Part of an ode præfixed to a little prayer-book given to a young gentlewoman. Lo! here a little volume, but great book (Feare it not, sweet, It is no hipocrit), Much larger in itselfe than in its looke. To ly thus folded and complaining (Fair one) from thy kind hands; To find the rest Of a rich binding in your breast. It is, in one choise handfull, Heavn and all Which here contracts it self, and comes to ly Close couch't in your white bosom, and from thence, As from a snowy fortress of defence, Against the ghostly foe to take your part, And fortify the hold of your chast heart. It is an armory of light: Let constant use but keep it bright, To holy hands and humble hearts, Than sin hath snares or Hell hath darts. The attending World, to wait Thy rise, And then, not knowing what to doe, O come away And kill the death of this delay! O see, so many worlds of barren yeares To catch the daybreak of Thy dawn. And know what sweetes are suck't from out it. By which they thrive, Where all their hoard of hony lies. Lo, where it comes, upon the snowy Dove's Sweet Name! in Thy each syllable A thousand blest Arabias dwell; The soul that tasts Thee takes from thence. To awake them, And to take them Home, and lodge them in his heart. Oh, that it were as it was wont to be! When Thy old freinds, on fire all full of Thee, Fought against frowns with smiles; gave glorious chase To persecutions; and against the face Of Death and feircest dangers, durst with brave And sober pace march on to meet a grave! On their bold brests about the world they bore Thee, And to the teeth of Hell stood up to teach Thee ; In centre of their inmost soules they wore Thee, Little, alas, thought they Who tore the fair breasts of Thy freinds, For Thee, and serv'd them in Thy glorious ends. More freely to transpire That impatient fire The heart that hides Thee hardly covers? Of Thy so oft-repeated rising! Of wrath, and made Thee way through all these wounds. For sure there is no knee That knows not Thee; Or if there be such sonns of shame, When stubborn rocks shall bow, And hills hang down their heavn-saluting heads Of dust, where, in the bashfull shades of night, And couch before the dazeling light of Thy dread They that by Love's mild dictate now Will not adore Thee, Shall then with just confusion bow And break before thee. The Steps of 1646 were reprinted in 1648; and as Carmen Deo Nostro (from one of the poems), with twelve vignettes from Crashaw's own designs, but without the translations from Marino and Strada, in 1652. There are poorer editions or selections (1670, 1775, and 1858), but the fullest is that by Grosart (for the Fuller Worthies Library, 1872). W. Tutin published a selection from the Poems in 1887 and 1893; the English Poems, almost quite complete, in 2 vols. in 1900; and, separately, the secular poems as The Delights of the Muses (1 vol. 1900). And see Professor Dowden's Puritan and Anglican (1901). Henry Vaughan (1622-95), long regarded with disdain as 'one of the harshest of the inferior order of the poetic school of conceits,' is now classed with George Herbert and Crashaw as a religious poet of exquisite feeling and fancy, tender and delicate expression, and meditative mysticism ; though much of what he wrote is uncouth and obscure, dull and tedious, broken only occasionally by noble thoughts. Born at the farmhouse of Newton, near Skethiog, in the parish of Llansaintffraed in Brecon, on 17th April 1622, he called himself 'Silurist' as a native of the territory of the ancient Silures; and he was twin-brother of Thomas Vaughan (1622-66), the alchemist. The brothers studied at Jesus College, Oxford, and shared the loyalty of their family for the royal cause. Both of them suffered imprisonment and deprivation, although only Thomas actually bore arms for the king. Early a devoted admirer of Ben Jonson, Randolph, and the other poets of the day, in 1646 he published his first Poems, with the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal Englished. He now studied medicine, became M.D., and settled down to practise first at Brecon, and then at his birthplace. Olor Iscanus (Swan of Usk'), a collection of poems and translations, was sent to his brother in Oxford, and published without authority in 1651. A serious illness deepened his religious convictions, and henceforward time and eternity, sin and grace, were his main themes. Silex Scintillans (‘ Sparks from the Flint;' two parts, 1650–55) are religious poems and meditations. Flores Solitudinis and The Mount of Olives (1652) are devotional prose pieces. Thalia Rediviva: the Pastimes an: Diversions of a Countrey Muse (1678), is a colle: tion of poems by the twin-brothers—elegies, translations, religious verses. Henry Vaughan died 23rd April 1695; and his grave in Llansaintffrae churchyard was restored in 1896. The close sim larity between Vaughan's Retreate and Wordsworth's famous ode on Intimations of Immortalit; has often and justly been dwelt on. The earlier poem is at least an intimation or forerunner of the more famous one. The Retreate and Beyond in Veil are universally counted amongst the purest and most exquisite reflective pieces of the age 1 which Vaughan lived. He complains of the pr verbial poverty and suffering of poets: As they were merely thrown upon the stage, But he was not without hopes of renown, and he wished the river of his native vale, the Usk, to share in the distinction: When I am laid to rest hard by thy streams, Early Rising and Prayer. Yet never sleep the sun up; prayer shou'd Walk with thy fellow-creatures; note the hush Serve God before the world; let Him not go Mornings are mysteries; the first world's youth, When the world's up, and every swarm abroad, (From Silex Scintillans.) From 'The Rainbow.' Still young and fine! but what is still in view We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new. How bright wert thou when Shem's admiring eye Thy burnisht flaming arch did first descry! When Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot, The youthful world's gray fathers, in one knot Did with intentive looks watch every hour For thy new light, and trembled at each shower! When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair, Forms turn to musick, clouds to smiles and air: Rain gently spends his honey-drops, and pours Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers. Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tye Of my Lord's hand, the object of his eye! When I behold thee, though my light be dim, Distinct, and low, I can in thine see Him, Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne, And mindes the covenant 'twixt all and One. . . (From Silex Scintillans.) Monsieur Gombauld. ... [From Olor Iscanus. Written after reading the romance Endy mion, by the French Protestant poet J. O. de Gombauld (1570–1666), which was translated in 1637.] I 'ave read thy soul's faire night-peece, and have seen Near fair Eurotas' banks; what solemn green Of th' bleeding, vocall myrtle: these and more, Some chrystal spring, that from the neighbour down To the next vale, and proudly there reveal Her streams in lowder accents, adding still From 'The Timber.' Sure thou didst flourish once, and many springs, Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers, Passed ore thy head; many light hearts and wings Which now are dead, lodg'd in thy living bowers. And still a new succession sings and flies, Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot Towards the old and still enduring skies, While the low violet thrives at their root. But thou beneath the sad and heavy line Of death, doth waste all senseless, cold, and dark, Where not so much as dreams of light may shine, Nor any thought of greenness, leaf, or bark. And yet as if some deep hate and dissent, Else all at rest thou lyest, and the fierce breath So murthered man, when lovely life is done, And his blood freez'd, keeps in the center still Some secret sense, which makes the dead blood run At his approach that did the body kill. And is there any murth'rer worse than sin? The Retreate. Happy those early dayes, when I When on some gilded cloud, or flowre, Before I taught my tongue to wound O how I long to travell back, But ah! my soule with too much stay Beyond the Veil. They are all gone into the world of light! And I alone sit lingring here; Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear. It glows and glitters in my cloudy brest, Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest, I see them walking in an air of glory, Whose light doth trample on my days : My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, Meer glimering and decays. O holy Hope! and high Humility, High as the heavens above! These are your walks, and you have shew'd them me, Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just, What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, Could man outlook that mark! He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest may know But what fair well or grove he sings in now, And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul, when man doth sleep: So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted theams, And into glory peep. If a star were confin'd into a tomb, Her captive flames must needs burn there; But when the hand that lockt her up gives room, She'l shine through all the sphäre. O Father of eternal life, and all Created glories under Thee! Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall Into true liberty. Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill (From Silex Scintill ma Childe-hood. I cannot reach it; and my striving eye Were now that Chronicle alive, Those white designs which children drive, Why should men love A wolf more than a lamb or dove? Shall I from thence cast down my self? And yet the practice worldlings call Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span An age of mysteries! which he Must live twice that would God's face see; How do I study now, and scan I saw Eternity the other night, Like a great ring of pure and endless light, And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world The doting lover in his quaintest strain Neer him, his lute, his fancy, and his slights, With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure, All scatter'd lay, while he his eyes did pour The darksome statesman, hung with weights and woe, He did not stay, nor go; Condemning thoughts-like sad eclipses-scowl Upon his soul, And clouds of crying witnesses without Pursued him with one shout. Yet digg'd the mole, and lest his ways be found, Workt under ground, Where he did clutch his prey; but one did see Churches and altars fed him; perjuries It rain'd about him bloud and tears, but he The fearfull miser on a heap of rust Yet would not place one peece alone, but lives Thousands there were as frantick as himself, The downright epicure plac'd heav'n in sense, While others, slipt into a wide excesse, The weaker sort, slight, triviall wares inslave, And poor despised Truth sate counting by Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing, O fools-said I-thus to prefer dark night To live in grots and caves, and hate the day The way which from this dead and dark abode A way where you might tread the sun, and be More bright than he! But as I did their madness so discusse One whisper'd thus, 'This ring the Bridegroome did for none provide, But for His bride.' There is an edition of Vaughan's complete works by Grosart (4 vols. 1868-71), one of Silex Scintillans and other sacred poems by Lyte (1847), and one of the Poems by E. K. Chambers (2 vols. 1896). See Dr John Brown's Hora Subseciva, F. T. Palgrave in Cymmrodorion (1891), Miss L. J. Guiney in the Atlantic Monthly of 1894 (reprinted in her Little English Gallery, 1894), and Professor Dowden's Puritan and Anglican (1901). John Wilkins (1614-72), Bishop of Chester, was the son of an Oxford goldsmith, but was born near Daventry, in Northamptonshire; and he studied at New Inn Hall and Magdalen Hall in Oxford. As chaplain to Lord Say, Lord Berkeley, and the Court-Palatine of the Rhine, he found time for extensive studies in mathematics and physics; and having sided with the popular party during the Civil War, he received the headship of Wadham College. He was one of a small knot of university men who used to meet for the cultivation of experimental philosophy as a diversion from the painful thoughts excited by public calamities, and who, after the Restoration, were incorporated by Charles II. under the title of the Royal Society. Having married a sister of Oliver Cromwell in 1656, he was enabled, by a dispensation from the Protector, to retain his office in Wadham College, notwithstanding a rule which made celibacy imperative; three years afterwards he became Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. At the Restoration he was ejected from this office; but his politics being neither violent nor unaccommodating, he became preacher at Grey's Inn, rector of St Laurence Jewry, and Dean of Ripon ; and, by the favour of the Duke of Buckingham, was advanced in 1668 to the see of Chester. Bishop Burnet praised Wilkins 'as a man of as great mind, as true a judgment, as eminent virtues, and of as good a soul as any I ever knew. Though he married Cromwell's sister, yet he made no other use of that alliance but to do good offices, and to cover the University of Oxford from the sourness of Owen and Goodwin.' On the other hand, like his friend and son-in-law Tillotson and other moderate Churchmen, Wilkins was much disliked by the High-Church party; Tories thought him a trimmer, and Anthony Wood maliciously said 'there was nothing deficient in him but a constant mind and settled principles.' He wrote some theological and mathematical works, and in early life (1638) published The Discovery of a New World; or a Discourse tending to prove that 'tis probable there may be another Habitable World in the Moon: with [in the 3rd edition, 1640] a Discourse concerning the Possibility of a Passage thither. The principal part of the work is an earnest attempt to refute religious and other objections to the doctrine of a plurality of worlds. Only in the fourteenth and last chapter does he become a pioneer on the path Swift in satire and E. A. Poe and Jules Verne in pure creative fiction were also to adventure on, when he seriously supports the proposition that it is possible for some of our posterity to find out a conveyance to this other world, and, if there be inhabitants there, to have commerce with them.' He admits that this feat has in the present state of human knowledge an air of utter impossibility; yet from this no hostile inference ought to be drawn, seeing that many things formerly supposed impossible have actually been accomplished. 'If we do but consider,' says he, by what steps and leasure all arts do usually rise to their growth, we shall have no cause to doubt why this also may not hereafter be found out amongst other secrets. It hath constantly yet been the method of Providence not presently to shew us all, but to lead us on by degrees from the knowledge of one thing to |