It seems as if these must have been voluntary, and rooted in an intention to enforce the same truths in all but the same words; for the moment Vaughan breaks into invective, or comes upon his distinctive topics, such as childhood, natural beauty (for which Herbert had an imperfect sense), friendship, early death, spiritual expectation, he is off and away, free of any predecessor, thrilling and unforgettable. Comparisons will not be out of place here, for Vaughan can bear, and even invoke them. Dryden said in Jonson’s praise that he was “a learned plagiary,” and nobody doubts nowadays that Shakespeare and Milton were the bandit kings of their time. There was, indeed, in English letters, up to Queen Anne’s reign, an open communism of ideas and idioms astonishing to look upon; there is less confiscation at present, because, outside the pale of the sciences, there is less thinking. If any one thing can be closer to another, for instance, than even Drummond’s sonnet on _Sleep_ is to Sidney’s, it is the dress of Vaughan’s morality to that of George Herbert’s. Mr. Simcox is the only critic who has taken the trouble to contrast them, and he does so in so random a fashion as to suggest that his scrutiny, in some cases, has been confined to the rival titles. It is certain that no other mind, however bent upon identifications, can find a likeness between _The Quip_ and _The Queer_, or between _The Tempest_ and _Providence_. Vaughan’s _Mutiny_, like _The Collar_, ends in a use of the word “child,” after a scene of strife; and if ever it were meant to match Herbert’s poem, distinctly falls behind it, and deals, besides, with a much weaker rebelliousness. _Rules and Lessons_ is so unmistakably modelled upon _The Church Porch_ that it scarcely calls for comment. Herbert’s admonitions, however, are continued, but nowhere repeated; and Vaughan’s succeed in being poetic, which the others are not. Beyond these replicas, Vaughan’s structural genius is in no wise beholden to Herbert’s. But numerous phrases and turns of thought descend from the master to the disciple, undergoing such subtle and peculiar changes, and given back, as Coleridge would say, with such “usurious interest,” that it may well be submitted whether, in this casual list, every borrowing, save two, be not a bettering. HERBERT. “A throbbing conscience, spurrèd by remorse, Hath a strange force.” “My thoughts are all a case of knives, Wounding my heart With scattered smart.” “And trust Half that we have Unto an honest faithful grave.” “Teach me Thy love to know, That this new light which now I see May both the work and workman show: Then by a sunbeam I will climb to Thee!”