Works of Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes)

village "by the care and charge of the said Sir Robert Murray."¹ This is on the authority of Wood and is supported by Henry Vaughan in his Elegiac Eclogue, to be quoted later. The "care and charge" must have meant something more than burial fees, and there is a tradition that a monument was erected. If so, all trace of it has vanished, and the registers of Albury contain no record of Vaughan's interment.² It seems to follow that we know as much and as little about the passing of Thomas Vaughan as might be expected from his literary importance and repute at that period.³ His little books could have appealed to a few only, though it may be granted that occult philosophy was a minor fashion of the time. He was satirised by Samuel Butler in his CHARACTER OF AN HERMETIC PHILOSOPHER,⁴ and — as some say — also in HUDIBRAS itself. Among his contemporaries therefore he was not at least unknown.

I proceed now to the consideration of a somewhat involved question. Thomas Vaughan published AULA LUCIS, one of the later texts, under his terminal initials,

¹ ATHENÆ OXONIENSES. But the letter of Henry Vaughan to John Aubrey says only that his brother died "upon an employment for His Majesty."
² He gave all his books and MSS. to Sir Robert Murray.
³ THE DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY is wrong in supposing that the will of Thomas Vaughan is in Somerset House — reference 53 MICO — though there is one of a person bearing that name. He was, however, of Cropredy in Oxfordshire, and a son William, to whom he bequeathed most of his property, was the father of four children at the date of making the will — namely, February 17th, 1662-63 — whereas any issue of Thomas Vaughan of Newton and Rebecca his wife would have been only about ten years old at that period.
⁴ The satire remained in MS. for something like a century. It is certain that Butler intended to depict Vaughan and was acquainted with some of his writings. The Hermetic Philosopher in question "adored" Cornelius Agrippa, magnified the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, was at war with the schoolmen, recommended Sendivogius and the ENCHIRIDION of Jean d'Espagnet — to all of which Vaughan answers. See THE GENUINE REMAINS of Mr Samuel Butler . . . From the original MSS. . . . by R. Thyer, vol. ii, p. 225 et seq., 1759. The suggestion that Ralpho the squire of Hudibras was also intended for Vaughan can have been made by no one acquainted with the works of Eugenius Philalethes. There is no vestige of similitude.