It is with a more than ordinary degree of pleasure that I have undertaken the task of introducing to readers of the present day the writings of a hitherto unknown seventeenth-century poet. Centuries had drawn their curtains around him, and he had died utterly, as it seemed, out of the minds and memories of men; but the long night of his obscurity is at length over, and his light henceforth, if I am not much mistaken, is destined to shine with undiminished lustre as long as England or the English tongue shall endure.

The author of the poems contained in the present volume belongs to that small group of religious poets which includes Herbert, Vaughan, and Crashaw, though he is much more nearly allied to the authors of "The Temple" and "Silex Scintillans" than to the lyrist of Roman Catholicism. Yet he is neither a follower nor an imitator of any of these, but one who draws his inspiration from sources either peculiar to himself or made his own by the moulding force of his own fervent spirit. Of the inner life of the author of these poems we have abundant and satisfactory knowledge, for it is certain that no man's writings ever furnished a clearer or more faithful mirror of their author's personality than do those of Thomas Traherne. But of the outward incidents of his life little can be told, though that little is sufficient to show that he was a man of the finest and noblest character. Profession and practice in his case went together, and he was no less admirable as a man than he was as a poet and a minister of religion. That he was a person of great sweetness of disposition, of most happy temperament, and of singularly attractive character, is certain; and to know so much of a man is to know everything we really need to know. We cannot help, however, craving for more than this, and we would give much indeed for such a record of Traherne as Walton gave of Hooker, Herbert, Donne, and Sanderson. It is likely, indeed, that other particulars of Traherne's career will in time be discovered; but for the present the reader must be content with the scanty details which are given in the following pages.

I regret to say that the inquiries which I have made, or caused to be made, as to the time and place of Thomas Traherne's birth have been, so far, without result. Probably he was born at Hereford, since his father was a shoemaker in that town; but this is not certain. He may have been born at Ledbury, which is a village a few miles from Hereford, for it seems pretty certain that his family was in some way connected with that place. The earlier portion of the registers of that village has been printed by the Parish Registers Society, and from this it appears that there were "Trayernes" there in the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, the portion of the Ledbury registers which covers the period during which it is probable that our author was born is missing. That also seems to be the case as regards the Hereford registers of the same period. This is very disappointing; but we may hope that further inquiries will prove more successful.

That the family from which the poet sprang was Welsh by descent seems to be highly probable. It is true that the name is also found in a slightly different form in Cornwall; but no doubt both branches sprang from the same root at some distant period. The poet's character and temperament, as displayed in his writings, almost proclaim his nationality. Herbert and Vaughan, the two poets to whom he is most near akin, were both Welsh by descent, and though neither of them is deficient in warmth of feeling, Traherne certainly surpasses them in the passionate fervour which he infuses into his writings. It is hardly possible to think of them as having emanated from the cooler and less enthusiastic Anglo-Saxon temperament.

All that I am able to say, then, as to the time of Traherne's birth is that it was probably in the year 1636. Wood informs us that he became a commoner of Brazennose College, Oxford, in 1652; and as the age at which it was then usual for youths to commence their college career was about sixteen, the above date seems the most likely one, though it may, of course, have been a year earlier or later. His father was in all probability the "John Traherne, Shoemaker," who is recorded to have received, in conjunction with another person, "from Mistress Joyce Jefferies the sum of three pounds for the shipping money."[A] This lady is also recorded to have paid money to one John Traherne (who may or may not have been the same person) for training as the soldier whom she had to provide for the Trained-bands.

John Traherne, it seems likely, was related to a man of considerable note and influence in Hereford. This was Philip Traherne (the name is sometimes spelt Traheron), who was twice Mayor of Hereford. He was born in 1566, and was noted for his fidelity to the cause of King Charles I., and, to follow the eulogium upon his tombstone, "for his fervent zeal for the Established Church and clergy, and friendly and affectionate behaviour in conversation, which rendered him highly valuable to all the loyal party." He was mayor of Hereford at the time when the Scots attacked it. He died in 1645, aged 79. It would thus appear that the Traherne family was one which occupied a fairly good position in the middle class of the community. It would seem, however, from a passage in Traherne's "Centuries of Meditations" ("Sitting in a little obscure room in my father's poor house") that John Traherne's circumstances were not very flourishing.

Of the poet's infancy and youth, the only source of information we have is that which we find in his own writings. That the poems in which he dwells so lovingly, and with so much enthusiasm, upon the happiness and innocence of his infancy are somewhat coloured by the warmth of his imagination may, perhaps, be suspected, but not, I think, with justice. It is possible that he, to some extent, confused reflections of later date with those which he represents himself to have experienced in his infancy; but he was evidently a very precocious child, and the dawn of consciousness and thought was surely much earlier in him than it is in ordinary children. I think, therefore, we may trust the evidence of the poems, in which he speaks of his infancy and childhood, as affording a true, or but little idealised, picture of his early life. It might be unsafe to depend upon the evidence of the poems if they stood alone, but the earnestness with which he dwells upon the same topic, and repeats in prose (in his "Centuries of Meditations") what he asserts in his verse, is sufficiently convincing. I know of no author whose writings convey to the reader a stronger conviction of their author's entire sincerity and absolute truthfulness than do those of Thomas Traherne.

Traherne's "Centuries of Meditations" consists of a series of reflections on religious and moral subjects, divided into short numbered paragraphs. The manuscript (which was probably written in the last years of his life, and therefore contains his most mature thoughts) comprises four complete "Centuries," and ten numbers of a fifth "Century." From the fact that it was left unfinished it would seem that his labour upon it was cut short by his death. It was written for the benefit and instruction of a lady, a friend from whom he had received as a present the book in which it is written. It bears the following inscription on the first page:

In the third "Century" of the "Meditations" we find many details of the author's infancy and childhood. I cannot do better that give the greater part of these in the author's own words:

I

Will you see the infancy of this sublime and celestial greatness? Those pure and virgin apprehensions I had in my infancy, and that divine light wherewith I was born, are the best unto this day wherein I can see the universe. By the gift of God they attended me into the world, and by His special favour I remember them till now. Verily they form the greatest gift His wisdom could bestow, for without them all other gifts had been dead and vain. They are unattainable by books, and therefore I will teach them by experience. Pray for them earnestly, for they will make you angelical and wholly celestial. Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world than I when I was a child.

II

All appeared new and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. I was a little stranger which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. My knowledge was Divine; I knew by intuition those things which since my apostacy I collected again by the highest reason. My very ignorance was advantageous. I seemed as one brought into the estate of innocence. All things were spotless and pure and glorious; yea, and infinitely mine and joyful and precious. I knew not that there were any sins, or complaints or laws. I dreamed not of poverties, contentions, or vices. All tears and quarrels were hidden from mine eyes. Everything was at rest, free and immortal. I knew nothing of sickness or death or exaction. In the absence of these I was entertained like an angel with the works of God in their splendour and glory; I saw all in the peace of Eden; heaven and earth did sing my Creator's praises, and could not make more melody to Adam than to me. All Time was Eternity, and a perpetual Sabbath. Is it not strange that an infant should be heir of the whole world, and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold?

III

The corn was orient and immortal wheat which never should be reaped nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting. The dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold: the gates were at first the end of the world. The green trees when I saw them first through one of the gates transported and ravished me; their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap, and almost mad with ecstacy, they were such strange and wonderful things. The Men! O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And young men glittering and sparkling angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! Boys and girls tumbling in the street were moving jewels: I knew not that they were born or should die. But all things abided eternally as they were in their proper places. Eternity was manifest in the Light of the Day, and something infinite behind everything appeared, which talked with my expectation and moved my desire. The City seemed to stand in Eden or to be built in Heaven. The streets were mine, the temple was mine, the people were mine, their clothes and gold and silver were mine, as much as their sparkling eyes, fair skins, and ruddy faces. The skies were mine, and so were the sun and moon and stars, and all the world was mine; and I the only spectator and enjoyer of it. I knew no churlish proprieties, nor bounds nor divisions; but all proprieties and divisions were mine, all treasures and the possessors of them. So that with much ado I was corrupted, and made to learn the dirty devices of this world, which now I unlearn, and become, as it were, a little child again that I may enter into the Kingdom of God.

These passages are succeeded in the MS. by the poem entitled "The Approach," which the reader will find at page 31 of the present volume.

In the following sections of the "Meditations" the author tells how these thoughts were first dimmed, and afterwards almost entirely lost owing to the evil influence of those around him. It is clear that his parents failed to appreciate the fact that their child was of a very uncommon type, and that the ordinary methods of dealing with children were inapplicable in his case. His early and innocent thoughts, he says, were quite obliterated by the influence of a bad education. He found that those around him were immersed in the trivial cares and vanities of common life; that they were wholly wrapped up in the outward shows of things, and were moved only by common and mercenary motives. Alas! this is the discovery that every poet makes, and it is this which constitutes the tragedy of life for him. Had any one, Traherne says, spoken to him on the great and sublime truths of God and Nature; had he been taught that God was good, and had made him the sole heir of a glorious universe; had he been assured that earth was better than gold, and water, every drop of it, a precious jewel, he would have thankfully received and gladly believed the lessons. But instead of this they tried to instil into his mind the lessons of selfishness and worldly wisdom.

IX

It was a difficult matter to persuade me that the tinseled ware upon a hobby horse was a fine thing. They did impose upon me and obtrude their gifts that made me believe a ribbon or a feather curious. I could not see where was the curiousness or fineness. And to teach me that a purse of gold was at any value seemed impossible, the art by which it becomes so, and the reasons for which it is accounted so were so deep and hidden to my inexperience. So that nature is still nearest to natural things, and farthest off from preternatural; and to esteem that the reproach of nature is an excuse in them only who are unacquainted with it. Natural things are glorious, and to know them glorious; but to call things preternatural natural monstrous. Yet all they do it who esteem gold, silver, houses, land, clothes, &c., the riches of nature, which are indeed the riches of invention. Nature knows no such riches, but art and error makes them. Not the God of Nature, but sin only was the parent of them. The riches of Nature are our souls and bodies, with all their faculties, senses, and endowments. And it had been the easiest thing in the whole world [to teach me] that all felicity consisted in the enjoyment of all the world, that it was prepared for me before I was born, and that nothing was more divine and beautiful.

Surely Traherne was here anticipating much which seems to belong to a far later date! The doctrine here urged is in essentials the same as that which was insisted upon by Rousseau and other philosophers of the eighteenth century. Shelley himself hardly enforced the idea of the return to nature more strenuously than Traherne does in this passage. "Natural things are glorious and to know them glorious"—is not this the whole burden of Walt Whitman's poetry? Nay, is it not the whole burden of all poetry worthy of the name?

X

Thoughts are the most present things to thoughts, and of the most powerful influence. My Soul was only apt and disposed to great things; but souls to souls are like apples, one being rotten rots another. When I began to speak and go, nothing began to be present to me but what was present to me in their thoughts. Nor was anything present to me any other way than it was so to them. The glass of imagination was the only mirror wherein anything was represented or appeared to me. All things were absent which they talked not of. So I began among my playfellow's to prize a drum, a fine coat, a penny, a gilded book, &c., who before never dreamed of any such wealth. Goodly objects to drown all the knowledge of Heaven and Earth! As for the Heavens and Sun and Stars, they disappeared, and were no more unto me than the bare walls. So that the strange riches of man's invention quite overcame the riches of nature, being learned more laboriously and in the second place.

By this, Traherne proceeds, parents and nurses should learn the right way of teaching children. Nothing is easier than to teach the truth because the nature of the thing confirms the teaching; whereas to teach children to value "gugaus," baubles, and rattles puts false ideas into their heads, and blots out all noble and divine thoughts, rendering them uncertain about everything, and dividing them from God. "Verily," he says, "there is no savage nation under the cope of Heaven that is more absurdly barbarous than the Christian World.... I am sure that those barbarous people that go naked come nearer to Adam, God, and Angels in the simplicity of their wealth, though not in knowledge."

XIV

Being swallowed up therefore in the miserable gulf of idle talk and worthless vanities, thenceforth I lived among shadows, like a prodigal son feeding upon husks with swine. A comfortless wilderness full of thorns and troubles the world was or worse: a waste place covered with idleness and play, and shops, and markets, and taverns. As for churches they were things I did not understand, and schools were a burden: so that there was nothing in the world worth the having or enjoying but my game and sport, which also was a dream, and being passed wholly forgotten. So that I had wholly forgotten all goodness, bounty, comfort, and glory; which things are the very brightness of the Glory of God, for lack of which therefore He was unknown.

XV

Yet sometimes in the midst of these dreams I should come a little to myself, so far as to feel I wanted something, secretly to expostulate with God for not giving me riches, to long after an unknown happiness, to grieve that the world was so empty and to be dissatisfied with my present state because it was vain and forlorn. I had heard of Angels and much admired that here upon earth nothing should be but dirt and streets and gutters. For as for the pleasures that were in great men's houses I had not seen them: and it was my real happiness they were unknown. For because nothing deluded me I was the more inquisitive.

XVI

Once I remember (I think I was about four years old) when I thus reasoned with myself. Sitting in a little obscure room in my father's poor house: If there be a God certainly He must be Infinite in Goodness, and that I was prompted to, by a real whispering instinct of nature. And if He be Infinite in Goodness and a perfect Being in Wisdom and Love, certainly He must do most glorious things and give us infinite riches; how comes it to pass, therefore, that I am so poor? Of so scanty and narrow a fortune, enjoying few and obscure comforts? I thought I could not believe Him a God to me unless all His power were employed to glorify me. I knew not then my Soul or Body, nor did I think of the Heavens and the Earth, the Rivers and the Stars, the Sun or the Seas: all those were lost and absent from me. But when I found them made out of nothing for me, then I had a God indeed whom I could praise and rejoice in.

XVII

Sometimes I should be alone and without employment, when suddenly my Soul would return to itself, and forgetting all things in the whole world which mine eyes had seen, would be carried away to the end of the earth, and my thoughts would be deeply engaged with inquiries—How the Earth did end? Whether walls did bound it or sudden precipices? Or whether the Heavens by degrees did come to touch it, so that the faces of the Earth and Heaven were so near that a man with difficulty could creep under? Whatever I could imagine was inconvenient, and my reason being posed was quickly wearied. What also upheld the Earth (because it was heavy) and kept it from falling; whether pillars or dark waters? And if any upheld these, what then upheld those, and what again those, of which I saw there would be no end? Little did I think that the Earth was round and the World so full of Beauty, Light, and Wisdom. When I saw that, I knew by the perfection of the work there was a God, and was satisfied and rejoiced. People underneath and fields and flowers, with another Sun and another Day pleased me mightily; but more when I knew it was the same Sun that served them by Night that served us by day.

XVIII

Sometimes I should soar above the stars, and inquire how the Heavens ended, and what was beyond them? Concerning which by no means could I receive satisfaction. Sometimes my thoughts would carry me to the Creation, for I had heard now that the World which at first I had thought was Eternal had a beginning: how therefore that beginning was, and why it was; why it was no sooner, and what was before, I mightily desired to know. By all which I easily perceived my Soul was made to live in communion with God in all places of His dominion, and to be satisfied with the highest reason in all things. After which it so eagerly aspired that I thought all the gold and silver in the world but dirt in comparison of satisfaction in any of these. Sometimes I wondered why men were made no bigger? I would have had a man as big as a giant, a giant as big as a castle, and a castle as big as the Heavens. Which yet would not serve, for there was infinite space beyond the Heavens, and all was defective and but little in comparison; and for man to be made infinite, I thought it would be to no purpose, and it would be inconvenient. Why also there was not a better Sun and better Stars, a better Sea, and better Creatures I much admired. Which thoughts produced that poem upon moderation which afterwards was written.

Following this the author quotes a part of the poem he refers to, which, as it is printed on page 132, need not be given here. The argument of his verses is that everything is for the best and in the best possible proportion:

XXII

These liquid clear satisfactions were the emanations of the highest reason, but not achieved till a long time afterwards. In the meantime I was sometimes, though seldom, visited and inspired with new and more vigorous desires after that Bliss which Nature whispered and suggested to me. Every new thing quickened my curiosity, and raised my expectation. I remember once, the first time I came into a magnificent and noble dining-room and was left there alone, I rejoiced to see the gold and state and carved imagery, but when all was dead and there was no motion, I was weary of it and departed dissatisfied. But afterwards when I saw it full of lords and ladies and music and dancing, the place which once seemed not to differ from a solitary den had now entertainment and nothing of tediousness in it. By which I perceived (upon a reflection made long after) that men and women are, when well understood, a principal part of our true felicity. By this I found also that nothing that stood still could, by doing so, be a part of Happiness: and that affection, though it were invisible, was the best of motions. But the august and glorious exercise of virtue was more solemn and divine, which yet I saw not. And that all men and angels should appear in Heaven.

XXIII

Another time, in a lowering and sad evening, being alone in the field, when all things were dead and quiet, a certain want and horror fell upon me, beyond imagination. The unprofitableness and silence of the place dissatisfied me, its wildness terrified me; from the utmost ends of the earth fears surrounded me. How did I know but dangers might suddenly arise from the East, and invade me from the unknown regions beyond the seas? I was a weak and little child and had forgotten there was a man alive in the earth. Yet something also of hope and expectation comforted me from every border. This taught me that I was concerned in all the world: and that in the remotest borders the causes of peace delight me, and the beauties of the earth, when seen, were made to entertain me: that I was made to hold a communion with the secrets of Divine Providence in all the world: that a remembrance of all the joys I had from my birth ought always to be with me: that the presence of Cities, Temples, and Kingdoms ought to sustain me, and that to be alone in the world was to be desolate and miserable. The comfort of houses and friends, and the clear assurance of treasures everywhere, God's care and love, His Wisdom, Goodness, and Power, His Presence and watchfulness in all the ends of the earth were my strength and assurance for ever: and that those things being absent to my eye were my joys and consolations: as present to my understanding as the wideness and emptiness of the Universe which I saw before me.

XXIV

When I heard of any new Kingdom beyond the seas the light and glory of it entered into me, it rose up within me, and I was enlarged wonderfully. I entered into it, I saw its commodities, springs, meadows, riches, inhabitants, and became possessor of that new room as if it had been prepared for me, so much was I magnified and delighted in it. When the Bible was read my spirit was present in other ages. I saw the light and splendour of them, the Land of Canaan, the Israelites entering into it, the ancient glory of the Amorites, their peace and riches, their cities, houses, vines, and fig-trees, the long prosperity of their Kings, their milk and honey, their slaughter and destruction, with the joys and triumphs of God's people. All which entered into me, and God among them. I saw all and felt all in such a lively manner as if there had been no other way to those places but in spirit only. This shewed me the liveliness of interior presence, and that all ages were for most glorious ends accessible to my understanding, yea with it, yea within it. For without changing place in myself I could behold and enjoy all those. Anything, when it was proposed, though it was a thousand ages ago being always before me.

Some few other passages relating to Traherne's boyhood might be quoted; but as I hope soon to publish the "Centuries of Meditations" in complete form, it is hardly necessary to give further extracts here. I have quoted enough, I trust, to create a desire in the reader's mind to see the whole work in print. I have found the narrative so interesting myself that I would fain hope it will be not less so to others. It displays with a vividness seldom equalled the eager, enthusiastic, thoughtful, affectionate, and, above all, poetic character of its author. It was doubtless because he retained in his manhood so much of the fresh, unspoiled, and uncorrupted spirit of his youth that he was able to give such an engaging picture of his early years. It bears the stamp of veracity and sincerity in every line; and leaves no room in the reader's mind (as so many autobiographies do) for the suspicion that the author was posing himself in the most favourable light, and suppressing the darker shades of his portraiture. I do not think there is anything resembling it in English literature; nor could more than one or two other English poets have written such a narrative. It is fortunate indeed that the "Centuries of Meditations," which so narrowly escaped destruction or oblivion, should have been preserved to afford us this valuable record of the inner life of a spirit touched to such fine issues as was that of Thomas Traherne.

Turning from the brilliant illumination of our author's own account of his youthful experiences it is very disappointing to find that no information about him from external sources can be discovered before the time when he became an Oxford undergraduate. But we may, I think, conclude with little chance of error that the course of his early life was somewhat as follows: His parents, seeing the precocity and unusual promise of their child, determined to give him the best education within their power, and therefore sent him to the local Grammar School. This was founded by Bishop Gilbert in 1386. While there he must have distinguished himself so much by his good conduct and aptitude for learning that some patron—or perhaps some of his relatives who were in a better position than his father—furnished the means to enable him to proceed to Oxford and become a student there. His course at the University is thus related in the AthenÆ Oxonienses:

Thomas Traherne, a shoemaker's son of Hereford, was entered a Commoner of Brasen-nose College on the first day of March, 1652, took one degree in Arts, left the House for a time, entered into the sacred function, and in 1661 he was actually created Master of Arts. About that time he became Rector of Credinhill, commonly called Crednell, near to the city of Hereford ... and in 1669 Bachelor of Divinity.

To the above it may perhaps be as well to add the exact dates of the degrees bestowed upon him at the University. He was made Bachelor of Arts on October 13, 1656; Master of Arts on November 6, 1661; and Bachelor of Divinity on December 11, 1669. Why or when he "left the House for a time" does not appear; possibly it was on account of the political troubles of the period.

When at the University we may be certain that Traherne's inclination and natural genius would lead him to study for the ministry; and he was undoubtedly an earnest and diligent student of the history and doctrines of the Christian faith, and more especially of those of the Church of England. He found in that communion his ideal Church. We have seen that Philip Traherne, the Mayor of Hereford, was noted for his "fervent zeal for the Established Church and clergy"—and probably we shall not be wrong in thinking that the Trahernes generally were members of the English Church. That circumstance doubtless had its influence in determining the faith of Thomas Traherne; but his own deeply fervent and religious nature found in the national faith, as George Herbert had found before him, the peace and satisfaction which he could find nowhere else. That the Anglican Church can boast of having attracted to its service such fine spirits as those of Herbert, Vaughan, Traherne, and the many others that might be mentioned, is surely one of its greatest honours.

We have the evidence of Antony À Wood and that of Traherne's book entitled "Roman Forgeries" to prove that he was an unwearied student of the antiquities of the Church, of its Fathers, Councils, and Doctrines. But the best evidence on this point is to be found in the "Advertisement to the Reader" prefixed to "Roman Forgeries." Herein the author gives us a lively account of a discussion which took place between himself and a Roman Catholic gentleman on the questions in dispute between the two Churches. This passage must be quoted in full, for the story is so vividly told that the reader becomes almost a spectator of the scene:

Before I stir further I shall add one passage which befel me in the Schools as I was studying these things, and searching the most old and authentic records in pursuance of them. One evening as I came out of the Bodleian Library, which is the glory of Oxford, and this nation, at the stairs-foot I was saluted by a person that has deserved well of scholars and learning, who being an intimate friend of mine, told me there was a gentleman, his cousin, pointing to a grave person, in the quadrangle, a man that had spent many thousand pounds in promoting Popery, and that he had a desire to speak with me. The gentleman came up to us of his own accord: we agreed, for the greater liberty and privacy, to walk abroad into the New Parks. He was a notable man, of an eloquent tongue, and competent reading, bold, forward, talkative enough; he told me, that the Church of Rome had eleven millions of martyrs, seventeen Oecumenical Councils, above one hundred Provincial Councils, all the Doctors, all the Fathers, Unity, Antiquity, Consent, &c. I desired him to name one of his eleven millions of martyrs, excepting those that died for treason in Queen Elizabeth's and King James his days: for the martyrs of the primitive times, were martyrs of the Catholic, but not of the Roman Church: they only being martyrs of the Roman Church, that die for transubstantiation, the Pope's Supremacy, the doctrine of Merits, Purgatory, and the like. So many he told me they had, but I could not get him to name one. As for his Councils, Antiquities and Fathers, I asked him what he would say, if I could clearly prove that the Church of Rome was guilty of forging them, so far that they had published Canons in the Apostles names, and invented Councils that never were, forged letters of Fathers, and Decretal Epistles, in the name of the first Bishops and Martyrs of Rome, made 5, 6, 700 years after they were dead, to the utter disguising and defacing of antiquity, for the first 480 years next after our Saviour? "Tush, these are nothing but lies," quoth he, "whereby the Protestants endeavour to disgrace the Papists." Sir, answered I, you are a scholar, and have heard of Isidore, Mercator, James Merlin, Peter Crabbe, Laurentius Surius, Severinus Binius LabbÈ, Cossartius, and the Collectio Regia, books of vast bulk and price, as well as of great majesty and magnificence: you met me this evening at the Library door; if you please to meet me there to-morrow morning at eight of the clock, I will take you in; and we will go from class to class, from book to book, and there I will first shew in your own authors, that you publish such instruments for good Records: and then prove, that those instruments are downright frauds and forgeries? "What hurt is that to the Church of Rome?" said he. No! (cried I, amazed) Is it no hurt to the Church of Rome, to be found guilty of forging Canons in the Apostles names, and Epistles in the Fathers' names, which they never made? Is it nothing in Rome to be guilty of counterfeiting Decrees and Councils, and Records of Antiquity? I have done with you! whereupon I turned from him as an obdurate person. And with this I thought it meet to acquaint the Reader.

No other particulars of Traherne's University career are now available, but those which I have related are sufficient to show that it was not an unsuccessful one. It is plain that he made his way entirely by his own ability, for he could have had no other means of advancing himself.

It appears from a passage in our author's "Centuries of Meditations" that there was at one time a conflict in his mind as to his future course in life. He debated with himself as to whether he should pursue the path that might lead to worldly prosperity, at the cost of sacrificing or suppressing his higher aspirations, or whether he should, at the risk of poverty and obscurity, follow out the promptings of his better self. Such a conflict, in his case, could have only one result:

When I came into the country, and being seated among silent trees and woods and hills, had all my time in mine own hands, I resolved to spend it all, whatever it cost me, in the search of Happiness, and to satiate the burning thirst which Nature had enkindled in me from my youth. In which I was so resolute that I chose rather to live upon ten pounds a year, and to go in leather clothes and to feed upon bread and water, so that I might have all my time clearly to myself, than to keep many thousands per annum in an estate of life where my time would be devoured in care and labour. And God was so pleased to accept of that desire that from that time to this I have had all things plentifully provided for me without any care at all, my very study of Felicity making me more to prosper than all the care in the whole world. So that through His blessing I live a free and a kingly life, as if the world were turned again into Eden, or, much more, as it is at this day.

Truly a memorable resolution! which has had not too many parallels, though the failure to make it has caused many a man of fine abilities to fall into the ranks of those whom the world has conquered and subdued to its own purposes. One remembers the similar resolution of the great founder of Quakerism, which Traherne might possibly have heard of. One thinks also of Thoreau and of his life in the woods; and of the few others who have dared to live out their own lives in their own way, regardless of the disdain or censure of the worldly-minded. That nothing but good came to Traherne from his resolution we might have been sure even if he had not himself told us so; for what harm can come to those who are animated with such a spirit as his? The spiritually minded derive their sustenance from the spirit, and are the richer on the ten pounds a year which Traherne speaks of than are the masters of untold wealth who are spiritually destitute.

At what period Traherne came to the decision which he has thus recorded does not appear; but it seems probable it was at the time when, as Wood tells us, he left the University for a time. Wood places the commencement of his ministry at Credenhill at about 1661, when he was made Master of Arts. This, however, seems to be an error. Mr. E. H. W. Dunkin has kindly informed me that he has in his possession a copy of a manuscript preserved at Lambeth Library (MS. 998) containing particulars of admissions to Benefices temp. Commonwealth, in which the following entry appears:

Thomas Traherne, clerk, admitted 30 Dec., 1657, by the Commissioners for the Approbation of Public Preachers to the Rectory of Crednell, alias Creddenhill, Co. Hereford: patron Amabella, Countess Dowager of Kent.

In 1657 Traherne could not have been more than 21 or 22 years of age—hardly old enough, one would think, to assume entire charge of the parish. Possibly at first he only acted as assistant to the minister whom he afterwards succeeded.

Of the course of Traherne's life at Credenhill nothing is now known, but, as far as outward events were concerned, it was doubtless quiet and uneventful. He remained there, it would appear, for rather more than nine and a half years. Then he was summoned to London to become private chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgman, who, on August 30, 1667, was created Lord Keeper of the Seals. Whether he owed his promotion to a friend's recommendation, or whether he had, before this time, become personally acquainted with Sir Orlando, we do not know, but it is certain that he must henceforth have been highly esteemed and valued by his patron. When Bridgman was, in 1672, deprived of the Seals, and went into retirement, he still retained Traherne in his service, and it was in his patron's house at Teddington, about three months after the latter's decease, that he died. We may indeed feel certain that a mutual regard and even affection existed between them; and perhaps it is not too great a stretch of imagination to think that the death of Traherne may have been hastened by his grief at the loss of his patron.

Sir Orlando Bridgman was not only a very able lawyer, but also an honourable, conscientious, and upright statesman. He was, perhaps, a little wanting in strength of character, and therefore appeared to his contemporaries to be something of a trimmer. He was a royalist, and remained such all through the Civil War and the Commonwealth; though it appears that during the last years of Cromwell's reign he had in some degree made his peace with the Protector. But he was not disposed to be a mere tool in the hands of the Court party. He was made Keeper of the Seals because it was supposed that he would have been subservient to the designs of the ministry then in power; but when it was found that he was not disposed to be a compliant tool in their hands he was dismissed from his office. He had nothing in him of a Scroggs or a Jeffries, and was therefore no fit instrument of the crew of unscrupulous and corrupt intriguers who then misruled the country. That he was of a most charitable disposition—though he has not hitherto, I believe, received credit for the fact—we have sufficient evidence. In Traherne's "Christian Ethicks" we find the following passage (p. 471): "My Lord Bridgman, late Lord Keeper, confessed himself in his Will to be but a Steward of his Estate, and prayed God to forgive all his offences in getting, mis-spending, or not spending it as he ought to do. And that after many Charitable and Pious Works, perhaps surmounting his estate tho concealed from the notice or knowledge of the world."

It has been seen from one of the extracts quoted from "Centuries of Meditations" that Traherne esteemed himself fortunate in having "all things plentifully provided for me without any care at all, my very study of Felicity making me more to prosper than all the care in the whole world." That he was perfectly sincere in this statement, and that he had all the riches and advancement he required, is certain; but very few men, and certainly no ambitious man, under the same circumstances would have made such a declaration. To the worldly-minded his destiny must have seemed a poor, if not mean one. To be the parson of two small and obscure parishes, and the private chaplain of the Keeper of the Seals, while possessing abilities which would have adorned the highest possible station, must have seemed, to a less happily constituted temperament, a fate which would have justified much repining and discontent. That Traherne was not merely contented but happy under such circumstances is but one more proof that

The position of chaplain to Lord Bridgman must have brought Traherne into contact with many distinguished persons of the time; but no trace of his intercourse with them seems now to be discoverable, save in one instance. John Aubrey, the famous gossip, to whose undiscriminating industry we are indebted for the preservation of much chaff indeed, but also for not a little precious wheat, in his "Miscellanies," under the heading "Apparitions," gives us a remarkable reference to our author. I quote the passage in full:

Mr. Trahern, B.D. (chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgman, Lord Keeper), a learned and sober person, was son of a shoemaker in Hereford: one night as he lay in bed, the moon shining very bright, he saw the phantom of one of the apprentices, sitting in a chair in his red waistcoat, and head-band about his head, and strap upon his knee; which apprentice was really in bed and asleep with another fellow-apprentice, in the same chamber, and saw him. The fellow was living, 1671. Another time, as he was in bed, he saw a basket come sailing in the air, along by the valence of his bed; I think he said there was fruit in the basket: it was a phantom. From himself.

It is highly probable that it was Aubrey who furnished Wood with the account of Traherne which appears in the AthenÆ Oxonienses, and doubtless he could have given us much more information about him had he chosen to do so. But he was incapable of appreciating so fine a spirit as Traherne's; nor was the latter likely to reveal to him the profounder depths of his nature. It is much to be regretted that Aubrey gives us such a confused account of what he was told. The stories were doubtless related to him at his own direct request, he being ever eager to collect accounts of the marvellous and the supernatural. It seems evident that Traherne attached little importance to these two visions, purposeless as they apparently were, and as visions of the kind usually are. No one nowadays would attribute such phantoms of the brain to any supernatural cause, nor does it appear that Traherne himself did. I find no trace in his writings of a belief in the common superstitions of his time as to ghosts, witches, or evil spirits.

The date of the interview in which Traherne related these things to Aubrey is fixed by the date given in it (1671) to a period within two or three years of the poet's death. During these latter years he was, according to Wood, minister of the parish of Teddington, Middlesex. It was there that Sir Orlando Bridgman's country residence was situated; and it was doubtless owing to his lordship's influence that Traherne was appointed minister. That he did hold that position seems to be certain, though, curiously enough, his name does not appear in the list of ministers of the parish which is given in Newcourt's "Repertorium Ecclesiasticum." Perhaps this may be accounted for by the fact that though Traherne was actually the working minister, the post was nominally held by a clerical pluralist of the time. The succession of curates as given by Newcourt during the period of Traherne's connection with the parish is as follows: 1664,—Badcock; 1668, Car. Bryan; 1673, Joh. Graves; 1677, Jacobus Elsby.

It was not until the year before his death that the first fruit of Traherne's long and laborious studies was offered to the readers of the time. His poems—or some of them, at least—were written early in life, for he speaks of one of them as having been written "long since"; but his "Roman Forgeries," "Christian Ethicks," and "Centuries of Meditations" were almost certainly his latest productions. Without undervaluing his two published works, it must be regretted that he did not send to the press in preference to them his poems, which would then have had the advantage of his own supervision, and would have saved his name from the total obscurity in which it has now been sunk for upwards of two centuries. But doubtless he did not anticipate so untimely an end of his career, and may well have preferred to make his first appearance in print as a serious student and thinker rather than as a poet. I feel sure that he did not undervalue his poems (what poet ever did?); but he must have believed that his prose writings were better calculated to influence the world, as he desired to influence it, than they were. His "Roman Forgeries" and "Christian Ethicks" probably cost him far more labour and hard thought than his poems did; and authors, it has been observed, usually value most highly the works which have cost them the greatest pains.

It was in 1673 that "Roman Forgeries" was published. There never was a period in the history of England when theological questions were more hotly debated than during the second half of the seventeenth century. Political and theological questions were then far more closely connected than is now the case, so that a double degree or vehemence was imparted to all the subjects of dispute which then divided the nation. Hence it was that a continual flood of partisan books and pamphlets issued from the press, to contemplate which nowadays is to be filled with a melancholy sense of the energy and intellect which our ancestors wasted in angry disputations and futile controversies.

That Traherne should have plunged into this whirlpool of controversy is, I must needs think, matter for regret. His "Roman Forgeries" is, it is true, a very able work; and as to its main contentions a very convincing one to those who need no convincing, and possibly even to the very few Catholics who could be induced to peruse it. But most of the latter, it is probable, would brush the whole question aside, as did the Catholic gentleman whom Traherne encountered at Oxford, merely exclaiming "What does it matter?"

As to the object of the work, the passage which I have quoted from it on p. xxxiv will give the reader a good idea of its scope and purpose. It is, in fact, an indictment of the Roman Church as being guilty of the most flagrant forgeries of documents and falsifications of historical facts for the purpose of supporting its spiritual and temporal pretensions. To those who are able to take any interest in its subject the book is by no means a dull one. Traherne, indeed, felt such a lively concern in his theme that he has succeeded in infusing much of his own animation into his pages. He deals his blows at his adversaries with such hearty good will, and has so much confidence in the justice of his cause, that the reader can hardly fail to sympathise with so earnest a combatant. Yet, as I have said, one can hardly help regretting that the book should have been written, for, well as it is done, it might have been done equally well by a writer of far inferior gifts, while it is impossible not to feel that Traherne was wasting his genius in its composition.[B]

Within twelve months after the publication of "Roman Forgeries" its author was dead. But he had, during the few months of life still left to him, finished another long and elaborate work. This was his "Christian Ethicks," a work of much more value and interest than his first book, though it seems to have fallen still-born from the press, and to have remained neglected and unknown ever since.

The satisfaction of seeing his second work in print was denied to its author. He had sent it to the press, but was dead before the printing of it was commenced. Sir Orlando died on June 25, 1674, and was interred in the church at Teddington, where a monument was erected to him. Three months afterwards Traherne died in his patron's house, and was also buried in the church at Teddington under the reading-desk. Of the exact date of his decease we are ignorant, but he was buried on October 10, 1674.

About a fortnight before his death, Traherne sent for his friend, John Berdo, and his sister-in-law, Susan Traherne, and in their presence made his Will—a nuncupative one. This Will, which I have to thank my friend, Gordon Goodwin, for communicating to me, was registered in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. It is a curious and interesting document, and I have therefore printed it in full in the Appendix to the present volume. From its terms, it is very evident that Traherne had accumulated no wealth, and that he died possessed of little indeed beyond his books and other personal effects.

At the time of his death Traherne was probably not more than thirty-eight years of age, but certainly under forty. He was thus in the very prime of life, and his intellect was in its fullest vigour. Had he lived he would surely have produced a succession of works which would have sensibly enriched our literature, for his industry was not less remarkable than his ability and his learning. As it was, his career must have seemed to those who were capable of appreciating his fine qualities a failure, for his books brought him little reputation; and beyond the mention of him in the AthenÆ Oxonienses, his name quickly sank into entire oblivion, so to remain for upwards of two centuries. A strange fate! the strangest, perhaps, that ever befell an author of such fine genius. During all this period his manuscripts were lying unknown and neglected, and exposed to all the accidents of time and chance. Yet not altogether so, for it seems that those into whose hands his papers fell had at least a dim perception of their value. Twenty-five years after his death a little book stole into the world the title of which was as follows: "A Serious and Patheticall Contemplation of the Mercies of God, in several most Devout and Sublime Thanksgivings for the same. Published by the Reverend Doctor Hickes at the request of a friend of the Authors." It was the fortunate issue of this work of Traherne's that, after the lapse of upwards of two centuries, was to be the means of identifying him as the author of the poems contained in the present volume, which else might now be masquerading as those of Henry Vaughan. But for this we have not altogether to thank the friend of Traherne's who brought about the issue of the "Serious and Patheticall Contemplation." He certainly laid us under considerable obligations to him when he procured its publication; but his curious idea that it was not to the purpose to tell us the author's name might have caused it to remain for ever unknown but for one clue that he gave us, which ultimately led to its discovery.

The "Serious and Patheticall Contemplation" opens with a letter from the Rev. George Hickes (then a well-known writer on theological subjects), in which he says that the work was recommended to him for publication by "a devout person who was a great Judge of Books of Devotion, having given the world one already which had been well received in three impressions." He intended, he says, to have written a Preface to the book himself, but had received from a friend of the deceased author an account of him, which rendered it unnecessary for him "who can only tell how greatly the author of them wrote, but knew not how greatly he lived" to fulfil his intention. Dr. Hickes's Letter is followed by an Address "To the Reader," written by Traherne's friend. As this contains the best and most valuable account of our author which has descended to us, I need make no apology for quoting it in full:

Tho' the unhappy decay of true Piety and the Immoralities of the Age we live in may be a discouragement to the multiplying such Books as this, yet on the other hand this degeneracy of Manners, and too evident contempt of Religion makes it (it may be) the more necessary to endeavour to retrieve the Spirit of Devotion and the sacred Fires of Primitive Christianity. And since 'tis hop'd this ensuing Treatise may somewhat conduce to these noble Ends: It is thought to be no unprofitable undertaking to commit it to the Press, it being part of the Remains of a very devout Christian, who is long since removed to the Regions of Beatified Spirits, to sing those Praises and Hallelujahs, in which he was very vigourously employ'd whilst he dwelt amongst us: and since somewhat of Preface is become, as it were, a necessary part of every book, instead of any particular Dedication (which is commonly over-stuft with Flattery and Complements) I will only give thee some Account of the Author. To tell thee who he was, is, I think, to no purpose: And therefore I will only tell thee what he was, for that may possibly recommend the following Thanksgivings and Meditations to thy use. He was a Divine of the Church of England, of a very comprehensive Soul and very acute Parts, so fully bent upon that Honourable Function in which he was engaged; and so wonderfully transported with the Love of God to Mankind, with the excellency of those Divine Laws which are prescribed to us, and with those inexpressible Felicities to which we are entitled by being created in, and redeemed to the Divine Image that he dwelt continually amongst these thoughts with great delight and satisfaction, spending most of his time when at home in digesting his notions of these things into writing, and was so full of them when abroad that those who would converse with him were forced to endure some discourse upon these subjects, whether they had any sense of Religion or not. And therefore to such he might be sometimes thought troublesome, but his company was very acceptable to all such as had any inclination to Vertue and Religion. And tho' he had the misfortune to come abroad into the world in the late disordered Times, when the Foundations were cast down, and this excellent Church laid in the dust, and dissolved into Confusion and Enthusiasme; yet his Soul was of a more refin'd alloy, and his Judgment in discerning of things more solid and considerate than to be infected with that Leaven, and therefore became much in love with the beautiful order and Primitive Devotions of this our excellent Church. Insomuch that I believe he never failed any one day either publickly or in his private Closet to make use of her publick Offices, as one part of his devotion, unless some very unavoidable business interrupted him. He was a man of a cheerful and sprightly Temper, free from anything of the sourness or formality by which some great pretenders to Piety rather disparage and misrepresent true Religion than recommend it; and therefore was very affable and pleasant in his conversation, ready to do all good offices to his Friends, and Charitable to the Poor almost beyond his ability. But being removed out of the Country to the service of the late Lord Keeper Bridgman as his Chaplain, he died young and got early to those blissful Mansions to which he at all times aspir'd.

This eulogy of Traherne, it will be observed, was written twenty-five years after his death, when the writer could have had no possible motive to pen it, beyond a desire to do justice to the memory of his friend. It is a most attractive picture; but not, I am convinced, one in which truth was sacrificed to flattery. It is exactly what might have been inferred from the poems and "Centuries of Meditations"; but since it does not always happen that an author's personality tallies with that which might be deduced from his writings, it is fortunate that the impression derived from Traherne's works is thus confirmed by independent evidence. The poet was, it is plain, one of those rare and enviable individuals in whom no jarring element is present, who come into the world as into their rightful inheritance, and whose whole life is a song of thankfulness for the happiness which they enjoy in it. His was indeed

and though we, who are not so constituted, and who may question whether in a world, which to us seems to give at least as much reason for lamenting as for rejoicing, any man has a right to be so happy as Traherne was, the feeling is perhaps only an outcome of that envy which those who are tortured with a thousand doubts and misgivings must needs entertain for those who enjoy an existence of entire serenity.

It is fortunate that Traherne's friend, though he did not mention his name, yet gave us a clue to him by mentioning that he was private chaplain to Lord Keeper Bridgeman. Without this clue we should probably have had to remain in ignorance of his authorship of the poems contained in this volume: for though there was (as will be seen later on) another clue, it was hidden away so deeply that it is unlikely it would ever have been discovered. Why Traherne's friend should have thought that it was not to the purpose to tell us who he was, and yet gave us such a means of discovering him, is rather a puzzle; but we have reason to be ever grateful to him for what he has told us, while regretting that he has told us no more.

I must now give some account of Traherne's "Christian Ethicks." It is so rare a book that I have only just obtained a copy of it, after searching for it for nearly two years. Few books surely have had so unfortunate a fate. If there is a better book of its kind in the English language I have not been so fortunate as to meet with it. It is a work full of eloquence, persuasiveness, sagacity, and piety. While the author's concern, as might be expected, is chiefly with the spiritual life, he is by no means destitute of worldly wisdom, and he often exhibits a shrewdness and knowledge of human nature which would scarcely be expected from him. Open the book anywhere you please you can hardly fail to discover a fine thought finely expressed. How then shall we account for the fact that the work has remained in total obscurity from the time of its first publication to the present day? The fact that the author died before its appearance, and it was thus thrown into the world without a parent or friend to foster it, was no doubt in some degree accountable for its ill-fortune. It is true that the author makes no appeal to the uninstructed or the fanatical, and keeps throughout the work upon a higher level of thought than the generality of readers can ascend to. He is somewhat too fond of debating abstruse points of metaphysics, and of dwelling upon the subtleties of theological speculation. Yet there is in the book enough, one would think, of homely wisdom, and even of wit, to have secured it a warm welcome from all those to whom it appealed.

I think the reader—since he is not likely to obtain a copy of "Christian Ethicks," however much he may desire it—will be glad to see a few extracts from it. And first I will quote a passage from the chapter "Of Magnanimity." I do this because of its personal interest—for Traherne, in painting the character of a magnanimous man, was, whether consciously or unconsciously, drawing his own portrait. Flattering as the picture may seem, I do not doubt in the least that it is a true one.

Magnanimity and contentment are very near allied; like brothers and sisters they spring from the same parents, but are of several features. Fortitude and Patience are kindred to this incomparable virtue. Moralists distinguish Magnanimity and Modesty, by making the one the desire of greater, the other of less and inferior, honours. But in my apprehension there is more in Magnanimity. It includes all that belongs to a Great Soul: a high and mighty courage, an invincible Patience, an immoveable Grandeur which is above the reach of injuries, a contempt of all little and feeble enjoyments, and a certain kind of majesty that is conversant with great things; a high and lofty frame of spirit, allied with the sweetness of Courtesy and Respect; a deep and stable resolution founded on humility without any baseness; an infinite hope and a vast desire; a Divine, profound, uncontrollable sense of one's own capacity; a generous confidence, and a great inclination to heroical deeds; all these conspire to complete it, with a severe and mighty expectation of Bliss incomprehensible. It soars up to Heaven, and looks down upon all dominion of fortune with pity and disdain. Its aims and designs are transcendent to all concerns of this little world. Its objects and its ends are worthy of a soul that is like God in Nature; and nothing less than the Kingdom of God, his Life and Image; nothing beneath the friendship and communion with Him can be its satisfaction. The terrors, allurements, and censures of men are the dust of its feet: their avarice and ambition are but feebleness before it. Their riches and contentions, and interests and honours, but insignificant and empty trifles. All the world is but a little bubble; Infinity and Eternity the only great and sovereign things wherewith it converseth. A Magnanimous Soul is always awake. The whole globe of the earth is but a nutshell in comparison of its enjoyments. The sun is its lamp, the sea its fishpond, the stars its jewels, men, angels, its attendants, and God alone its sovereign delight and supreme complacency. The earth is its garden, all palaces its summer houses, cities are its cottages, empires its more spacious Courts, all ages and kingdoms its demeans, monarchs its ministers and public agents, the whole Catholick Church its family, the Eternal Son of God its pattern and example. Nothing is great if compared to a Magnanimous Soul but the sovereign Lord of all Worlds.

---

If you would have the character of a Magnanimous Soul, he is the son of Eternal Power, and the friend of Infinite Goodness, a Temple of Divine and Heavenly Wisdom, that is not imposed upon by the foul and ragged disguises of Nature, but acquainted with her great capacities and principles, more than commonly sensible of her interests, and depths, and desires. He is one that has gone in unto Felicity, and enjoyed her beauties, and comes out again her perfect Lover and Champion: a man whose inward stature is miraculous; and his complexion so divine that he is king of as many kingdoms as he will look on: one that scorns the smutty way of enjoying things like a slave, because he delights in the celestial way, and the Image of God. He knows that all the world lies in wickedness; and admires not at all that things palpable and near and natural, are unseen, though most powerful and glorious, because men are blind and stupid. He pities poor vicious kings that are oppressed with heavy crowns of vanity and gold, and admires how they can content themselves with such narrow territories: yet delights in their regiment of the world, and pays them the honour that is due unto them. The glorious exaltation of good kings he more abundantly extols, because so many thousand Magnanimous Creatures are committed to their trust, and they that govern them understand their value. But he sees well enough that the king's glory and true repose consists in the Catholick and Eternal kingdom. As for himself he is come unto Mount Sion, and to the City of the Living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of Angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant: and therefore receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, he desires to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: and the truth is we can fear nothing else, for God alone is a consuming fire.

The above passage is a fairly representative one. If the reader is pleased with it, he would be equally pleased with the whole work; if he sees nothing to admire in it, he may conclude that "Christian Ethicks" is not a book which has any message in it for him.

The following extract is taken from the chapter "Of Charity to our Neighbours":

That which yet further commendeth this virtue of love unto us is that it is the only soul of all pleasure and felicity in all estates. It is like the light of the sun, in all the kingdoms and houses and eyes and ages, in Heaven, in earth, in the sea, in shops and temples, in schools and markets, in labours and recreations, in theatres and fable. It is the great demon of the world, and the sole cause of all operations. It is evidently impossible for any fancy, or play, or romance, or fable to be composed well and made delightful without a mixture of Love in the composure. In all theatres and feasts and weddings and triumphs and coronations Love is the Soul and Perfection of all. In all persons, in all occupations, in all diversions, in all labours, in all virtues, in all vices, in all occasions, in all families, in all cities and empires, in all our devotions and religious actions, Love is all in all. All the sweetness of society is seated in Love, the life of music and dancing is Love; the happiness of houses, the enjoyment of friends, the amity of relations, the providence of kings, the allegiance of subjects, the glory of empires, the security, peace, and welfare of the world is seated in Love. Without Love all is discord and confusion. All blessings come upon us by Love, and by Love alone all delights and blessings are enjoyed. All happiness is established by Love, and by Love alone is Glory attained. God knoweth that Love uniteth Souls, maketh men of one heart in a house, fills them with liberality and kindness to each other, makes them delightful in presence, faithful in absence, tender of the honour and welfare of the beloved, apt to obey, ready to please, constant in trials, patient in sufferings, courageous in assaults, prudent in difficulties, victorious and triumphant. All that I shall need to observe further is that it completed the Joys of Heaven. Well, therefore, may wisdom desire Love, well may the Goodness of God delight in Love. It is the sum and glory of his Eternal Kingdom.

The following spirited, vigorous, and eloquent passage is from the chapter "Of Courage":

What a glorious and incomparable virtue this is appeareth from the baseness and ineptitude of its contrary. A coward and an honest man can never be the same; a coward and a constant lover can never be the same; cowardice and wisdom are as incompatible for ever as Love and Wisdom were thought to be of old. A coward is always despicable and wretched, because he dares not expose himself to any hazards, nor adventure upon any great attempt for fear of some little pain and damage that is between him and an excellent achievement. He is baffled from the acquisition of the most great and beautiful things, and nonplust with every impediment. He is conquered before he begins to fight. The very sight of danger makes him a slave. He is undone when he sees his enemy afar off, and wounded before the point of his sword can touch his shadow. He is all ways a terror and burden to himself, a dangerous knave, and a useless creature.

Strange is the vigour in a brave man's soul. The strength of his spirit and his irresistible power, the greatness of his heart and the height of his condition, his mighty confidence and contempt of dangers, his true security and repose in himself, his liberty to dare and do what he pleaseth, his alacrity in the midst of fears, his invincible temper, are advantages which make him master of fortune. His courage fits him for all attempts, makes him serviceable to God and man, and makes him the bulwark and defence of his being and country.

Let those debauched and unreasonable men that deny the existence of virtue contemplate the reality of its excellency here, and be confounded with shame at their prodigious blindness. Their impiety designs the abolishment of Religion, and the utter extirpation of all faith, and piety, while they pretend the distinction between virtue and vice to be merely feigned for the aweing of the world, and that their names have no foundation in Nature but the craft of politicians and the traditions of their nurses. Are there no base fellows, nor brave men in the world? Is there no difference between a Lion and a Hare? a faint-hearted Coward and a glorious Hero? Is there nothing brave nor vile in the world? What is become of these Rodomontadoes wits? Where is the boasted glory of their personal valour, if there be no difference, but courage and cowardice be the same thing?

I have marked, I find, at least twenty other passages for quotation; and indeed it would be easy to extract from the book enough notable sayings to form a pocket volume of religious and moral philosophy; but I must content myself with only one other quotation. It is from the chapter "Of Knowledge":

The sun is a glorious creature, and its beams extend to the utmost stars; by shining on them it clothes them with light, and by its rays exciteth all their influences. It enlightens the eyes of all the creatures: it shineth on forty kingdoms at the same time, on seas and continents in a general manner; yet so particularly regardeth all, that every mote in the air, every grain of dust, every spire of grass is wholly illuminated thereby as if it did entirely shine upon that alone. Nor does it only illuminate all these objects in an idle manner; its beams are operative, enter in, fill the pores of things with spirits, and impregnate them with powers, cause all their emanations, odors, virtues, and operations; springs, rivers, minerals and vegetables are all perfected by the sun; all the motion, life and sense of birds, beasts and fishes dependeth on the same. Yet the sun is but a little spark among all the creatures that are made for the Soul; the Soul, being the most high and noble of all, is capable of far higher perfections, far more full of life and vigour in its uses. The sphere of its activity is illimited, its energy is endless upon all its objects. It can exceed the heavens in its operations, and run out into infinite spaces. Such is the extent of knowledge that it seemeth to be the Light of all Eternity. All objects are equally near to the splendour of its beams: As innumerable millions may be conceived in its Light, with a ready capacity for millions more; so can it penetrate all abysses, reach to the centre of all Nature, converse with all beings, visible and invisible, corporeal and spiritual, temporal and eternal, created and increated, finite and infinite, substantial and accidental, actual and possible, imaginary and real; all the mysteries of bliss and misery, all the secrets of heaven and hell are objects of the Soul's capacity, and shall be actually seen and known here.

It seems strange indeed that no compiler in search of material for a book of selections, no student in search of forgotten excellence, no seeker for wisdom conjoined with piety, has ever lighted in his search upon "Christian Ethicks." But it came into the world in a time of general dissoluteness of manners, and amid the jarrings of contending sects and the venomous contests of political parties. Probably very few copies of the book were sold, and its rarity in after times has prevented it from becoming known to any one who had the will and the power to proclaim its merits.

"Poetry," says Milton, if he be indeed the author of "Nova Solyma," "is the impetuous rush of a mind full to overflowing, strained, exalted to its utmost powers, yea, rather, lifted into ecstacy beyond itself."[C] Could we accept this (as we cannot) as a complete definition of the poetic faculty, we might then place Traherne in the very front rank of inspired singers. It would be impossible to give a better description of the leading characteristics of his poetry than that which we find in the words of Milton. Not Milton himself, nor even Shelley, has more of the impetuous rush of a mind lifted into ecstacy beyond itself than Traherne. No poet writes with more absolute spontaneity than he. Whatever may be wanting in him, however he may occasionally fail in expression, he has always this impetuous rush, this ecstacy that rises beyond itself. A glowing ardour of conviction, a passionate spirit of love and devotion, a profound sense of the beauty and sublimity which he saw everywhere around him, a never-failing aspiration towards that Goodness which he believed to be the Fountain and the Ocean, the Beginning and the End of Things, were the sources of his inspiration, the impelling forces of his genius. Where these qualities are present their possessor can never altogether fail in expressing them, however deficient he may be in the technical accomplishments of the poet's art. These things indeed are the root, if not the flower, of all poetry worthy of the name. That Traherne was essentially a poet we might be certain even if none of his lyrical work had remained to prove it. The man who could say, "You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars"—a sentence which contains the essence of everything that has been said by the poets who have sung of the relation between the soul of man and the spirit of Nature—did not need to write in verse in order to prove that he was beyond all question a poet. There is enough of the spirit of poetry in "Christian Ethicks" and "Centuries of Meditations" to set up a dozen versifiers. It was as impossible for Traherne to see things as a Jeremy Bentham or a Cobbett saw them, as it was for either or the latter to have written the sentence I have just quoted. And who shall say that the light of imagination through which Traherne and those who resemble him behold the universe is a light which misleads them? Why should we assume that those who view it with eyes that are blind to all but its prosaic aspects are its true interpreters? Whatever else it may be, the universe, it is certain, is a marvellous and stupendous poem; and it is singular indeed if those who are insensible to this truth are able to see it in a clearer light than those who are alive to all its beauty, to all its magnificence, and to all its mystery.

With Traherne poetry was no elegant recreation, no medium for the display of a lively fancy, no means of exhibiting his skill as a master of metrical effects, but the vehicle through which he expressed his deepest convictions and his profoundest thoughts. He used it as a gift which it was his duty to employ only for the highest purposes and the most sacred ends. All that he saw, felt, and apprehended was transmuted by the alchemy of his mind into that mysterious union of thought, imagination, and expression, which we half praise and half disparage when we term it poetic inspiration. He possessed—or rather was possessed by—that "fine madness" without which no poet, painter, or musician ever yet created a work which deserved to outlive its author. He saw in the universe no "foul and pestilent congregation of vapours," but a majestic dwelling-place for gods, angels, and men. All nature to him was lovely and perfect; and if the existence of evil, injustice, and sin disquieted him for a moment he had little difficulty in persuading himself that these things were owing not to defect or imperfection in nature, but to the folly or perverseness of men in departing from it. It may indeed be said of him, as Matthew Arnold said of Wordsworth, that his eyes refused to dwell upon the darker aspects of life and nature; but that, in his case, as in Wordsworth's, was in a great degree the source of his greatness, and is the reason why he interests us. It is only those that possess an undoubting faith who can inspire it in others. It is given only to a Shakespeare or a Goethe to "see life steadily and see it whole." Almost all other authors see it, as their nature prompts them, in colours which are either too glowing or too sombre. It has been said of the author of "The City of Dreadful Night" that he was born that we might have things stated at their worst, once for all:[D] may we not likewise say of Traherne that he was born that things might be stated, once for all, at their best? Perhaps the reader may think that his poems do not justify so strong a claim; but when they are taken in conjunction with his "Christian Ethicks" and "Centuries of Meditations" I do not think it can be considered as an overstatement. Whether his moral and theological views were right or wrong, Traherne at least was warranted in holding them, because they were exactly suited to his peculiar temperament, if indeed they were not the outcome of it. Were all men blessed with so happy a disposition as his, then indeed might the world become the Eden which to him it appeared to be. He believed that all men might be as happy as he was if they would only firmly resolve to follow the path which had led him to felicity. Like all enthusiasts and most reformers of human nature or human institutions, he made the mistake of supposing that others were, or might be made, like-minded with himself, and did not take into account the infinite varieties of character and temperament which exist among mankind. But to believe that men are better and nobler is at least a less fault than to believe them to be worse and baser than they are.

To claim for Traherne a place in the front rank of poets is hardly possible. Considering his limited range of subjects, we cannot put him on an equality with the poets who have exhibited more varied powers, and shown a deeper insight into human nature. But, excluding Milton, we may at least place him in the front rank of poets of his class. It is possible my opinion may be somewhat biassed by a reason which the reader will be at no loss to divine; but I cannot help thinking that neither Herbert, Crashaw, nor Vaughan can compare with Traherne in the most essential qualities of the poet. He alone has that "impetuous rush of a mind ... lifted into ecstasy beyond itself" which Milton, as we have seen, regarded as the chief requisite of poetry. Herbert has a finer sense of proportion, a keener perception of the importance of form and measure; Vaughan appeals more strongly to the common sympathies of mankind; while Crashaw, when at his best, has more fine passages of quintessential poetry, more curious felicities of expression, than Traherne; but none of them has the vitality, the sustained enthusiasm, the power imparted by intense conviction, which we find in our author. Vitality, indeed, seems to me to be the keynote of Traherne's character. That he was himself aware of this we may see from his poem on Contentment:

Not, be it observed, the still life of contemplation or inaction, but an active, eager, energetic enjoying of life, to be so used as to get from it the utmost degree of felicity or blessedness. Traherne repudiates energetically the idea that the more unhappy we make ourselves here the greater will be our happiness hereafter. In his "Centuries of Meditations" he says:

There are Christians that place and desire all their happiness in another life, and there is another sort of Christians that desire happiness in this. The one can defer their enjoyment of wisdom to the world to come, and dispense with the increase and perfection of enjoyment for a little time; the other are instant and impatient of delay, and would fain see that happiness here which they shall enjoy hereafter.... Whether the first sort be Christians indeed, look you to that. They have much to say for themselves. Yet certainly they that put off Felicity with long delays are to be much suspected. For it is against the nature of love and desire to defer, nor can any reason be given why they should desire it at last, and not now.

While we may not claim for Traherne's work as a whole that it is of the first order of excellence, we may, I think, make that claim for some of it. We can hardly have a better test of a poet's merits than to inquire how many of his pieces are fit to take their place in such anthologies as the "Golden Treasury," or Mr. Quiller-Couch's "Oxford Book of English Verse." Judged in this way Traherne makes, I think, a very good showing, considering (as I have elsewhere explained) that we possess only a part of his poetical works, and that what we have had probably not received his final revision. Were I asked to name the pieces which, in my opinion, deserve the honour which I have mentioned, I think my first choice would fall upon "The Salutation," "Wonder," "The Approach," "The Circulation," "Desire," "Goodness," and "On News."[E] I am not at all sure, however, that this is the best selection that could be made. "Innocence," "The Rapture," "Silence," "The Choice," "The Person," "The Recovery," "Love," and "Thoughts—I. and II." have perhaps equal or almost equal claims to be included in a list of Traherne's best work. But individual tastes differ so much that I daresay other readers would make another choice, for Traherne is a remarkably equal writer, and does not often fall below his own level of excellence. Yet all the poems I have mentioned, fine as they are when standing alone, gain considerably when they are read as parts of a continuous poem, the subject of which is the history of the author's progress in his pilgrimage towards the kingdom of perfect Blessedness. He too, like Bunyan's pilgrim, found difficulties and dangers in the way; but with him it was rather a triumphant progress from victory to victory than a long and bitter struggle against enemies who might at any time have overcome him. Very few of his poems dwell upon his discouragements; most of them are songs of rejoicing for victories achieved or happiness attained.

In the last analysis it will always be found that it is the poet himself and not his poetry that has the greatest interest for us. Unless he is interesting in himself he will not interest us in his writings. No amount of study and pains will suffice to render the work of a shallow and commonplace personality interesting to us. From the strong only shall sweetnesss come forth. I do not know whether I have succeeded in any degree in convincing the reader that Traherne was, both as a man and as a poet, a very interesting character; but if I have not, the fault assuredly is mine, and not his. We may study him in two aspects: firstly, as a representative of the poetic temperament; and secondly, as a representative of the religious idiosyncrasy in conjunction with the poetic—for religion in many of its professors is often enough altogether disjoined from any tincture of poetry. In both aspects we have ample materials for studying him: and I cannot help thinking that few writers of his age are better worth studying.

Were Traherne a smaller man than he is, and therefore less able to afford to have the whole truth told about him, I should hesitate long before printing the following remarks on some of his shortcomings. It is the less needful to attempt to conceal his defects, since they are for the greater part the defects of his qualities, and therefore inseparable from them. Constituted as he was, it was not possible for him to see things in a wholly clear and uncoloured light. He is elevated so high above ordinary humanity that he is unable to see clearly what is so much beneath him. Nor is it always easy for us, the dwellers upon the plain, to ascend to his altitude. He is so exempt from the ordinary failings of humanity that we feel almost as if he belonged to a different race. He died a bachelor, and I do not find anything in his writings which shows that he ever experienced the passion of love in relation to the female sex. His love for the divine seems to have swallowed up all thought of sexual love, though not his love for humanity in the mass. He is sometimes so mystical or metaphysical that the ordinary reader finds it difficult to comprehend him. But, after all, if the reader will only exercise a little patience and be at the expense of a little thought, he will not find it hard to understand the poet, even in his most difficult passages. Those who are able to follow Browning through all his intricacies will find no knot in Traherne which they will not easily unravel.

The charge which is most likely to be pressed against Traherne is that he appears to have been a man of few ideas, and is consequently much given to repetition of thoughts and even of words and phrases. That there is some foundation for this charge may be admitted, but it is nevertheless unjust. No one, after the examination of his manuscripts and of his two published works, could believe it. A scholar so well versed in the classics, a student so eager for knowledge of all kinds, a thinker so acute, could not possibly be a man of narrow ideas and restricted sympathies. What is true, however, is that his mind dwelt with so much delight upon certain thoughts that it was continually recurring to them, setting them in different lights, and repeating them, even as a musician will execute ever-new variations upon a favourite theme. Those who care for Traherne's themes will not complain that he dwells too much upon them.

It must be owned, I think, that while Traherne is usually happy in the selection of his themes, he is sometimes less happy in developing and expressing them. Lines which leave something to be desired in smoothness (though he is not usually chargeable with this fault, his handling of the heroic couplet being particularly good), and now and then lines which to our modern ideas appear to be somewhat prosaic, are certainly to be found in his poems, and do, to a small extent, interfere with the reader's pleasure in them. But for such faults as these we ought surely to make large allowance. The reader should, and doubtless will, remember that he has before him a work for which the author himself has but a limited responsibility. Had he himself published the poems we should have been entitled to think that he deliberately chose to give them to the world with all their faults upon them. As it is, I think we may assume that had he lived to publish them they would have undergone a good deal of revision before they were sent forth to the world. Most of their defects are such as might be easily remedied, and such, indeed, as it was sometimes hard to refrain from remedying. But I have resisted all such temptations, and have confined myself to the task of making the printed text as nearly as possible a reproduction of the original manuscripts. The reader will gather from the facsimile of one of Traherne's poems, which I have given as a frontispiece to this volume, a good general idea as to the character of his handwriting, his spelling, and his punctuation. It would have been an interesting thing could the whole of Traherne's poems have been reproduced in the same style, for, as the reader will see, there is a picturesqueness, a beauty, and a life about the manuscripts which is lost in the cold regularity of type. Some readers may perhaps think that it would have been better to follow the author's original spelling and punctuation; but after giving full consideration to this point, it did not seem advisable to do this. Traherne's spelling is by no means uniform—Deity, for instance, is sometimes "Dietie" and sometimes "Deitie"—and his punctuation, which is, I think, quite peculiar to himself, differs so much from our modern practice, that if it had been reproduced without modification it would often have obscured his meaning and puzzled the reader without any compensating advantage.

Traherne, as will be perceived from the frontispiece, made much use of capital letters and occasionally of italics in his writings. This was the custom of the time, as any one who examines a seventeenth-century printed book will see. In the first edition of this book I preserved most of the author's capitals and italicised passages: but here I have thought it unnecessary to do so. Upon the whole there seemed to be no advantage in retaining them, since they look a little odd to eyes accustomed to the uniformity of modern typography. In the case of the poems taken from "Christian Ethicks," however, I have preserved the old spelling and the capitals very nearly as they appear in the book.

Traherne, so far as English authors were concerned, was very little indebted to his predecessors. He was, of course, greatly influenced by the writers of the Old and New Testaments, from whom he is continually quoting in his "Christian Ethicks." Next to the Scriptures, the book which seems most to have influenced him was that ancient mystical and philosophical work which is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Those who are well acquainted with that remarkable production will find frequent traces of its influence in the prose and verse of Traherne. He gives several extracts from it in "Christian Ethicks," and in his "Commonplace Book" there are continual references to it. It might almost be said that, after the Bible, it was his chief manual of philosophy and of divine wisdom.

That Traherne was well acquainted with the writings of Herbert is evident from the fact that in one of his manuscript books he has copied out that writer's poem, "To all Angels and Saints"; but I do not find any traces of Herbert's influence upon him either in prose or verse. Nor do I find any proof that he was acquainted with the writings of Vaughan. The resemblance between Traherne's line,

and Vaughan's reference to his "angel infancy" is probably no more than an accidental coincidence. Though their points of view were similar in many respects, Traherne possessed a much stronger personality than Vaughan, and therefore had little or nothing to learn from him. It is likely enough that he owed something to Donne, as most of the poets of his time did; but I do not find any clear indications of that poet's influence in his writings. Traherne's style, indeed, is that of his age, but as to his matter, few poets, I think, can boast of more originality.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Traherne's poetry is that it anticipates so much that seems to belong to much later periods of our literary history. Traherne, indeed, is likely to suffer to some extent in his reputation because ideas which with him were certainly original—or at least as much so as any ideas in any poets can be said to be original—have since become commonplaces in our literature. The praise of the beauty and innocence of childhood is familiar enough to us now, and has, perhaps, in some instances been carried to a rather ridiculous extreme. That certainly was not the case in Traherne's time. So far as I know, he was the first who dwelt upon those ideas in any other than an incidental and allusive manner. It is true that we find in Vaughan some passages of a similar tendency, but they are few and slight in comparison with those which we find in Traherne. If there are similar passages in other poets previous to, or contemporary with, the latter, I must confess that I am unacquainted with them. Nor were the poetical possibilities of the theme discovered until more than a century afterwards, when William Blake, who by the light of genius—or shall we say lunacy?—discovered so much else, discovered them. It was fitting, indeed, that Blake, whose youthful experiences seem to have more nearly resembled Traherne's than those of any other poet, should have followed all unknowingly in the elder writer's footsteps. Had he ever sat down to record the events of his infancy and childhood, Blake's narrative, I think, however different in detail, must have been like that of his predecessor in its chief features. I do not believe that there is any point out of all those which I have quoted respecting Traherne's childhood which Blake might not also have recorded of himself. Much as they differed in matters of faith, there was a deep and fundamental agreement in character and temperament between the two poets. To both of them the things seen by their imaginations were more real than the things seen with the eye, and to neither of them was there any dividing line between the natural and the supernatural. Their faiths were founded upon intuition rather than reason, and they were no more troubled by doubt or disbelief than a mountain is. Their capacity for faith was infinite, and stopped short only when their imagination failed them—if it ever did fail them.

Another poet with whom Traherne has some remarkable affinities is Wordsworth—not the Wordsworth of later life, when his poetic vein, if not exhausted, had at least grown thin and unproductive, but the Wordsworth of the magnificent ode "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." Let the reader once more peruse that poem, and note carefully the leading points in it. Then let him, bearing in mind the foregoing extracts from Traherne's "Centuries of Meditations," go carefully through the various poems in which the earlier poet celebrates the happiness of his infancy and childhood. When he has done this, let him ask himself if he would have believed that Wordsworth was unacquainted with Traherne's writings, supposing that they had been published before the later poet's time? I cannot think myself that it would have been easy in that case to think that the modern poet was entirely unindebted to the older one. It is hardly too much to say that there is not a thought of any value in Wordsworth's Ode which is not to be found in substance in Traherne. Of course, I do not say this with any view of disparaging Wordsworth, whose Ode, even if it had been, as we know it was not, derived from Traherne, would still have been a masterpiece. Its merit, like that of Gray's "Elegy," depends at least as much upon its form as upon its substance, and that, of course, was all Wordsworth's own. It is in a measure a testimony to the authentic character of their inspiration when two poets, unknown to each other, produce works which are so nearly identical in substance and spirit.

The reader will remember that Traherne in his youth determined to follow the bent of his own inclination at whatever cost of poverty or want of worldly success. That was the case also with Wordsworth. Another point in which, as it seems to me, they resembled each other was in the matter of poetic style. At first sight, indeed, there does not appear to be any likeness between them in this respect; yet, allowing for the difference in their times and their temperaments, I think we may find a good deal of similarity. Traherne's style, allowing for the nature of his subjects, is always simple and direct. His aim is to affect the minds of his readers by the weight of his thought and the enthusiasm of his utterance, not to astonish them by far-fetched metaphors or delight them with dulcet melodies. He has no ornament for ornament's sake, and he never attempts to clothe his "naked simple thought" in silken raiment or cloth of gold. He does not indulge in the metaphysical conceits and ingenuities with which the works of Donne and Cowley are so plentifully besprinkled. "Poetic diction" was as little sought for by him as by Wordsworth. He did not, however, fall into the error that Wordsworth sometimes did, of mistaking puerility for simplicity. I do not wish to press this point too far. I only desire to show that both poets were more solicitous about the substance than the form of their poetry. Wordsworth would have heartily endorsed the doctrine of Traherne that the best things are the commonest, and that natural objects and not artificial inventions are the true well-springs of delight.

Though the reader will, I hope, have agreed with my contention that Traherne anticipated a good many poetical ideas which have been thought to belong to much later dates, I can hardly expect him to accept without demur the claim I am now about to make on the poet's behalf. That Traherne had a considerable genius for metaphysics will be evident to any one who reads his "Christian Ethicks," or who studies at all carefully the contents of the present volume. But to claim that he was the originator of the metaphysical system which, since it was first made known, has created more discussion and exercised more influence than any other has done, will probably seem at first to be a very extravagant assertion. Yet that he had at least a clear prevision of that famous system which is known as the Berkeleian philosophy is, I think, incontestable. That theory, it seems to me, could hardly be stated in a clearer or more precise manner than it is in Traherne's poem entitled "My Spirit." I am much mistaken if the theory of "the non-existence of independent matter," which is the essence of Berkeley's system, is not to be found in this poem—not, it is true, stated as a philosophical dogma, but yet clearly implied, and not merely introduced as a flight of poetical fancy. It seems to me that if the following stanza from that poem is not altogether meaningless, no other construction can be placed upon it than that its author was a Berkeleian before Berkeley was born: