Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist Part 38

The Amoret of these _Poems_ may or may not be the Etesia of _Thalia Rediviva_; and she may or may not have been the poet's first wife. _Cf._ _Introduction_ (vol. i, p. x.x.xiii).

_To her white bosom._ _Cf._ _Hamlet_, ii. 2, 113, where Hamlet addresses a letter to Ophelia, "in her excellent white bosom, these."

P. 12. Song.

The MS. variant readings to this and to two of the following poems are written in pencil on a copy of the _Poems_ in the British Museum, having the press-mark 12304, a 24. There is no indication of their author, or of the source from which they are taken.

P. 13. To Amoret.

_The vast ring._ _Cf._ _Silex Scintillans_ (vol. i., pp. 150, 284).

P. 18. _A Rhapsodis._

_The Globe Tavern._ This appears to have been near, or even a part of, the famous theatre. There exists a forged letter of George Peele's, in which it is mentioned as a resort of Shakespeare's, but there is no authentic allusion to it by name earlier than an entry in the registers of St. Saviour's, Southwark, for 1637. An "alehouse" is, however, alluded to in a ballad on the burning of the old Globe in 1613. (Rendle and Norman, _Inns of Old Southwark_, p. 326.)

_Tower-Wharf to Cymbeline and Lud_; that is, from the extreme east to the extreme west of the City. Statues of the mythical kings of Britain were set up in 1260 in niches on Ludgate. They were renewed when the gate was rebuilt in 1586. It stood near the Church of St. Martin's, Ludgate.

_That made his horse a senator_; _i.e._ Caligula. _Cf._ Suetonius Vit.

Caligulae, 55: "_Incitato equo, cuius causa pridie circenses, ne inquietaretur, viciniae silentium per milites indicere solebat, praeter equile marmoreum et praesepe eburneum praeterque purpurea tegumenta ac monilia e gemmis, domum etiam et familiam et suppellectilem dedit, quo lautius nomine eius invitati acciperentur; consulatum quoque traditur destina.s.se._"

_he that ... crossed Rubicon_, _i.e._ Julius Caesar.

P. 21. To Amoret.

The third stanza is closely modelled on Donne; _cf._ Introduction (vol.

i., p. xxi). The curious reader may detect many other traces of Donne's manner of writing in these _Poems_ of 1646.

P. 23. To Amoret Weeping.

_Eat orphans ... patent it._ The ambition of a courtier under the Stuarts was to get the guardians.h.i.+p of a royal ward, or the grant of a monopoly in some article of necessity. Dr. Grosart quotes from Tustin's _Observations; or, Conscience Emblem_ (1646): "By me, John Tustin, who hath been plundered and spoiled by the patentees for white and grey soap, eighteen several times, to his utter undoing."

P. 26. Upon the Priory Grove, his usual Retirement.

Mr. Beeching, in the _Introduction_ (vol. i., p. xxiii), states following Dr. Grosart, that the Priory Grove was "the home of a famous poetess of the day, Katherine Phillips, better known as 'the Matchless Orinda.'" Vaughan was certainly a friend of Mrs. Phillips (_cf._ pp.

100, 164, 211, with notes), whose husband, Colonel James Phillips, lived at the Priory, Cardigan; but she was not married until 1647.

Miss Morgan points out that there is still a wood on the outskirts of Brecon which is known as the Priory Grove. It is near the church and remains of a Benedictine Priory on the Honddu.

P. 28. Juvenal's Tenth Satire Translated.

This translation has a separate t.i.tle-page; _cf._ the _Bibliography_ (vol. ii., p. lvii).

OLOR ISCa.n.u.s.

This volume, published in 1651, contains, besides the poems here reprinted, some prose translations from Plutarch and other writers. The separate t.i.tle-pages of these are given in the _Bibliography_ (vol. ii., p. lviii): the incidental sc.r.a.ps of verse in them appear on pp. 291-293 of the present volume. The edition of 1651 has, besides the printed t.i.tle-page, an engraved t.i.tle-page by the well-known engraver, who may or may not have been a kinsman of the poet, Robert Vaughan. It represents a swan on a river shaded by trees. The _Olor Isca.n.u.s_ was reissued with a fresh t.i.tle-page in 1679.

P. 52. Ad Posteros.

On the account of Vaughan's life here given, see the _Biographical note_ (vol. ii., p. x.x.x).

_Herbertus._ Matthew Herbert, Rector of Llangattock. Cf. the poem to him on p. 158, with its note.

_Castae fidaeque ... parentis_, _i.e._, perhaps, his mother the Church.

_Nec ma.n.u.s atra fuit._ Dr. Grosart omitted the _fuit_, together with the final _s_ of the preceding line. In this he is navely followed by Mr.

J. R. Tutin, in his selection of Vaughan's _Secular Poems_.

P. 53. To the ... Lord Kildare Digby.

Lord Kildare Digby was the eldest son of Robert, first Baron Digby, in the peerage of Ireland. He succeeded to the t.i.tle in 1642. He was about 21 at the time of this dedication, and died in 1661 (Dr. Grosart)

The date of the dedication is 17th of December, 1647. A volume was therefore probably prepared for publication at that date, and afterwards, as we learn from the publisher's preface, "condemned to obscurity," and given surrept.i.tiously to the world. At the same time, as Miss Morgan points out to me, some of the poems in _Olor Isca.n.u.s_ must be of later date than 1647. The death of Charles I. is apparently alluded to in the lines _Ad Posteros_, and certainly in the "since Charles his reign" of the _Invitation to Brecknock_ (p. 74). This event took place on January 30th, 1648/9. The _Epitaph upon the Lady Elizabeth_ (p. 102), again, cannot be earlier than her death on September 8th, 1650.

P. 54. The Publisher to the Reader.

_Augustus vindex._ The lives of Vergil attributed to Donatus and others relate that the poet, in his will, directed that his unfinished _Aeneid_ should be burnt. Augustus, however, interfered and ordered its publication.

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 Brecons.h.i.+re, 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 Isca.n.u.s_, 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 Isca.n.u.s_ 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 a.s.sembly to the vicarage of Battle, Suss.e.x, 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. x.x.xiii).

P. 39. _that lamentable nation_, _i.e._ the Scotch.

P. 61. Olor Isca.n.u.s.