that it was so ordered that their singing was from the Lough not the perch, from the living spires o' the grass, not as from sanded cage-bottom with its broirning quarter-handful of withered herbage.

There are very many home-allusions in the Poetry of our Worthy, utterance of thought and emotion and influence, coloured by his life-long surroundings, hidden away shyly and modestly as ever are shell-linings, or the delicate feathers underbirds wings, or sea-and-sky tints that vanish as you look. The Usk, “ father Usk”, is loved as was the “siller Tweed " by Sir Walter, being rarely named without 'my' before it. This will come out hereafter more fittingly, but mean while it will do us good to pause a few moments over the Silurist's lines to the Usk and his brother's afterwards—both, unless I err egregiously, very remarkable intrinsically and still more so when it is remembered that two centuries and a quarter have passed since they were written. The former is in Latin, which will be found in its place, and here is our (imperfect) interpretation of it:

6

Usk, sire of flowers! whose froarie mouth
Softly kisseth as wind from South
Thy gold-dropp'd stones: and th' painted shingle
Where the sad hyacinths mingle

With dainty blooms, all fair to see-
Soothest with humid lullaby :
Who while the months, swift-footed haste,
And their new moons successive waste,
And mortal lives the heav'ns consume.
Thy days dost as the sun relume!
Flowing on and flowing ever,
From age to age, and changing never.
I catch from thee i' the hush'd woods
Where thou dost pour thy murm'rous floods,
The torn Thracian's awful plaint
The lyre of th' old man eloquent."

So too in his own English, as though the river were his lady-love :

1 Vol. II. p. 166.

? Vol. II, page 73, 74. Mr. Lyte in (mis) quoting above, gives the lines as if successive, and alters line 5th to “To thee" and in line 8th (mis) reads "here' for " there.'

Surely that peopling of the Silurian woods with the creations of the old mythology is very fine:

Per te discerpti credo Thracis ire querelas

Plectrumque divini senis.

The twin-brothers were so alike in many ways that it can't be regarded as divergent that I ask the reader at this point to listen to the English address to the Usk, of Eugenius Philalethes, in his “ Anima Magica Abscondta” (1650). Possibly not half-a-dozen know the poem : and yet it is touched with cunningest hand, as witness the italicized lines and half-lines of the portion I can spare space to quote :

:

'Tis day, my chrystal Usk: now the sad Night
Resignes her place as tenant to the Light.
See the amazed mists begin to flye,
And the victorious sun hath got the skie.
How shall I recompence thy streams that keep
Me and my soul awak'd, when others sleep?
I watch my stars, I move on with the skies
And weary all the planets with mine eyes.
Shall I seek thy forgotten birth, and see
What dayes are spent since thy nativity ?
Didst run with ancient Kishon ? canst thou tell
So many yeers as holy Hiddekel ?
Thou art not paid in this. l'le leavie more
Such harmles contributions from thy store,

And dresse my soul by thee as thou dos't passe,
As I would do my body by my glasse.
What a cleer running chrystall here I find !
Sure I will strire to gain as clear a mind.
And have my spirits free from dross, made light
That no base puddle may allay their flight. alloy
How I admire thy humble banks ! Nought's here
But the same simple resture all the year.'

| See Thomas Vaughan's Verse-Remains, at close of the present Volume. I trust the Reader will do himself the justice and pleasure of turning to the remainder of this poem : and I take the present opportunity to request that where references not quotations are given, the same may be done. It would occupy too much space to quote in full:

: yet any advantage from our Essay must be neutralized, if the poems referred to be not before the Reader: student. With reference to the sequel of Thomas Vaughan's address to the Usk, was it an anticipation or an echo of Sir John Denham's “ Cooper's Hill”, more especially in the celebrated lines on the Thames ?

O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme !
Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull ;

Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.” · have failed to get access to the first edition (1642) for collation with the second edition, 1650, “ with additions." Vaughan's book from a contemporary-marking appeared at close of 1619 It is to be noted that the Silurist gives allusive praise to “ Cooper's Hill”: See Vol. I, p. 59.

The quaint, subtle-fancied questioning of "ancient Kishon" and "holy Hiddekel," gives the supreme touch of genius as distinguished from mere culture to these Lines.

Bound up with birth-pluce was the early training of Henry Vargaan. I may be wrong, may be unjust : but I can't help feeling that paternally the Silurist was little advantaged. His father no doubt gave him .bluest of blue blood' but seemingly nothing more. I find this articulate in one of several of the little Latin memorial-verses addressed to good Master Matthew Herbert. Let the Reader judge: Quod vixi, Jathæe, delit pater, hæc tamen olim

Vita fluat, nec erit fas meminisse datam.
Ultra curasti solers, perituraque necum

Nomina post cineres das resonare meos.
Divide discipulum: brevis hæc et lubrica nostri

Pas vertat patri, posthuma vita tibi.

My excellent friend, Rev. J. H. Clark, of West
Dereham, hath thus happily Englished it:
Matthew, that I had life I owe my sire,

But that will pass, nor be remember'd more:
Thy gift is richer, since when breath is o'er,

The fame I owe to thee shall not expire.
Let master then and sire, their charge divide ;
His be what passes, thine what shall abide.'