f Meditations_, never
published; and certain poems, which also he left in manuscript. And there
the record ends.

Next let us tell by how strange a chance this forgotten author came to his
own. In 1896 or 1897 Mr. William T. Brooke picked up two volumes of MS.
on a street bookstall, and bought them for a few pence. Mr. Brooke
happened to be a man learned in sacred poetry and hymnology, and he no
sooner began to examine his purchase than he knew that he had happened on
a treasure. At the same time he could hardly believe that writings so
admirable were the work of an unknown author. In choice of subject, in
sentiment, in style, they bore a strong likeness to the poems of Henry
Vaughan the Silurist, and he concluded that they must be assigned to
Vaughan. He communicated his discovery to the late Dr. Grosart, who
became so deeply interested in it that he purchased the manuscripts and
set about preparing an edition of Vaughan, in which the newly-found
treasures were to be included. Dr. Grosart, one may say in passing, was
by no means a safe judge of characteristics in poetry. With all his
learning and enthusiasm you could not trust him, having read a poem with
which he was unacquainted or which perchance he had forgotten, to assign
it to its true or even its probable author. But when you hear that so
learned a man as Dr. Grosart considered these writings worthy of Vaughan,
you may be the less apt to think me extravagant in holding that man to
have been Vaughan's peer who wrote the following lines:--

"How like an Angel came I down!
How bright are all things here!
When first among His works I did appear
how their Glory me did crown!
The world resembled His Eternity,
In which my soul did walk;
And everything that I did see
Did with me talk.

"The streets were paved with golden stones,
The boys and girls were mine,
O how did all their lovely faces shine!
The sons of men were holy ones;
In joy and beauty they appeared to me:
And everything which here I found,
While like an angel I did see,
Adorned the ground."

'Proprieties.'--

That is to say, 'properties,' 'estates.'--

"Proprieties themselves were mine,
And hedges ornaments,
Walls, boxes, coffers, and their rich contents
Did not divide my joys, but all combine.
Clothes, ribbons, jewels, laces, I esteemed
My joys