I regret to say that the inquiries which I have made, or caused to be made, as to the time and place of Thomas Traherne's birth have been, so far, without result. Probably he was born at Hereford, since his father was a shoemaker in that town; but this is not certain. He may have been born at Ledbury, which is a village a few miles from Hereford, for it seems pretty certain that his family was in some way connected with that place. The earlier portion of the registers of that village has been printed by the Parish Registers Society, and from this it appears that there were "Trayernes" there in the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, the portion of the Ledbury registers which covers the period during which it is probable that our author was born is missing. That also seems to be the case as regards the Hereford registers of the same period. This is very disappointing; but we may hope that further inquiries will prove more successful. That the family from which the poet sprang was Welsh by descent seems to be highly probable. It is true that the name is also found in a slightly different form in Cornwall; but no doubt both branches sprang from the same root at some distant period. The poet's character and temperament, as displayed in his writings, almost proclaim his nationality. Herbert and Vaughan, the two poets to whom he is most near akin, were both Welsh by descent, and though neither of them is deficient in warmth of feeling, Traherne certainly surpasses them in the passionate fervour which he infuses into his writings. It is hardly possible to think of them as having emanated from the cooler and less enthusiastic Anglo-Saxon temperament. All that I am able to say, then, as to the time of Traherne's birth is that it was probably in the year 1636. Wood informs us that he became a commoner of Brazennose College, Oxford, in 1652; and as the age at which it was then usual for youths to commence their college career was about sixteen, the above date seems the most likely one, though it may, of course, have been a year earlier or later. His father was in all probability the "John Traherne, Shoemaker," who is recorded to have received, in conjunction with another person, "from Mistress Joyce Jefferies the sum of three pounds for the shipping money."[A] This lady is also recorded to have paid money to one John Traherne (who may or may not have been the same person) for training as the soldier whom she had to provide for the Trained-bands.