Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume IIVaughan, Henry
General
Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II
Vaughan, Henry
Poetry
I do not think we need look for anything autobiographical in this and
the following poems written to Etesia. They are written "for Timander,"
that is, either to serve the suit of a friend, or as copies of verses
with no personal reference at all. The names Etesia and Timander smack
of Orinda's poetic circle.
P. 224. Translations from Severinus.
Dr. Grosart hunted out an obscure Neapolitan, Marcus Aurelius Severino,
and ascribed to him the originals of these translations. They are of
course from the _De Consolatione Philosophiae_ of Anicius Manlius
Severinus Boethius, and are a continuation of the pieces already printed
in _Olor Iscanus_ (pp. 125-143).
P. 245. Pious Thoughts and Ejaculations.
These are much in the vein of _Silex Scintillans_. They probably belong
to various dates later than 1655, when the second part of that
collection appeared. _The Nativity_ (p. 259) is dated 1656, and _The
True Christmas_ (p. 261) was apparently written after the Restoration.
P. 261. The True Christmas.
Vaughan was no Puritan; _cf._ his lines on _Christ's Nativity_ (vol. i.,
p. 107)--
"Alas, my God! Thy birth now here
Must not be numbered in the year,"
but he was not much in sympathy with the ideals of the Restoration
either; _cf._ the passage on "our unjust ways" in _Daphnis_ (p. 284).
P. 267. De Salmone.
On Thomas Powell, _cf._ p. 57, note.
P. 272. The Bee.
_Hilarion's servant, the sage crow._ There seems to be some confusion
between Hilarion, an obscure fourth-century Abbot, and Paul the Hermit,
of whom it is related in his _Life by S. Jerome_ that for sixty years he
was daily provided with half a loaf of bread by a crow.
P. 278. Daphnis.
The subject of the Eclogue appears to be Vaughan's brother Thomas, who
died 27th February, 1666. On him _see_ the _Biographical Note_ (vol.
ii., p. xxxiii).
_true black Moors_; an allusion, perhaps, to Thomas Vaughan's
controversy with Henry More.
_Old Amphion_; perhaps Matthew Herbert, on whom see note to p. 158.
_The Isis and the prouder Thames._ Thomas Vaughan was buried at Albury,
near Oxford.
_Noble Murray._ Thomas Vaughan's patron, himself a poet and alchemist,
Sir Robert Murray, Secretary of State for Scotland. His poems have been
collected by the Hunterian Club.
FRAGMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS.
The larger number of the verses in this section are translated
quotations scattered through Vaughan's prose-pamphlets. Dr. Grosart
identified some of the originals; I have added a few others; but the
larger number remain obscure and are hardly worth spending much labour
upon. The title-pages of the pamphlets will be found in the
_Bibliography_ (vol. ii., p. lvii).
P. 289. From Eucharistica Oxoniensia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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