Part 40 (1/2)

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 const.i.terint 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, inc.u.mbent 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 surrept.i.tiously 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 Pa.r.s.ee, or fire-wors.h.i.+pper.

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].

Another translation of Ausonius' poems was published by Thomas Stanley in 1649. There is nothing in the original corresponding to the last four lines of Vaughan's translation.

Ll. 89-94. The Latin is:

”Se quisque absolvere gest.i.t, Transferat ut proprias aliena in crimina culpas.”

Vaughan's simile is borrowed from Donne's _Fourth Elegy_ (_Muses'

Library_, I., 107):

”as a thief at bar is questioned there, By all the men that have been robb'd that year.”