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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Within the past few years several scholars have been attracted by a challenging passage from the “Preface to the following Hymns” in the second edition of Henry Vaughan's Silex Scintillans (1655): you will (peradventure) observe some passages, whose history or reason may seem something remote; but were they brought nearer, and plainly exposed to your view, (though that (perhaps) might quiet your curiosity) yet would it not conduce much to your greater advantage.—Silex Scintillans, Part ii, Sig. B-3-v.
1 The articles dealing with Henry Vaughan's use of Hermetica, which have come to my attention, are as follows: A. C. Judson, “The Source of Henry Vaughan's Ideas concerning God in Nature,” SP, xxiv (1927); Elizabeth Holmes, Henry Vaughan and the Hermetic Philosophy (Oxford, 1932); Arthur J. M. Smith, “Some Relations between Henry Vaughan and Thomas Vaughan,” Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters, xviii (1932); Wilson Clough, “The Hermetic Philosophy in Henry Vaughan,” PMLA, xlviii (1933). Of these, only Mr. Smith seems convinced that the Hermetic elements in Vaughan's poems are entirely ascribable to his brother's influence. Unfortunately his paper offers only a bare introduction to the subject with little attempt to substantiate its assumptions. Mr. Judson's conclusion is that the poet may have found his inspiration in Thomas's writings or in the work of earlier philosophers of the Hermetic school. Miss Holmes and Mr. Clough place even more stress on Henry's possible reading in the works of other Hermetists and seem to doubt the importance of Thomas in molding his brother's genius.
2 See Athenae Oxonienses, ed. P. Bliss (London, 1813–20) iii, 722–726 (life of Thomas) and iv, 425–426 (life of Henry). All biographical matter in this paper is from these sources, unless otherwise specified.
3 Theophilus Jones, historian of the Vaughan county, tells us that Thomas was “ousted by the propagators of the Gospel in Wales.”—Theophilus Jones, History of the County of Brecknock, (Brecknock, 1898) p. 435. Since the Act for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales was passed in 1649, I set that date for Thomas's departure for England.
4 Professor Chambers does not believe that Henry was ever in residence at Oxford; see The Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, ed. E. K. Chambers [London and New York, 1896], ii, xxvi–xxvii. Certainly the failure of University records to show any mention of the poet is an argument in favor of this belief. Alumni Oxonienses, ed. Joseph Foster (Oxford and London, 1891–92) lists his name only, seems to have no record of his matriculation, and refers the reader to Wood. Henry's own statement in this matter is equivocal. In a letter to John Aubrey (MS. Wood F39, folio 216, in Bodleian Library, transcribed in The Works of Henry Vaughan, ed. L. C. Martin [Oxford, 1914], ii, 667) he says: “I stayed not att Oxford to take any degree, butt was sent to London, beinge then designed by my father for the study of the Law.” His “stayed” seems to imply at least a temporary residence, but one hesitates to consider the matter as settled on the basis of this tenuous evidence.
5 See Henry Vaughan, Poems with the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Englished (London, 1646), pp. 5 and 27–33.
6 His own statements are confusing in this matter. “Ad Posteros,” a thumb-nail autobiography prefacing Olor Iscanus, says:
Vixi, divisos cum fregerat haeresis Anglos
Intèr Tysiphonas presbyteri & populi …
Duret ut Integritas tamen, & pia gloria, partem
Me nullam in tantâ strage fuisse, scias.
—Olor Iscanus (London, 1652), Sig. A-l-v.
In “Upon a Cloke lent him by Mr. J. Ridsley,” however, he writes:
O that thou hadst it when this Jugling fate
Of Soulderie first seiz'd me! at what rate
Would I have bought it then, what was there but
I would have giv'n for the Compendious hutt?
—Olor Iscanus, p. 18.
The only theory which reconciles these two statements is that of Miss G. E. F. Morgan, who suggests that Henry may have acted as physician to the King's forces; see Poems of H. V., ed. E. K. Chambers, ii, xxx. As far as I can ascertain, Miss Morgan has never recorded in a volume of her own the extensive research which she has done in the Vaughan family records.
7 Theophilus Jones suggests this possibility when he says: “A farmhouse called Newton in this parish was of some celebrity in the seventeenth century, and was once occupied by two brothers, of the name of Vaughan, of very eccentric characters.” (History of Brecknock, p. 435.)
8 Anthroposophia Theomagica (London, 1650), p. 65: “this Piece was compos'd in Haste, and in my Dayes of Mourning, on the sad Occurence of a Brother's Death.”
9 I feel justified in limiting Henry's conversion to these years because of internal evidence in his writings. His Olor Iscanus contains an “Elegie on the death of Mr. R. Hall, slain at Pontefract, 1648” (Olor, p. 23), which treats the subject of death but shows none of the piety and humility which characterize the poet's later writings. It is in the conventionalized manner of Henry's early poems and offers a positive terminus a quo for the conversion. The terminus ad quem is, of course, the publication of Silex Scintillans in 1650 with “Regeneration,” an allegorical account of the conversion, as its initial poem.
10 See Olor Iscanus, Sig. A-8. Thomas is generally believed to have been instrumental in bringing this volume to the press. Certainly “The Publisher to the Reader” (Sig. A-6) is written in a style which suggests Thomas's influence. It must be noted that Olor Iscanus, though written before Silex Scintillans and dated as of 1647 in the Preface, did not appear in printed form until 1651.
11 Works of Henry Vaughan, ed. L. C. Martin, ii, 667–668. The letter is dated, “June the 15th—73.” If these volumes were in Henry's possession in 1673 (and I can account in no other manner for his knowing the printer's names) it is safe to assume that he had them almost immediately after their publication in the 50's. There is no record of a second impression of any of Thomas's essays within the lifetime of his brother.
12 This is undoubtedly Thomas Powell, D.D., of Cantre, Brecknockshire, who is honored in two poems by Henry Vaughan.
13 “Coelum Terrae,” appended to Magia Adamica (London, 1650), p. 112.
14 Thomas Vaughan's two pamphlets, The Man Mouse and The Second Wash, were written in 1650 in reply to attacks upon his first two treatises by Henry More, the eminent Platonist, who signed himself Alazonomastix Philalethes.
15 Alexander C. Judson's article, “Cornelius Agrippa and Henry Vaughan,” in MLN, xli (1926), 178, attempts to establish a relationship between Agrippa and the poet by pointing out their common use of the ass as a symbol of the devout and humble Christian. The reference is to De Vanitate Scientiarum, Agrippa's most popular work, which is a collection of essays not concerned with Hermetica. Even though we consider this isolated instance as a valid indication of literary affinity between the two men, Henry's acquaintance with Agrippa's Hermetic writing is not established.
16 The search for the Philosopher's Stone, which absorbed the attention of these men, was not an important issue in Thomas Vaughan's earlier essays. Thomas eventually joined in the quest, but it was only in his later writings, which had little or no influence on his brother's poems.
17 In addition to the similarities noted by Mr. Clough, I would call attention to three others which seem to me to be significant: (a) Henry's mention, in the second stanza of the poem, of “The path unto the house of light” recalls the publication, in 1652, of Aula Lucis, by S. N. (the final letters of Thomas Vaughan's first and last names). In the course of the essay he says of his “aula lucis”: “In the House thereof it may bee found, and the House is not farr off, nor hard to find, for the Light walks in before us, and is the guide to his owne habitation.” (Aula Lucis, 34th page, erroneously marked “20”). (b) I am particularly interested by the brothers' use of the verb tinn'd. It means, as Clough tells us, “kindled”; but it is a very unusual form. The Oxford Dictionary lists the verb tin as a variant of tine or tind, but declares it obsolete and gives no example of its use in literature. It is not uncommon in Thomas Vaughan's writings, however. He employs it several times in his Lumen de Lumine, in addition to the passage on page 41 of that essay, quoted by Clough. Henry never uses it elsewhere in his poems; and since “Cock-crowing” has other points of similarity with the Lumen de Lumine quotation, we may be reasonably certain that the poet is borrowing directly from his brother. (c) Another possible point of similarity is found in these lines from the latter part of the poem:
Onely this Veyle which thou hast broke,
And must be broken yet in me,
This veyle, I say, is all the cloke
And cloud which shadows thee from me.
—Silex Scintillans, 1655, Part ii, p. 11.
With this, compare Thomas's statement: “We are all born like Moses with a Veil over the Face: This is it, which hinders the prospect of that Intellectuall shining Light, which God hath placed in us; And to tell you a Trueth that concernes all Mankinde, the greatest Mystery both in Divinity and Philosophie is, How to remove it.”—Anthroposophia Theomagica, pp. 37–38. Now this seems to be a definite reference to the caul, though I can find no Biblical reference to the fact that Moses was born with one. Mention of the veil over Moses' face is not uncommon among Hermetic writers, but nowhere else do I find it associated with his birth. It seems to me that the poet, when he speaks of breaking the veil which obscures his vision, may also be thinking of the caul.
18 Anthroposophia Theomagica, p. 2.
19 Anima Magica Abscondita (London, 1650), p. 17.
20 Lumen de Lumine (London, 1651), p. 92.
21 Ramasle is undoubtedly a misprint. In his Magical Writings of Thomas Vaughan, A. E. Waite transcribes it as “ransack,” which is hardly satisfactory. The Oxford Dictionary lists, under ramass, the variant, ramash; and this line from Anthroposophia is quoted as an example of its use. Evidently the erratic spelling was corrected in copies subsequent to that one which is in the possession of the Harvard College Library.
22 The Vaughans, however, were not believers in astrology. Thomas says: “the stars can impresse no new Influx, … they only dispose, and in some measure stir up that influence, which hath been formerly impressed” (Lumen de Lumine, p. 19). Again, referring to Cornelius Agrippa, who lost favor at court because he would not practice astrology: “he knew it was booties to look fatal Events in the Planets, for such are not written in Nature, but in the superior Tables of Praedestination” (Anima Magica Abscondita, Sig. A-6).
23 See Hermetica, ed. Scott, i, 197.
24 See E. Holmes, Henry Vaughan and the Hermetic Philosophy (Oxford, 1932), pp. 23 et seq.
25 See J. Boehme, Three Principles of the Divine Essence, trans. J. Sparrow (London, 1648) and The Threefold Life of Man, trans. Sparrow, passim.
26 A marginal note in “Coelum Terrae” (appended to Magia Adamica), p. 110, indicates Thomas's familiarity with and admiration for Boehme's Three Principles.
27 Of Thomas's acquaintance with the Cabala, A. E. Waite says: “Vaughan, in his early works, confesses himself a disciple of Agrippa, and ‘The Three Books of Occult Philosophy’ represent the general measure of his knowledge concerning the esoteric tradition of the Jews. … I must not say that he shows no independent reading; he quotes on one occasion a passage in the Porta Lucis [a foot-note adds: ‘concerning the restraint of the superior influences occasioned by the sin of Adam‘] which is not found in Agrippa.”—A. E. Waite, The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah (London, 1902), p. 376. The passage mentioned here is obviously the one under discussion in Magia Adamica and which a marginal note announces to be from Porta Lucis. It is apparent that Thomas is here working independently.
28 See Anthroposophia Theomagica, p. 50.
