Rowton Heath, after which Charles the First, who had hoped to raise the siege of Chester, was obliged to retreat to Denbigh.[13] The following lines from Vaughan's Elegy on Mr. R. W. (vol. ii., p. 79), who fell in that battle, seem to have been written by an eye-witness:

[xxix]

"O that day

When like the fathers in the fire and cloud

I miss'd thy face! I might in ev'ry crowd

See arms like thine, and men advance, but none

So near to lightning mov'd, nor so fell on.

Have you observ'd how soon the nimble eye

Brings th' object to conceit, and doth so vie

Performance with the soul, that you would swear

The act and apprehension both lodg'd there?

Just so mov'd he: like shot his active hand

Drew blood, ere well the foe could understand.

But here I lost him."

This appears to me pretty conclusive evidence; against it, however, must be set the passage on the[xxx] Civil War in the autobiographical poem Ad Posteros (vol. ii., p. 51).

[xxx]

Vixi, divisos cum fregerat haeresis Anglos

Inter Tysiphonas presbyteri et populi.

His primum miseris per amoena furentibus arva

Prostravit sanctam vilis avena rosam.

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