in Italy. Through their means he was first entertained as secretary to a cardinal at Rome, and afterwards appointed to a canonry in the church of Loretto, where, soon after his induction, he died of a fever, about the year 1650. Crashaw's poems were published under the titles of Steps to the Temple,' The Delights of the Muses,' and 'Carmen Deo Nostro, Sacred poems presented to the Countess of Denbigh.' His original pieces are chiefly devoted to religious topics. His translations, as poetry, are considered far superior to his original compositions. Of the translations, that which is deemed the best is a portion of Marino's poem, entitled, Strage degli Innocenti,' of which Crashaw unhappily translated but one book out of four. He wrote several epigrams, one of which we shall insert, because it contains a celebrated line, the credit of which is frequently not attributed to its real author. 6 JOAN. 2. Aquæ in vinum versæ. "Unde rubor vestris et non sua purpura lymphis ; which may be thus translated,— "Whence the crystal's strange impurpled dye? The conscious water saw its God, and blushed." John Bastwick. BORN A. D. 1593.-DIED CIR. A. D. 1650. JOHN BASTWICK, an English physician of the 17th century, has attained considerable notoriety by his tractates against the bishops, and other polemical writings. He was born at Writtle in Essex, in 1593, and must have inherited a decent property, as he was educated in Emanuel college, Cambridge, whence he repaired to the university of Padua for the purpose of studying medicine. In that celebrated school he took his degree, and, returning to his native country, established him-self at Colchester, where he practised with success as a physician, but was diverted from his proper province by his desire of healing the disorders which, in his opinion, afflicted the church, and which he attributed to the extravagant assumptions of the bishops, whose claims he examined in a Latin treatise, entitled, Apologeticus ad Præsules Anglicanos in Curia Celsa Commissionis.' In this work he attempted to prove that the authority of bishops was not derived from Divine right. Though he seems to have exempted from his animadversions those prelates who might profess to derive their power, spiritual and temporal, from the civil institutions of their country, his work was regarded as a most flagitious affair, and, at the instigation of Laud, he was arrested and brought be fore the court of high commission. Here he pleaded that his book was only written against the pope and the Italian bishops, and those who claimed authority over all kings, princes, and ecclesiastics, jure divino; but notwithstanding of this ingenious endeavour to extricate himself from his dilemma, the Apologeticus' was declared a scandalous libel, and its author condemned to pay a fine of £1000, besides costs, and to be imprisoned in the gate-house till he should recant his errors. Bastwick now addressed himself with dogged resolution to the task of censuring the English prelates, and published his Litany for the special use of our English prelates,' in 1637. For this new offence Laud caused an information to be exhibited against him in the star-chamber. This instrument was filed in that court on the 11th day of March, 1637. At the same time, proceedings of a similar nature were taken against the celebrated William Prynne, for his 'Histrio-Mastix,' and against the Rev. Dr Burton, for preaching and publishing two seditious sermons: which were carried on pari passu, with those against Bastwick. Bastwick's defence proved a gross aggravation of his original offence. In it he professed to demonstrate that the prelates were invaders of the king's prerogative royal, contemners and despisers of holy scripture, advancers of popery, superstition, idolatry, and profaneness. It was of enormous length, occupying five skins and a half of parchment closely written; and, in print, twenty-nine goodly pages in quarto in the smallest type. The result was, that he was condemned with the other two defendants to lose his ears, to pay a fine of £5000, and to perpetual imprisonment. He endured his corporal punishment with great fortitude, and on his way back to the Tower, amused himself with composing the following punning distich : "S. L. STIGMATA LAUDIS. Stigmata maxillis referens insignia Laudis From the Tower he was removed to Launceston castle, Cornwall, and thence to St Mary's castle in the Isle of Scilly, where he was not even permitted to see his relations. On the ascendancy of the parliament in 1640, the sentences of all these persons were reversed, and declared illegal; and the judges who passed them were ordered to make a reparation to the amount of the fines which they had inflicted on Prynne and his associates, but the confusion of the times prevented the payment of the money. Bastwick was also ordered to be restored to his place in the college of Physicians On their approach to London, multitudes of the citizens, carrying green boughs and flowers, met them some miles from the city, and they were received with the loudest acclainations of joy. Bastwick was alive in 1648, and wrote two pamphlets against the Independents, and a defence of himself against Lilburn. When and where he died is uncertain. His picture is prefixed to the 'Flagellum Pontificis,' published in 1633 in Holland.' Biog. Brit.-Retrospective Review, vol. x. |