THALIA REDIVIVA.

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

G. G.

flames that are ... canicular. Cf. A Dialogue between Sir Henry Wotton and Mr. Donne(Poems of John Donne,Muse's Library, Vol. I., p. 79):

"I'll never dig in quarry of a heartTo have no part,Nor roast in fiery eyes, which always areCanicular."

Kelder, a caldron; cf. J. Cleveland,The King's Disguise:

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

A second fiat's care.The allusion is toGenesisi. 3: "And God said, Let there be light (in the Vulgate,Fiat lux), and there was light";cf.Donne,The Storm(Muses' Library, II. 4):

"Since all forms uniform deformityDoth cover; so that we, except God sayAnotherFiat, shall have no more day."

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

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

the Greek,i.e.Hercules when in love with Omphale.

Domitian-like:Cf.Suetonius,Vita Domitiani, 3: "Inter initia principatus cotidie secretum sibi horarum sumere solebat, nec quicquam amplius quam muscas captare ac stilo praeacuto configere."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Speed's Old Britons.John Speed (1555-1629) published hisHistory of Great Britainin 1614.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Vides, ut alta stet nive candidaSoracte, nec iam sustineant onusSylvae laborantes, geluqueFlumina constiterint acuto?········Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quaerere;Quam sors dierum cunque debit; lucroAppone."

G. G.

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

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

A Persian votary—i.e., a Parsee, or fire-worshipper.

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

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

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

Birtha, the heroine ofGondibert.

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

Ll. 89-94. The Latin is:

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

Vaughan's simile is borrowed from Donne'sFourth Elegy(Muses' Library, I., 107):

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

These translations are from theDe Consolatione Philosophiae, a medley of prose and verse. Vaughan has translated all the verse in the first two books except the Metrum 3 of Book I. and Metrum 6 of Book II. The headings of Metra 7 and 8 of Book II. are given in error inOlor Iscanusas Metra 6 and 7. Some further translations from Books III. and IV. will be found inThalia Rediviva, pp. 224-235.

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

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

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

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

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

These are signed byOrinda;Tho. Powell, D.D.;N. W., Ies. Coll., Oxon.;I. W., A.M. Oxon.

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

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

I. W., also an Oxford man, is probably the writer of the prefaces to the Marquis of Worcester and to the Reader, which are signed respectively J. W. and I. W. Mr. Firth suggests that he may be J[ohn] W[illiams], son of Sir Henry Williams of Gwernevet, Brecon, who matriculated at Brasenose in 1642. I have thought that he might be Vaughan's cousin, the second John Walbeoffe (cf.p. 189,note), who is mentioned in Thomas Vaughan's diary (cf.Biographical Note, vol. ii., p. xxxviii), but there is no proof that Walbeoffe was an Oxford man. Perhaps he is the friend James to whom a poem inOlor Iscanusis addressed (p. 70).

On Dr. Powell,cf.note to p. 57. Vaughan's reason for calling him a "fellow-prisoner" is discussed in theBiographical Note(vol. ii., p. xxxii).

John Cleveland's poem,The King's Disguise, here referred to, was first published as a pamphlet on January 21, 1646. It appears in Cleveland'sWorks(1687). The disguising was on the occasion of Charles the First's flight, on April 27, 1646, from Oxford to the Scottish camp, of which Dr. Gardiner writes (History of the Civil War, Ch. xli): "At three in the morning of the 27th, Charles, disguised as a servant, with his beard and hair closely trimmed, passed over Magdalen Bridge in apparent attendance upon Ashburnham and Hudson."

Dr. Grosart identifies M. L. with Matthew Locke, of whom Roger North says, in hisMemoirs of Music(4to, 1846, p. 96): "He set most of the Psalms to music in parts, for the use of some vertuoso ladyes in the city." Locke's setting of thePsalmsexists only in MS. A copy was in the library of Dr. E. F. Rimbault, who thinks that the author assisted Playford in hisWhole Book of Psalms(1677). In 1677 he died.

Charles Walbeoffe was a man of considerable importance in Brecknockshire. His name occurs several times in State papers of the period. A petition of his concerning a ward is dated October 12, 1640. (Cal. S. P. Dom., Car. I., 470, 113). He was High Sheriff in 1648 (Harl. MS. 2,289, f. 174), and a fragment of a warrant signed by him on April 17 of that year to Thomas Vaughan, treasurer of the county, for the monthly assessment, is in Harl. MS. 6,831, f. 13. As we might perhaps gather from Vaughan's poem, he does not seem to have taken an active part in the Civil War. He did not, like some other members of his family, sign theDeclarationof Brecknock for the Parliament on November 23, 1645 (J. R. Phillips,Civil War in Wales and the Marches, ii. 284). And he seems to have joined the Royalist rising in Wales of 1648. Information was laid on February 10, 1649, that he "was Commissioner of Array and Association, raised men and money, subscribed warrants to raise men against the Parliament's generals, and sat as J.P. in the court at Brecon when the friends of Parliament were prosecuted" (Cal. Proc. Ctee. for Advance of Money, p. 1017). Afterwards he was reconciled, sat on the local Committee for Compositions, and again got into trouble with the authorities. On May 14, 1652, the Brecon Committee wrote to the Central Committee that, being one of the late Committee, he would not account for sums inhis hands. He was fined £20. (Cal. Proc. Ctee. for Compositions, p. 578.)

Miss Morgan has copied the inscription on his tombstone in Llanhamlach Church.

[Arms of Walbeoffe.]"Here lieth the body of Charles Walbeoffe, Esqre., who departed this life the 13th day of September, 1653, and was married to Mary, one of the daughters of Sir Thomas Aubrey of Llantryddid, in the county of Glamorgan, Knt., by whom he had issue two sonnes, of whom only Charles surviveth."

[Arms of Walbeoffe.]

"Here lieth the body of Charles Walbeoffe, Esqre., who departed this life the 13th day of September, 1653, and was married to Mary, one of the daughters of Sir Thomas Aubrey of Llantryddid, in the county of Glamorgan, Knt., by whom he had issue two sonnes, of whom only Charles surviveth."

Charles Walbeoffe the younger died in 1668, and was succeeded by his cousin John. "This gentleman," says Jones (Hist. of Brecknock, ii., 482), "being of a gay and extravagant turn, left the estate, much encumbered, to his son Charles, and soon after his death it was foreclosed and afterwards sold."

This John Walbeoffe is mentioned in Thomas Vaughan'sDiary(cf.vol. ii., p. xxxviii). He may be the writer of the preface toThalia Rediviva(cf.p. 164,note).

It is possible that the R. W. of another of Vaughan's Elegies may also have been a Walbeoffe.Cf.p. 79,note.

Dr. Grosart was unable to identify the initials C. W. The Walbeoffes, or Walbieffes, of Llanhamlach, the next village to Llansantfread, were among the most important of theAdvenae, or Norman settlers of Brecknockshire. They were related, as the following table shows, to the Vaughans of Tretower. The following extract from the genealogy of the Walbeoffes of Llanhamlach is compiled from Harl. MS. 2,289. f. 136b; Jones,History of Brecknockshire, ii., 484; Miss G. E. F. Morgan, inBrecon County Timesfor May 13, 1887.

Genealogy of the Walboeffes of Llanhamlach

Marcellus Palingenius, or Petro Angelo Manzoli, wrote his didactic and satirical poem, theZodiacus Vitae, about 1535. It was translated into English by Barnabee Googe in 1560-1565. The latest edition of the original is that by C. C. Weise (1832). As we may gather from Vaughan's lines, Manzoli was an earnest student of occult lore.Cf.Gustave Reynier,De Marcelli Palingenii Stellatae Poctae Zodiaco Vitae(1893).

Bevis ... Arundel ... Morglay. The allusion is to theRomance of Sir Bevis of Hampton(ed. E. Kölbing, E. E. T. S., 1885). Arundel was Sir Bevis' horse, and Morglay his sword.

If Vaughan was not himself an Oxford man (Biog. Note, vol. ii., p. xxvi), he may have been in Oxford with the King's troops at the end of August, 1645 (Biog. Note, vol. ii., p. xxxi).

Walsam, Walsingham, in Norfolk, famous for the rich shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, to which many offerings were made.

I. 105.My purse, as Randolph's was.The allusion is to Randolph'sA Parley with his Empty Purse, which begins:

"Purse, who'll not know you have a poet's been,When he shall look and find no gold herein?"

Whitehall appears to be an Anglicised form of Wenallt, more properly Whitehill. John Morgan, or Morgans, of Wenallt, in Llandetty, was a kinsman of Vaughan's, as the following table (from Harl. MS., 2,289, f. 39) shows:

Pedigree of John Morgan

cf.p. 100,note. These lines do not appear in either the 1664 or the 1667 edition of Orinda's poems.

"This was probably Sir Thomas Trevor, youngest son of John Trevor, Esq., of Trevallyn, co. Denbigh, by Mary, daughter of Sir George Bruges, of London. He was born 6th July, 1586. He was made one of the Barons of the Exchequer 12th May, 1625; and was one of the six judges who refused to accept the new commission offered them by the ruling powers under the Commonwealth. He died 21st December, 1656, and is buried at Lemington-Hastang, in Warwickshire." (Dr. Grosart.)

I do not think we need look for anything autobiographical in this and the following poems written to Etesia. They are written "for Timander," that is, either to serve the suit of a friend, or as copies of verses with no personal reference at all. The names Etesia and Timander smack of Orinda's poetic circle.

Dr. Grosart hunted out an obscure Neapolitan, Marcus Aurelius Severino, and ascribed to him the originals of these translations. They are of course from theDe Consolatione Philosophiaeof Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, and are a continuation of the pieces already printed inOlor Iscanus(pp. 125-143).

These are much in the vein ofSilex Scintillans. They probably belong to various dates later than 1655, when the second part of that collection appeared.The Nativity(p. 259) is dated 1656, andThe True Christmas(p. 261) was apparently written after the Restoration.

Vaughan was no Puritan;cf.his lines onChrist's Nativity(vol. i., p. 107)—

"Alas, my God! Thy birth now hereMust not be numbered in the year,"

but he was not much in sympathy with the ideals of the Restoration either;cf.the passage on "our unjust ways" inDaphnis(p. 284).

On Thomas Powell,cf.p. 57, note.

Hilarion's servant, the sage crow.There seems to be some confusion between Hilarion, an obscure fourth-century Abbot, and Paul the Hermit, of whom it is related in hisLife by S. Jeromethat for sixty years he was daily provided with half a loaf of bread by a crow.

The subject of the Eclogue appears to be Vaughan's brother Thomas, who died 27th February, 1666. On himseetheBiographical Note(vol. ii., p. xxxiii).

true black Moors; an allusion, perhaps, to Thomas Vaughan's controversy with Henry More.

Old Amphion; perhaps Matthew Herbert, on whom see note to p. 158.

The Isis and the prouder Thames.Thomas Vaughan was buried at Albury, near Oxford.

Noble Murray.Thomas Vaughan's patron, himself a poet and alchemist, Sir Robert Murray, Secretary of State for Scotland. His poems have been collected by the Hunterian Club.

The larger number of the verses in this section are translated quotations scattered through Vaughan's prose-pamphlets. Dr. Grosart identified some of the originals; I have added a few others; but the larger number remain obscure and are hardly worth spending much labour upon. The title-pages of the pamphlets will be found in theBibliography(vol. ii., p. lvii).

I have already, in theBiographical Note(vol. ii., p. xxviii), given reasons for doubting whether this poem is by the Silurist. It was first printed as his by Dr. Grosart. Charles the First was in Scotland, trying to settle his differences with the Scots, during the closing months of 1641.

These, together with a translation of Guevara'sDe vitae rusticae laudibus, were appended to theOlor Iscanus. Vaughan did not translate directly from the Greek, but from a Latin version published in 1613-14 amongst some tracts by John Reynolds, Lecturer in Greek at, and afterwards President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

A volume of Devotions published by Vaughan in 1652. The preface, dated 1st October, 1651, is addressed to Sir Charles Egerton, Knight, and in it Vaughan speaks of "that nearrelation by which my dearest friend lays claim to your person." It is impossible to say who is the "dearest friend" referred to. TheFlores Solitudinis(1654) is also dedicated to Sir Charles Egerton. He was probably of Staffordshire. Dr. Grosart (II. xxxiii) states that in Hanbury Church, co. Stafford, is a monumentCaroli Egertoni Equitis Aurati, who died 1662. Perhaps therefore he was connected with Vaughan's wife's family, the Wises of Staffordshire.

This translation from a work attributed to St. Anselm and published as his in 1639 is appended to the Mount of Olives.

In the original lines 5, 6, are printed in error after lines 7, 8.

In 1654 Vaughan published a volume containing (1) translations of two discourses by Eusebius Nierembergius, (2) a translation of Eucherius,De Contemptu Mundi, (3) an original life of S. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola. These were poems "collected in his sickness and retirement." The Epistle-dedicatory to Sir Charles Egerton is dated 1653, and that to the reader which precedes the translations from Nierembergius on 17th April, 1652.

Bissellius.John Bissel a Jesuit, (1601-1677), wroteDeliciae Aetatis,Argonauticon Americanorum, etc. (Grosart).

Augurellius.Johannes Aurelius Augurellius of Rimini (1454-1537), wroteCarmina,Chrysopoeia,Geronticon, etc. (Grosart).

This original life of S. Paulinus of Nola, by far the most striking of Vaughan's prose works, contains a number of poems, pieced together by Vaughan from lines in Paulinus' own poems and in those of Ausonius addressed to him. The edition used by Vaughan seems to have been that published by Rosweyd at Antwerp in 1622. I have traced the sources of the poems so far as I can in the edition published by W. de Hartel in theCorpusScriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum(vols. xxix, xxx 1894).

A translation from theNaturae Sanctuarium! quod est Physica Hermetica(1619) of the alchemist Henry Nollius, published by Vaughan in 1655.

This tract is bound up with the Brit. Mus. copy of [Thomas Powell's]Quadriga Salutis(1657), of which it appears to be a Welsh translation. The verses, to which nothing corresponds in the English version, are signed Ol[or] Vaughan (cf.Olor Iscanus). Professor Palgrave (Y Cymrodor, 1890-1) translates them as follows: "The Lord's Prayer, when looked into (we see), the Trinity of His Fatherly goodness has given it as a foundation-stone of all prayer, and has made it for our instruction in doctrine." He adds that this Englyn occurs with others written in an eighteenth-century hand on the fly-leaf of a MS. of Welsh poetry by Iago ab Duwi.

On Thomas Powellcf.p. 57, note. The first three of these translations are marked H. V. in the margin; of the fourth Powell says, "The translation of Mr. Hen. Vaughan, Silurist, whose excellent Poems are published." Many other translations are scattered through the book, but there is nothing to connect them with Vaughan.

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