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Henry Vaughan  

(1622 – 1695)

Henry Vaughan, was one of the English metaphysical poets. He was born into a middle-class Welsh family in Breconshire. In 1638, he went to Jesus College, Oxford, with his brother Thomas, who later achieved fame as an alchemist. Henry left Oxford in 1640 without taking a degree, and spent two years in London studying law He was recalled home when the Civil War broke out, and he is thought to have served on the Royalist side in South Wales sometime around 1645.

In 1646, Vaughan married Catherine Wise and published his first book of verse, Poems, with the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Englished.

The poems were secular in theme and attracted little attention. They appear uninspired when compared with the religious. poetry of Silex Scintillus. Silex Scintillus meaning The Fiery Flint or The Flashing Flint, “refers to the stony hardness of his heart, from which divine steel strikes fire,.” The following year, 1651, Olor Iscanus, or The Swan of Usk, a collection of secular poetry with four prose translations, was published. Named for the river Usk that flows near his hometown, Olor Iscanus contains “rhapsodic passages about natural beauty” Silex Scintillans was reprinted in 1655 with a second, additional part. In its preface Vaughan attributed the transformation to a spiritual awakening brought about by the poems of ‘the blessed man, Mr. George Herbert’. Vaughan’s inspired religious poetry, on which his reputation chiefly rests, is indeed reminiscent of Herbert’s The Temple. In the preface to the second edition of Silex Vaughan attributes the transformation of his life and work to a spiritual awakening brought about by reading the poems of ‘the blessed man, Mr. George Herbert’.. On the title page of this work, he describes himself as ‘Henry Vaughan, Silurist’ referring to the ancient British tribe of Silures who once lived in Brecon. During the 1650s Vaughan began practising medicine.

After the death of his first wife he married her sister Elizabeth in about 1655. He had four children from each wife, and in his later years he became involved in legal wrangles with his older children. Though his poetry did not attract much attention for a long time after his death, Vaughan is now established as one of the finest religious poets in the language, and in some respects he surpassed his literary and spiritual master, George Herbert. Vaughan published a few more works, including Thalia rediviva (1678), none of which equalled the fire of Silex. He died on April 23, 1695, and was buried in Llansantffraed churchyard.