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:
This made me present evermore
With whatsoe'er I saw.
An object, if it were before
My eyes, was by Dame Nature's law
Within my soul. Her store
Was all at once within me: all Her treasures
Were my immediate and internal pleasures,
Substantial joys which did inform my Mind.
With all She wrought
My Soul was fraught
And every object in my Heart a Thought
Begot or was; I could not tell
Whether the things did there
Themselves appear,
Which in my Spirit truly seem'd to dwell;
_Or whether my conforming Mind
Were not even all that therein shin'd_.
The idea that matter has no existence, apart from its existence in the
Spirit of the Eternal, or in the soul of man, is surely clearly, if
not positively, advanced in the last six lines of the above stanza.
The thought, so strangely fascinating to a poet--and Berkeley no
less than Traherne was one--that the whole exterior universe is not
really a thing apart from and independent of man's consciousness of
it, but something which exists only as it is perceived, is undeniably
to be found in "My Spirit." I have quoted only one stanza of it, but
the whole poem should be carefully studied, for it is throughout an
assertion of the supremacy of mind over matter, and an averment that it
is the former and not the latter which has a real existence. If it be
thought that it is going too far to say that the Berkeleian system is
to be found in the poem--which of course it is not as a reasoned-out
and complete theory--it yet cannot be denied that it is there in germ
and in such a form that it only required to be seized upon by an acute
intellect to be developed in the way Berkeley developed it. That the
latter knew nothing of Traherne's poem is certain, and therefore I am
not attempting to detract in any way from the credit which belongs to
him. I am only anxious to give the poet his due as the first who caught
a glimpse of so notable a truth or error--which ever it may be.[F]
Deeply as Traherne was penetrated with a sense of the glory of the
universe, and of the infinite greatness of its Creator, it was with
no sense of abasement that he contemplated them. He felt that in his
own soul, so capable of the sublimest conceptions and the most exalted
aspirations, there must needs be a divine element. He was no outcast
thrust out of Eden into a wilderness of spiritual destitution, but the
son of a loving Father, born to a splendid inheritance, and at least
as necessary to the Deity as servants and dependents are to keep up
the state and dignity of a king. If God confers benefits on man it
is in order that He may witness man's delight in them and gratitude
for them. To see this is a supreme delight to Him, and without it
there would be something wanting to His felicity. But I must quote a
stanza from "The Recovery," lest the reader should think that I am
misrepresenting the poet:
For God enjoy'd is all His End.
Himself He then doth comprehend
When He is blessed, magnified,
Extoll'd, exalted, prais'd and glorified,
Honor'd, esteem'd, belov'd, enjoy'd,
Admired, sanctified, obey'd,
That is received. For _He_
Doth place His whole Felicity
In that, _who is despised and defied,
Undeified almost if once denied_.
Matthew Arnold said of Goethe that he
Neither made man too much a God
Nor God too much a man.
That could hardly be said of Traherne. It is scarcely possible, I
think, to deny that in the above-quoted passage he committed the fault
of making "God too much a man." That, however, was a fault which he
shared with most of the theologians of his time. Perhaps it is a fault
which is almost inseparable from a sincere and fervent faith. Without
refining away the conception of God to a mere abstraction, it is
impossible to think of Him otherwise than as an infinitely magnified
and glorified man. Since the human mind is so constituted, it is surely
vain to attempt to set limits within which we are to think of Him.
Every man will do this according to the law of his own temperament.
The man of cool reason and well-controlled passions will form a
very different conception of the Deity from the man of enthusiastic
disposition and ardent emotions. To think of the Deity as "a power not
ourselves which makes for righteousness" is no more possible for a
Traherne, than it is for an Arnold to think of God as One
who is despised and defied,
Undeified almost if once denied.
To make all men think alike, whether on political, moral, or
theological subjects, is now seen by all but a very few reactionaries
to be an impossible task. It is needless to defend Traherne for the
views he took regarding the relations between God and man; I have only
thought it expedient to show that the line he followed was that to
which he was impelled by the character of his individuality.
An excellent poet, a prose-writer of equal or perhaps greater
excellence, an exemplary preacher and teacher, who gave in his own
person an example of the virtues which he inculcated, one with whom
religion was not a garment to be put on, but the life of his life and
the spring of all his actions--such was Thomas Traherne. Much as I
dissent from his opinions, and much as my point of view as regards the
meaning and the purpose of life differs from his, I have yet found it
easy to appreciate the fineness of his character, and the charm of
his writings. It is not necessary that we should believe as Traherne
believed in order to derive benefit from his works. Men of all faiths
may study them with profit, and derive from them a new impulse towards
that "plain living and high thinking" by which alone happiness can be
reached and peace of mind assured.
* * * * *
It remains for me to tell the strange story of the fate of Traherne's
manuscripts after his death. They passed, we may reasonably suppose,
together with his books, into the hands of his brother Philip,
as directed in his will. Philip Traherne, I imagine, was in some
way--perhaps by marriage--connected with a family named Skipp, which
dwelt at Ledbury, in Herefordshire. These Skipps appear to have become
the owners and custodians of the poet's remains; and in their hands
they probably rested down to the year 1888, when it seems that the
property belonging to the family was dispersed. Into what hands the
Traherne manuscripts then fell cannot now be ascertained; but it was
certainly into hands that were ignorant of their value. In the latter
part of 1896, or the early months of 1897, some of them had descended
to the street bookstall, that last hope of books and manuscripts
in danger of being consigned to the waste-paper mills. Here, most
fortunately, two of them were discovered by my friend, Mr. William
T. Brooke, who acquired them at the price of a few pence. They could
hardly have fallen into better hands, for Mr. Brooke's knowledge of our
poetical literature, and especially of sacred poetry and hymnology,
is no less remarkable for its extent than for its exactness. As soon
as he could find time to examine the manuscripts he at once saw that
they were of great interest and value. He could hardly imagine that
writings so admirable could be the work of an unknown author; and
he at length came to the conclusion, from the fact that the poems
resembled those of Henry Vaughan in their subjects and partly in their
sentiments, that they must be his. This was an unfortunate idea, since
it caused a considerable delay in the tracing out of the real author.
Mr. Brooke communicated his discovery to the late Dr. Grosart, who
became so much interested in the matter that he purchased the two
manuscripts. He, too, after some waverings of opinion, during which
he was disposed to attribute the manuscripts, first to Theophilus
Gale, and secondly to Thomas Vaughan, became convinced that they must
be Henry Vaughan's. Under this persuasion he prepared for the press
a most elaborate edition of Vaughan's works, in which the matter
contained in the manuscripts was to be included. This edition he was,
at the time of his death, endeavouring to find means to publish. That
the work thus projected was not actually published must, I think,
be regarded as a fortunate circumstance. Whether the poems, on the
authority of Dr. Grosart, would have been accepted as Vaughan's, can
only be conjectured; but it seems probable that they would, since it
is unlikely that any critic, however much he might have doubted their
imputed authorship, would have been able to trace out the real author.
An irreparable injury would thus have been inflicted upon Traherne,
while Vaughan would have received an unneeded accession of fame, at
the expense of puzzling all readers of a critical disposition by the
exhibition of inconsistent and irreconcilable qualities.
Upon Dr. Grosart's death his library was purchased by the well-known
bookseller, Mr. Charles Higham, of Farringdon Street. Included in it
were the two Traherne manuscript volumes. Having learned from Mr.
Brooke the story of the manuscripts, and that they were in Mr. Higham's
hands, I became interested in the matter, and ultimately purchased
them. Afterwards, when a part of Dr. Grosart's library was sold at
Sotheby's, I became the possessor of the third manuscript volume, which
their late owner appears not to have known to be Traherne's, though
nothing is needed but to compare it with the other volumes in order to
see that all three are in the same handwriting.
It is due to Mr. Higham to say that he most liberally allowed me to
examine the manuscripts before purchasing them, so that I might form my
own opinion as to their authorship. I need not say that I should have
been delighted if I could have come to the same conclusion that Mr.
Brooke and Dr. Grosart had arrived at. Inclination and interest alike
impelled me to take their view. But when I sat down to read the poems
and to compare them with the acknowledged writings of Henry Vaughan, I
soon began to doubt, and it required but a little time for that doubt
to develop into a conviction that whoever might have been their author,
they were assuredly not written by the Silurist. It is true that the
poems deal, as most of Vaughan's do, solely with religious or moral
subjects, and that the author dwells continually, as Vaughan did, upon
the subjects of childhood and innocence; and that both authors display
the same love of nature and of a simple and natural life. It is true
also that we find both poets making use of some rather uncommon words
and phrases, and that we find in both the same free use of defective
rhymes. These resemblances, however, are merely superficial. In all
the deeper matters of style, thought, and temperament, Traherne and
Vaughan were as far apart as any two men, animated as both were by a
deep spirit of piety and beneficence, could well be. To me, had there
been no other difference, one striking note of dissimilarity would
have sufficed to prove that the poems in manuscript and those of
Vaughan could not have proceeded from the same pen. In the manuscript
poems an ever-present quality is a passionate fervour of thought, an
intense ardour of enthusiasm, which is not to be found, or at least
only rarely, in Vaughan's works. Restrained emotion, expressed in
verse which moves slowly and not without effort, is, it seems to me,
the leading characteristic of Vaughan's poetry; emotion in full flood,
expressed in lively and energetic diction, is that of Traherne's. With
Traherne all nature is bathed in warmth and light: with Vaughan we feel
sensible of a certain coolness of temperament, and are conscious that
he rejoices rather in the twilight than in the radiance of noonday.
With the conviction that the poems could not be Vaughan's, while yet it
seemed unlikely that they could be the work of an altogether unknown or
unpractised writer, I began to search for indications by which their
author might possibly be discovered. Here again I found Mr. Brooke's
assistance most valuable. To an edition of Giles Fletcher's "Christ's
Victory and Triumph," which he had edited, he had appended a number of
previously uncollected seventeenth-century poems. Among these was one
entitled "The Ways of Wisdom." To this poem he now drew my attention,
as he had previously drawn Dr. Grosart's. It was at once evident to
me that its style was very similar to that of the manuscript poems.
In fact, that poem, as any reader will see who cares to study it in
comparison with the other poems in this volume, presents such strong
resemblances and parallels with them that it is hardly too much to
say that the question as to their common authorship might have been
rested entirely upon it. However, it was of course desirable to find
further evidence. Mr. Brooke told me that he had found the poem in a
little book in the British Museum, entitled "A Serious and Patheticall
Contemplation of the Mercies of God, in several most Devout and Sublime
Thanksgivings for the same."[G] The book, Mr. Brooke also told me,
contained other pieces in verse. These I desired him to copy out. When
he had done so it at once became evident to me that the author of the
manuscript poems and of the "Devout and Sublime Thanksgivings" must
be, beyond all doubt, one and the same person. The fact was as clearly
demonstrated to my mind as the truths of the multiplication table. That
point being settled, the next thing was to discover, if possible, who
was the author of the "Devout and Sublime Thanksgivings." That might
have remained unknown to the end of time, but for one clue which the
book luckily afforded. This was, as the reader has seen, the statement
in the "Address to the Reader" that the author was private chaplain to
Sir Orlando Bridgman. This clue had only to be patiently followed up
to lead to the discovery of the author's name. This Mr. Brooke at last
found to be Thomas Traherne. It was from Wood's _Athenæ Oxonienses_
that the information was obtained, and from that we also learned that
Traherne was the author of two books, "Roman Forgeries" and "Christian
Ethicks." The next step was to examine these works to see if any
evidence could be found which would connect them with the author of the
manuscripts. That evidence was found in "Christian Ethicks." This was
the poem which the reader will find on p. 157. The same poem, though in
a shorter form and with a good many textual variations, appears in the
manuscript "Centuries of Meditations" (see p. 134). Here then was proof
positive that Traherne and no other was the author of the manuscripts
in my possession. Though I did not require this evidence myself, it
was fortunate it was found, since its discovery put the matter beyond
all doubt. Will the reader accuse me of undue vanity if I say that it
was with a good deal of self-satisfaction, and no little rejoicing,
that I welcomed this confirmation of the opinion which I had formed
solely upon critical grounds? One might be tempted to think that the
whole train of circumstances by which Traherne was discovered, first to
be the author of the anonymous "Thanksgivings," and through that of the
more important manuscripts, has the appearance of being something more
than the work of chance, were it not that their long concealment, their
narrow escape from entire destruction, and the fact that the verses
printed in the present volume form only a part of Traherne's poetical
works, seem to forbid us to entertain such an idea.[H]
The manuscripts from which the contents of this book have been derived
are three in number. They consist of one folio and two octavo volumes.
The folio volume contains all the poems from "The Salutation" to
"Goodness" which are here printed. The same volume contains a large
number of prose essays and memoranda alphabetically arranged so as to
form a kind of commonplace book. The greater part of these are in a
handwriting which differs from Traherne's. They appear to have been
written by a friend of the poet's, since Traherne has in many cases
added remarks of his own to those in the other writer's handwriting.
I believe it was Dr. Grosart's intention to print the whole of this
material; but although it certainly has a curious interest, it does
not appear to me that it is worth while to publish it at present. Some
parts of this commonplace book appear to have been used as material for
"Christian Ethicks" and "Centuries of Meditations"; and the whole of
it, as might be expected, is more like the notes of a student than the
finished work of an essayist.
The second manuscript volume contains Traherne's "Centuries of
Meditations," which I have already described and quoted largely from.
The third volume contains Traherne's private religious meditations,
devotions, and prayers. It is in this latter volume that the "Hymn on
St. Bartholomew's Day," a facsimile of which is given as a frontispiece
to the present volume, is found.
I must not conclude without thanking my friends, G. Thorn Drury and E.
V. Lucas, to both of whom I am indebted for many valuable suggestions.
I have also to thank the Rev. Canon Beeching for similar and not less
appreciated assistance. Thanks are due also to the Rev. J. C. Foster,
who drew my attention to the passage in Aubrey's "Miscellanies"
relating to Traherne's visions, and to Miss Isabel Southall, who
searched diligently, though without success, to find out the time and
place of Traherne's birth. I have already acknowledged my obligations
to Mr. W. T. Brooke, Mr. E. H. W. Dunkin, and Mr. Gordon Goodwin.
THE SALUTATION
I
These little limbs,
These eyes and hands which here I find,
These rosy cheeks wherewith my life begins,
Where have ye been? behind
What curtain were ye from me hid so long,
Where was, in what abyss, my speaking tongue?
II
When silent I
So many thousand, thousand years
Beneath the dust did in a chaos lie,
How could I smiles or tears,
Or lips or hands or eyes or ears perceive?
Welcome ye treasures which I now receive.
III
I that so long
Was nothing from eternity,
Did little think such joys as ear or tongue
To celebrate or see:
Such sounds to hear, such hands to feel, such feet,
Beneath the skies on such a ground to meet.
IV
New burnisht joys!
Which yellow gold and pearls excel!
Such sacred treasures are the limbs in boys,
In which a soul doth dwell;
Their organised joints and azure veins
More wealth include than all the world contains.
V