The image of the bird, in the 6th stanza, is very charming. The last verse is imitated from Herbert's poem on Grace. THE RETREat. Happy those early days, when I Oh, how I long to travel back, These lines will find an echo in many bosoms, for the same aspiration must have risen to the lips of every one. But we know that "the enlightened spirit" belongs more to the maturity of age than to the inexperienced innocence of childhood; and to the eye of the Christian pilgrim, in the most desolate path of his wanderings, "the shady City of Palm Trees" is visible, and the blackness of the remote horizon often glows with the orient light of the Bowers of Paradise. THE WREATH. Addressed to the Redeemer. The softer dressings of the spring, This day I bring for all Thy pain. A pretty verse on the burial of an infant should not be omitted: Blest infant bud whose blossom-life, Did only look about and fall, Weary'd out in harmless strife Of milk and tears, the food of all. The verses on Peace may be compared with Herbert's poem: My Soul, there is a Countrie, Far beyond the stars, Where stands a winged Centrie All skilful in the wars; There above all noise and danger, Sweet Peace sits crown'd with smiles, And One born in a manger, Commands the beauteous files. He is thy gracious friend, To die here for thy sake. There grows the flower of Peace, The rose that cannot wither, 301 RICHARD CRASHAW. AFTER an anxious search in all the accessible sources of information, I am able to tell little of one of whom every lover of poetry must desire to know so much. The time of his birth and of his decease is involved in equal mystery. Crashaw was born in London. His father was an eminent Divine, and Preacher at the Temple. His works, however, brought him more fame than profit, and he confessed that he had spent his patrimony in buying books, and his time in scribbling them. At the close of the reign of Elizabeth he had also been deprived of a "little vicarage*." But his learning and virtues procured for him the esteem of many learned and excellent ment, and particularly of Sir Randolph Crew, and Sir Henry Yelverton ‡, by whom his son Richard was placed on the foundation of the Charter House School, where he highly distinguished A Discourse on Popishe Corruption Requiringe a Kingly Refor mation; among the MS. Books in the Royal Library. See Casly's Catalogue. + He was intimate with Archbishop Usher, as an extract from a letter to that Prelate will show:-"I lent you Josseline de Vitis Archiep. Cant., in folio, which you said you lent to Dr. Mocket, and I believe it; yet I could never get it, and now I find my book at Mr. Edwards his shop, in Duke Lane, and he saith he bought it with Dr. Mocket's library, but I cannot have it. Happily you might, by your testimony, prevail to get it me, for I charged him not to sell it. I pray think of it as you go that way. Thus longing to see you, and till you send me word what day you will be here, I commend us unto God, and am, Yours in Christ, WILLIAM CRASHAW." Appendix to Parr's Life of Usher. Sir Henry Yelverton was appointed Solicitor-General soon after 1613, and Attorney-General in 1616. In 1625, he was one of the Judges of the King's Bench, and subsequently of the Common Pleas. A curious narrative, written by hmiself, "of what passed on his being restored to the King's favour, in 1609," is printed in the fifteenth volume of the Archæologia, p. 27. himself under Brooks, a celebrated master of that day, whom he afterwards addressed in an epigram, full of attachment and respect. I had hoped, from a reference to the Registers of the School, to have determined the period of his admission, but they contain no entry before 1680. How long he continued there is equally uncertain. was elected a scholar of Pembroke Hall, March 26, 1632*, and yet we find him lamenting the premature death of his friend, William Herrys, a fellow of the same College, which happened in the October of 1631. Herrys had been originally entered of Christ's, and his relations were persons of property and consideration, in the county of Essex. Crashaw calls him the sweetest among men, and mourned his fate in five epitaphs, one of which was in Latin. In 1633 he took his Bachelor's Degree, and, in 1634, published anonymously, a volume of Epigrammata Sacra, inscribed to Benjamin Laney, the Master of Pembroke Hall. In the civil war, Laney was deprived of his situation, and suffered much persecution and many hardships for his loyalty. The guides of the poet's youthful studies were always esteemed, and their memory preserved in his heart. Of Mr. Tournay, the tutor of Pembroke, he spoke in grateful language, as of one who merited his respect +. * From the College Register, quoted in Cole's MSS. + Tutori Summe Observando.-" We have had some doings here of late about one of Pembroke Hall, who preaching in St. Mary's, about the beginning of Lent, upon that text James 11, 22, seemed to avouch the insufficiency of faith to justification, and to impugn the doctrine of our 11th article, of Justification by faith only; for which he was convented by the Vice-Chancellor, who was willing to accept of an easy acknowledgment: but the same party preaching his Latin sermon, pro Gradu, the last week, upon Rom. iii, 28, he said, he came not palinodiam canere, sed eandem cantilenam canere, which moved our Vice-Chancellor, Dr Love, to call for his sermon, which he refused to deliver. Whereupon, upon Wednesday last, being Barnaby Day, the day appointed for the admission of the Bachelors of Divinity, which must answer Die Comitiorum, he was stayed by the major part of the suffrages of the Doctors of the faculty. * * * The truth is, there are some Heads among us 66 In 1635 he prefixed a copy of verses to Robert Shelford's Five Pious and Learned Discourses. Shelford was of Peterhouse, and Rector of Ringsfield, in Suffolk. Crashaw's recommendation of this work requires notice, for it was considered to advocate doctrines inimical to the established church. Archbishop Usher condemns it with indignation, in a letter to Dr. Ward, Sept. 15, 1635. But, while we strive here to maintain the purity of our ancient truth, how cometh it to pass that you at Cambridge do cast such stumbling-blocks in our way, by publishing into the world such rotten stuff as Shelford hath vented in his Five Discourses; wherein he hath so carried himself ut famosi Perni amanuensem possis agnoscere. The Jesuits of England sent over the book hither to confirm our papists in their obstiand to assure them that we are now coming home to them as fast as we can. I pray God this sin be not deeply laid to their charge, who give an occasion to our blind thus to stumble*." This fact enables us to trace the gradually growing inclination of Crashaw to the Roman Catholic faith. His mystical and enthusiastic manner of life, indeed, powerfully predisposed him to lend a willing ear to the gorgeous deceptions of a poetical religion. Every day he passed several hours in the solitude of St. Mary's Church, "In the temple of God, under his wing, he led his life in St. Mary's Church, near St. Peter's College, under Tertullian's roof of angels; there he made his nest more gladly than David's swallow near the house of God; where, like a primitive saint, he offered more prayers in the night, than others usually offer in the day+." nacy, that are great abettors of M. Tournay, the party above mentioned, who, no doubt, are backed by others."-Letter from Ward of Sidney Coll., June, 1634, to Archbishop Usher. Life by Purr, p. 470. * Master Shelford hath of late affirmed in print, that the Pope was never yet defined to be the Antichrist by any Synode.-Huntley's Breviate, third edition, 1637, p. 308. + Pref. to Steps to the Temple, 1646. |