P. 79. An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. W., slain in the late unfortunate differences at Routon Heath, near Chester. The battle of Routon, or Rowton, Heath took place on September 24, 1645. The Royalist forces, under Charles I. and Sir Marmaduke Langdale, advancing to raise the siege of Chester, were met and routed by the Parliamentarians under Poyntz. The contemporary pamphlets give a long list of the prisoners taken at Routon Heath, but name hardly any of those slain. It is therefore difficult to say who R. W., evidently a dear friend of Vaughan's, may have been. He appears to have been missing for a year before he was finally given up. From lines 25-27 we learn that he was a young man of only twenty. The most likely suggestion for his identification seems to me that of Mr. C. H. Firth, who points out to me that the name of one Roger Wood occurs in the list of Catholics who fell in the King's service as having been slain at Chester. Miss Southall (_Songs of Siluria_, 1890, p. 124) suggests that he may have been either Richard Williams, a nephew of Sir Henry Williams, of Gwernyfed, who died unmarried, or else a son of Richard Winter, of Llangoed. He might also, I think, have been one of Vaughan's wife's family, the Wises, and possibly also a Walbeoffe. A reference to the Walbeoffe pedigree in the note to p. 189 will show that there was a Robert Walbeoffe, brother of C. W. Miss Morgan thinks that he is a generation too old, and that the unnamed son of C. W., who, according to his tombstone, did not survive him, may have been a Robert, and the R. W. in question. On the question whether Vaughan was himself present at Routon Heath, _see_ the _Biographical Note_ (vol. ii., p. xxviii). P. 83. Upon a Cloak lent him by Mr. J. Ridsley. I do not know who Mr. Ridsley was. On the references to Vaughan's "juggling fate of soldiery" in this poem, _see_ the _Biographical Note_ (vol. ii., p. xxviii). _craggy Biston, and the fatal Dee._ Chester stands, of course, on the Dee, which is "fatal" as the scene of disasters to the Royalist cause. Dr. Grosart explains Biston as "Bishton (or Bishopstone) in Monmouthshire," and adds, "'Craggie Biston' refers, no doubt, to certain caves there. The Poet's school-boy rambles from Llangattock doubtless included Bishton." I think that Biston is clearly Beeston Castle, one of the outlying defences of Chester, which played a considerable part in the siege. It surrendered on November 5, 1645, and the small garrison was permitted to march to Denbigh (J. R. Phillips, _The Civil War in Wales and the Marshes_, vol. i., p. 343). _Micro-cosmography_, the world represented on a small scale in man. Vaughan means that he had as many lines on him as a map. _Speed's Old Britons._ John Speed (1555-1629) published his _History of Great Britain_ in 1614. _King Harry's Chapel at Westminster_, with its tombs, was already one of the sights of London.