The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Volume I

The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Volume I

In a Study of the Life and Poetry of our present Worthy, which will be found in our Volume II.thus postponed in order that the completed Works may be before the student-reader along with itI venture to hope new light will be shed on both, and his character as a Man and Poetone of the richest of the minor Poets of Englandvindicated and interpreted as never hitherto they have been. Some memories cannot bear the 'cruel light' of close scrutiny, some poetries when tested prove falsetto-noted. Richard Crashaw grows on us the more insight we gain. If he were as well known as George Herbert, he would be equally cherished, while his Poetry would be recognised as perfumed with all his devoutness and of a diviner 'stuff' and woven in a grander loom; in sooth, infinitely deeper and finer in almost every element of true singing as differenced from pious and gracious versifying. In this hurrying-scurrying age, only twos-and-threes take time to hold communion with these ancient Worthies; and hence my Essay, as with the Fletchers and Lord Brooke and Henry Vaughan, may win-back that recognition and love due to Crashaw. Then, in a much fuller and more adequate Memoir than hitherto furnished of William Crashaw, B.D.,xxviii father of our Poetalso in our Volume II.the usually-given ancestral details will appear from new and unused sources. So that here and now I intend to limit myself to a brief statement of the few outward Facts, i.e. reserving their relation to the central thing in Richard Crashaw's lifehis passing from Protestantism to Catholicism, and to contemporaries and inner friends, and to his Poetryto our announced Study. Willmott in his 'Lives of the English Sacred Poets' (vol. first, 1834, vol. second, 1839), begins his fine-toned little Notice thus: '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 much. The time of his birth and of his decease is involved in equal mystery.'[3] Our 'all' is still 'little' as compared with what we yearn for; but we do not need to begin so dolorously as our predecessor, for we have discovered both the 'time of his birth and of his decease.' He was born in London in 1612-3; this date being arrived at from the register-entry of his age on admission to the University, viz. 18 in 1630-1 (as hereafter stated). Shakespeare was then retired to his beloved Stratford; Milton was in the sixth year of his cherub-beauty. His father being 'Preacher at the Temple' at the date would have determined London to have been his birthplace; but his admission to Pembroke and his own signature at Peterhouse, 'Richardum Crashaw, Londinensem,' prove it. Who was his mother I have failed to find. The second Mrs. William Crashaw, celebrated in a remarkablexxix contemporary poetical tractate printed (if not published) by her bereaved husband (of which more anon and elsewhere, as supra), could not have been the Poet's mother, as she was not married to Crashaw (pater) until 1619. We should gladly have exchanged the 'Honour of Vertue or the Monument erected by the sorrowfull Husband and the Epitaphs annexed by learned and worthy men, to the immortall memory of that worthy Gentle-woman Mrs. Elizabeth Crashawe. Who dyed in child-birth, and was buried in Whit-Chappel: Octob. 8. 1620. In the 24 yeare of her age'for a page on the first Mrs. Crashaw. Yet is it pleasant to know the motherless little lad received such a new mother as this tribute pictures. In 1620 he was in his ninth year. Thus twice a broad shadow blackened his father's house and his home. Little more than a year had he his 'second' mother. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 38549
Author: Crashaw, Richard
Release Date: Jan 12, 2012
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Grosart, Alexander Balloch, 1827-1899