Part 37

King Harry's Chapel at Westminster, with its tombs, was already one of the sights of London.

Brownist. The Brownists were the religious followers of Robert Browne (c. 1550-c. 1633); they were afterwards known as Independents or Congregationalists.

P. 86. Upon Mr. Fletcher's Plays.

The first folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's Comedies and Tragedies was published in 1647. Vaughan's lines are not, however, amongst the commendatory verses there given.

Field's or Swansted's overthrow. Nathaniel Field and Eliard Swanston, who appears to be meant by Swansted, were well-known actors. They were both members of the King's Company about 1633.

P. 90. Upon the Poems and Plays of the ever-memorable Mr. William Cartwright.

This was printed, together with verses by Tho. Vaughan and many other writers, in William Cartwright's Comedies, Tragi-comedies, with other Poems, 1651.

P. 94. An Elegy on the Death of Mr. R. Hall, slain at Pontefract, 1648.

Miss Southall thinks that the subject of this elegy may have been a son of Richard Hall, of High Meadow, in the Forest of Dean, co. Gloucester. These Halls were connected with the Winters, a Breconshire family. Mr. C. H. Firth ingeniously suggests to me that for R. Hall we should read R. Hall, and points out that a Robert Hallyfax was one of the garrison at the first siege of Pontefract in 1645. He may have been at the second siege also. (R. Holmes, Sieges of Pontefract, p. 20.)

P. 97. To my learned Friend, Mr. T. Powell, upon his Translation of Malvezzi's "Christian Politician."

The book referred to is The Pourtract of the Politicke Christian-Favourite. By Marquesse Virgilio Malvezzi, 1647. This is a translation of Il Ritratto del Privato Politico Christiano, published at Bologna in 1635. It does not contain Vaughan's verses, and no translator's name is given. The preface of another translation from Malvezzi, the Stoa Triumphans (1651), is, however, signed "T. P."

P. 99. To my worthy Friend, Master T. Lewes.

Some of the lines in this poem are borrowed from Horace's verses, Ad Thaliarcham (Book I., Ode 9):

"Vides, ut alta stet nive candida Soracte, nec iam sustineant onus Sylvae laborantes, geluque Flumina constiterint acuto?

* * * * *

Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quaerere; Quam sors dierum cunque debit; lucro Appone."

G. G.

Dr. Grosart thinks that T. Lewes was "probably of Maes-mawr, opposite Newton, on the south side of the Usk." Miss Southall identifies him with Thomas Lewis, incumbent in 1635 of Llanfigan, near Llansantffread. He was expelled from his living, but returned to it at the Restoration.

P. 100. To the most excellently accomplished Mrs. K. Philips.

Katherine Philips, by birth Katherine Fowler, became the wife in 1647 of Colonel James Philips, of the Priory, Cardigan. She was a wit and poetess, and well-known to a large circle of friends as "the matchless Orinda." Each member of her coterie had a similar fantastic pseudonym, and it is possible that this may account for the Etesia and Timander, the Fida and Lysimachus, of Vaughan's poems. The poems of Orinda were surreptitiously published in 1664, and in an authorised version in 1667. They include her poem on Vaughan, afterwards prefixed to Thalia Rediviva (cf. p. 169), but are not accompanied by the present verses nor by those to her editor in Thalia Rediviva (p. 211).

A Persian votary--i.e., a Parsee, or fire-worshipper.

P. 102. An Epitaph upon the Lady Elizabeth, Second Daughter to his late Majesty.

Elizabeth, second daughter of Charles I., was born in 1635. She suffered from ill-health and grief after her father's execution, and died at Carisbrooke on September 8, 1650. This poem, therefore, like others in the volume, must be of later date than the dedication.

P. 104. To Sir William Davenant, upon his Gondibert.

Davenant's Gondibert was first published in 1651. It does not contain Vaughan's verses.

thy aged sire. Is this an allusion to the story that Davenant was in reality the son of William Shakespeare?

Birtha, the heroine of Gondibert.

P. 119. Cupido [Cruci Affixus].