conduct and aptitude for learning that some patron—or perhaps some of his relatives who were in a better position than his father—furnished the means to enable him to proceed to Oxford and become a student there. His course at the University is thus related in the Athenæ Oxonienses:
Thomas Traherne, a shoemaker's son of Hereford, was entered a Commoner of Brasen-nose College on the first day of March, 1652, took one degree in Arts, left the House for a time, entered into the sacred function, and in 1661 he was actually created Master of Arts. About that time he became Rector of Credinhill, commonly called Crednell, near to the city of Hereford ... and in 1669 Bachelor of Divinity.
To the above it may perhaps be as well to add the exact dates of the degrees bestowed upon him at the University. He was made Bachelor of Arts on October 13, 1656; Master of Arts on November 6, 1661; and Bachelor of Divinity on December 11, 1669. Why or when he "left the House for a time" does not appear; possibly it was on account of the political troubles of the period.
When at the University we may be certain that Traherne's inclination and natural genius would lead him to study for the ministry; and he was undoubtedly an earnest and diligent student of the history and doctrines of the Christian faith, and more especially of those of the Church of England. He found in that communion his ideal Church. We have seen that Philip Traherne, the Mayor of Hereford, was noted for his "fervent zeal for the Established Church and clergy"—and probably we shall not be wrong in thinking that the Trahernes generally were members of the English Church. That circumstance doubtless had its influence in determining the faith of Thomas Traherne; but his own deeply fervent and religious nature found in the national faith, as George Herbert had found before him, the peace and satisfaction which he could find nowhere else. That the Anglican Church can boast of having attracted to its service such fine spirits as those of Herbert, Vaughan, Traherne, and the many others that might be mentioned, is surely one of its greatest honours.
We have the evidence of Antony à Wood and that of Traherne's book entitled "Roman Forgeries" to prove that he was an unwearied student of the antiquities of the Church, of its Fathers, Councils, and Doctrines. But the best evidence on this point is to be found in the "Advertisement to the Reader" prefixed to "Roman Forgeries." Herein the author gives us a lively account of a discussion which took place between himself and a Roman Catholic gentleman on the questions in dispute between the two Churches. This passage must be quoted in full, for the story is so vividly told that the reader becomes almost a spectator of the scene:
Before I stir further I shall add one passage which befel me in the Schools as I was studying these things, and searching the most old and authentic records in pursuance of them. One evening as I came out of the Bodleian Library, which is the glory of Oxford, and this nation, at the stairs-foot I was saluted by a person that has deserved well of scholars and learning, who being an intimate friend of mine, told me there was a gentleman, his cousin, pointing to a grave person, in the quadrangle, a man that had spent many thousand pounds in promoting Popery, and that he had a desire to speak with me. The gentleman came up to us of his own accord: we agreed, for the greater liberty and privacy, to walk abroad into the New Parks. He was a notable man, of an eloquent tongue, and competent reading, bold, forward, talkative enough; he told me, that the Church of Rome had eleven millions of martyrs, seventeen Oecumenical Councils, above one hundred Provincial Councils, all the Doctors, all the Fathers, Unity, Antiquity, Consent, &c. I desired him to name one of his eleven millions of martyrs, excepting those that died for treason in Queen Elizabeth's and King James his days: for the martyrs of the primitive times, were martyrs of the Catholic, but not of the Roman Church: they only being martyrs of the Roman Church, that die for transubstantiation, the Pope's Supremacy, the doctrine of Merits, Purgatory, and the like. So many he told me they had, but I could not get him to name one. As for his Councils, Antiquities and Fathers, I asked him what he would say, if I could clearly prove that the Church of Rome was guilty of forging them, so far that they had published Canons in the Apostles names, and invented Councils that never were, forged letters of Fathers, and Decretal Epistles, in the name of the first Bishops and Martyrs of Rome, made 5, 6, 700 years after they were dead, to the utter disguising and defacing of antiquity, for the first 480 years next after our Saviour? "Tush, these are nothing but lies," quoth he, "whereby the Protestants endeavour to disgrace the Papists." Sir, answered I, you are a scholar, and have heard of Isidore, Mercator, James Merlin, Peter Crabbe, Laurentius Surius, Severinus Binius Labbè, Cossartius, and the Collectio Regia, books of vast bulk and price, as well as of great majesty and magnificence: you met me this evening at the Library door; if you please to meet me there to-morrow morning at eight of the clock, I will take you in; and we will go from class to class, from book to book, and there I will first shew in your own authors, that you publish such instruments for good Records: and then prove, that those instruments are downright frauds and forgeries? "What hurt is that to the Church of Rome?" said he. No! (cried I, amazed) Is it no hurt to the Church of Rome, to be found guilty of forging Canons in the Apostles names, and Epistles in the Fathers' names, which they never made? Is it nothing in Rome to be guilty of counterfeiting Decrees and Councils, and Records of Antiquity? I have done with you! whereupon I turned from him as an obdurate person. And with this I thought it meet to acquaint the Reader.
No other particulars of Traherne's University career are now available, but those which I have related are sufficient to show that it was not an unsuccessful one. It is plain that he made his way entirely by his own ability, for he could have had no other means of advancing himself.
It appears from a passage in our author's "Centuries of Meditations" that there was at one time a conflict in his mind as to his future course in life. He debated with himself as to whether he should pursue the path that might lead to worldly prosperity, at the cost of sacrificing or suppressing his higher aspirations, or whether he should, at the risk of poverty and obscurity, follow out the promptings of his better self. Such a conflict, in his case, could have only one result:
When I came into the country, and being seated among silent trees and woods and hills, had all my time in mine own hands, I resolved to spend it all, whatever it cost me, in the search of Happiness, and to satiate the burning thirst which Nature had enkindled in me from my youth. In which I was so resolute that I chose rather to live upon ten pounds a year, and to go in leather clothes and to feed upon bread and water, so that I might have all my time clearly to myself, than to keep many thousands per annum in an estate of life where my time would be devoured in care and labour. And God was so pleased to accept of that desire that from that time to this I have had all things plentifully provided for me without any care at all, my very study of Felicity making me more to prosper than all the care in the whole world. So that through His blessing I live a free and a kingly life, as if the world were turned again into Eden, or, much more, as it is at this day.
Truly a memorable resolution! which has had not too many parallels, though the failure to make it has caused many a man of fine abilities to fall into the ranks of those whom the world has conquered and subdued to its own purposes. One remembers the similar resolution of the great founder of Quakerism, which Traherne might possibly have heard of. One thinks also of Thoreau and of his life in the woods; and of the few others who have dared to live out their own lives in their own way, regardless of the disdain or censure of the worldly-minded. That nothing but good came to Traherne from his resolution we might have been sure even if he had not himself told us so; for what harm can come to those who are animated with such a spirit as his? The spiritually minded derive their sustenance from the spirit, and are the richer on the ten pounds a year which Traherne speaks of than are the masters of untold wealth who are spiritually destitute.
At what period Traherne came to the decision which he has thus recorded does not appear; but it seems probable it was at the time when, as Wood tells us, he left the University for a time. Wood places the commencement of his ministry at Credenhill at about 1661, when he was made Master of Arts. This, however, seems to be an error. Mr. E. H. W. Dunkin has kindly informed me that he has in his possession a copy of a manuscript preserved at Lambeth Library (MS. 998) containing particulars of admissions to Benefices temp. Commonwealth, in which the following entry appears:
Thomas Traherne, clerk, admitted 30 Dec., 1657, by the Commissioners for the Approbation of Public Preachers to the Rectory of Crednell, alias Creddenhill, Co. Hereford: patron Amabella, Countess Dowager of Kent.
In 1657 Traherne could not have been more than 21 or 22 years of age—hardly old enough, one would think, to assume entire charge of the parish. Possibly at first he only acted as assistant to the minister whom he afterwards succeeded.
Of the course of Traherne's life at Credenhill nothing is now known, but, as far as outward events were concerned, it was doubtless quiet and uneventful. He remained there, it would appear, for rather more than nine and a half years. Then he was summoned to London to become private chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgman, who, on August 30, 1667, was created Lord Keeper of the Seals. Whether he owed his promotion to a friend's recommendation, or whether he had, before this time, become personally acquainted with Sir Orlando, we do not know, but it is certain that he must henceforth have been highly esteemed and valued by his patron. When Bridgman was, in 1672, deprived of the Seals, and went into retirement, he still retained Traherne in his service, and it was in his patron's house at Teddington, about three months after the latter's decease, that he died. We may indeed feel certain that a mutual regard and even affection existed between them; and perhaps it is not too great a stretch of imagination to think that the death of Traherne may have been hastened by his grief at the loss of his patron.
Sir Orlando Bridgman was not only a very able lawyer, but also an honourable, conscientious, and upright statesman. He was, perhaps, a little wanting in strength of character, and therefore appeared to his contemporaries to be something of a trimmer. He was a royalist, and remained such all through the Civil War and the Commonwealth; though it appears that during the last years of Cromwell's reign he had in some degree made his peace with the Protector. But he was not disposed to be a mere tool in the hands of the Court party. He was made Keeper of the Seals because it was supposed that he would have been subservient to the designs of the ministry then in power; but when it was found that he was not disposed to be a compliant tool in their hands he was dismissed from his office. He had nothing in him of a Scroggs or a Jeffries, and was therefore no fit instrument of the crew of unscrupulous and corrupt intriguers who then misruled the country. That he was of a most charitable disposition—though he has not hitherto, I believe, received credit for the fact—we have sufficient evidence. In Traherne's "Christian Ethicks" we find the following passage (p. 471): "My Lord Bridgman, late Lord Keeper, confessed himself in his Will to be but a Steward of his Estate, and prayed God to forgive all his offences in getting, mis-spending, or not spending it as he ought to do. And that after many Charitable and Pious Works, perhaps surmounting his estate tho concealed from the notice or knowledge of the world."
It has been seen from one of the extracts quoted from "Centuries of Meditations" that Traherne esteemed himself fortunate in having "all things plentifully provided for me without any care at all, my very study of Felicity making me more to prosper than all the care in the whole world." That he was perfectly sincere in this statement, and that he had all the riches and advancement he required, is certain; but very few men, and certainly no ambitious man, under the same circumstances would have made such a declaration. To the worldly-minded his destiny must have seemed a poor, if not mean one. To be the parson of two small and obscure parishes, and the private chaplain of the Keeper of the Seals, while possessing abilities which would have adorned the highest possible station, must have seemed, to a less happily constituted temperament, a fate which would have justified much repining and discontent. That Traherne was not merely contented but happy under such circumstances is but one more proof that
Happiness to no outward cause we owe,
From inward sources only doth it flow.
The position of chaplain to Lord Bridgman must have brought Traherne into contact with many distinguished persons of the time; but no trace of his intercourse with them seems now to be discoverable, save in one instance. John Aubrey, the famous gossip, to whose undiscriminating industry we are indebted for the preservation of much chaff indeed, but also for not a little precious wheat, in his "Miscellanies," under the heading "Apparitions," gives us a remarkable reference to our author. I quote the passage in full:
Mr. Trahern, B.D. (chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgman, Lord Keeper), a learned and sober person, was son of a shoemaker in Hereford: one night as he lay in bed, the moon shining very bright, he saw the phantom of one of the apprentices, sitting in a chair in his red waistcoat, and head-band about his head, and strap upon his knee; which apprentice was really in bed and asleep with another fellow-apprentice, in the same chamber, and saw him. The fellow was living, 1671. Another time, as he was in bed, he saw a basket come sailing in the air, along by the valence of his bed; I think he said there was fruit in the basket: it was a phantom. From himself.
It is highly probable that it was Aubrey who furnished Wood with the account of Traherne which appears in the Athenæ Oxonienses, and doubtless he could have given us much more information about him had he chosen to do so. But he was incapable of appreciating so fine a spirit as Traherne's; nor was the latter likely to reveal to him the profounder depths of his nature. It is much to be regretted that Aubrey gives us such a confused account of what he was told. The stories were doubtless related to him at his own direct request, he being ever eager to collect accounts of the marvellous and the supernatural. It seems evident that Traherne attached little importance to these two visions, purposeless as they apparently were, and as visions of the kind usually are. No one nowadays would attribute such phantoms of the brain to any supernatural cause, nor does it appear that Traherne himself did. I find no trace in his writings of a belief in the common superstitions of his time as to ghosts, witches, or evil spirits.
The date of the interview in which Traherne related these things to Aubrey is fixed by the date given in it (1671) to a period within two or three years of the poet's death. During these latter years he was, according to Wood, minister of the parish of Teddington, Middlesex. It was there that Sir Orlando Bridgman's country residence was situated; and it was doubtless owing to his lordship's influence that Traherne was appointed minister. That he did hold that position seems to be certain, though, curiously enough, his name does not appear in the list of ministers of the parish which is given in Newcourt's "Repertorium Ecclesiasticum." Perhaps this may be accounted for by the fact that though Traherne was actually the working minister, the post was nominally held by a clerical pluralist of the time. The succession of curates as given by Newcourt during the period of Traherne's connection with the parish is as follows: 1664,—Badcock; 1668, Car. Bryan; 1673, Joh. Graves; 1677, Jacobus Elsby.
It was not until the year before his death that the first fruit of Traherne's long and laborious studies was offered to the readers of the time. His poems—or some of them, at least—were written early in life, for he speaks of one of them as having been written "long since"; but his "Roman Forgeries," "Christian Ethicks," and "Centuries of Meditations" were almost certainly his latest productions. Without undervaluing his two published works, it must be regretted that he did not send to the press in preference to them his poems, which would then have had the advantage of his own supervision, and would have saved his name from the total obscurity in which it has now been sunk for upwards of two centuries. But doubtless he did not anticipate so untimely an end of his career, and may well have preferred to make his first appearance in print as a serious student and thinker rather than as a poet. I feel sure that he did not undervalue his poems (what poet ever did?); but he must have believed that his prose writings were better calculated to influence the world, as he desired to influence it, than they were. His "Roman Forgeries" and "Christian Ethicks" probably cost him far more labour and hard thought than his poems did; and authors, it has been observed, usually value most highly the works which have cost them the greatest pains.
It was in 1673 that "Roman Forgeries" was published. There never was a period in the history of England when theological questions were more hotly debated than during the second half of the seventeenth century. Political and theological questions were then far more closely connected than is now the case, so that a double degree or vehemence was imparted to all the subjects of dispute which then divided the nation. Hence it was that a continual flood of partisan books and pamphlets issued from the press, to contemplate which nowadays is to be filled with a melancholy sense of the energy and intellect which our ancestors wasted in angry disputations and futile controversies.
That Traherne should have plunged into this whirlpool of controversy is, I must needs think, matter for regret. His "Roman Forgeries" is, it is true, a very able work; and as to its main contentions a very convincing one to those who need no convincing, and possibly even to the very few Catholics who could be induced to peruse it. But most of the latter, it is probable, would brush the whole question aside, as did the Catholic gentleman whom Traherne encountered at Oxford, merely exclaiming "What does it matter?"
As to the object of the work, the passage which I have quoted from it on p. xxxiv will give the reader a good idea of its scope and purpose. It is, in fact, an indictment of the Roman Church as being guilty of the most flagrant forgeries of documents and falsifications of historical facts for the purpose of supporting its spiritual and temporal pretensions. To those who are able to take any interest in its subject the book is by no means a dull one. Traherne, indeed, felt such a lively concern in his theme that he has succeeded in infusing much of his own animation into his pages. He deals his blows at his adversaries with such hearty good will, and has so much confidence in the justice of his cause, that the reader can hardly fail to sympathise with so earnest a combatant. Yet, as I have said, one can hardly help regretting that the book should have been written, for, well as it is done, it might have been done equally well by a writer of far inferior gifts, while it is impossible not to feel that Traherne was wasting his genius in its composition.[B]
Within twelve months after the publication of "Roman Forgeries" its author was dead. But he had, during the few months of life still left to him, finished another long and elaborate work. This was his "Christian Ethicks," a work of much more value and interest than his first book, though it seems to have fallen still-born from the press, and to have remained neglected and unknown ever since.
The satisfaction of seeing his second work in print was denied to its author. He had sent it to the press, but was dead before the printing of it was commenced. Sir Orlando died on June 25, 1674, and was interred in the church at Teddington, where a monument was erected to him. Three months afterwards Traherne died in his patron's house, and was also buried in the church at Teddington under the reading-desk. Of the exact date of his decease we are ignorant, but he was buried on October 10, 1674.
About a fortnight before his death, Traherne sent for his friend, John Berdo, and his sister-in-law, Susan Traherne, and in their presence made his Will—a nuncupative one. This Will, which I have to thank my friend, Gordon Goodwin, for communicating to me, was registered in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. It is a curious and interesting document, and I have therefore printed it in full in the Appendix to the present volume. From its terms, it is very evident that Traherne had accumulated no wealth, and that he died possessed of little indeed beyond his books and other personal effects.
At the time of his death Traherne was probably not more than thirty-eight years of age, but certainly under forty. He was thus in the very prime of life, and his intellect was in its fullest vigour. Had he lived he would surely have produced a succession of works which would have sensibly enriched our literature, for his industry was not less remarkable than his ability and his learning. As it was, his career must have seemed to those who were capable of appreciating his fine qualities a failure, for his books brought him little reputation; and beyond the mention of him in the Athenæ Oxonienses, his name quickly sank into entire oblivion, so to remain for upwards of two centuries. A strange fate! the strangest, perhaps, that ever befell an author of such fine genius. During all this period his manuscripts were lying unknown and neglected, and exposed to all the accidents of time and chance. Yet not altogether so, for it seems that those into whose hands his papers fell had at least a dim perception of their value. Twenty-five years after his death a little book stole into the world the title of which was as follows: "A Serious and Patheticall Contemplation of the Mercies of God, in several most Devout and Sublime Thanksgivings for the same. Published by the Reverend Doctor Hickes at the request of a friend of the Authors." It was the fortunate issue of this work of Traherne's that, after the lapse of upwards of two centuries, was to be the means of identifying him as the author of the poems contained in the present volume, which else might now be masquerading as those of Henry Vaughan. But for this we have not altogether to thank the friend of Traherne's who brought about the issue of the "Serious and Patheticall Contemplation." He certainly laid us under considerable obligations to him when he procured its publication; but his curious idea that it was not to the purpose to tell us the author's name might have caused it to remain for ever unknown but for one clue that he gave us, which ultimately led to its discovery.
The "Serious and Patheticall Contemplation" opens with a letter from the Rev. George Hickes (then a well-known writer on theological subjects), in which he says that the work was recommended to him for publication by "a devout person who was a great Judge of Books of Devotion, having given the world one already which had been well received in three impressions." He intended, he says, to have written a Preface to the book himself, but had received from a friend of the deceased author an account of him, which rendered it unnecessary for him "who can only tell how greatly the author of them wrote, but knew not how greatly he lived" to fulfil his intention. Dr. Hickes's Letter is followed by an Address "To the Reader," written by Traherne's friend. As this contains the best and most valuable account of our author which has descended to us, I need make no apology for quoting it in full:
Tho' the unhappy decay of true Piety and the Immoralities of the Age we live in may be a discouragement to the multiplying such Books as this, yet on the other hand this degeneracy of Manners, and too evident contempt of Religion makes it (it may be) the more necessary to endeavour to retrieve the Spirit of Devotion and the sacred Fires of Primitive Christianity. And since 'tis hop'd this ensuing Treatise may somewhat conduce to these noble Ends: It is thought to be no unprofitable undertaking to commit it to the Press, it being part of the Remains of a very devout Christian, who is long since removed to the Regions of Beatified Spirits, to sing those Praises and Hallelujahs, in which he was very vigourously employ'd whilst he dwelt amongst us: and since somewhat of Preface is become, as it were, a necessary part of every book, instead of any particular Dedication (which is commonly over-stuft with Flattery and Complements) I will only give thee some Account of the Author. To tell thee who he was, is, I think, to no purpose: And therefore I will only tell thee what he was, for that may possibly recommend the following Thanksgivings and Meditations to thy use. He was a Divine of the Church of England, of a very comprehensive Soul and very acute Parts, so fully bent upon that Honourable Function in which he was engaged; and so wonderfully transported with the Love of God to Mankind, with the excellency of those Divine Laws which are prescribed to us, and with those inexpressible Felicities to which we are entitled by being created in, and redeemed to the Divine Image that he dwelt continually amongst these thoughts with great delight and satisfaction, spending most of his time when at home in digesting his notions of these things into writing, and was so full of them when abroad that those who would converse with him were forced to endure some discourse upon these subjects, whether they had any sense of Religion or not. And therefore to such he might be sometimes thought troublesome, but his company was very acceptable to all such as had any inclination to Vertue and Religion. And tho' he had the misfortune to come abroad into the world in the late disordered Times, when the Foundations were cast down, and this excellent Church laid in the dust, and dissolved into Confusion and Enthusiasme; yet his Soul was of a more refin'd alloy, and his Judgment in discerning of things more solid and considerate than to be infected with that Leaven, and therefore became much in love with the beautiful order and Primitive Devotions of this our excellent Church. Insomuch that I believe he never failed any one day either publickly or in his private Closet to make use of her publick Offices, as one part of his devotion, unless some very unavoidable business interrupted him. He was a man of a cheerful and sprightly Temper, free from anything of the sourness or formality by which some great pretenders to Piety rather disparage and misrepresent true Religion than recommend it; and therefore was very affable and pleasant in his conversation, ready to do all good offices to his Friends, and Charitable to the Poor almost beyond his ability. But being removed out of the Country to the service of the late Lord Keeper Bridgman as his Chaplain, he died young and got early to those blissful Mansions to which he at all times aspir'd.
This eulogy of Traherne, it will be observed, was written twenty-five years after his death, when the writer could have had no possible motive to pen it, beyond a desire to do justice to the memory of his friend. It is a most attractive picture; but not, I am convinced, one in which truth was sacrificed to flattery. It is exactly what might have been inferred from the poems and "Centuries of Meditations"; but since it does not always happen that an author's personality tallies with that which might be deduced from his writings, it is fortunate that the impression derived from Traherne's works is thus confirmed by independent evidence. The poet was, it is plain, one of those rare and enviable individuals in whom no jarring element is present, who come into the world as into their rightful inheritance, and whose whole life is a song of thankfulness for the happiness which they enjoy in it. His was indeed
A happy soul that all the way
To Heaven hath a summer's day,
and though we, who are not so constituted, and who may question whether in a world, which to us seems to give at least as much reason for lamenting as for rejoicing, any man has a right to be so happy as Traherne was, the feeling is perhaps only an outcome of that envy which those who are tortured with a thousand doubts and misgivings must needs entertain for those who enjoy an existence of entire serenity.
It is fortunate that Traherne's friend, though he did not mention his name, yet gave us a clue to him by mentioning that he was private chaplain to Lord Keeper Bridgeman. Without this clue we should probably have had to remain in ignorance of his authorship of the poems contained in this volume: for though there was (as will be seen later on) another clue, it was hidden away so deeply that it is unlikely it would ever have been discovered. Why Traherne's friend should have thought that it was not to the purpose to tell us who he was, and yet gave us such a means of discovering him, is rather a puzzle; but we have reason to be ever grateful to him for what he has told us, while regretting that he has told us no more.
I must now give some account of Traherne's "Christian Ethicks." It is so rare a book that I have only just obtained a copy of it, after searching for it for nearly two years. Few books surely have had so unfortunate a fate. If there is a better book of its kind in the English language I have not been so fortunate as to meet with it. It is a work full of eloquence, persuasiveness, sagacity, and piety. While the author's concern, as might be expected, is chiefly with the spiritual life, he is by no means destitute of worldly wisdom, and he often exhibits a shrewdness and knowledge of human nature which would scarcely be expected from him. Open the book anywhere you please you can hardly fail to discover a fine thought finely expressed. How then shall we account for the fact that the work has remained in total obscurity from the time of its first publication to the present day? The fact that the author died before its appearance, and it was thus thrown into the world without a parent or friend to foster it, was no doubt in some degree accountable for its ill-fortune. It is true that the author makes no appeal to the uninstructed or the fanatical, and keeps throughout the work upon a higher level of thought than the generality of readers can ascend to. He is somewhat too fond of debating abstruse points of metaphysics, and of dwelling upon the subtleties of theological speculation. Yet there is in the book enough, one would think, of homely wisdom, and even of wit, to have secured it a warm welcome from all those to whom it appealed.
I think the reader—since he is not likely to obtain a copy of "Christian Ethicks," however much he may desire it—will be glad to see a few extracts from it. And first I will quote a passage from the chapter "Of Magnanimity." I do this because of its personal interest—for Traherne, in painting the character of a magnanimous man, was, whether consciously or unconsciously, drawing his own portrait. Flattering as the picture may seem, I do not doubt in the least that it is a true one.
Magnanimity and contentment are very near allied; like brothers and sisters they spring from the same parents, but are of several features. Fortitude and Patience are kindred to this incomparable virtue. Moralists distinguish Magnanimity and Modesty, by making the one the desire of greater, the other of less and inferior, honours. But in my apprehension there is more in Magnanimity. It includes all that belongs to a Great Soul: a high and mighty courage, an invincible Patience, an immoveable Grandeur which is above the reach of injuries, a contempt of all little and feeble enjoyments, and a certain kind of majesty that is conversant with great things; a high and lofty frame of spirit, allied with the sweetness of Courtesy and Respect; a deep and stable resolution founded on humility without any baseness; an infinite hope and a vast desire; a Divine, profound, uncontrollable sense of one's own capacity; a generous confidence, and a great inclination to heroical deeds; all these conspire to complete it, with a severe and mighty expectation of Bliss incomprehensible. It soars up to Heaven, and looks down upon all dominion of fortune with pity and disdain. Its aims and designs are transcendent to all concerns of this little world. Its objects and its ends are worthy of a soul that is like God in Nature; and nothing less than the Kingdom of God, his Life and Image; nothing beneath the friendship and communion with Him can be its satisfaction. The terrors, allurements, and censures of men are the dust of its feet: their avarice and ambition are but feebleness before it. Their riches and contentions, and interests and honours, but insignificant and empty trifles. All the world is but a little bubble; Infinity and Eternity the only great and sovereign things wherewith it converseth. A Magnanimous Soul is always awake. The whole globe of the earth is but a nutshell in comparison of its enjoyments. The sun is its lamp, the sea its fishpond, the stars its jewels, men, angels, its attendants, and God alone its sovereign delight and supreme complacency. The earth is its garden, all palaces its summer houses, cities are its cottages, empires its more spacious Courts, all ages and kingdoms its demeans, monarchs its ministers and public agents, the whole Catholick Church its family, the Eternal Son of God its pattern and example. Nothing is great if compared to a Magnanimous Soul but the sovereign Lord of all Worlds.
If you would have the character of a Magnanimous Soul, he is the son of Eternal Power, and the friend of Infinite Goodness, a Temple of Divine and Heavenly Wisdom, that is not imposed upon by the foul and ragged disguises of Nature, but acquainted with her great capacities and principles, more than commonly sensible of her interests, and depths, and desires. He is one that has gone in unto Felicity, and enjoyed her beauties, and comes out again her perfect Lover and Champion: a man whose inward stature is miraculous; and his complexion so divine that he is king of as many kingdoms as he will look on: one that scorns the smutty way of enjoying things like a slave, because he delights in the celestial way, and the Image of God. He knows that all the world lies in wickedness; and admires not at all that things palpable and near and natural, are unseen, though most powerful and glorious, because men are blind and stupid. He pities poor vicious kings that are oppressed with heavy crowns of vanity and gold, and admires how they can content themselves with such narrow territories: yet delights in their regiment of the world, and pays them the honour that is due unto them. The glorious exaltation of good kings he more abundantly extols, because so many thousand Magnanimous Creatures are committed to their trust, and they that govern them understand their value. But he sees well enough that the king's glory and true repose consists in the Catholick and Eternal kingdom. As for himself he is come unto Mount Sion, and to the City of the Living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of Angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant: and therefore receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, he desires to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: and the truth is we can fear nothing else, for God alone is a consuming fire.
The above passage is a fairly representative one. If the reader is pleased with it, he would be equally pleased with the whole work; if he sees nothing to admire in it, he may conclude that "Christian Ethicks" is not a book which has any message in it for him.
The following extract is taken from the chapter "Of Charity to our Neighbours":
That which yet further commendeth this virtue of love unto us is that it is the only soul of all pleasure and felicity in all estates. It is like the light of the sun, in all the kingdoms and houses and eyes and ages, in Heaven, in earth, in the sea, in shops and temples, in schools and markets, in labours and recreations, in theatres and fable. It is the great demon of the world, and the sole cause of all operations. It is evidently impossible for any fancy, or play, or romance, or fable to be composed well and made delightful without a mixture of Love in the composure. In all theatres and feasts and weddings and triumphs and coronations Love is the Soul and Perfection of all. In all persons, in all occupations, in all diversions, in all labours, in all virtues, in all vices, in all occasions, in all families, in all cities and empires, in all our devotions and religious actions, Love is all in all. All the sweetness of society is seated in Love, the life of music and dancing is Love; the happiness of houses, the enjoyment of friends, the amity of relations, the providence of kings, the allegiance of subjects, the glory of empires, the security, peace, and welfare of the world is seated in Love. Without Love all is discord and confusion. All blessings come upon us by Love, and by Love alone all delights and blessings are enjoyed. All happiness is established by Love, and by Love alone is Glory attained. God knoweth that Love uniteth Souls, maketh men of one heart in a house, fills them with liberality and kindness to each other, makes them delightful in presence, faithful in absence, tender of the honour and welfare of the beloved, apt to obey, ready to please, constant in trials, patient in sufferings, courageous in assaults, prudent in difficulties, victorious and triumphant. All that I shall need to observe further is that it completed the Joys of Heaven. Well, therefore, may wisdom desire Love, well may the Goodness of God delight in Love. It is the sum and glory of his Eternal Kingdom.
The following spirited, vigorous, and eloquent passage is from the chapter "Of Courage":
What a glorious and incomparable virtue this is appeareth from the baseness and ineptitude of its contrary. A coward and an honest man can never be the same; a coward and a constant lover can never be the same; cowardice and wisdom are as incompatible for ever as Love and Wisdom were thought to be of old. A coward is always despicable and wretched, because he dares not expose himself to any hazards, nor adventure upon any great attempt for fear of some little pain and damage that is between him and an excellent achievement. He is baffled from the acquisition of the most great and beautiful things, and nonplust with every impediment. He is conquered before he begins to fight. The very sight of danger makes him a slave. He is undone when he sees his enemy afar off, and wounded before the point of his sword can touch his shadow. He is all ways a terror and burden to himself, a dangerous knave, and a useless creature.
Strange is the vigour in a brave man's soul. The strength of his spirit and his irresistible power, the greatness of his heart and the height of his condition, his mighty confidence and contempt of dangers, his true security and repose in himself, his liberty to dare and do what he pleaseth, his alacrity in the midst of fears, his invincible temper, are advantages which make him master of fortune. His courage fits him for all attempts, makes him serviceable to God and man, and makes him the bulwark and defence of his being and country.
Let those debauched and unreasonable men that deny the existence of virtue contemplate the reality of its excellency here, and be confounded with shame at their prodigious blindness. Their impiety designs the abolishment of Religion, and the utter extirpation of all faith, and piety, while they pretend the distinction between virtue and vice to be merely feigned for the aweing of the world, and that their names have no foundation in Nature but the craft of politicians and the traditions of their nurses. Are there no base fellows, nor brave men in the world? Is there no difference between a Lion and a Hare? a faint-hearted Coward and a glorious Hero? Is there nothing brave nor vile in the world? What is become of these Rodomontadoes wits? Where is the boasted glory of their personal valour, if there be no difference, but courage and cowardice be the same thing?
I have marked, I find, at least twenty other passages for quotation; and indeed it would be easy to extract from the book enough notable sayings to form a pocket volume of religious and moral philosophy; but I must content myself with only one other quotation. It is from the chapter "Of Knowledge":
The sun is a glorious creature, and its beams extend to the utmost stars; by shining on them it clothes them with light, and by its rays exciteth all their influences. It enlightens the eyes of all the creatures: it shineth on forty kingdoms at the same time, on seas and continents in a general manner; yet so particularly regardeth all, that every mote in the air, every grain of dust, every spire of grass is wholly illuminated thereby as if it did entirely shine upon that alone. Nor does it only illuminate all these objects in an idle manner; its beams are operative, enter in, fill the pores of things with spirits, and impregnate them with powers, cause all their emanations, odors, virtues, and operations; springs, rivers, minerals and vegetables are all perfected by the sun; all the motion, life and sense of birds, beasts and fishes dependeth on the same. Yet the sun is but a little spark among all the creatures that are made for the Soul; the Soul, being the most high and noble of all, is capable of far higher perfections, far more full of life and vigour in its uses. The sphere of its activity is illimited, its energy is endless upon all its objects. It can exceed the heavens in its operations, and run out into infinite spaces. Such is the extent of knowledge that it seemeth to be the Light of all Eternity. All objects are equally near to the splendour of its beams: As innumerable millions may be conceived in its Light, with a ready capacity for millions more; so can it penetrate all abysses, reach to the centre of all Nature, converse with all beings, visible and invisible, corporeal and spiritual, temporal and eternal, created and increated, finite and infinite, substantial and accidental, actual and possible, imaginary and real; all the mysteries of bliss and misery, all the secrets of heaven and hell are objects of the Soul's capacity, and shall be actually seen and known here.
It seems strange indeed that no compiler in search of material for a book of selections, no student in search of forgotten excellence, no seeker for wisdom conjoined with piety, has ever lighted in his search upon "Christian Ethicks." But it came into the world in a time of general dissoluteness of manners, and amid the jarrings of contending sects and the venomous contests of political parties. Probably very few copies of the book were sold, and its rarity in after times has prevented it from becoming known to any one who had the will and the power to proclaim its merits.
"Poetry," says Milton, if he be indeed the author of "Nova Solyma," "is the impetuous rush of a mind full to overflowing, strained, exalted to its utmost powers, yea, rather, lifted into ecstacy beyond itself."[C] Could we accept this (as we cannot) as a complete definition of the poetic faculty, we might then place Traherne in the very front rank of inspired singers. It would be impossible to give a better description of the leading characteristics of his poetry than that which we find in the words of Milton. Not Milton himself, nor even Shelley, has more of the impetuous rush of a mind lifted into ecstacy beyond itself than Traherne. No poet writes with more absolute spontaneity than he. Whatever may be wanting in him, however he may occasionally fail in expression, he has always this impetuous rush, this ecstacy that rises beyond itself. A glowing ardour of conviction, a passionate spirit of love and devotion, a profound sense of the beauty and sublimity which he saw everywhere around him, a never-failing aspiration towards that Goodness which he believed to be the Fountain and the Ocean, the Beginning and the End of Things, were the sources of his inspiration, the impelling forces of his genius. Where these qualities are present their possessor can never altogether fail in expressing them, however deficient he may be in the technical accomplishments of the poet's art. These things indeed are the root, if not the flower, of all poetry worthy of the name. That Traherne was essentially a poet we might be certain even if none of his lyrical work had remained to prove it. The man who could say, "You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars"—a sentence which contains the essence of everything that has been said by the poets who have sung of the relation between the soul of man and the spirit of Nature—did not need to write in verse in order to prove that he was beyond all question a poet. There is enough of the spirit of poetry in "Christian Ethicks" and "Centuries of Meditations" to set up a dozen versifiers. It was as impossible for Traherne to see things as a Jeremy Bentham or a Cobbett saw them, as it was for either or the latter to have written the sentence I have just quoted. And who shall say that the light of imagination through which Traherne and those who resemble him behold the universe is a light which misleads them? Why should we assume that those who view it with eyes that are blind to all but its prosaic aspects are its true interpreters? Whatever else it may be, the universe, it is certain, is a marvellous and stupendous poem; and it is singular indeed if those who are insensible to this truth are able to see it in a clearer light than those who are alive to all its beauty, to all its magnificence, and to all its mystery.
With Traherne poetry was no elegant recreation, no medium for the display of a lively fancy, no means of exhibiting his skill as a master of metrical effects, but the vehicle through which he expressed his deepest convictions and his profoundest thoughts. He used it as a gift which it was his duty to employ only for the highest purposes and the most sacred ends. All that he saw, felt, and apprehended was transmuted by the alchemy of his mind into that mysterious union of thought, imagination, and expression, which we half praise and half disparage when we term it poetic inspiration. He possessed—or rather was possessed by—that "fine madness" without which no poet, painter, or musician ever yet created a work which deserved to outlive its author. He saw in the universe no "foul and pestilent congregation of vapours," but a majestic dwelling-place for gods, angels, and men. All nature to him was lovely and perfect; and if the existence of evil, injustice, and sin disquieted him for a moment he had little difficulty in persuading himself that these things were owing not to defect or imperfection in nature, but to the folly or perverseness of men in departing from it. It may indeed be said of him, as Matthew Arnold said of Wordsworth, that his eyes refused to dwell upon the darker aspects of life and nature; but that, in his case, as in Wordsworth's, was in a great degree the source of his greatness, and is the reason why he interests us. It is only those that possess an undoubting faith who can inspire it in others. It is given only to a Shakespeare or a Goethe to "see life steadily and see it whole." Almost all other authors see it, as their nature prompts them, in colours which are either too glowing or too sombre. It has been said of the author of "The City of Dreadful Night" that he was born that we might have things stated at their worst, once for all:[D] may we not likewise say of Traherne that he was born that things might be stated, once for all, at their best? Perhaps the reader may think that his poems do not justify so strong a claim; but when they are taken in conjunction with his "Christian Ethicks" and "Centuries of Meditations" I do not think it can be considered as an overstatement. Whether his moral and theological views were right or wrong, Traherne at least was warranted in holding them, because they were exactly suited to his peculiar temperament, if indeed they were not the outcome of it. Were all men blessed with so happy a disposition as his, then indeed might the world become the Eden which to him it appeared to be. He believed that all men might be as happy as he was if they would only firmly resolve to follow the path which had led him to felicity. Like all enthusiasts and most reformers of human nature or human institutions, he made the mistake of supposing that others were, or might be made, like-minded with himself, and did not take into account the infinite varieties of character and temperament which exist among mankind. But to believe that men are better and nobler is at least a less fault than to believe them to be worse and baser than they are.
To claim for Traherne a place in the front rank of poets is hardly possible. Considering his limited range of subjects, we cannot put him on an equality with the poets who have exhibited more varied powers, and shown a deeper insight into human nature. But, excluding Milton, we may at least place him in the front rank of poets of his class. It is possible my opinion may be somewhat biassed by a reason which the reader will be at no loss to divine; but I cannot help thinking that neither Herbert, Crashaw, nor Vaughan can compare with Traherne in the most essential qualities of the poet. He alone has that "impetuous rush of a mind ... lifted into ecstasy beyond itself" which Milton, as we have seen, regarded as the chief requisite of poetry. Herbert has a finer sense of proportion, a keener perception of the importance of form and measure; Vaughan appeals more strongly to the common sympathies of mankind; while Crashaw, when at his best, has more fine passages of quintessential poetry, more curious felicities of expression, than Traherne; but none of them has the vitality, the sustained enthusiasm, the power imparted by intense conviction, which we find in our author. Vitality, indeed, seems to me to be the keynote of Traherne's character. That he was himself aware of this we may see from his poem on Contentment:
Employment is the very life and ground
Of life itself; whose pleasant motion is
The form of Bliss:
All Blessedness a life with Glory crown'd;
Life! Life is all: in its most full extent
Stretcht out to all things, and with all Content.
Not, be it observed, the still life of contemplation or inaction, but an active, eager, energetic enjoying of life, to be so used as to get from it the utmost degree of felicity or blessedness. Traherne repudiates energetically the idea that the more unhappy we make ourselves here the greater will be our happiness hereafter. In his "Centuries of Meditations" he says:
There are Christians that place and desire all their happiness in another life, and there is another sort of Christians that desire happiness in this. The one can defer their enjoyment of wisdom to the world to come, and dispense with the increase and perfection of enjoyment for a little time; the other are instant and impatient of delay, and would fain see that happiness here which they shall enjoy hereafter.... Whether the first sort be Christians indeed, look you to that. They have much to say for themselves. Yet certainly they that put off Felicity with long delays are to be much suspected. For it is against the nature of love and desire to defer, nor can any reason be given why they should desire it at last, and not now.
While we may not claim for Traherne's work as a whole that it is of the first order of excellence, we may, I think, make that claim for some of it. We can hardly have a better test of a poet's merits than to inquire how many of his pieces are fit to take their place in such anthologies as the "Golden Treasury," or Mr. Quiller-Couch's "Oxford Book of English Verse." Judged in this way Traherne makes, I think, a very good showing, considering (as I have elsewhere explained) that we possess only a part of his poetical works, and that what we have had probably not received his final revision. Were I asked to name the pieces which, in my opinion, deserve the honour which I have mentioned, I think my first choice would fall upon "The Salutation," "Wonder," "The Approach," "The Circulation," "Desire," "Goodness," and "On News."[E] I am not at all sure, however, that this is the best selection that could be made. "Innocence," "The Rapture," "Silence," "The Choice," "The Person," "The Recovery," "Love," and "Thoughts—I. and II." have perhaps equal or almost equal claims to be included in a list of Traherne's best work. But individual tastes differ so much that I daresay other readers would make another choice, for Traherne is a remarkably equal writer, and does not often fall below his own level of excellence. Yet all the poems I have mentioned, fine as they are when standing alone, gain considerably when they are read as parts of a continuous poem, the subject of which is the history of the author's progress in his pilgrimage towards the kingdom of perfect Blessedness. He too, like Bunyan's pilgrim, found difficulties and dangers in the way; but with him it was rather a triumphant progress from victory to victory than a long and bitter struggle against enemies who might at any time have overcome him. Very few of his poems dwell upon his discouragements; most of them are songs of rejoicing for victories achieved or happiness attained.
In the last analysis it will always be found that it is the poet himself and not his poetry that has the greatest interest for us. Unless he is interesting in himself he will not interest us in his writings. No amount of study and pains will suffice to render the work of a shallow and commonplace personality interesting to us. From the strong only shall sweetnesss come forth. I do not know whether I have succeeded in any degree in convincing the reader that Traherne was, both as a man and as a poet, a very interesting character; but if I have not, the fault assuredly is mine, and not his. We may study him in two aspects: firstly, as a representative of the poetic temperament; and secondly, as a representative of the religious idiosyncrasy in conjunction with the poetic—for religion in many of its professors is often enough altogether disjoined from any tincture of poetry. In both aspects we have ample materials for studying him: and I cannot help thinking that few writers of his age are better worth studying.
Were Traherne a smaller man than he is, and therefore less able to afford to have the whole truth told about him, I should hesitate long before printing the following remarks on some of his shortcomings. It is the less needful to attempt to conceal his defects, since they are for the greater part the defects of his qualities, and therefore inseparable from them. Constituted as he was, it was not possible for him to see things in a wholly clear and uncoloured light. He is elevated so high above ordinary humanity that he is unable to see clearly what is so much beneath him. Nor is it always easy for us, the dwellers upon the plain, to ascend to his altitude. He is so exempt from the ordinary failings of humanity that we feel almost as if he belonged to a different race. He died a bachelor, and I do not find anything in his writings which shows that he ever experienced the passion of love in relation to the female sex. His love for the divine seems to have swallowed up all thought of sexual love, though not his love for humanity in the mass. He is sometimes so mystical or metaphysical that the ordinary reader finds it difficult to comprehend him. But, after all, if the reader will only exercise a little patience and be at the expense of a little thought, he will not find it hard to understand the poet, even in his most difficult passages. Those who are able to follow Browning through all his intricacies will find no knot in Traherne which they will not easily unravel.
The charge which is most likely to be pressed against Traherne is that he appears to have been a man of few ideas, and is consequently much given to repetition of thoughts and even of words and phrases. That there is some foundation for this charge may be admitted, but it is nevertheless unjust. No one, after the examination of his manuscripts and of his two published works, could believe it. A scholar so well versed in the classics, a student so eager for knowledge of all kinds, a thinker so acute, could not possibly be a man of narrow ideas and restricted sympathies. What is true, however, is that his mind dwelt with so much delight upon certain thoughts that it was continually recurring to them, setting them in different lights, and repeating them, even as a musician will execute ever-new variations upon a favourite theme. Those who care for Traherne's themes will not complain that he dwells too much upon them.
It must be owned, I think, that while Traherne is usually happy in the selection of his themes, he is sometimes less happy in developing and expressing them. Lines which leave something to be desired in smoothness (though he is not usually chargeable with this fault, his handling of the heroic couplet being particularly good), and now and then lines which to our modern ideas appear to be somewhat prosaic, are certainly to be found in his poems, and do, to a small extent, interfere with the reader's pleasure in them. But for such faults as these we ought surely to make large allowance. The reader should, and doubtless will, remember that he has before him a work for which the author himself has but a limited responsibility. Had he himself published the poems we should have been entitled to think that he deliberately chose to give them to the world with all their faults upon them. As it is, I think we may assume that had he lived to publish them they would have undergone a good deal of revision before they were sent forth to the world. Most of their defects are such as might be easily remedied, and such, indeed, as it was sometimes hard to refrain from remedying. But I have resisted all such temptations, and have confined myself to the task of making the printed text as nearly as possible a reproduction of the original manuscripts. The reader will gather from the facsimile of one of Traherne's poems, which I have given as a frontispiece to this volume, a good general idea as to the character of his handwriting, his spelling, and his punctuation. It would have been an interesting thing could the whole of Traherne's poems have been reproduced in the same style, for, as the reader will see, there is a picturesqueness, a beauty, and a life about the manuscripts which is lost in the cold regularity of type. Some readers may perhaps think that it would have been better to follow the author's original spelling and punctuation; but after giving full consideration to this point, it did not seem advisable to do this. Traherne's spelling is by no means uniform—Deity, for instance, is sometimes "Dietie" and sometimes "Deitie"—and his punctuation, which is, I think, quite peculiar to himself, differs so much from our modern practice, that if it had been reproduced without modification it would often have obscured his meaning and puzzled the reader without any compensating advantage.
Traherne, as will be perceived from the frontispiece, made much use of capital letters and occasionally of italics in his writings. This was the custom of the time, as any one who examines a seventeenth-century printed book will see. In the first edition of this book I preserved most of the author's capitals and italicised passages: but here I have thought it unnecessary to do so. Upon the whole there seemed to be no advantage in retaining them, since they look a little odd to eyes accustomed to the uniformity of modern typography. In the case of the poems taken from "Christian Ethicks," however, I have preserved the old spelling and the capitals very nearly as they appear in the book.
Traherne, so far as English authors were concerned, was very little indebted to his predecessors. He was, of course, greatly influenced by the writers of the Old and New Testaments, from whom he is continually quoting in his "Christian Ethicks." Next to the Scriptures, the book which seems most to have influenced him was that ancient mystical and philosophical work which is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Those who are well acquainted with that remarkable production will find frequent traces of its influence in the prose and verse of Traherne. He gives several extracts from it in "Christian Ethicks," and in his "Commonplace Book" there are continual references to it. It might almost be said that, after the Bible, it was his chief manual of philosophy and of divine wisdom.
That Traherne was well acquainted with the writings of Herbert is evident from the fact that in one of his manuscript books he has copied out that writer's poem, "To all Angels and Saints"; but I do not find any traces of Herbert's influence upon him either in prose or verse. Nor do I find any proof that he was acquainted with the writings of Vaughan. The resemblance between Traherne's line,
How, like an Angel came I down,
and Vaughan's reference to his "angel infancy" is probably no more than an accidental coincidence. Though their points of view were similar in many respects, Traherne possessed a much stronger personality than Vaughan, and therefore had little or nothing to learn from him. It is likely enough that he owed something to Donne, as most of the poets of his time did; but I do not find any clear indications of that poet's influence in his writings. Traherne's style, indeed, is that of his age, but as to his matter, few poets, I think, can boast of more originality.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Traherne's poetry is that it anticipates so much that seems to belong to much later periods of our literary history. Traherne, indeed, is likely to suffer to some extent in his reputation because ideas which with him were certainly original—or at least as much so as any ideas in any poets can be said to be original—have since become commonplaces in our literature. The praise of the beauty and innocence of childhood is familiar enough to us now, and has, perhaps, in some instances been carried to a rather ridiculous extreme. That certainly was not the case in Traherne's time. So far as I know, he was the first who dwelt upon those ideas in any other than an incidental and allusive manner. It is true that we find in Vaughan some passages of a similar tendency, but they are few and slight in comparison with those which we find in Traherne. If there are similar passages in other poets previous to, or contemporary with, the latter, I must confess that I am unacquainted with them. Nor were the poetical possibilities of the theme discovered until more than a century afterwards, when William Blake, who by the light of genius—or shall we say lunacy?—discovered so much else, discovered them. It was fitting, indeed, that Blake, whose youthful experiences seem to have more nearly resembled Traherne's than those of any other poet, should have followed all unknowingly in the elder writer's footsteps. Had he ever sat down to record the events of his infancy and childhood, Blake's narrative, I think, however different in detail, must have been like that of his predecessor in its chief features. I do not believe that there is any point out of all those which I have quoted respecting Traherne's childhood which Blake might not also have recorded of himself. Much as they differed in matters of faith, there was a deep and fundamental agreement in character and temperament between the two poets. To both of them the things seen by their imaginations were more real than the things seen with the eye, and to neither of them was there any dividing line between the natural and the supernatural. Their faiths were founded upon intuition rather than reason, and they were no more troubled by doubt or disbelief than a mountain is. Their capacity for faith was infinite, and stopped short only when their imagination failed them—if it ever did fail them.
Another poet with whom Traherne has some remarkable affinities is Wordsworth—not the Wordsworth of later life, when his poetic vein, if not exhausted, had at least grown thin and unproductive, but the Wordsworth of the magnificent ode "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." Let the reader once more peruse that poem, and note carefully the leading points in it. Then let him, bearing in mind the foregoing extracts from Traherne's "Centuries of Meditations," go carefully through the various poems in which the earlier poet celebrates the happiness of his infancy and childhood. When he has done this, let him ask himself if he would have believed that Wordsworth was unacquainted with Traherne's writings, supposing that they had been published before the later poet's time? I cannot think myself that it would have been easy in that case to think that the modern poet was entirely unindebted to the older one. It is hardly too much to say that there is not a thought of any value in Wordsworth's Ode which is not to be found in substance in Traherne. Of course, I do not say this with any view of disparaging Wordsworth, whose Ode, even if it had been, as we know it was not, derived from Traherne, would still have been a masterpiece. Its merit, like that of Gray's "Elegy," depends at least as much upon its form as upon its substance, and that, of course, was all Wordsworth's own. It is in a measure a testimony to the authentic character of their inspiration when two poets, unknown to each other, produce works which are so nearly identical in substance and spirit.
The reader will remember that Traherne in his youth determined to follow the bent of his own inclination at whatever cost of poverty or want of worldly success. That was the case also with Wordsworth. Another point in which, as it seems to me, they resembled each other was in the matter of poetic style. At first sight, indeed, there does not appear to be any likeness between them in this respect; yet, allowing for the difference in their times and their temperaments, I think we may find a good deal of similarity. Traherne's style, allowing for the nature of his subjects, is always simple and direct. His aim is to affect the minds of his readers by the weight of his thought and the enthusiasm of his utterance, not to astonish them by far-fetched metaphors or delight them with dulcet melodies. He has no ornament for ornament's sake, and he never attempts to clothe his "naked simple thought" in silken raiment or cloth of gold. He does not indulge in the metaphysical conceits and ingenuities with which the works of Donne and Cowley are so plentifully besprinkled. "Poetic diction" was as little sought for by him as by Wordsworth. He did not, however, fall into the error that Wordsworth sometimes did, of mistaking puerility for simplicity. I do not wish to press this point too far. I only desire to show that both poets were more solicitous about the substance than the form of their poetry. Wordsworth would have heartily endorsed the doctrine of Traherne that the best things are the commonest, and that natural objects and not artificial inventions are the true well-springs of delight.
Though the reader will, I hope, have agreed with my contention that Traherne anticipated a good many poetical ideas which have been thought to belong to much later dates, I can hardly expect him to accept without demur the claim I am now about to make on the poet's behalf. That Traherne had a considerable genius for metaphysics will be evident to any one who reads his "Christian Ethicks," or who studies at all carefully the contents of the present volume. But to claim that he was the originator of the metaphysical system which, since it was first made known, has created more discussion and exercised more influence than any other has done, will probably seem at first to be a very extravagant assertion. Yet that he had at least a clear prevision of that famous system which is known as the Berkeleian philosophy is, I think, incontestable. That theory, it seems to me, could hardly be stated in a clearer or more precise manner than it is in Traherne's poem entitled "My Spirit." I am much mistaken if the theory of "the non-existence of independent matter," which is the essence of Berkeley's system, is not to be found in this poem—not, it is true, stated as a philosophical dogma, but yet clearly implied, and not merely introduced as a flight of poetical fancy. It seems to me that if the following stanza from that poem is not altogether meaningless, no other construction can be placed upon it than that its author was a Berkeleian before Berkeley was born:
This made me present evermore
With whatsoe'er I saw.
An object, if it were before
My eyes, was by Dame Nature's law
Within my soul. Her store
Was all at once within me: all Her treasures
Were my immediate and internal pleasures,
Substantial joys which did inform my Mind.
With all She wrought
My Soul was fraught
And every object in my Heart a Thought
Begot or was; I could not tell
Whether the things did there
Themselves appear,
Which in my Spirit truly seem'd to dwell;
Or whether my conforming Mind
Were not even all that therein shin'd.
The idea that matter has no existence, apart from its existence in the Spirit of the Eternal, or in the soul of man, is surely clearly, if not positively, advanced in the last six lines of the above stanza. The thought, so strangely fascinating to a poet—and Berkeley no less than Traherne was one—that the whole exterior universe is not really a thing apart from and independent of man's consciousness of it, but something which exists only as it is perceived, is undeniably to be found in "My Spirit." I have quoted only one stanza of it, but the whole poem should be carefully studied, for it is throughout an assertion of the supremacy of mind over matter, and an averment that it is the former and not the latter which has a real existence. If it be thought that it is going too far to say that the Berkeleian system is to be found in the poem—which of course it is not as a reasoned-out and complete theory—it yet cannot be denied that it is there in germ and in such a form that it only required to be seized upon by an acute intellect to be developed in the way Berkeley developed it. That the latter knew nothing of Traherne's poem is certain, and therefore I am not attempting to detract in any way from the credit which belongs to him. I am only anxious to give the poet his due as the first who caught a glimpse of so notable a truth or error—which ever it may be.[F]
Deeply as Traherne was penetrated with a sense of the glory of the universe, and of the infinite greatness of its Creator, it was with no sense of abasement that he contemplated them. He felt that in his own soul, so capable of the sublimest conceptions and the most exalted aspirations, there must needs be a divine element. He was no outcast thrust out of Eden into a wilderness of spiritual destitution, but the son of a loving Father, born to a splendid inheritance, and at least as necessary to the Deity as servants and dependents are to keep up the state and dignity of a king. If God confers benefits on man it is in order that He may witness man's delight in them and gratitude for them. To see this is a supreme delight to Him, and without it there would be something wanting to His felicity. But I must quote a stanza from "The Recovery," lest the reader should think that I am misrepresenting the poet:
For God enjoy'd is all His End.
Himself He then doth comprehend
When He is blessed, magnified,
Extoll'd, exalted, prais'd and glorified,
Honor'd, esteem'd, belov'd, enjoy'd,
Admired, sanctified, obey'd,
That is received. For He
Doth place His whole Felicity
In that, who is despised and defied,
Undeified almost if once denied.
Matthew Arnold said of Goethe that he
Neither made man too much a God
Nor God too much a man.
That could hardly be said of Traherne. It is scarcely possible, I think, to deny that in the above-quoted passage he committed the fault of making "God too much a man." That, however, was a fault which he shared with most of the theologians of his time. Perhaps it is a fault which is almost inseparable from a sincere and fervent faith. Without refining away the conception of God to a mere abstraction, it is impossible to think of Him otherwise than as an infinitely magnified and glorified man. Since the human mind is so constituted, it is surely vain to attempt to set limits within which we are to think of Him. Every man will do this according to the law of his own temperament. The man of cool reason and well-controlled passions will form a very different conception of the Deity from the man of enthusiastic disposition and ardent emotions. To think of the Deity as "a power not ourselves which makes for righteousness" is no more possible for a Traherne, than it is for an Arnold to think of God as One
who is despised and defied,
Undeified almost if once denied.
To make all men think alike, whether on political, moral, or theological subjects, is now seen by all but a very few reactionaries to be an impossible task. It is needless to defend Traherne for the views he took regarding the relations between God and man; I have only thought it expedient to show that the line he followed was that to which he was impelled by the character of his individuality.
An excellent poet, a prose-writer of equal or perhaps greater excellence, an exemplary preacher and teacher, who gave in his own person an example of the virtues which he inculcated, one with whom religion was not a garment to be put on, but the life of his life and the spring of all his actions—such was Thomas Traherne. Much as I dissent from his opinions, and much as my point of view as regards the meaning and the purpose of life differs from his, I have yet found it easy to appreciate the fineness of his character, and the charm of his writings. It is not necessary that we should believe as Traherne believed in order to derive benefit from his works. Men of all faiths may study them with profit, and derive from them a new impulse towards that "plain living and high thinking" by which alone happiness can be reached and peace of mind assured.
It remains for me to tell the strange story of the fate of Traherne's manuscripts after his death. They passed, we may reasonably suppose, together with his books, into the hands of his brother Philip, as directed in his will. Philip Traherne, I imagine, was in some way—perhaps by marriage—connected with a family named Skipp, which dwelt at Ledbury, in Herefordshire. These Skipps appear to have become the owners and custodians of the poet's remains; and in their hands they probably rested down to the year 1888, when it seems that the property belonging to the family was dispersed. Into what hands the Traherne manuscripts then fell cannot now be ascertained; but it was certainly into hands that were ignorant of their value. In the latter part of 1896, or the early months of 1897, some of them had descended to the street bookstall, that last hope of books and manuscripts in danger of being consigned to the waste-paper mills. Here, most fortunately, two of them were discovered by my friend, Mr. William T. Brooke, who acquired them at the price of a few pence. They could hardly have fallen into better hands, for Mr. Brooke's knowledge of our poetical literature, and especially of sacred poetry and hymnology, is no less remarkable for its extent than for its exactness. As soon as he could find time to examine the manuscripts he at once saw that they were of great interest and value. He could hardly imagine that writings so admirable could be the work of an unknown author; and he at length came to the conclusion, from the fact that the poems resembled those of Henry Vaughan in their subjects and partly in their sentiments, that they must be his. This was an unfortunate idea, since it caused a considerable delay in the tracing out of the real author. Mr. Brooke communicated his discovery to the late Dr. Grosart, who became so much interested in the matter that he purchased the two manuscripts. He, too, after some waverings of opinion, during which he was disposed to attribute the manuscripts, first to Theophilus Gale, and secondly to Thomas Vaughan, became convinced that they must be Henry Vaughan's. Under this persuasion he prepared for the press a most elaborate edition of Vaughan's works, in which the matter contained in the manuscripts was to be included. This edition he was, at the time of his death, endeavouring to find means to publish. That the work thus projected was not actually published must, I think, be regarded as a fortunate circumstance. Whether the poems, on the authority of Dr. Grosart, would have been accepted as Vaughan's, can only be conjectured; but it seems probable that they would, since it is unlikely that any critic, however much he might have doubted their imputed authorship, would have been able to trace out the real author. An irreparable injury would thus have been inflicted upon Traherne, while Vaughan would have received an unneeded accession of fame, at the expense of puzzling all readers of a critical disposition by the exhibition of inconsistent and irreconcilable qualities.
Upon Dr. Grosart's death his library was purchased by the well-known bookseller, Mr. Charles Higham, of Farringdon Street. Included in it were the two Traherne manuscript volumes. Having learned from Mr. Brooke the story of the manuscripts, and that they were in Mr. Higham's hands, I became interested in the matter, and ultimately purchased them. Afterwards, when a part of Dr. Grosart's library was sold at Sotheby's, I became the possessor of the third manuscript volume, which their late owner appears not to have known to be Traherne's, though nothing is needed but to compare it with the other volumes in order to see that all three are in the same handwriting.
It is due to Mr. Higham to say that he most liberally allowed me to examine the manuscripts before purchasing them, so that I might form my own opinion as to their authorship. I need not say that I should have been delighted if I could have come to the same conclusion that Mr. Brooke and Dr. Grosart had arrived at. Inclination and interest alike impelled me to take their view. But when I sat down to read the poems and to compare them with the acknowledged writings of Henry Vaughan, I soon began to doubt, and it required but a little time for that doubt to develop into a conviction that whoever might have been their author, they were assuredly not written by the Silurist. It is true that the poems deal, as most of Vaughan's do, solely with religious or moral subjects, and that the author dwells continually, as Vaughan did, upon the subjects of childhood and innocence; and that both authors display the same love of nature and of a simple and natural life. It is true also that we find both poets making use of some rather uncommon words and phrases, and that we find in both the same free use of defective rhymes. These resemblances, however, are merely superficial. In all the deeper matters of style, thought, and temperament, Traherne and Vaughan were as far apart as any two men, animated as both were by a deep spirit of piety and beneficence, could well be. To me, had there been no other difference, one striking note of dissimilarity would have sufficed to prove that the poems in manuscript and those of Vaughan could not have proceeded from the same pen. In the manuscript poems an ever-present quality is a passionate fervour of thought, an intense ardour of enthusiasm, which is not to be found, or at least only rarely, in Vaughan's works. Restrained emotion, expressed in verse which moves slowly and not without effort, is, it seems to me, the leading characteristic of Vaughan's poetry; emotion in full flood, expressed in lively and energetic diction, is that of Traherne's. With Traherne all nature is bathed in warmth and light: with Vaughan we feel sensible of a certain coolness of temperament, and are conscious that he rejoices rather in the twilight than in the radiance of noonday.
With the conviction that the poems could not be Vaughan's, while yet it seemed unlikely that they could be the work of an altogether unknown or unpractised writer, I began to search for indications by which their author might possibly be discovered. Here again I found Mr. Brooke's assistance most valuable. To an edition of Giles Fletcher's "Christ's Victory and Triumph," which he had edited, he had appended a number of previously uncollected seventeenth-century poems. Among these was one entitled "The Ways of Wisdom." To this poem he now drew my attention, as he had previously drawn Dr. Grosart's. It was at once evident to me that its style was very similar to that of the manuscript poems. In fact, that poem, as any reader will see who cares to study it in comparison with the other poems in this volume, presents such strong resemblances and parallels with them that it is hardly too much to say that the question as to their common authorship might have been rested entirely upon it. However, it was of course desirable to find further evidence. Mr. Brooke told me that he had found the poem in a little book in the British Museum, entitled "A Serious and Patheticall Contemplation of the Mercies of God, in several most Devout and Sublime Thanksgivings for the same."[G] The book, Mr. Brooke also told me, contained other pieces in verse. These I desired him to copy out. When he had done so it at once became evident to me that the author of the manuscript poems and of the "Devout and Sublime Thanksgivings" must be, beyond all doubt, one and the same person. The fact was as clearly demonstrated to my mind as the truths of the multiplication table. That point being settled, the next thing was to discover, if possible, who was the author of the "Devout and Sublime Thanksgivings." That might have remained unknown to the end of time, but for one clue which the book luckily afforded. This was, as the reader has seen, the statement in the "Address to the Reader" that the author was private chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgeman. This clue had only to be patiently followed up to lead to the discovery of the author's name. This Mr. Brooke at last found to be Thomas Traherne. It was from Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses that the information was obtained, and from that we also learned that Traherne was the author of two books, "Roman Forgeries" and "Christian Ethicks." The next step was to examine these works to see if any evidence could be found which would connect them with the author of the manuscripts. That evidence was found in "Christian Ethicks." This was the poem which the reader will find on p. 157. The same poem, though in a shorter form and with a good many textual variations, appears in the manuscript "Centuries of Meditations" (see p. 134). Here then was proof positive that Traherne and no other was the author of the manuscripts in my possession. Though I did not require this evidence myself, it was fortunate it was found, since its discovery put the matter beyond all doubt. Will the reader accuse me of undue vanity if I say that it was with a good deal of self-satisfaction, and no little rejoicing, that I welcomed this confirmation of the opinion which I had formed solely upon critical grounds? One might be tempted to think that the whole train of circumstances by which Traherne was discovered, first to be the author of the anonymous "Thanksgivings," and through that of the more important manuscripts, has the appearance of being something more than the work of chance, were it not that their long concealment, their narrow escape from entire destruction, and the fact that the verses printed in the present volume form only a part of Traherne's poetical works, seem to forbid us to entertain such an idea.[H]
The manuscripts from which the contents of this book have been derived are three in number. They consist of one folio and two octavo volumes. The folio volume contains all the poems from "The Salutation" to "Goodness" which are here printed. The same volume contains a large number of prose essays and memoranda alphabetically arranged so as to form a kind of commonplace book. The greater part of these are in a handwriting which differs from Traherne's. They appear to have been written by a friend of the poet's, since Traherne has in many cases added remarks of his own to those in the other writer's handwriting. I believe it was Dr. Grosart's intention to print the whole of this material; but although it certainly has a curious interest, it does not appear to me that it is worth while to publish it at present. Some parts of this commonplace book appear to have been used as material for "Christian Ethicks" and "Centuries of Meditations"; and the whole of it, as might be expected, is more like the notes of a student than the finished work of an essayist.
The second manuscript volume contains Traherne's "Centuries of Meditations," which I have already described and quoted largely from. The third volume contains Traherne's private religious meditations, devotions, and prayers. It is in this latter volume that the "Hymn on St. Bartholomew's Day," a facsimile of which is given as a frontispiece to the present volume, is found.
I must not conclude without thanking my friends, G. Thorn Drury and E. V. Lucas, to both of whom I am indebted for many valuable suggestions. I have also to thank the Rev. Canon Beeching for similar and not less appreciated assistance. Thanks are due also to the Rev. J. C. Foster, who drew my attention to the passage in Aubrey's "Miscellanies" relating to Traherne's visions, and to Miss Isabel Southall, who searched diligently, though without success, to find out the time and place of Traherne's birth. I have already acknowledged my obligations to Mr. W. T. Brooke, Mr. E. H. W. Dunkin, and Mr. Gordon Goodwin.