Henry Vaughan Critical Essay | Poem by Nathaniel Williams

Poem by Nathaniel Williams

SOURCE: "To the Ingenious Author of Thalia Rediviva," in The Works in Verse and Prose Complete of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Vol. II, edited by Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, Blackburn, 1871, pp. 190-92.

Williams was a friend and admirer of Vaughan. In the following poem, which prefaces Thalia Rediviva (1678), he praises Vaughan as one blessed by the poetic Muse to lead readers into the path of Virtue. (Williams's "an immortal offering" concludes an allusion to Vaughan's translation of Claudian's "Phoenix" in Thalia Rediviva.)