HENRY VAUGHAN

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 141, 18 June 1927, Page 21

HENRY VAUGHAN

POET AND MYSTIC.

"Oii the .Poems of Henry Vaughan." By Edmund Blunden. London: B. Cobden-Saunderson.

Henry Vaughan, the Welsh poet and mystic, the latest of the so-called metaphysical school of the 17th century, was described by a contemporary as "an ingenious person, but proud and humorous." . "His present game is one of tho best practical arguments that the good thing is strong enough to pass through all tho obstacles and shadows of a period into a permanent and conspicuous 'renown," says Mr. Blunden, and there .is small doubt that Henry Vaughan is numbered amongst the immortals. ■■':'.:■ Before he becamo a physician he and his twin brother addressed some Latin verses of gratitude to his tutor, and throughout: his life ho expressed his thought and feelings poetically. Extraordinarily narrow in his outlook on some subjects, Vaughan, nevertheless, allowed his imagination full play, and there is no doubt that his imaginative outlook upon Nature influenced Wordsworth. This: little volume endeavours to penetrate behind the veil of Vaughan'a musings and throws a flood of light on to the interpretation of his verso, being altogether a valuable little handbook on tho writings of this mystical popt.