Traherne's Commentaries of Heaven (With Selections from the Manuscript)

ALLAN PRITCHARD Traherne's Commentaries of Heaven (With Selections from the Manuscript) The story of the finding of the Traherne manuscripts is one of the most romantic in English literary history. The modern discovery of this uniquely ecstatic and radiant seventeenth-century poet, who had remained almost unknown because he lived inconspicuouslyand published little of his writing, began in the winter of 1896-7 when William Brooke picked up for a few pence two manuscripts of works in prose and verse from a barrow in an open-air London street market. The way in which these manuscripts were eventually identified as the work of Thomas Traherne and published by Bertram Dobell is too well known to need repeating. The initial discovery was followed by several others: in 1910 H.!. Bell published verse from a manuscript in the hand of Traherne's brother Philip he had found in the British Museum, and in 1964 James Osborn of Yale University acquired a manuscript of prose Select Meditations by Traherne that had unexpectedly turned up in England. Readers of the Times Literary Supplement will know that a new chapter has recently been added to the story.' There has come to light in Toronto a large and important manuscript of a completely unknown work in both prose and verse written in Traherne's hand, which has the title: 'COMMENTARIES of Heaven. WHEREIN The Mysteries of Felicitie are Opened: and ALL THINGS Discovered to be Objects of Happiness. EVRY BEING Created & Increated being Alphabetically Rep'sented (As it will Appear) In the Light of GLORy.'2 The circumstances behind the latest discovery are as romantic as any of the earlier parts of the story. The manuscript was rescued by its present owner about 1967 from a burning rubbish dump in Lancashire, between Liverpool and Manchester.' It was saved just in time from the flames, which had actually blackened part of the leather binding, a circumstance in which Traherne and his contemporaries would certainly have seen the hand of Providence. Subsequently the owner emigrated to Canada, taking the manuscript with him. Traherne's name does not appear on it, however, and there was nothing to indicate it had any special value or importance, until in the spring oft981 it was broughtin for examination to the Department of History at the University ofToronto, where Elliot Rose identified it as Traherne's work. He published a short account of the discovery in the Times Literary Supplement, and the owner has agreed to UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 53, NUMBER I, FALL 1983 2 ALLAN PRITCHARD allow a fuller description with some selections from the manuscript to be given here,That the Commentaries of Heaven is by Traherne is confirmed by all evidence of handwriting and spelling, style and vocabulary, themes and allusions, Even if there were no other indication of authorship, the voice of Traherne, one of the most individual in the whole range of English literature, can be detected unmistakably in phrases on every page, in almost every sentence, The title by itself, with its reference to the 'Mysteries of Felicitie,' is enough immediately to suggest Traherne, Who but Traherne could have written such declarations as these (from a section of the manuscript titled 'Apprehension')? We never Apprehend ye World aright till we see it as a Sphere or Univers of Glory in wch ourselvs are ye only Centres. We never Apprehend Men well, till we know & feel yt they increas our Treasures. There is surely no one but Traherne who pours forth rejoicing in words quite like these, from'A Meditation of Abundance' (which is included among the selections printed below): a my GOD! That I should be snatched from a Cottage & y' Extremest Povertie to these Enjoym"! y' all y' Things in Heaven & Earth should be mine! And I surrounded with Celestial Treasures! An Worlds mine, & so Glorious! And yt I should be y' Beloved of GOD & Heaven! The Joy of Angels, & the DelightofMen' This fully Answereth my Expectations, Commentaries ofHeaven is a work that only Traherne could have written, It is strikingly individual, and, as Elliot Rose has stated, 'hardly classifiable in any literary genre,' In many respects it belongs in the grand seventeenth-century tradition of huge eccentric...