Henry Vaughan

Henry Vaughan was a Welsh metaphysical poet, author and translator writing in English, also a physician. He is chiefly known for religious poetry published in Silex Scintillans in 1650, with a second part in 1655. In 1646 his poems, with the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal Englished, appeared, followed by a second volume in 1647. Meanwhile, he had been persuaded by reading the religious poet George Herbert to give up "idle verse". The prose Mount of Olives and Solitary Devotions (1652) show the depth of his convictions and authenticity of his genius. Two more volumes of secular verse followed, ostensibly without his sanction, but it is his religious verse that has been acclaimed. He also translated short moral and religious works and two medical works in prose. In the 1650s he began a lifelong medical practice.