bounded with the sky,
Whose power, whose act, whose essence was to see,[19]

he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in the year 1652, being made B.A.
in 1656, M.A. in 1661, and Bachelor of Divinity in 1669. He was
admitted in 1657 to the Rectory of Credenhill, near Hereford, where he
remained for about ten years, and in 1667 he was made chaplain to Sir
Orlando Bridgman, in whose service he died in 1674, and was buried
"under the reading-desk" in the church at Teddington near Hampton Court.

During his lifetime he published _Roman Forgeries_ (1673), an
unimportant work, and had begun the publication of his _Christian
Ethics_, which appeared, after his death, in 1675. His _Poems_ and his
_Centuries of Meditations_ remained in MS. unknown until they were
discovered in a London bookstall about the year 1897, and their
authorship was proved by Bertram Dobell who published the _Poems_ in
1903, and the _Centuries of Meditations_ in 1908. There still remains
in MS. an octavo volume of meditations and devotions.

Traherne's poems show that he always dwelt near the {328} gate of
Heaven and was easily aware of the "ancient Light of Eden." An
accidental bit of gossip, reported in John Aubrey's _Miscellanies_,
indicates that he was subject to psychical experiences of an unusual
sort, and the poet himself has reported an impressive crisis-experience
when he chose his destiny and settled his preference for inward
treasures, even though it meant, as with George Fox, the wearing of a
leather suit.

"When I came into the country, and being seated among silent trees, and
meads 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
that 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 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 m