protracted illness that had attacked him five years before, and his heart bleeding from the further loss of beloved relatives and friends. It is scarcely to be wondered, that, under such discouraging circumstances, Henry Vaughan, in the prime of life and the full maturity of his talents, should have ceased from all further authorship. Accordingly, during the forty years that he lived, after the second edition of his Silex, he gave nothing more to the public. In the year 1678, however, one of his zealous Oxford friends, J. W. (the initials have not been verified) sent forth a little volume, entitled, "Thalia Rediviva, the Passtimes and Diversions of a Countrey Muse," which, though it contains no reference to Henry Vaughan in the title-page, consists entirely of his poetry, together with a few of his brother Thomas's Latin verses appended. But, in this publication, Henry Vaughan took no part, though there is no reason to suppose that he was actually opposed to it. The contents are of a motley description, consisting of elegies, translations, addresses to individuals, and are evidently of the most various dates, some of them written in his youthful days at the University, and others in his maturer years, subsequently, in all probability, to the publication of the "Silex Scintillans." The volume is ushered in by commendatory verses from "the matchless Orinda," Mrs. Catherine Philips, Dr. Thomas Powell, and other Oxford friends and admirers, and contains nothing which the most fastidious moralist could find fault with. At the close of the work is a collection of religious pieces, entitled, "Pious Thoughts and Ejaculations," the whole of which, together with a Pastoral Elegy on the death of Thomas Vaughan, we have included in the vo⚫ lume now published, so that the whole of Henry Vaughan's religious poetry may stand at once before the reader. From the time of this last publication to that of his death, we have no further information to furnish respecting our author. He appears to have stolen away altogether from public life, to pursue his quiet walk with God, and enjoy the converse of such friends as were still left to him; and found abundant scope for the exercise of his powers in the labours of a useful profession, and the education of his growing family. He was twice married, and had by his first wife five children, two sons and three daughters; and by the second, one daughter. Of the latter alone is any thing further known. She married John Turberville; and her granddaughter died single in 1780, aged 92. For himself, he had the satisfaction of closing his days under the roof and amidst the scenes where they had commenced. His beloved Usk, and the beautiful vale through which it flows, were daily before his eyes to the last, and probably afforded him many a poetic ramble, when his more serious avocations admitted of them. It would appear from one of his little Latin poems, that he was a fisherman; and the moral with which he accompanies a salmon of his own catching, sent as a present to a friend, would seem to imply that this amusement was occasionally pursued by him even in riper and more thoughtful years. But these little conjectural notices of his ordinary life and avocations must necessarily rest on very slender data. Much more satisfactory is it to know, that he died, as he lived, in holy consciousness of his own unworthiness, and in humble dependence on the merits of his Redeemer. He departed this life, April the 23d, in the year 1695, aged seventy-three, and desired that the following inscription should be placed on his tomb: 66 SERVUS INUTILIS, PECCATOR MAXIMUS, HIC JACEO. GLORIA! MISERERE!" "An unprofitable servant, the chief of sinners, I lie hero. Glory be to God! † Lord have mercy upon me!" Such are the particulars that we have been able to gather respecting Henry Vaughan and his works. They present a picture of one who lived to God rather than to man; and, if there is little of incident in the details, let us remember, that it is with the lives of private individuals as with the reigns of princes: those are often the happiest and most prosperous which make the least noise and show in the page of history. The mind and heart of our author are abundantly exhibited in his writings, which are full of individuality; and, while we would deprecate pledging ourselves to every sentiment they contain, we feel that they claim for him unvarying respect, and commend themselves to us as the genuine overflowings of a sincere and humble spirit. We feel, while reading them, that we have to do with a truly good and earnest man. His poems display much originality of thought, and frequently likewise much felicity of expression: The former is, indeed, at times condensed into obscurity, and the latter defaced with quaintness. But Vaughan never degenerates into a smooth versifier of commonplaces. One, indeed, of his great faults as a poet, is the attempt to crowd too much of matter into his sentences, so that they read roughly and inharmoniously, the words almost elbowing each other out of the lines. His rhymes, too, are frequently defective; and he delights in making the sense of one line run over into the line following. This, when not overdone, is doubtless a beauty in versification, and redeems it from that monotony which so offends in the poets of Queen Anne's time. Yet even this may be pushed to excess, and become by its uniformity liable itself to the imputation of monotony. Take, for instance, the very beautiful lines of Vaughan entitled "Rules and Lessons," the first five stanzas of which strikingly exemplify the fault here specified; and it was perhaps their consequent harshuess that induced Bernard Barton to transpose them, not infelicitously, into a different stanza. A more favourable specimen of line flowing into line is the following morning address to a "Bird:" "Hither thou com'st. The busie wind all night Blew through thy lodging; where thy own warin wing And harmless head; And now, as fresh and cheerful as the light, This will be felt to be very tender and beautiful, notwithstanding the imperfect rhyme in the fourth line; and the volume now republished is full of like passages. Indeed, it may with truth be said of Vaughan, that his faults are in a great measure those of the age he lived in, and the master he imitated, while his beauties are all his own. That he will ever become a thoroughly popular poet is scarcely to be expected in this age. But among those who can prize poetic thought, even when clad in a dress somewhat quaint and antiquated, who love to commune with a heart overflowing with religious ardour, and who do not value this the less because it has been lighted at the earlier and purer fires of Christianity, and has caught a portion of their youthful glow, poems like these of Henry Vaughan's will not want their readers, nor will such readers be unthankful to have our author and his works introduced to their acquaintance. ROME, April, 1847. H. F. L |
