Works of Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes)

and he believed himself to have entered deeply into the realm of natural secrets.¹ The next traceable event is the publication of Euphrates, his last text, in 1655.² There follows another period of silence, but on April 17, 1658, we learn by his own testimony³ that Rebecca Vaughan died, and was buried at Mappersall in Bedfordshire.⁴ It was the great grief of his life, as the private memorials shew, and he was presumably henceforth alone, for there is no reason to think that a son was born to the marriage, as inferred by one writer.⁵

Thomas Vaughan was now about thirty-six years of age and had not reached therefore the prime of life; but he disappears from the field of authorship, and all that we can glean concerning him is contained by a few lines in the biographical notice of Wood. He is said to have been under the protection and patronage of Sir Robert Murray, Secretary of State for Scotland in the days of the Commonwealth,⁶ but also a persona grata under the Restoration in those of Charles II. When the plague of 1665 drove the Court from London to Oxford Thomas Vaughan went thither with his patron, and a little later took up his residence with the Rector of Albury, the Rev. Sam. Kem,⁷ at whose house, on February 27 of that year, he was killed by an explosion in the course of chemical experiments. He is said to have been buried on March 1 in the church of Albury

¹ See Appendix I.
² See, however, Appendix IX, s.v. Attributed Works, according to which Eugenius Philalethes published a translation of Nollius in 1657.
³ Appendix I, p. 446.
⁴ Mr E. K. Chambers obtained the following extract from the Register of Mappersall :—1658. Buried : Rebecka, the Wife of Mr Vahanne, the 26th of April.
⁵ Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. Thomas Vaughan.
⁶ Wood: Athenæ Oxonienses.
⁷ Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. Samuel Kem. He was on the Parliamentary side in the days of the Civil War, and was notorious for fighting, preaching and plundering; but he became a convinced loyalist at the Restoration. It is difficult to understand Vaughan's connection with this dissolute character.