John Vaughan

“ Vaughan doubted no longer, weighed the propriety of his course no longer. For a cool-headed man of the world, who asked nothing better than to master a silly fancy, he was foolishly perturbed. He made on with a grim face; but a dray loading at a Newport coal-hulk drew across his path, and Flixton was pacing under the pleasant elms and amid the groups that loitered up and down the sunlit Square, before Vaughan came within hail, and called him by name. ”

“ Eternity has been known to spoil a poet for time, but not in this instance. Never did religion and art interchange a more [60] fortunate service, outside Italian studios. Once he had shaken off secular ambitions, Vaughan’s voice grew at once freer and more forceful. In him a marked intellectual gain sprang from an apparently slight spiritual readjustment, even as it did, three centuries later, in one greater than he, John Henry Newman. ”

“ VAUGHAN, Sir JOHN (1769–1839) , judge, third son of James Vaughan, M.D. of Leicester, by Hester, daughter of John Smalley, alderman of the same place, was born on 11 Feb. 1769. Sir Charles Richard Vaughan [q. v.] was his brother. He was educated at Rugby school and the university of Oxford, where he matriculated from Queen's College on 17 Oct. ”

“ A monthly post established from New York to Boston.
1674. John Vaughan, an eminent English law reporter, died; "more admired for his talents than loved for his courteous manners."
1681. The British factor, captain Drew, arrived at Chester, on the river Delaware, from England, with settlers for Pennsylvania; they remained there all winter, the river having frozen over that night. She was one of the three ships that left England with the first settlers. One of them, the Amity, arrived before her; the third was blown off the coast to the West Indies, and did not arrive until the next spring. ”

“ But in his present mood Vaughan liked his plan the better for this. Henceforth he would be iron, he would be adamant! And only by a little thing did he betray that under the iron and under the adamant he carried an aching heart. When he came to book his place, deliberately, wilfully, he chose to travel by the Bath road and the White Lion coach, though he could have gone at least as conveniently by another coach and another route. Thus have men ever, since they first felt the pangs of love, rejoiced to press the dart more deeply in the wound. ”

“ The girl had picked up a great deal of slang among the fair collegians. Mrs. Fletcher looked sadly shocked; so I said, to reassure her: "You know, Mrs. Fletcher, we must make allowances for young ladies who come from college."
"To be sure, Miss Vaughan, to be sure we must," she replied with her most sagacious air: and at Gloucester she whispered to the coachman, "John, the villain that stole Miss Lily sent her to Oxford, in a young gentleman's clothes, and she took a very high degree: but don't say a word about it." "Not by any means, ma'am," answered John, with a grin. ”

“ A tall dark man came up the steps, and shook the snow from his boots. The carriage-lamp shone in my face. I would not let him cross the threshold, but stood there and confronted him. He pretended to take me for some servant's child, and handed me a parcel covered with snow. I flung it down, and said, looking him full in the face, "I am Clara Vaughan, and you are the man who killed my father." "Carry her in, John," he said to the servant--"carry her in, or the poor little thing will die. What eyes!" ”

“ VAUGHAN, CHARLES JOHN (1816–1897) , English scholar and divine, was educated at Rugby and Cambridge, where he was bracketed senior classic with Lord Lyttelton in 1838. In 1839 he was elected fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and for a short time studied law. ”

“ Arthur Vaughan took no notice.
Sir Robert’s voters looked at one another uneasily. They had the day before them, but—and then he saw the look, and, putting White and his remonstrances on one side, he joined them, bade them follow him, and descended before them. He would ask no man to do what he would not do himself.
But the moment his action was understood, the moment the men were seen behind him, there was a yell so fierce and a movement so threatening, that on the lowest step of the hustings he stood bareheaded, raised his hand for silence and for a wonder was obeyed. ”

“ Vaughan, therefore, was not the only one who walked into the lobby that evening, brooding darkly on his revenge. Yet, even he behaved himself as men, so bred, so trained do behave themselves. He held his peace. And no one dreamed, not even Orator Hunt, who sat not far from him under the shadow of his White Hat, that this well-conducted young gentleman was revolving thoughts of the Social Order, and of the Party System, and of most things which the Church Catechism commends, beside which that terrible Radical’s own opinions were mere Tory prejudices. ”

“ There were her possessions, there was the suspicion which Sir Robert had founded on them—on Mary’s gain and his loss—there was the independence, which he must surrender, and which pride and principle alike forbade him to relinquish.
In the confusion of the night Vaughan had almost forgotten and quite forgiven. Now he saw that the thing, though forgotten, though forgiven, was there. He could not owe all to a man who had so misconstrued him, and who might misconstrue him again. He could not be dependent on one whose views, thoughts, prejudices, were opposed to his own. ”

“ You forget yourself!” And before Vaughan, stung and angry, could retort upon him, “You forget,” he continued, “that this touches another as closely as it touches you—and more closely! You are a gentleman, sir, and Sir Robert’s kinsman. Have you no word then, for him!” pointing, with a gesture roughly eloquent, to his host. “You lose, but have you no word for him who gains! You lose, but is it nothing to him that he finds himself childless no longer, heirless no longer? That his house is no longer lonely, his hearth no longer empty! ”

“ Arthur Vaughan, ignorant of her proximity—to love’s shame be it said—sat in a window on the first floor of the Mansion House, and, undismayed by the occasional crash of glass, watched the movements of the swaying, shouting, mocking crowd; a crowd, numbering some thousands, which occupied the middle space of the Square, as well as the roadways, clustered upon the Immortal Memory, overflowed into the side streets, and now joined in one mighty roar of “Reform! Reform!” now groaned thunderously at the name of Wetherell. ”

“ In those days of mutes and crape-coloured staves, mourning cloaks and trailing palls, it was not the custom for women to bury their dead. And Vaughan, when he had made up his mind to come, knew that he ran no risk of seeing Mary.
That he might escape with greater case, he had left his post-chaise at a side-gate of the park. The moment the ceremony was over, he made his way to it, now traversing beds of fallen chestnut and sycamore leaves, now striding across the sodden turf. ”

“ William Vaughan (1577–1641) was his brother. He settled at Derwydd, having married Sage, the daughter of the heiress of that house, who was the first wife of John Gwyn William (cf. Dwynn, Heraldic Visit. i. 214, 232; Arch. Cambr. 4th ser. xii. 235, where Vaughan's brother, Walter Vaughan of Llanelly, is erroneously given as his father) . He was sheriff for Carmarthenshire in 1620, and M.P. for Carmarthen from 1621 to 1629 (except for a short term in 1625, when, after a double return, he was unseated) . He was again elected for the county on 26 March and 5 Nov. ”

“ Yet it was such a sight, for an English city on a Sunday morning, that Vaughan’s gorge rose at it. A hundred resolute men might have put the mob to flight. And meantime, on every point of vantage, on Redcliffe Parade, eastward of the Square, on College Green, and Brandon Hill, to the westward of it, thousands stood looking in silence on the scene, and by their supineness encouraging the work of destruction. ”

“ Such a ferment could not but occupy Vaughan’s mind and divert his thoughts from his own troubles, even from thoughts of Mary. Every day there was news: every day, in the opinion of many, the sky grew darker. But though the rejection of the Bill promised him a second short session, and many who sat for close boroughs chuckled privately over the respite, he was ill-content with a hand-to-mouth life. He saw that the Bill must pass eventually. He did not believe that there would be a revolution. ”

“ Brougham!”
The cry was taken up by the crowd, and three cheers were given for the Chancellor, who was so well known to the mob by the style under which he had been triumphantly elected for Yorkshire that his peerage was ignored.
Vaughan, however, heard but the echo of these cheers. Like most young men of his time, he leant to the popular side. But he had no taste for the populace in the mass; and the sight of the crowd, which was fast occupying the whole of the space before Palace Yard and even surging back into Parliament Street, determined him to turn aside. ”

“ White looked behind him. “Sir Robert, sir,” he said, “has something to say to you. The carriage is following. If you’ll be good enough,” he continued, mopping his face, “to wait a moment!”
“Sir Robert cannot wish to see me at such a time,” Vaughan answered, between wonder and impatience. “He will write, doubtless.”
“The carriage should be in sight,” was White’s answer. As he spoke it came into view; rounding the curve of a small coppice of beech trees, it rolled rapidly down a declivity, and ascended towards them as rapidly. ”

“ Flixton grunted. He had overreached himself, but he could not withdraw the offer.
Vaughan was by his side, and plainly meant to accompany him.
Let no man think that the past is done with, though he sever it as he will. The life from which he has cut himself off in disgust has none the less cast the tendrils of custom about his heart, which shoot and bud when he least expects it. Vaughan stood in the doorway of the stable while the men bridled. ”

“ Certainly it was not easy to smile at such men then; at their pride or their prejudices, their selfishness or their eccentricity. For behind lay solid power. Small blame to Vaughan therefore, if in the face of the servile attitude, the obsequious rising of the company about him, he felt his countenance change, if he could not quite hide his dismay. And though he told himself that his feelings were out of place, that the man did but stand in the shoes which would one day be his, and was but now what he would be, vox faucibus hæsit—he was dumb. It was Sir Robert who broke the silence. ”

“ Vaughan saw that someone must be induced to act; and to him the following hours of that wet, dismal Sunday were a waking nightmare. He hurried hither and thither, from Guildhall to Council House, from Brereton’s lodgings to the dragoons’ quarters, striving to effect something and always failing; seeking some cohesion, some decision, some action, and finding none. Always there had just been a meeting, or was going to be a meeting, or would be a meeting by and by. The civil power would not act without the military ”

“ Henry Vaughan, son of the late Simon Vaughan, of St. Martin's, was the minister in charge. The church cost forty thousand dollars. Mr. Vaughan died in 1864. When Mr. Carey, the present pastor, arrived in St. John in 1865, the church was being built and he preached for a while in the basement, and in December, 1866, the first sermon in the church proper was preached by the same eloquent minister. A tablet was erected to the memory of his predecessor in the church. In 1873 this church was partially destroyed by fire, but the enterprising congregation soon had it up again. ”

“ The manner of one man became a shade more cordial; another spoke where he would have nodded. And if Vaughan had risen at this time to speak on any question which he understood he would have been heard upon his merits.
But the change, slow though genial, like the breaking up of an English frost, came too late to do him much service. With the transfer of the Bill to the House of Lords public interest deserted the Commons. They sat, indeed, through the month of September, to the horror of many a country gentleman, who saw in this the herald of evil days; and they debated after a fashion. ”

“ The old man, every nerve and vein in his lean, high forehead swollen and leaping, raised his cane and shook it at him. “Dare? Dare?” he cried, and then for very rage his voice failed him.
Vaughan closed his eyes and opened them again. “I am dreaming,” he said. “I must be dreaming. Are you Sir Robert Vermuyden? Is this house Miss Sibson’s school? Are we in Bristol? Or is it all—but first, sir,” recalling abruptly and with indignation the situation in which he had been surprised, and raising his tone, “how come you here? ”

“ Vaughan was one daily round of charitable deeds, in furtherance of religion and social amelioration. His munificent donation to the Swansea Hospital, offered conditionally, led to the enlarged foundation of that noble institution, which stands a silent tribute to his memory. This Elegy was written at the request of the late Mr. John Williams, proprietor of the Cambrian, Swansea, who, in the letter requesting me to write the verses, said: "Such noble qualities as Mr. Vaughan possessed deserve everything good which human tongue can say of them." ”