of Rome seeme mysticall Babell. . Particularly confuting VV. Crashawes Sermon at the Crosse, printed as the patterne to iustify the rest. . . . Togeather with a discouery of M. Crashawes spirit: and an Answere to his Iesuites Ghospell. By I. R. Student in Diuinity. M.DC.XII. On p. 321 of this work the writer mentions a sermon preached by William Crashaw on February 21, 1609/10 (published in 1610) on the subject of Virginia, and addressing its author suggests that he might have been glad for some ministers' to forsake their Benefices, and goe to Virginia in person, that you might have stepped into one of their roomes with your wife, whom perchance then you had in hart if not in house (for you married not long after). . .'. Richard Crashaw, apparently the only issue of this marriage, seems to have been born towards the end of 1612 or early in 1613. He is described in the Admission Book of Pembroke College, Cambridge, as annos habens 18' on July 6, 1631, and from the obituary publication in honour of William Crashaw's second wife, to be quoted below, it appears that he was baptized eight years before October 1620, though the 'eight years' are doubtless only approximate. The date of the first wife's death is unknown, but the second marriage took place in 1619. This is shown both by the registers of All Hallows, Barking, and in the volume of Marriage-licences granted by the Bishop of London (Harleian Society, vol. xxvi, 1887): [1619] May 8 Mr William Crashawe, Clerk, B.D., of St Mary, Whitechapel, Widower, 42, & Elizabeth Skynner, of same, Spinster, 26, dau. of Anthony Skynner, of same, Gent., who consents; at All Hallows Barking. This second wife died about October 4, 1620, soon after which there appeared The Honour of Vertue. or The Monument erected by the sorowfull Husband, and the Epitaphes annexed by learned and worthy men, to the immortall memory of that worthy Gentle-woman Mr Elizabeth Crashawe. Who dyed in childbirth, and was buried in Whit-Chappell: Octob. 8. 1620. In the 241 yeare of her age. . . . [n.d.] The reference to Richard Crashaw's baptism occurs on p. A 3 verso of this publication, where it is stated that 'The Funerall Sermon was made by 1 Perhaps a misprint for ' 27'. b 917.9 Doctor Vsher of Ireland, then in England, and now Lord Bishop of Meath, in Ireland. It was her owne earnest request to him, that he would preach at the Baptisme of her Sonne, as he had eight yeares afore, being then also in England,1 at the Baptisme of her husbands elder sonne'. The only other reference to the future poet is in the tribute which is made to Elizabeth Crashaw's' singular motherly affection to the child of her predecessor'. Richard Crashaw's godfather was his namesake Richard Crashaw, Master of the Goldsmiths' Company (see p. xx, below).2 William Crashaw's will, dated June 10, 1622, was proved on October 16, 1626, by Robert Dixon, the other executor appointed being 'my sonne Richarde', who was then only about fourteen years of age. No special legacy is made to him in the will and he was no doubt otherwise provided for, though it seems clear that his portion was not very large. His father had never been a rich man, and in the petition to the king already mentioned William Crashaw speaks of 'havinge spent my patrimonye in bookes, and my time in perusinge them'; and though he subsequently married one who according to The Honour of Vertue was 'like to be of great estate, and therefore much sought after by yong gallants and rich heires', it is not known that he derived any great pecuniary benefit from the step. But beyond its various worldly dispositions the will contains a solemn asseveration of the faith which both in the pulpit and in his published works William Crashaw had so often and so zealously upheld, and of which his son's later career was to provide so explicit a denial : I accounte Poperie (as nowe it is) the heape and chaos of all 1 Biographies of Ussher state that he was in England in the early months of 1613 (N.S.); and it may well be that he made his journey before 1612 was out. 2 This is no doubt the Richard Crashaw referred to in Epigrammatum Hecatontades Dvæ. Authore R. B. Londoni... 1627. Hecatontas Altera No. II is inscribed' Ad virum probatissimum, Richardum Crashaw Ciuem Londinensum' and runs as follows: Nesciat, ut manuum quid agat tua dextra, sinistra, Aut aliud pietatis agas opus; acta, docente heresies and the channell whereinto the fowlest impieties & heresies yt have byne in the christian Worlde have runn and closelye emptied themselues' I beleeue the Popes seate and power to be the power of the greate Antechrist and the doctrine of the Pope (as nowe it is) to be the doctrine of Antechriste. yea that doctrine of Divells prophecied of by the Apostle and that the true and absolute Papist soe livinge and dyeinge debarrs himself of salvation for oughte that we knowe, . . . William Crashaw's real and characteristic though not strikingly eminent gifts as a writer had often been employed in works of devotional as well as of controversial intent,1 and in these his deep and earnest piety may be unmistakably discerned. Some of them are in verse, which is by no means wanting in movement and inspiration, and it is of interest to observe that Richard Crashaw apparently read it with care and admiration, since he occasionally re-echoes it in his own poetry. The poem, in particular, at the end of his father's Manuall for true Catholickes . . ., called 'The Conclusion, with a devout and holy prayer' was probably remembered both for its rhythm and its phraseology by Richard Crashaw when he wrote his version of Psalm xxiii (see the notes to that poem, p. 435, below). It was not, apparently, before 1629 that Crashaw entered the Charterhouse, and where he first went to school is not known. His earliest biographer, Lloyd (Memoires, &c., 1668),2 speaks of his having been under the protection of two lawyers, Sir Henry Yelverton and Sir Randolph Crew, of whom it is to be noted that the latter became a governor of the Charterhouse in 1628. The minutes of an Assembly of Governors, under the date July 2, 1629, contain a list of boys passed for admission successively as places fell void, and 'Richard Crosshow' is thirteenth in the list with a note no exception to his age. The only other relevant entry in the school 1 See the list of his works given in the D.N.B., article William Crashaw. The two first published biographies, or rather approaches to a biography, of Crashaw, Lloyd's, and Wood's in Fasti Oxonienses, ii, col. 4 (ed. Bliss, 1820) are given in Appendix II. Both are scrappy and rhetorical, drawing upon the Preface to Steps to the Temple for some flamboyant phrases, and Lloyd's is certainly not accurate in all its details. But their contact with Crashaw's time gives them thus much authority. 3 This probably means that Crashaw was over the age at which gown-boys' or Foundation Scholars were admitted; or else it is records is one dated July 11, 1631, to the effect that 'Richard Crasshowe' was sent as exhibitioner to Pembroke College, Cambridge. Lloyd gives much credit to Robert Brook, who was Head Master of the Charterhouse from 1628 to 1643, for laying the foundations of Crashaw's future proficiency as a writer, by prescribing exercises imitative of the choicest Orators and Poets'; and Crashaw himself pays a tribute to his former master in the address to Brook prefixed to the Latin epigrams published in 1634. But whether any of the poems which are preserved were written during his boyhood must remain doubtful. It seems at least probable that some of them belong to his school days, more especially some of the epigrams. In Charterhouse: Old and New 1 (1910, p. 14) an old rule under the Founder's will is mentioned which used to provide that the Foundation Scholars in the highest form should every Sunday set up in the Great Hall four Greek and four Latin verses apiece upon any part of the second lesson appointed for the day, for the Master of the Hospital or any stranger to view'. The English poems, again, in MS. Tanner 465, on the Gunpowder Treason and on the King's Coronation, which are marked by a violence of tone and striving after effect, of somewhat youthful quality, may well have been written before he went to Cambridge. The same is possibly true of some of the Latin verses preserved in MS. Tanner 465, and of the version of Psalm xxiii, which has a childlike simplicity besides recalling the style of William Crashaw's poem mentioned above.2 Just before he left school Richard Crashaw became the heir to certain property and to twenty pounds in money left him by his godfather, the Richard Crashaw who was Master of the Goldsmiths' Company and who appears to have died on June 2, 1631. The relevant portion of the will, as quoted in Notes and Queries, Ninth Series, vi, July 28, 1900 (p. 64), is as follows: Item I give and bequeath unto Richard Crashawe my godsonn sonne of Willyam Crashawe late of White Chappell preacher a proviso lest he should become over age by the time a vacancy occurred. It should be added that the records only refer to ' gown-boys' and not to the other Carthusians, who were boarders. I am indebted to the Master of the Charterhouse for this information. 1 By A. P. Eardley Wilmot and E. C. Streatfield. 2 See the note on the chronological order of Crashaw's poems, p. xc, below. my house and two gardens without Bishopps gate against the Spitle, and my house att Bassing Hall in London, and my house at Mortelacke in the countie of Surrey, To hould the same to the said Richard Crashawe and his heires for his better mainetenance and education in learning and for the good respecte which I beare unto his father, And also I give to my said God sonne twentie poundes in money to buie him bookes or other thinges needfull. II. 1631-1643. Cambridge. Richard Crashaw was matriculated at Cambridge as a pensioner on March 26, 1632, but the entry in the Admission Book of Pembroke College is as follows: Julii 6. 1631 Richardus Crashawe Gulielmi pr<e>sbyteri filius natus Londini annos hēns 18, admissus est ad 2ae mensæ ordinem sub tutela Mri Tourney. In September 1631, the death of Dr. Samuel Brooke, of Trinity College, occurred; in October that of Dr. Mansell, President of Queens' College, and of William Herrys, Fellow of Pembroke; and the elegiac poems written by Crashaw for these occasions are the first of a series belonging to the early years of his residence. There is of course no reason to suppose that any friendship or personal feelings were involved in his relations with these fairly prominent figures. But the fact of his writing these funeral verses so soon after his arrival shows that he went to Cambridge with a marked talent, and if, as is possible, he was invited to write them, it suggests that, like Cowley, he brought with him a certain repute. Other occasional verses that he composed about this time, royal felicitations and commendatory poems prefixed to books, are mentioned in the section on the chronology of his works, p. lxxxvii, below. The year 1634 was that of his graduation as B.A. and of the appearance at Cambridge of his book of Latin epigrams. Up to this date and indeed right up to the appearance in 1646 of his Steps to the Temple, the published works of Crashaw give no evidence of strong Romanist inclinations. The third poem on the Gunpowder-Treason' (p. 387, below) is thoroughly Protestant in its denunciation of Papal truculence, and the Latin epigram on the shadow of St. Peter (p. 19, |