Plainness and difficulty

Use in the book

The opening contrast is architectural. Some philosophers display high summits while concealing foundations; Vaughan compares their discourse to Babel (p. 78). His proposed remedy is a grounded account of subject, medicine and means. Yet the outline immediately says the keys will be scattered because they admit the reader into Nature’s state chamber (p. 79). Rational explanation and controlled distribution are announced together. A reader expecting every necessary identification in continuous recipe form has not been promised that kind of plainness.

The quotation through Capnion gives another reason for unfamiliar expression. New words are pardoned because they serve an obscure subject that continually changes (p. 82). Here linguistic difficulty reflects what the thing is like, rather than merely an author’s wish to conceal it. Vaughan nevertheless insists elsewhere that knowing a notion without knowing its referent is inadequate (p. 81). Words must remain answerable to the thing, even when the thing makes stable naming difficult.

At p. 85 · Passage 2 he announces his own plain description: the subject is a very salt. The next page immediately excludes common extracted salts and every salt people can manufacture (p. 86). The apparently familiar noun becomes precise only through its qualifications. Plain wording therefore does not relieve the reader of attending to negations. Ignoring them would produce a clear but false identification, the opposite of the account’s stated purpose.

The Hyanthe poem and the philosophers’ testimonies create a different relation between modes. Vaughan says that readers may follow the flights of his verse or the more grave pace of their prose (p. 95 · Passage 2; p. 96). He does not concede that poetry contains only pleasant fiction while prose alone carries truth. His subsequent claim that there is something besides poetry in his fancy explicitly defends the philosophical content of the poem (p. 106 · Passage 2). The contrast is between modes of presentation, not simply truth and ornament.

Secrecy becomes explicit at p. 108 · Passage 2–p. 109 · Passage 1, where a cited warning makes unauthorised disclosure a fault against God. Vaughan then says he has avoided terms that might lead readers to common salts, stones, minerals or animal products (p. 112; p. 113 · Passage 1). He distinguishes two promises: the reader may fail to find the subject, but should not be deceived into those false choices by what he has written. This is a narrower claim than fully naming the thing, and the narrowing should be visible to the modern reader.

The description of the fire repeats the pattern. Vaughan calls it fully and faithfully described, yet says telling the simple mystery openly would make it seem ridiculous (p. 123). The consequences, rather than the intrinsic complexity of the secret, are said to explain its concealment. Difficulty here is socially and ethically maintained. It cannot all be attributed to the object’s ineffability or to deficient prose.

The closing poem finally calls the style coarse and homely because truth should be plain (p. 140 · Passage 1). The claim is itself made in elaborate verse full of social, nautical, erotic and parental figures. That is not proof that the claim is empty; it shows that plainness is a comparative self-presentation, not an absence of rhetoric. Vaughan rejects writing chiefly for display while continuing to use literary skill in truth’s defence.

Places to read

1. p. 78Original; p. 79Original; p. 80 · Passage 1Original; p. 80 · Passage 2Original; p. 81Original; p. 82OriginalRational foundations, scattered keys and the difficulty of language are placed beside one another.
2. p. 85 · Passage 2Original; p. 86OriginalA plain noun, salt, is immediately restricted by decisive exclusions.
3. p. 95 · Passage 2Original; p. 96Original; p. 106 · Passage 2OriginalVerse and prose are defended as different routes to philosophical recognition.
4. p. 108 · Passage 2Original; p. 109 · Passage 1Original; p. 109 · Passage 2Original; p. 110Original; p. 110 · Original marginal noteOriginal; p. 111Original; p. 111 · Original marginal note 1Original; p. 111 · Original marginal note 2Original; p. 112Original; p. 113 · Passage 1OriginalWithholding is justified, while misleading identifications are expressly rejected.
5. p. 123OriginalA fully described yet unnamed simple mystery preserves the tension between clarity and reserve.
6. p. 140 · Passage 1Original; p. 140 · Passage 2Latin; p. 140 · Passage 3Original; Unnumbered errataOriginalPlain truth closes the poem, followed by the work’s praise, assent and two printed corrections.

In this edition

The source edition avoids resolving historical difficulty by silently supplying a chemical identity. It also preserves the difference between quoted Latin or Greek freshly translated and Vaughan’s own accompanying English. These layers sometimes diverge. Their coexistence lets readers see an interpretive action instead of receiving an apparently seamless modern sentence that hides it.

The first printed correction replaces “or” with “for” at page 106, line 23 (Unnumbered errata). The historical layer retains the original at p. 106 · Passage 2; the modern reading applies the correction, making the thick moisture a reason for rejecting thin water rather than an awkward alternative. The second instruction changes “doctrine” to “dictrine” at page 126, line 26. The edition reports this unusual direction from TCP’s transcription and does not pretend it has been verified against an available image. Plain editing includes admitting that uncertainty rather than inventing a cleaner correction.

Historical forms and local uses: rationall termes — the promised explanatory manner in contrast to excessive monstrous imagery (p. 78); Obscuritie — difficulty attributed to the changing subject and its expression (p. 82); plain Termes — Vaughan’s claim to direct description, followed by qualifications (p. 85 · Passage 2); Truth, which should be plain — the closing poem’s defence of a homely style (p. 140 · Passage 1); or — the word the printed correction instructs readers to replace by for (Unnumbered errata); for — the corrective connective prescribed for page 106 (Unnumbered errata); dictrine — the unusual replacement recorded in the second printed correction (Unnumbered errata).

Three suns

The closing poem imagines some readers treating the book like three suns or a great portent, then accusing its author of sectarian pride. The image describes astonished or hostile reception, not a new statement that the philosophical subject contains three ordinary astronomical suns.

Historical forms: Three Suns — a prodigy to which hostile readers might compare the book (p. 140 · Passage 1).

Read: p. 140 · Passage 1 · Original.

High-shoe heresy — High-shoe heresie

The book is told to send hostile accusers away to learn this kind of heresy. The modern rendering gives “rustic heresy,” while the annotation explains the coarse social colouring. The phrase belongs to Vaughan’s polemic and should not be inflated into the name of a securely identified religious group.

Historical forms: High-shoe heresie — a dismissive phrase for rustic or coarse sectarian teaching (p. 140 · Passage 1).

Read: p. 140 · Passage 1 · Original.

Or to for — or, r. for

The errata directs replacement of “or” by “for” at page 106, line 23. At p. 106 · Passage 2 the modern reading applies it: the subject is not thin water, for it is a thick moisture. This small word changes the relation of the clauses from a malformed alternative to an explanatory reason.

Historical forms: or, r. for — the first printed instruction correcting a connective (Unnumbered errata).

Read: p. 106 · Passage 2 · Original; Unnumbered errata · Original.

Doctrine to dictrine — doctrine, r. dictrine

The errata gives this direction for page 126, line 26. The source edition reports it from TCP’s transcription of a surface absent from the Getty witness and does not claim independent image verification. The unusual replacement is therefore a retrievable textual fact, not a new philosophical term whose meaning can safely be invented.

Historical forms: doctrine, r. dictrine — the second printed correction, preserved as uncertain evidence (Unnumbered errata).

Read: Unnumbered errata · Original.

Rather — or rather

Vaughan first calls the subject a secret seminal moisture, then says “or rather” the Venus that yields that moisture. The connective revises the identification within the sentence. It prevents a reader from simply equating the source with one of its gifts and shows precision occurring through a small qualification.

Historical forms: or rather — a correction that refines the relation between subject and moisture (p. 106 · Passage 2).

Read: p. 106 · Passage 2 · Original.

Not yet named — non tamen nominavi; Modo volo ipsum nominare

The cited speaker first distinguishes showing through description from naming, then immediately announces that he will name it and calls it water. Vaughan’s accompanying English follows this transition across p. 96–p. 97. The name is therefore not wholly withheld: its sense remains constrained by the surrounding paradoxes and qualifications, rather than establishing that the subject is ordinary water.

Historical forms: non tamen nominavi — the cited speaker has described the subject without giving its name (p. 96); Modo volo ipsum nominare — now I wish to name it: the transition from description to the designation water (p. 96).

Read: p. 96 · Original; p. 97 · Original.