Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II

Chapter 1

Chapter 13,185 wordsPublic domain

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Transcriber's note:

The ligatures oe and OE are indicated by [oe] and [OE].

The carat (^) indicates a superscript in the original. One carat indicates that the following single letter is superscript. A pair of carats indicates that the enclosed letters are superscript; for example the abbreviations 8^vo^ and 12^mo^ are used for the printer's page sizes octavo and duodecimo respectively.

In the poem "In Etesiam Lachrymantem" (Page 221) the initial letter of the final line is missing in all extant editions; either "C" or "D" seems possible.

In the Boethius translation Lib. IV. Metrum VI. (page 230), the letter 'y' has been added to make line 9/10 read "...though they/See other stars..." although it is missing in all available editions.

At many points a period, comma or hyphen seems to be omitted in the original. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected, but where missing punctuation is not clearly an error, or the omission is harmless to the sense, the text remains as in the original.

Footnotes in the original appear on the page where they are referenced and are numbered from 1 on each page. Here footnotes are numbered consecutively throughout the book and are grouped following each chapter or poem to which they refer. To locate footnote 17 (for example) search for [17]. Another search for [17] returns to the point of reference.

POEMS OF HENRY VAUGHAN

SILURIST.

VOL. II.

The Muses' Library

POEMS OF HENRY VAUGHAN

SILURIST

Edited by E. K. Chambers

With an Introduction by Canon Beeching

VOL. II.

London: George Routledge & Sons, Limited New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

PAGE

TABLE OF CONTENTS vii

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE xv

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HENRY VAUGHAN'S WORKS lvii

POEMS WITH THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL ENGLISHED, 1646 1

To all Ingenious Lovers of Poesy 3

To my Ingenuous Friend, R. W. 5

Les Amours 8

To Amoret. The Sigh 10

To his Friend, Being in Love 11

Song: [Amyntas go, thou art Undone] 12

To Amoret. Walking in a Starry Evening 13

To Amoret Gone from him 15

A Song to Amoret 16

An Elegy 17

A Rhapsodis 18

To Amoret, of the Difference 'twixt him and other Lovers, 21 and what True Love is

To Amoret Weeping 23

Upon the Priory Grove, his Usual Retirement 26

Juvenal's Tenth Satire Translated 28

OLOR ISCANUS. 1651.

Ad Posteros 51

To the ... Lord Kildare Digby 53

The Publisher to the Reader 55

Upon the Most Ingenious Pair of Twins, Eugenius 57 Philalethes and the Author of those Poems [by T. Powell, Oxoniensis]

To my Friend the Author upon these his Poems [by I. 58 Rowlandson, Oxoniensis]

Upon the following Poems [by Eugenius Philalethes, 59 Oxoniensis]

Olor Iscanus. To the River Isca 61

The Charnel-House 65

In Amicum Foeneratorem 68

To his Friend ---- 70

To his Retired Friend, An Invitation to Brecknock 73

Monsieur Gombauld 77

An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. W., Slain in the late 79 Unfortunate Differences at Routon Heath, near Chester, 1645

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

Upon Mr. Fletcher's Plays, Published 1647 87

Upon the Poems and Plays of the Ever-Memorable Mr. William 90 Cartwright

To the Best and Most Accomplished Couple ---- 92

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

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

To my Worthy Friend, Master T. Lewes 99

To the Most Excellently Accomplished Mrs. K. Philips 100

An Epitaph upon the Lady Elizabeth, Second Daughter to his 102 Late Majesty

To Sir William Davenant upon his Gondibert 104

TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID.

To his Fellow Poets at Rome, upon the Birthday of Bacchus 106

To his Friends--after his Many Solicitations--Refusing to 109 Petition Caesar for his Releasement

To his Inconstant Friend, Translated for the Use of all 112 the Judases of this Touchstone Age

To his Wife at Rome, when he was Sick 115

Ausonii. Idyll vi. Cupido [Cruci Affixus] 119

[Translations from Boethius] 125

[Translations from Casimirus] 144

The Praise of a Religious Life of Mathias Casimirus. In 152 Answer to that Ode of Horace, Beatus Ille Qui Procul Negotiis.

Ad Fluvium Iscam 157

Venerabili Viro, Praeceptori Suo Olim Et Semper 158 Colendissimo Magistro Mathaeo Herbert

Praestantissimo Viro, Thomae Poello In Suum De Elementis 159 Opticae Libellum

Ad Echum 160

THALIA REDIVIVA. 1678.

To ... Henry Lord Marquis and Earl of Worcester, &c. 163 [by J. W.]

To the Reader [by I. W.] 167

To Mr. Henry Vaughan, the Silurist: upon These and his 169 Former Poems. [By Orinda]

Upon the Ingenious Poems of his Learned Friend, Mr. Henry 171 Vaughan, the Silurist. [By Tho. Powell, D.D.]

To the Ingenious Author of Thalia Rediviva [By N. W., 172 Jes. Coll., Oxon.]

To my Worthy Friend Mr. Henry Vaughan, the Silurist. 175 [by I. W., A.M., Oxon.]

CHOICE POEMS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS.

To his Learned Friend and Loyal Fellow-Prisoner, Thomas 178 Powel of Cant[reff], Doctor of Divinity

The King Disguised 181

The Eagle 184

To Mr. M. L. upon his Reduction of the Psalms into Method 187

To the Pious Memory of C[harles] W[albeoffe] Esquire, Who 189 Finished his Course Here, and Made his Entrance into Immortality upon the 13 of September, in the Year of Redemption, 1653

In Zodiacum Marcelli Palingenii 193

To Lysimachus, the Author Being with him in London 195

On Sir Thomas Bodley's Library, the Author Being Then in 197 Oxford

The Importunate Fortune, Written to Dr. Powel, of 200 Cant[reff]

To I. Morgan of Whitehall, Esq., upon his Sudden Journey 204 and Succeeding Marriage

Fida; or, The Country Beauty. To Lysimachus 206

Fida Forsaken 209

To the Editor of the Matchless Orinda 211

Upon Sudden News of the Much-Lamented Death of Judge 213 Trevers

To Etesia (for Timander); The First Sight 214

The Character, to Etesia 217

To Etesia Looking from her Casement at the Full Moon 219

To Etesia Parted from Him, and Looking Back 220

In Etesiam Lachrymantem 221

To Etesia Going Beyond Sea 222

Etesia Absent 223

TRANSLATIONS.

Some Odes of the Excellent and Knowing [Anicius Manlius] 224 Severinus [Boethius], Englished

The Old Man of Verona, out of Claudian 236

The Sphere of Archimedes, out of Claudian 238

The Ph[oe]nix, out of Claudian 239

PIOUS THOUGHTS AND EJACULATIONS.

To his Books 245

Looking Back 247

The Shower 248

Discipline 249

The Eclipse 250

Affliction 251

Retirement 252

The Revival 254

The Day Spring 255

The Recovery 257

The Nativity 259

The True Christmas 261

The Request 263

Jordanis 265

Servilii Fatum, Sive Vindicta Divina 266

De Salmone 267

The World 268

The Bee 272

To Christian Religion 276

Daphnis 278

FRAGMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS. 1641-1661.

From Eucharistica Oxoniensia (1641) 289

From Of the Benefit we may get by our Enemies (1651) 291

From Of the Diseases of the Mind and the Body (1651) 293

From The Mount of Olives (1652) 294

From Man in Glory (1652) 298

From Flores Solitudinis (1654) 299

From Of Temperance and Patience (1654) 300

From Of Life and Death (1654) 305

From Primitive Holiness (1654) 307

From Hermetical Physic (1655) 322

From Cerbyd Fechydwiaeth (1657) 323

From Humane Industry (1661) 324

NOTES TO VOL. II 329

LIST OF FIRST LINES 355

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

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

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

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

(a) THE VAUGHAN GENEALOGY.

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

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

Mr. G. T. Clark, in his _Genealogies of Glamorgan_, p. 240, gives the following account:--

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

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

PEDIGREE OF VAUGHAN OF TRETOWER AND NEWTON.

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

Thomas m. Denis, d. and h. to Gwillims of Newton Skethrog. | Henry, of Newton. | Henry, of Newton Skethrog, Doctor of Phisick, m. Catharine, d. to Charles Wise, of Ritsonhall, Staffordshire, and secondly Elizabeth, her sister. | | Lucy, m. Ch. Greenleafe of Grisill, m. Roger Prosser. Streton-upon-Trent, Staff. Lucy, m. Jenkin Jones of Trebinshwn.

Catharine, m. Rachel, m. John Turberville Tho. Vaughan, of Newton of Llangattock. Skethrog, m. Frances, Henry, Parson of Penderin, d. to m. Janet, d. of Robert Walbeoffe of Talyllyn.

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

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

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

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

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

1626. E. G. T. V. W. T. W. F. I. [bold reversed 'D'].

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

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