born 1637, Hereford, Eng.
died 1674, Teddington
English mystical poet and religious writer.
He was ordained in the Anglican church in 1660. Most of his works were unknown for centuries. The discovery in 1896 in a London street bookstall of the manuscripts of Poetical Works (1903) and the prose Centuries of Meditations (1908) created a literary sensation. Later the manuscript of Poems of Felicity (1910) was discovered in the British Museum. His poetry, though sometimes original and intense, is overshadowed by his vivid prose.