eserved, and indeed his very existence
had been forgotten until some of his MS. were discovered on a bookstall
in 1896, without, however, anything to identify the author. Their
discoverer, Mr. W.T. Brooke, was inclined to attribute them to Henry
Vaughan (_q.v._), in which he was supported by Dr. Grosart (_q.v._), and
the latter was about to bring out a new ed. of Vaughan's poems in which
they were to be included. This was, however, prevented by his death. The
credit of identification is due to Mr. Bertram Dobell, who had become the
possessor of another vol. of MS., and who rejecting, after due
consideration, the claims of Vaughan, followed up the very slender clues
available until he had established the authorship of Traherne. All the
facts that his diligent investigations were successful in collecting were
that T. was "entered as a commoner at Brasenose Coll., Oxf., in 1652,
took one degree in arts, left the house for a time, entered into the
sacred function, and in 1661 was actually created M.A. About that time he
became Rector of Crednell, near Hereford ... and in 1669 Bachelor of
Divinity;" and that after remaining there for over 9 years he was
appointed private chaplain to the Lord Keeper, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, who
on his retirement from office retained him as a member of his household
at Teddington until his death in 1674, T. himself dying three months
later. T. also appears to have been incumbent of Teddington, or perhaps
more probably, curate to a pluralist incumbent. The complete oblivion
into which T. had fallen is the more remarkable when the quality of his
poetry, which places him on a level with Herbert, Vaughan, and Crashaw,
is considered; and that he appears in his own day to have had some
reputation as a scholar and controversialist. His _Roman Forgeries_
(1673) achieved some note. His next work, _Christian Ethics_, which was
not _pub._ until after his death, appears to have fallen dead, and is
extremely rare: it is described by Mr. Dobell as "full of eloquence,
persuasiveness, sagacity, and piety." _Centuries of Meditations_ consists
of short reflections on religious and moral subjects, etc. The _Poems_
constitute his main claim to remembrance and, as already stated, are of a
high order. With occasional roughness of metre they display powerful
imagination, a deep and rich vein of original thought, and true poetic
force and fire. It has been pointed out that in some of them the author
anticipates the esse