SOURCE: "Essay on the Life and Writings of Henry Vaughan, Silurist," in The Works in Verse and Prose Complete of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Vol. II, edited by Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, Blackburn, 1871, pp. ix-ci.

Grosart was a nineteenth-century English clergyman and editor of numerous collections of works by British authors from the period 1400 to 1800. He published editions of the works of Richard Crashaw, Samuel Daniel, Sir Philip Sidney, and several other literary figures. In the following excerpt from his prefatory essay in volume two of Vaughan's collected works, Grosart compares Vaughan's accomplishment favorably to that of George Herbert.

Comparisons have been instituted between Vaughan and GEORGE HERBERT of the most uncritical and baseless kind. I must frankly avow that it is a wonder to me how a mind of the insight and acumen of DR. GEORGE MAC-DONALD in Antiphon—where he has written...