§11. His conversion. II. The Sacred Poets. Vol. 7. Cavalier and Puritan. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume VII. Cavalier and Puritan.

II. The Sacred Poets.

§ 11. His conversion.

The turning point in Vaughan’s spiritual and literary history occurs somewhere in the period preceding the publication of the first part of Silex Scintillans (1650). There are many indications in this volume, and in the preface which he wrote in 1654 for the second part (1655), that he underwent a prolonged and painful sickness, which nearly cost him his life. Even in 1654, he believes himself to be “at no great distance from death,” though he hopes that he is spared to make amends for a misspent youth. In language that appears excessive, at any rate in view of anything that he published, he deplores his share in the “foul and overflowing stream” of corrupting literature, and ascribes his change of view to “the blessed man, Mr. George Herbert, whose holy life and verse gained many pious converts, of whom I am the least.”