P. [57]. Commendatory Verses.
These are signed by T. Powell, Oxoniensis; I. Rowlandson, Oxoniensis; and Eugenius Philalethes, Oxoniensis. Thomas Powell, one of the Powells of Cantreff, in Breconshire, was born in 1608. He matriculated from Jesus College on January 25th, 1627/8, took his B.A. in 1629 and his M.A. in 1632, and became a Fellow of the College. He was Rector of Cantreff and Vicar of Brecknock, but was ejected by the Commissioners for the Propagation of the Gospel and went abroad. At the Restoration he returned to Cantreff and was made D.D. and Canon of St. David's. But for his death, on the 31st December, 1660, he would probably have become Bishop of Bristol. He was the author of several books of no great importance. He appears to have been a close friend of Vaughan, who addresses various poems to him, and contributed others to his books. See Olor Iscanus, pp. 97, 159; Thalia Rediviva, pp. 178, 200, 267; Fragments and Translations, pp. 323-326. Powell, in return, wrote commendatory poems to both the Olor Iscanus and the Thalia Rediviva.
I. Rowlandson. This may have been John Rowlandson, of Queen's College, Oxford, who matriculated the 17th October, 1634, aged 17, took his B.A. in 1636, and his M.A. in 1639. Either he or his father, James Rowlandson, also of Queen's College, was sequestered by the Westminster Assembly to the vicarage of Battle, Sussex, in 1644. He left it shortly after and "returned to his benefice from whence he was before thence driven by the forces raised against the parliament." (See Addl. MS. 15,669, f. 17). There was also another James Rowlandson, son of James Rowlandson, D.D., Canon of Windsor, who matriculated from Queen's College on the 9th November, 1632, aged 17, and took his B.A. in 1637.—G. G.
Eugenius Philalethes. The author's brother, Thomas Vaughan. See the Biographical Note (vol. ii., p. xxxiii).
P. 39. that lamentable nation, i.e. the Scotch.
P. [61]. Olor Iscanus.
Ausonius. The famous schoolmaster, rhetorician and courtier of the early fourth century, was born at Bordeaux. One of his most famous poems is the Mosella (Idyll X), a description of the river and its fish.
Castara, Lucy, daughter of William Herbert, Lord Powys, and wife of the Worcestershire poet, William Habington, who celebrated her in his poems under that name. The Castara was published in 1634.
Sabrina, the tutelar nymph of the Severn. Cf. the invocation of her in Milton's "Comus."
May the evet and the toad. This passage is imitated from W. Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, Bk. I., Song 2, II., 277 sqq.: