Part of an ode præfixed to a little prayer-book

given to a young gentlewoman.

Lo! here a little volume, but great book (Feare it not, sweet,

It is no hipocrit),

Much larger in itselfe than in its looke.
A nest of new-born sweets;
Whose native fires, disdaining

To ly thus folded and complaining
Of these ignoble sheets,
Affect more comly bands

(Fair one) from thy kind hands;
And confidently look

To find the rest

Of a rich binding in your breast.

It is, in one choise handfull, Heavn and all
Heavn's royall host incampt thus small;
To prove that true, schooles use to tell,
Ten thousand angels in one point can dwell.
It is Love's great artillery,

Which here contracts it self, and comes to ly

Close couch't in your white bosom, and from thence,

As from a snowy fortress of defence,

Against the ghostly foe to take your part,

And fortify the hold of your chast heart.

It is an armory of light :

Let constant use but keep it bright,
You'l find it yields

To holy hands and humble hearts,
More swords and sheilds

Than sin hath snares or Hell hath darts.
Only be sure

The hands be pure

That hold these weapons, and the eyes
Those of turtles, chaste and true,
Wakefull and wise,
Here is a freind shall fight for you.
Hold but this book before your heart,
Let Prayer alone to play his part.
But O the heart

That studyes this high art
Must be a sure housekeeper,
And yet no sleeper.

Dear soul, be strong!

Mercy will come e're long,

And bring his bosome full of blessings-
Flowers of never-fading graces,
To make immortal dressings,

For worthy soules whose wise embraces

Store up themselves for Him Who is alone

The spouse of virgins and the Virgin's son.

From 'Hymn to the Name above every Name, the Name of Jesus.'

Come, lovely Name! Life of our hope!

Lo, we hold our hearts wide ope!

Unlock Thy cabinet of Day,

Dearest Sweet, and come away.

Lo, how the thirsty Lands

Gasp for thy golden showres, with long-stretcht hands!

Lo, how the laboring Earth,

That hopes to be

All Heaven by thee,

Leapes at Thy birth!

The attending World, to wait Thy rise,
First turn'd to eyes;

And then, not knowing what to doe,
Turn'd them to teares, and spent them too.
Come, royall Name! and pay the expence
Of all this pretious patience :

O come away

And kill the death of this delay!

O see, so many worlds of barren yeares
Melted and measur'd out in seas of teares:
Oh, see the weary liddes of wakefull hope
(Love's eastern windowes) all wide ope
With curtains drawn,

To catch the daybreak of Thy dawn.
Oh, dawn at last, long-lookt-for day!
Take Thine own wings and come away.
Lo, where aloft it comes! It comes among
The conduct of adoring spirits, that throng
Like diligent bees, and swarm about it.

Fought against frowns with smiles; gave glorious chase To persecutions; and against the face

Of Death and feircest dangers, durst with brave

And sober pace march on to meet a grave!

On their bold brests about the world they bore Thee,

And to the teeth of Hell stood up to teach Thee;
In centre of their inmost soules they wore Thee,
Where rackes and torments striv'd in vain to reach Thee.
Little, alas, thought they

Who tore the fair breasts of Thy freinds,
Their fury but made way

For Thee, and serv'd them in Thy glorious ends.
What did their weapons, but with wider pores
Inlarge Thy flaming-brested lovers,

More freely to transpire

That impatient fire

The heart that hides Thee hardly covers?
What did their weapons but sett wide the doores
For Thee? fair purple doores of Love's devising;

The ruby windowes which inricht the east

Of Thy so oft-repeated rising!

Each wound of theirs was Thy new morning,
And re-enthroned Thee in Thy rosy nest,
With blush of Thine Own blood Thy day adorning :
It was the witt of love oreflowd the bounds

Of wrath, and made Thee way through all these wounds.
Welcome, dear, all-adored Name!

For sure there is no knee

That knows not Thee;

Or if there be such sonns of shame,
Alas! what will they doe

When stubborn rocks shall bow,

And hills hang down their heavn-saluting heads
To seek for humble beds

Of dust, where, in the bashfull shades of night,
Next to their own low Nothing they may ly,

And couch before the dazeling light of Thy dread
Majesty.

They that by Love's mild dictate now

Will not adore Thee,

Shall then with just confusion bow

And break before thee.

The Steps of 1646 were reprinted in 1648; and as Carmen Deo Nostro (from one of the poems), with twelve vignettes from Crashaw's own designs, but without the translations from Marino and Strada, in 1652. There are poorer editions or selections (1670, 1775, and 1858), but the fullest is that by Grosart (for the Fuller Worthies Library, 1872). W. Tutin published a selection from the Poems in 1887 and 1893; the English Poems, almost quite complete, in 2 vols. in 1900; and, separately, the secular poems as The Delights of the Muses (1 vol. 1900). And see Professor Dowden's Puritan and Anglican (1901).

Henry Vaughan (1622-95), long regarded with disdain as 'one of the harshest of the inferior order of the poetic school of conceits,' is now classed with George Herbert and Crashaw as a religious poet of exquisite feeling and fancy, tender and delicate expression, and meditative mysticism; though much of what he wrote is uncouth and obscure, dull and tedious, broken only occasionally by noble thoughts. Born at the farmhouse of Newton, near Skethiog, in the parish of Llansaintffraed in Brecon, on 17th April 1622, he called himself Silurist' as a native of the territory of the ancient Silures; and he was twin-brother of Thomas Vaughan (1622-66), the alchemist. The brothers studied at Jesus College, Oxford, and shared the loyalty of their family for the royal cause. Both of them suffered imprisonment and deprivation, although only Thomas actually bore arms for the king. Early a devoted admirer of Ben Jonson, Randolph, and the other poets of the day, in 1646 he published his first Poems, with the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal Englished. He now studied medicine, became M.D., and settled down to practise first at Brecon, and then at his birthplace. Olor Iscanus (Swan of Usk'), a collection of poems and translations, was sent to his brother in Oxford, and published without authority in 1651. A serious illness deepened his religious convictions, and henceforward time and eternity, sin and grace, were his main themes. Silex Scintillans ('Sparks from the Flint;' two parts, 1650-55) are religious poems and meditations. Flores Solitudinis and The Mount of Olives (1652) are devotional prose

pieces. Thalia Rediviva: the Pastimes and Diversions of a Countrey Muse (1678), is a collection of poems by the twin-brothers-elegies, translations, religious verses. Henry Vaughan died 23rd April 1695; and his grave in Llansaintffraed churchyard was restored in 1896. The close similarity between Vaughan's Retreate and Wordsworth's famous ode on Intimations of Immortality has often and justly been dwelt on. The earlier poem is at least an intimation or forerunner of the more famous one. The Retreate and Beyond the Veil are universally counted amongst the purest and most exquisite reflective pieces of the age in which Vaughan lived. He complains of the proverbial poverty and suffering of poets:

As they were merely thrown upon the stage,
The mirth of fools, and legends of the age.

But he was not without hopes of renown, and he wished the river of his native vale, the Usk, to share in the distinction :

When I am laid to rest hard by thy streams,

And my sun sets where first it sprang in beams,
I'll leave behind me such a large kind light
As shall redeem thee from oblivious night,
And in these vows which, living yet, I pay,
Shed such a precious and enduring ray,
As shall from age to age thy fair name lead
Till rivers leave to run, and men to read!

Early Rising and Prayer.

When first thy eyes unveil, give thy soul leave
To do the like; our bodies but forerun
The spirit's duty: true hearts spread and heave
Unto their God, as flowers do to the sun :
Give Him thy first thoughts then, so shalt thou keep
Him company all day, and in Him sleep.

Yet never sleep the sun up; prayer shou'd
Dawn with the day: there are set awful hour
'Twixt heaven and us; the manna was not good
After sunrising; fair day sullies flowres :
Rise to prevent the sun; sleep doth sins glut,
And heaven's gate opens when this world's is shut.

Walk with thy fellow-creatures; note the hush
And whispers amongst them. There's not a spring
Or leafe but hath his morning-hymn; each bush
And oak doth know I AM. Canst thou not sing?
O leave thy cares and follies! Go this way,
And thou art sure to prosper all the day.

Serve God before the world; let Him not go
Until thou hast a blessing; then resigne
The whole unto Him; and remember who
Prevailed by wrestling ere the sun did shine.
Pour oyl upon the stones, weep for thy sin,
Then journey on, and have an eie to heav'n.

Mornings are mysteries; the first world's youth,
Man's resurrection, and the future's bud,
Shroud in their births; the crown of life, light, truth,
Is styled their 'starre,' the 'stone,' and 'hidden food."
Three blessings wait upon them, two of which
Should move; they make us holy, happy, rich.

Still young and fine! but what is still in view
We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new.
How bright wert thou when Shem's admiring eye
Thy burnisht flaming arch did first descry!
When Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot,
The youthful world's gray fathers, in one knot
Did with intentive looks watch every hour
For thy new light, and trembled at each shower!
When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair,
Forms turn to musick, clouds to smiles and air:
Rain gently spends his honey-drops, and pours
Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers.
Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tye
Of my Lord's hand, the object of his eye!
When I behold thee, though my light be dim,
Distinct, and low, I can in thine see Him,
Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne,
And mindes the covenant 'twixt all and One. . .
(From Silex Scintillans.)

Monsieur Gombauld.

...

[From Olor Iscanus. Written after reading the romance Endymion, by the French Protestant poet J. O. de Gombauld (1570-1666), which was translated in 1637.]

I 'ave read thy soul's faire night-peece, and have seen
Th' amours and courtship of the silent queen ;
Her stoln descents to earth, and what did move her
To juggle first with heav'n, then with a lover;
With Latmos' lowder rescue, and, alas!
To find her out, a hue and crie in brasse ;
Thy journal of deep mysteries, and sad
Nocturnall pilgrimage; with thy dreams clad
In fancies darker than thy cave; thy glasse
Of sleepie draughts; and as thy soul did passe
In her calm voyage, what discourse she heard
Of spirits, what dark groves and ill-shap'd guard
Ismena led thee through; with thy proud flight
O'r Periardes, and deep-musing night
Near fair Eurota, banks; what solemn green
The neighbour shades weare; and what forms are seen
In their large bowers, with that sad path and seat
Which none but light-heel'd nymphs and fairies beat;
Their solitary life, and how exempt
From common frailty, the severe contempt
They have of man, their priviledge to live
A tree or fountain, and in that reprieve
What ages they consume: with the sad vale
Of Diophania; and the mournfull tale

Of th' bleeding, vocall myrtle: these and more,
Thy richer thoughts, we are upon the score
To thy rare fancy for. Nor doest thou fall

From thy first majesty, or ought at all
Betray consumption. Thy full vig'rous bayes
Wear the same green, and scorne the lene decayes
Of stile or matter; just so I have known

Some chrystal spring, that from the neighbour down
Deriv'd her birth, in gentle murmurs steal

To the next vale, and proudly there reveal

Her streams in lowder accents, adding still
More noise and waters to her channell, till
At last, swoln with increase, she glides along
The lawnes and meadows, in a wanton throng
Of frothy billows, and in one great name
Swallows the tributary brooks' drown'd fame.
Nor are they meere inventions, for we
In th' same peece find scatter'd philosophie
And hidden, disperst truths, that enfolded lye
In the dark shades of deep allegorie,
So neatly weav'd, like arras, they descrie
Fables with truth, fancy with mysterie.
So that thou hast, in this thy curious mould,
Cast that commended mixture wish'd of old,
Which shall these contemplations render far
Lesse mutable, and lasting as their star;
And while there is a people, or a sunne,
Endymion's storie with the moon shall runne.

From 'The Timber.'

Sure thou didst flourish once, and many springs, Many bright mornings, much dew, many showers, Passed ore thy head; many light hearts and wings Which now are dead, lodg'd in thy living bowers.

And still a new succession sings and flies,

Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shoot Towards the old and still enduring skies,

While the low violet thrives at their root.

But thou beneath the sad and heavy line

Of death, doth waste all senseless, cold, and dark, Where not so much as dreams of light may shine, Nor any thought of greenness, leaf, or bark.

And yet as if some deep hate and dissent,
Bred in thy growth betwixt high winds and thee,
Were still alive, thou dost great storms resent
Before they come, and know'st how near they be.
Else all at rest thou lyest, and the fierce breath
Of tempests can no more disturb thy ease;
But this thy strange resentment after death
Means onely those who broke, in life, thy peace.

So murthered man, when lovely life is done,
And his blood freez'd, keeps in the center still
Some secret sense, which makes the dead blood run
At his approach that did the body kill.

And is there any murth'rer worse than sin?
Or any storms more foul than a lewd life?
Or what resentient can work more within
Then true remorse, when with past sins at strife?

The Retreate.

Happy those early dayes, when I
Shin'd in my angell-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy ought
But a white, celestiall thought;
When yet I had not walkt above
A mile or two from my first love,
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of His bright face;

Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective still as they pass :

Or else remove me hence unto that hill,
Where I shall need no glass.

(From Silex Scintillans)

Childe-hood.

I cannot reach it; and my striving eye
Dazles at it as at eternity.

Were now that Chronicle alive,

Those white designs which children drive,
And the thoughts of each harmless hour,
With their content too in my pow'r,
Quickly would I make my path ev'n,
And by meer playing go to Heaven.

Why should men love

A wolf more than a lamb or dove?
Or choose hell-fire and brimstone streams
Before bright-stars and God's own beams?
Who kisseth thorns will hurt his face,
But flowers do both refresh and grace;
And sweetly living-fie on men!
Are, when dead, medicinal then ;
If seeing much should make staid eyes,
And long experience should make wise;
Since all that age doth teach is ill,
Why should I not love childe-hood still?
Why, if I see a rock or shelf,

Shall I from thence cast down my self?

Or by complying with the world,
From the same precipice be hurl'd?
Those observations are but foul,
Which make me wise to lose my soul.

And yet the practice worldlings call
Business, and weighty action all,
Checking the poor childe for his play,
But gravely cast themselves away.

Dear, harmless age! the short, swift span
Where weeping Virtue parts with man ;
Where love without lust dwells, and bends
What way we please without self-ends.

An age of mysteries! which he

Must live twice that would God's face see;
Which angels guard, and with it play,
Angels! which foul men drive away.

How do I study now, and scan
Thee more than ere I studyed man,
And onely see through a long night
Thy edges and thy bordering light
O for thy center and mid-day!
For sure that is the narrow way!'
The World.

I saw Eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;

And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv'n by the spheres

Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world
And all her train were hurl'd.

The doting lover in his quaintest strain
Did there complain;

Neer him, his lute, his fancy, and his slights,

Wit's sour delights,

The fearfull miser on a heap of rust
Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust
His own hands with the dust,

Yet would not place one peece alone, but lives
In fear of theeves.

Thousands there were as frantick as himself, And hugg'd each one his pelf;

The downright epicure plac'd heav'n in sense,
And scorn'd pretence;

While others, slipt into a wide excesse,
Said little lesse ;

The weaker sort, slight, triviall wares inslave,
Who think them brave;

And poor despised Truth sate counting by

Their victory.

Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing and weep, soar'd up into the ring;
But most would use no wing.

O fools-said I-thus to prefer dark night
Before true light!

To live in grots and caves, and hate the day
Because it shews the way,

The way which from this dead and dark abode
Leads up to God;

A way where you might tread the sun, and be More bright than he!

But as I did their madness so discusse

One whisper'd thus,

This ring the Bridegroome did for none provide,
But for His bride.'

There is an edition of Vaughan's complete works by Grosart (4 vols. 1868-71), one of Silex Scintillans and other sacred poems by Lyte (1847), and one of the Poems by E. K. Chambers (2 vols. 1896). See Dr John Brown's Hora Subseciva, F. T. Palgrave in Cymmrodorion (1891), Miss L. J. Guiney in the Atlantic Monthly of 1894 (reprinted in her Little English Gallery, 1894), and Professor Dowden's Puritan and Anglican (1901).

John Wilkins (1614-72), Bishop of Chester, was the son of an Oxford goldsmith, but was born near Daventry, in Northamptonshire; and he studied at New Inn Hall and Magdalen Hall in Oxford. As chaplain to Lord Say, Lord Berkeley, and the Court-Palatine of the Rhine, he found time for extensive studies in mathematics and physics; and having sided with the popular party

during the Civil War, he received the headship of Wadham College. He was one of a small knot of university men who used to meet for the cultivation of experimental philosophy as a diversion from the painful thoughts excited by public calamities, and who, after the Restoration, were incorporated by Charles II. under the title of the Royal Society. Having married a sister of Oliver Cromwell in 1656, he was enabled, by a dispensation from the Protector, to retain his office in Wadham College, notwithstanding a rule which made celibacy imperative; three years afterwards he became Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. At the Restoration he was ejected from this office; but his politics being neither violent nor unaccommodating, he became preacher at Grey's Inn, rector of St Laurence Jewry, and Dean of Ripon ; and, by the favour of the Duke of Buckingham, was advanced in 1668 to the see of Chester. Bishop Burnet praised Wilkins 'as a man of as great mind, as true a judgment, as eminent virtues, and of as good a soul as any I ever knew. Though he married Cromwell's sister, yet he made no other use of that alliance but to do good offices, and to cover the University of Oxford from the sourness of Owen and Goodwin.' On the other hand, like his friend and son-in-law Tillotson and other moderate Churchmen, Wilkins was much disliked by the High-Church party; Tories thought him a trimmer, and Anthony Wood maliciously said 'there was nothing deficient in him but a constant mind and settled principles.' He wrote some theological and mathematical works, and in early life (1638) published The Discovery of a New World; or a Discourse tending to prove that 'tis probable there may be another Habitable World in the Moon: with [in the 3rd edition, 1640] a Discourse concerning the Possibility of a Passage thither. The principal part of the work is an earnest attempt to refute religious and other objections to the doctrine of a plurality of worlds. Only in the fourteenth and last chapter does he become a pioneer on the path Swift in satire and E. A. Poe and Jules Verne in pure creative fiction were also to adventure on, when he seriously supports the proposition that it is possible for some of our posterity to find out a conveyance to this other world, and, if there be inhabitants there, to have commerce with them.' He admits that this feat has in the present state of human knowledge an air of utter impossibility; yet from this no hostile inference ought to be drawn, seeing that many things formerly supposed impossible have actually been accomplished. 'If we do but consider,' says he, by what steps and leasure all arts do usually rise to their growth, we shall have no cause to doubt why this also may not hereafter be found out amongst other secrets. It hath constantly yet been the method of Providence not presently to shew us all, but to lead us on by degrees from the knowledge of one thing to