should be employed, and become impressed with the importance of uniting the practice of virtue to that of art. Conjoined as these were in the person of Raphael, their force availed to constrain the greatness of Julius II. and to awaken the generosity of Leo X.; both of whom, high as they were in dignity, selected him for their most intimate friend, and treated him with every kind of familiarity: insomuch that by means of the favor he enjoyed with them, and the powers with which they invested him, he was able to do the utmost honor to himself and to art. Most happy also may well be called those who, being in his service, worked under his own eye; since it has been found that all who took pains to imitate this master have arrived at a safe haven, and attained to a respectable position. In like manner, all who do their best to emulate his labors in art will be honored on earth, as it is certain that all who resemble him in the rectitude of his life will receive their reward in heaven.

Translation of Mrs. Jonathan Foster.

12

HENRY VAUGHAN

(1621-1693)

HERE is a quality about certain seventeenth-century writers of religious verse-Herbert, Crashaw, Quarles, and Vaughan

which makes them precious to the lovers of poetry. They had at times a mystic worshipfulness, a tenderness and depth of feeling, in the expression of spiritual aspiration, very rare and very lovely. They had too in common, though in varying degrees, something of literary genius; which, if it did not show in work steadily artistic and above criticism, was manifested in gleams and flashes, when the magic word was caught and the inevitable phrase coined. This applies in full force to Henry Vaughan, whose poems, in a few classic examples, burn with a pure flame of religious fervor, and have a charm that makes them unforgettable.

Henry Vaughan- the Silurist, as he was called because of his residence among the Silures, the ancient name for the folk of South Wales - was born at Newton-by-Usk in that principality, in the year 1621. His family was an old and highly respectable one of the vicinage. Educated by a private tutor, he with his twin brother Thomas entered Jesus College, Oxford, in 1638, but was not graduated. Both the young Vaughans were stanch royalists, that political complexion. being a tradition in the family; Henry was imprisoned during the Civil War. His private patrimony being inadequate to his support, he qualified for medicine, and practiced that profession with repute for many years in his native place. His literary work was thus an avocation pursued for the love of it. During his long and quiet life, Vaughan published various volumes of poems and translations. His first book appeared when he was twenty-five, and bore the title 'Poems, with the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Englished' (1646). Subsequent books were: Olor Iscanus, a Collection of Select Poems and Translations' (1650); 'Silex Scintillans, or Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (1650-1); The Mount of Olives, or Solitary Devotions' (1652); Flores Solitudinis, or Certain Rare and Elegant Pieces' (1654); and Thalia Rediviva, the Pastimes and Diversions of a Country Muse, in Divine Poems' (1678).

The verse which preserves Vaughan's name in fragrant memory is contained in the Silex Scintillans.' Half a dozen pieces in that collection are familiar to all students of the choicest English religious

or an

song. The quaint classical titles of his books give a notion of the mystic, removed nature of this poet's Muse. In many lyrics he waxes didactic, and moralizes upon man and God in a fashion not edifying to the present-day reader, if it was when they were composed. But when inspiration visited him, and he could write such a unique poem as The Retreate'-a kind of seventeenth-century forerunner of Wordsworth's 'Ode on the Intimations of Immortality'. exquisite elegiac poem like 'They are All Gone' (a prime favorite with Lowell), Vaughan found lyric expression for the spiritual mood such as few men have found in the whole range of British song. His religion did not clog his poetry, but lent it wings; and no more sincere and intimate personal confession of faith can be named. He has the high rhapsody of the Celt, with a piquant gift in the use of the mother English. One thinks of him with affection, and re-reads his best poems with a sense of beauty communicated, and a breath deeper taken for delight.

During his last years Vaughan seems to have ceased from literary activity. He lived quietly in the lovely vale watered by the Usk, the river he loved; and having attained to the good age of seventy-two, died on April 23d-Shakespeare's death-day-in the year 1693. The genuine humility of the man is implied in the Latin inscription he desired to have placed upon his tomb: "An unprofitable servant, the chief of sinners, I lie here. Glory be to God! Lord have mercy upon me!»

Hˆ

THE RETREATE

APPY those early dayes when I
Shined in my angell infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
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;
When on some gilded cloud or flowre
My gazing soul would dwell an houre,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;

Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinfull sound,

Or had the black art to dispence
A severall sinne to every sence,
But felt through all this fleshly dresse
Bright shootes of everlastingnesse.

Oh how I long to travell back,
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plaine,
Where first I left my glorious traine;
From whence th' inlightned spirit sees
That shady city of palme-trees.

But ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way!
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move;
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came-return.

THE ORNAMENT

HE lucky world shewed me one day

THE

Her gorgeous mart and glittering store,
Where with proud haste the rich made way
To buy, the poor came to adore.

Serious they seemed, and bought up all
The latest modes of pride and lust;

Although the first must surely fall,

And the last is most loathsome dust.

But while each gay, alluring ware,
With idle hearts and busie looks,
They viewed,- for idleness hath there
Laid up all her archives and books,-

Quite through their proud and pompous file.
Blushing, and in meek weeds arrayed,
With native looks which knew no guile,

Came the sheep-keeping Syrian maid.

Whom strait the shining row all faced,
Forced by her artless looks and dress;
While one cryed out, We are disgraced!
For she is bravest, you confess.

Their very memory is fair and bright,

And my sad thoughts doth clear.

It glows and glitters in my cloudy brest,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest
After the sun's remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days;
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Meer glimmerings and decays.

O holy hope! and high humility!

High as the heavens above!

These are your walks, and you have shewed them me
To kindle my cold love.

Dear, beauteous death- the jewel of the just!
Shining nowhere but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!

He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know

At first sight if the bird be flown;

But what fair dell or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.

And yet as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,

So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted theams,
And into glory peep.

If a star were confined into a tomb,

Her captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that lockt her up gives room,
She'll shine through all the sphære.

O Father of eternal life, and all

Created glories under thee!

Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall
Into true liberty.