The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II, by Henry Vaughan, et al, Edited by E. K. Chambers

 

Title: Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II

Author: Henry Vaughan

Editor: E. K. Chambers

Release Date: March 20, 2009 [eBook #28375]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF HENRY VAUGHAN, SILURIST, VOLUME II***

 

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    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, >and what True Love is 21   To Amoret Weeping 23   Upon the Priory Grove, his Usual Retirement 26   Juvenal's Tenth Satire Translated 28 Olor Iscanus. 1651.     Ad Posteros

class="c19">51   To the ... Lord Kildare Digby 53   The Publisher to the Reader 55   Upon the Most Ingenious Pair of Twins, Eugenius Philalethes and the Author of those Poems [by T. Powell, Oxoniensis] 57   To my Friend the Author upon these his Poems [by I. Rowlandson, Oxoniensis] 58   Upon the following Poems [by Eugenius Philalethes, Oxoniensis] 59   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 Unfortunate Differences at Routon Heath, near Chester, 1645 79   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 Cartwright 90   To the Best and Most Accomplished Couple —— 92   An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. Hall, Slain at Pontefract, 1648 94   To my Learned Friend, Mr. T. Powell, upon his Translation of Malvezzi's Christian Politician 97   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 Late Majesty 102   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 Petition Cæsar for his Releasement 109   To his Inconstant Friend, Translated for the Use of all the Judases of this Touchstone Age 112   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 Answer to that Ode of Horace, Beatus Ille Qui Procul Negotiis.

tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">152   Ad Fluvium Iscam 157   Venerabili Viro, Praeceptori Suo Olim Et Semper Colendissimo Magistro Mathaeo Herbert 158   Praestantissimo Viro, Thomae Poëllo In Suum De Elementis Opticae Libellum 159   Ad Echum 160 Thalia Rediviva. 1678.     To ... Henry Lord Marquis and Earl of Worcester, &c. [by J. W.] 163   To the Reader [by I. W.] 167   To Mr. Henry Vaughan, the Silurist: upon These and his Former Poems. [By Orinda] 169   Upon the Ingenious Poems of his Learned Friend, Mr. Henry Vaughan, the Silurist. [By Tho. Powell, D.D.] 171   To the Ingenious Author of Thalia Rediviva [By N. W., Jes. Coll., Oxon.] 172   To my Worthy Friend Mr. Henry Vaughan, the Silurist. [by I. W., A.M., Oxon.] 175 Choice Poems On Several Occasions.     To his Learned Friend and Loyal Fellow-Prisoner, Thomas Powel of Cant[reff], Doctor of Divinity 178   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 Finished his Course Here, and Made his Entrance into Immortality upon the 13 of September, in the Year of Redemption, 1653 189   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 Oxford 197   The Importunate Fortune, Written to Dr. Powel, of Cant[reff] 200   To I. Morgan of Whitehall, Esq., upon his Sudden Journey and Succeeding Marriage 204   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 Trevers 213   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

class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">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. 287   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)

class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">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

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

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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 à 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 à 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 IIId., 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, æt. 75, father by first wife of (1) a son, s. p.; (2) Lucy ob. 29 Aug., 1780, æt. 92,[4] m. Jenkin Jones of Trebinshwn. Their d. Denise Jones, died single, 1780, æt. 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.

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 "HVE, 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:—

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.

The only additional definite fact which I can here record of the poet himself is that in 1691 he entered a caveat against any institution to the vicarage of Llandevalley, he claiming the next presentation under a grant from William Winter, Esq.[11] Mr. Rye has shown that the specimen of handwriting facsimiled

by Dr. Grosart in his edition of Henry Vaughan's Works cannot possibly be the poet's. The signatures, however, on the margin of a copy of Olor Iscanus, once in the library of Lady Isham, might be genuine.

(b) VAUGHAN AND JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD.

Anthony à Wood's statement as to Vaughan's residence at Jesus College, Oxford, has been generally accepted, but I venture to doubt it on the following grounds:—

(1) Vaughan's name does not occur in the University Matriculation Register, although his brother Thomas Vaughan is duly entered as matriculating from Jesus on 14th December, 1638. The only College records which help us are the Battel-books for 1638 and 1640. That for 1639 is unfortunately missing. The Rev. Llewellyn Thomas kindly informs me that he can only trace one undergraduate Vaughan in the two books in question. The Christian name is not given, but I think that we must assume it to be Thomas.

(2) Vaughan does not describe himself on any title-page as of Jesus College; nor does he ever speak of himself as an Oxford man. This omission is the more noticeable as he would naturally have done so in the lines Ad Posteros (vol. ii., p. 51), and might well have done so in those On Sir Thomas Bodley's Library, the Author being then in Oxford (vol. ii., p. 197).

(3) Anthony à Wood cannot be depended on. He describes Thomas Carew, for instance, as of C.C.C., whereas he was a most certainly of Merton. And there was another Henry Vaughan of Jesus, who may have been confused with the poet. This Henry Vaughan, a son of John Vaughan of Cathlin, Merionethshire, matriculated at Oriel on July 4, 1634. He afterwards became a Scholar and Fellow of Jesus, taking his B.A. in 1637 and his M.A. in 1639. In 1643 he became vicar of Penteg, co. Monmouth, and died at Abergavenny in 1661. (Wood, Ath. Oxon., iii. 531; Foster, Alumni Oxon.)

(4) The only confirmation of Anthony à Wood's statement is the poem (vol. ii., p. 289) taken by Dr. Grosart from the Eucharistica Oxoniensia (1641), and signed "H. Vaughan, Jes. Col." If I am right, this may be by Vaughan's namesake. He has indeed another poem in that volume signed "Hen. Vaugh., Jes. Soc." but that is in Latin, and it is not unexampled for one man to contribute more than one poem, especially in different tongues, to such collections. Or it may be by Herbert Vaughan, who was a Gentleman-commoner of the College in 1641, and has, with Henry Vaughan the Fellow, verses in the προτέλεια Anglo Batava of the same year.

(c) VAUGHAN IN THE CIVIL WAR.

There are several passages which make it probable that Vaughan, like his brother Thomas, bore arms on the King's side in the Civil War. The most important is in the poem To Mr. Ridsley (vol. ii., p. 83), where he speaks of the time