in prose, it seems highly probable, from the brief specimens which we have of his capabilities, that he would have excelled in this species of composition likewise. The subjects, however, on which he employed his pen appear to have had no interest for the public at this period. Indeed, translations from the Fathers were not likely at such a time to meet with many sympathizing readers. The world had been deluged by the Puritans with their weak and washy publications. Still their crude theology was that generally in vogue. Those who had been disposed to go up, and drink at the stream a little nearer to its source, had passed away with the exiled Cosins and Bramhalls of a former generation. The court party was soon to come back from France vitiated alike in taste and principles, and ready to make a jest of every thing religious. This, then, was not a time at which treatises, such as those now published by Henry Vaughan, were likely to become popular. They were accordingly never reprinted, and their very existence is almost unknown to ordinary English readers. The following verses close this little volume, of which the last thirty-four lines are very striking. ST. PAULINUS TO HIS WIFE THERASIA. Come, my true consort in my joyes and care, And the fraile, drooping world, though still thought gay, All that we have passe from us, and, once past, And what, Therasia, doth it us availe, That spatious streames shall flow and never faile, And flowers each spring returne and keepe their kinds? And we ourselves but for few dayes abide. This short tyme, then, was not given us in vaine, Too harsh, who God's mild lawes for chaines esteem, To covet nothing; to devise no ill Against our neighbours; to procure or doe His second dreadfull coming still expect; With heaven alone, and hopes of heaven, hee's fed. Nor that black knowledge which pretends to wash, Commands and titles, the vaine world's device, He lives to Christ; is dead to all the rest. A Virgin brought forth, shadowed by the Dove. To starve, who feedes upon the living bread? And yet this courage springs not from my store. He bids mee fight, and makes mee conquer too. On worldly goods I will have no designe; Let us be each the other's guide and stay. Be your Lord's guardian. Give joynt ayde and due; But in one spirit and one will agree! It would be gratifying to be able to state, that Henry Vaughan's poetry, replete as it is with beauty and originality, had met with a better reception than his prose. But we cannot in honesty say that this was the case. That he had his admirers among the discerning few, there can be no doubt. His friends at Oxford, more especially, seem to have treasured up carefully every scrap of verse that fell from his pen. But with the public at large, and particularly with reference to his religious poetry, it was far otherwise. It might at first sight appear that his "Silex Scintillans" had at least found readers enough to carry it through a second edition. A volume so designated by the publisher was sent forth in the year 1655, containing all the poems printed in the year 1651, together with a second part, almost equal in extent to the former, and the whole preceded by a very interesting preface, full of just thoughts and pious sentiments. But, on closer inspection, it is evident that we have here only the unsold copies of the volume before published, with the preface and second part added to them, and a new title prefixed to the whole. All this is discernible from the paging of this nominally second edition, and it speaks loudly of the neglect which the previous volume had experienced. The poems contained in this second part are in no respect inferior to those before published. Indeed, in some points, they present rather an improvement on them. They seem to exhibit more of Vaughan's own natural vein, and less of that of his excellent master. Preserving all the piety of George Herbert, they have less of his quaint and fantastic turns, with a much larger infusion of poetic feeling and expression. Their merits, however, seem to have been but ill appreciated by the tasteless and godless generation for whom Vaughan wrote, and his little volume accordingly soon sank into oblivion. We learn from its contents that the author was still a sufferer, his body still labouring under the |