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Reading language

Dedication to Mathew Harbert

To my learned and much respected friend, Mr Mathew Harbert.

Sir,

I know you are not great; there is a better title: you are good. I might have fastened this piece to a pinnacle and made its dedication lofty—but to what purpose? Greatness is something I cannot

admire in others, because I do not desire it in myself. It is a proud folly, a painted, ceremonious swagger. There is nothing necessary in it, for most people live without it; and I cannot court what my reason rejects as much as my fortune does. In truth, I have no use for High Mightinesses and titled grandees. If they are in a giving mood, I am no beggar to receive their gifts. I seek nothing,

sir, except what enriches the learned: judgement and candour. You are a true friend to both, and to my third self. I put this discourse together for your spare hours, for it was born during a holiday, when I was playing rather than working. Indeed, I was driven to some lightness: my adversary proved so weak that I could not draw out all my forces, because I

did not know where to employ them. Here you have a simple madman corrected and whipped for his mad tricks: a certain Master of Arts of Cambridge, and a poet in Spenser’s lolling, trotting manner. He is supposed to be in love with his Faerie Queene, and this has made him quite an elf in philosophy. He is, indeed, a scurvy, slimy, snot-snouted thing. He suffers a certain splenetic

looseness, with such squirts from the mouth that his readers cannot distinguish his breath from his backside. He is a new kind of Pythonic diviner, speaking no one knows what; and his blunders have much of his belly in them. But I have studied a cure suited to his disease. I have been somewhat corrosive and, in defiance of the old proverb, have washed a Moor clean. I have put his pig’s head

in pickle, and here present him to the world as a dish of pickled nonsense. This is my subject, sir; and now I must tell you that my address to you also involves a duty. I had scarcely left milk for solid food when my first learning came from you. Please accept this small acknowledgement from

Your pupil and servant, E. P. From Heliopolis, 1650.

Some ten days after the press was delivered of my adversary’s Mauro-Mango.

4.The historical dedication names Mathew Harbert. Its spelling is retained. In the closing lines Vaughan acknowledges him as the source of his first learning.

5.“Hog hens” and “Titulados” mock titles of eminence: the modern reading renders them as High Mightinesses and titled grandees. The passage contrasts public rank with the judgement and candour sought in a patron.

6.“My third self” is retained as Vaughan’s own formulation. The dedication does not explain the counting, and the modern reading does not substitute an identification for it.

7.The target is presented as a Cambridge Master of Arts and a poet connected with Spenser. The dedication belongs to Vaughan’s dispute with Henry More, who wrote under the name Alazonomastix. “Bedlam” supplies an insult drawn from madness; the modern reading preserves its force.

8.The reference to Spenser and his Faerie Queene turns literary taste into the accusation that the opponent is an “elf” in philosophy. The conceit and its personal insult are retained.

9.“Pythonist” invokes a diviner or inspired speaker; the joke makes the opponent’s unintelligible speech part of the bodily satire. “Bulls” are blunders, retaining a further animal association.

10.The Moor proverb and the spelling “Moore” also serve the polemic against More. Its racial image is retained as historical wording; the modern reading does not replace it with an unrelated metaphor.

11.Heliopolis is the place-name supplied in the subscription. The edition preserves it without treating it as a verified physical location for the composition.

12.The historical postscript dates the dedication relative to the printing of the opponent’s Mauro-Mango. Native print places it below the subscription, although the TCP text serialises it before the subscription. The date remains relative rather than being converted into an unsupported calendar day.