_Castara_, Lucy, daughter of William Herbert, Lord Powys, and wife of the Worcestershire poet, William Habington, who celebrated her in his poems under that name. The _Castara_ was published in 1634.
_Sabrina_, the tutelar nymph of the Severn. _Cf._ the invocation of her in Milton's "Comus."
_May the evet and the toad._ This passage is imitated from W. Browne's _Britannia's Pastorals_, Bk. I., Song 2, II., 277 _sqq._:
"May never evet nor the toad Within thy banks make their abode! Taking thy journey from the sea, May'st thou ne'er happen in thy way On nitre or on brimstone mine, To spoil thy taste! this spring of thine Let it of nothing taste but earth, And salt conceived, in their birth Be ever fresh! Let no man dare To spoil thy fish, make lock or ware; But on thy margent still let dwell Those flowers which have the sweetest smell. And let the dust upon thy strand Become like Tagus' golden sand. Let as much good betide to thee, As thou hast favour show'd to me."
_flames that are ... canicular. Cf. A Dialogue between Sir Henry Wotton and Mr. Donne_ (Poems of John Donne, _Muse's Library_, Vol. I., p. 79):
"I'll never dig in quarry of a heart To have no part, Nor roast in fiery eyes, which always are Canicular."
_Kelder_, a caldron; cf. J. Cleveland, _The King's Disguise_:
"The sun wears midnight; day is beetle-brow'd, And lightning is in kelder of a cloud."
_A second fiat's care._ The allusion is to _Genesis_ i. 3: "And God said, Let there be light (in the Vulgate, _Fiat lux_), and there was light"; _cf._ Donne, _The Storm_ (_Muses' Library_, II. 4):
"Since all forms uniform deformity Doth cover; so that we, except God say Another _Fiat_, shall have no more day."
Miss Morgan thinks that the "friend" of this poem, whose name is shown by the first line to have been James, may perhaps be identified with the James Howell of the _Epistolae Ho-Elianae_. Howell had Vaughans amongst his cousins and correspondents, but these appear to have been of the Golden Grove family.
P. 73. To his retired Friend--an Invitation to Brecknock.
_her foul, polluted walls._ Miss Morgan quotes a statement from Grose's _Antiquities_ to the effect that the walls of Brecknock were pulled down by the inhabitants during the Civil War in order to avoid having to support a garrison or stand a siege.