Chapter 4

'Incense of love's and fancie'sholy smoak;'

or, rather, that 'smoke' which filled the House to the vision of Isaiah (vi. 4). The hymn 'To the admirable Sainte Teresa,' and the 'Apologie' for it, and related 'Flaming Heart,' and 'In the glorious Assvmption of our Blessed Lady,' are of the same type. Take this from the 'Flaming Heart' (vol. i. p. 155):

'Leaue her ... the flaming heart:Leaue her that, and thou shalt leaue herNot one loose shaft, but Loue's whole quiver.For in Loue's feild was neuer foundA nobler weapon than a wovnd.Loue's passiues are his actiu'st part,The wounded is the wounding heart.. . . . . . .Liue here, great heart; and loue and dy and kill,And bleed and wound; and yeild and conquer still.'

His homage to the Virgin is put into words that pass the bounds which we Protestants set to the 'blessed among women' in her great renown, and even while a Protestant Crashaw fell into what we must regard as the strange as inexplicable forgetfulness that it is TheMan, not The Child, who is our ever-living High-Priest 'within the veil,' and that not in His mother's bosom, but on the Throne of sculptured light, is His place. Still, you recognise that the homage to the Virgin-mother is to the Divine Son through her, and through her in fine if also mistaken humility. 'Mary' is the Muse of Crashaw; the Lord Jesus his 'Lord' and hers. I would have the reader spend willing time, in slowly, meditatively readingthe whole of our Poet's sacred Verse, to note how the thinking thus thrills into feeling, and feeling into rapture—the rapture of adoration. It is miraculous how he finds words wherewith to utter his most subtle and vanishing emotion. Sometimes there is a daintiness and antique richness of wording that you can scarcely equal out of the highest of our Poets, or only in them. Some of his images from Nature are scarcely found anywhere else. For example, take this very difficult one of ice, in the Verse-Letter to the Countess of Denbigh (vol. i. p. 298, ll. 21-26), 'persuading' her no longer to be the victim of her doubts:

'So, when the Year takes cold, we seePoor waterstheir own prisoners be;Fetter'd and lock'd-up fast they lieIn a cold self-captivity.Th' astonish'd Nymphs their Floud's strange fate deplore,To find themselves their own severer shoar.'

Young is striking in his use of the ice-metaphor:

'in Passion's flameHearts melt; butmelt like ice, soon harder froze.'

(Night-Thoughts, N.II.l. 522-3.)

But how strangely original is the earlier Poet in so cunningly working it into the very matter of his persuasion! Our quotation from Young recalls that in the 'Night-Thoughts' there are evident reminiscences of Crashaw:e.g.

'Midnight veil'd his face:Not such as this, not such as Nature makes;A midnight Nature shudder'd to behold;A midnight new; a dread eclipse, withoutOpposing spheres, from her Creator's frown.'

(NightIV.ll. 246-250.)

So in 'Gilt was Hell's gloom' (N.VII.l. 1041), and in this portrait of Satan:

'Like meteors in a stormy sky, how rollHis baleful eyes!' (N.IX.ll. 280-1.) and

'the fiery gulf,That flaming bound of wrath omnipotent;' (Ib. ll. 473-4)

and

'Banners streaming as the comet's blaze;' (Ib. l. 323)

and

'Which makes a hell of hell,' (Ib. l. 340)

we have the impress and inspiration of our Poet.

How infinitely soft and tender and Shakesperean is the 'Epitaph vpon a yovng Married Covple dead and bvryed together' (with its now restored lines), thus!—

'Peace, good Reader, doe not weep;Peace, the louers are asleep.They, sweet turtles, folded lyIn the last knott that Loue could ty.And though they ly as they were dead,Their pillow stone, their sheetes of lead(Pillow hard, and sheetes not warm),Loue made the bed; they'l take no harm:Let them sleep; let them sleep on,Till this stormy night be gone,And the æternall morrow dawn;Then ...' (vol. i. pp. 230-1.)

The hush, the tranquil stillness of a church-aisle, within which 'sleep' old recumbent figures, comes over one in reading these most pathetically beautiful words. Of the whole poem, Dodd in his 'Epigrammatists' (as onward) remarks, 'after reading this Epitaph, all others on the same subject must suffer by comparison. Yet there is much to be admired in the following by Bishop Hall, on Sir Edward and Lady Lewkenor. It is translated from the Latin by the Bishop's descendant and editor, the Rev. Peter Hall (Bp. Hall's Works, 1837-9, xii. 331):

'In bonds of love united, man and wife,Long, yet too short, they spent a happy life;United still, too soon, however late,Both man and wife receiv'd the stroke of fate:And now in glory clad, enraptur'd pair,The same bright cup, the same sweet draught they share.Thus, first and last, a married couple see,In life, in death, in immortality.'

There is much beauty also in an anonymous epitaph in the 'Festoon' 143, 'On a Man and his Wife:'

'Here sleep, whom neither life nor love,Nor friendship's strictest tie,Could in such close embrace as thou,Their faithful grave, ally;Preserve them, each dissolv'd in each,For bands of love divine,For union only more complete,Thou faithful grave, than thine.' (p. 253.)

His 'Wishes to his (supposed) Mistresse' has things in it vivid and subtle as anything in Shelley at his best; and I affirm this deliberately. His little snatch on 'Easter Day' with some peculiarities, culminates in a grandeur Milton might bow before. The version of 'Dies Irae' is wonderfully severe and solemn and intense. Roscommon undoubtedly knew it. And so we might go on endlessly. His melody—with exceptional discords—is as the music of a Master, not mere versification. Once read receptively, and the words haunt almost awfully, and, I must again use the word, unearthlily. Summarily—as in our claim for Vaughan, as against the preposterous traditional assertions of his indebtedness to Herbert poetically, while really it was for spiritual benefits he was obligated—we cannot for an instant rank George Herbert as a Poet with Crashaw. Their piety is alike, or the 'Priest' of Bemerton is more definite, and clear of the 'fine mist' of mysticism of the recluse of 'Little St. Mary's;' but only very rarely have you in 'The Temple' that light of genius which shines as a very Shekinah-glory in the 'Steps to the Temple.' These 'Steps' have been spoken of as 'Steps' designed to lead into Herbert's 'Temple,' whereas they were 'Steps' to the 'Temple' or Church of the LivingGod. Crashaw 'sang' sweetly and generously of Herbert (vol. i. pp. 139-140); but the two Poets are profoundly distinct and independent. Clement Barksdale, probably, must bear the blame of foolishly subordinating Crashaw to Herbert, in his Lines in 'Nympha Libethris' (1651):

'HERBERT AND CRASHAW.

When unto Herbert's Temple I ascendBy Crashaw's Steps, I do resolve to mendMy lighter verse, and my low notes to raise,And in high accent sing my Maker's praise.Meanwhile these sacred poems in my sightI place, that I may learn to write.'

(c)Epigrams.The title-page of the Epigr. Sacra of 1670 marks out for us their main dates; that is to say, as it designates him 'Collegii Petrensis Socius,' which he was not until 1637, the only portion that belongs to that period must be the additions made in the 1670 edition (see vol. ii. pp. 3-4). Dr. Macdonald (in 'Antiphon') observes: 'His Divine Epigrams are not the most beautiful, but they are to me the most valuable, of his verses, inasmuch as they make us feel afresh the truth which he sets forth anew. In them some of the facts of our Lord's life and teaching look out upon us as from clear windows of the Past. As epigrams, too, they are excellent—pointed as a lance' (p. 240). He limits himself to the 'English' Epigrams, and quotes after above, Nos.LIV.(2) andXI.; and continues with No.XIV., and nextLIV.(1); on which he says: 'I value the following as a lovely parable. Mary is not contented; to see the place is little comfort. The church itself, with all its memories of the Lord, the Gospel-story, and all theory about Him, is but His tomb until we find Himself;' and he closes with one which he thinks is 'perhaps his best,' viz. No.I.[34]We too may give it:

'Two went up into the Temple to pray.Two went to pray! O, rather say,One went to brag, th' other to pray.One stands up close, and treads on high,Where th' other dares not send his eye.One neerer to God's altar trod;The other to the altar's God.' (vol. ii. p. 35.)

The admiring critic on this proceeds: 'This appears to me perfect. Here is the true relation between the forms and the end of religion. The priesthood, the altar and all its ceremonies, must vanish from between the sinner and his God. When the priest forgets his mediation of a servant, his duty of a door-keeper to the temple of truth, and takes upon him the office of an intercessor, he stands between man and God, and is a satan, an adversary. Artistically considered, the poem could hardly be improved' (p. 241). 'Artistically,' nevertheless, it is a wonder Dr. Macdonald did not detect Turnbull's mis-reading of 'lend' for 'send' (l. 4). Bellew in his Poet's Corner reads 'bend,' which is equally poor for 'tendit.' There follows No.XLII., 'containing a similar lesson;' and finally No.XLV.p. 196, whereof he says: 'The following is a world-wide intercession for them that know not what they do.Of those that reject the truth, who can be said ever to have truly seen it? A man must be good to see truth. It is a thought suggested by our Lord's words, not an irreverent opposition to the truth of them' (p. 242).

Now that, besides the (relatively) few Epigrams which were translated by Crashaw himself, the whole are translated (for the first time), and now too that, exclusive of longer Latin poems, a goodly addition has been made by us to them, the reader will find it rewarding to turn and return on this remarkable section of Crashaw's poetry. Conceits there are, grotesque as gargoyles of a cathedral, oddities of symbolism, even passing into unconscious playing with holy words and things never to be played with; but each has a jewel of a distinct thought or sentiment, and often the wording is felicitous, albeit, as in all his Latin verse, not invariably without technical faults of quantity and even syntax. I had marked very many for specific criticism; but I must refrain. Our translation is perhaps a better commentary. To my co-workers and myself it has been a labour of love. I must close our notice of Crashaw as an Epigrammatist with some parallels from 'The Epigrammatists' of the Rev. Henry Philip Dodd, M.A. (1870). Under No.CXVII., 'On Pontius Pilate washing his hands,' he has this: 'In Elsum's Epigrams on Paintings, 1700, is one on a picture by Andrea Sacchi of Pilate washing his hands, translated from Michael Silos, De Romana Pictura et Sculptura' (Ep. 17):

'O cursèd Pilate, villain dyed in grain,A little water cannot purge thy stain;No, Tanaïs can't do't, nor yet the main.Dost thou condemn a Deity to death,Him whose mere love gave and preserv'd thy breath?'

Similarly, under No.LI.'On the Blessed Virgin's Bashfulness,' he has this: 'Some lines "To the Blessed Virgin at her Purification," by the old epigrammatist Bancroft,are almost as beautiful in sentiment as this exquisite piece (Book ii. 86):

Why, favourite of Heaven, most fair,Dost thou bring fowls for sacrifice?Will not the armful thou dost bear,That lovely Lamb of thine, suffice?'

Of the exceptionally celebrated, not exceptionally superior Epigram on 'The Water turned Wine,' which somehow has been given by a perverse continued blunder to Dryden, Aaron Hill's masterly translation may be read along with those given by us in the place (vol. ii. pp. 96-7):

'When Christ at Cana's feast by pow'r divineInspir'd cold water with the warmth of wine;See! cried they, while in red'ning tide it gush'd,The bashful stream hath seen its God, andblush'd.'

Dryden's 'The conscious water saw its God, and blush'd,' is a mere remembrance of Crashaw.[35]

(d)Translations and (briefly) Latin and Greek Poetry.It may seem semi-paradoxical to affirm it, but in our opinion the genius of Crashaw shines with its fullest splendour in his Translations, longer and shorter. Even were there not his wonderful 'Suspicion of Herod' and 'Musick's Duell,' this might be said; for in his 'Dies Irae,' and 'Hymneout of Sainte Thomas,' and others lesser, there are felicities that only a genuine Maker could have produced. His 'Dies Irae' was the earliest version in our language. Roscommon and Scott alike wrote after and 'after' it. But it is on the two truly great Poems named we found our estimate. Turning to 'Musick's Duell,' as we ask the reader to do now (vol. i. 197-203), we have only to read critically the Latin of Strada, from whence it is drawn, to discern the creative gift of our Poet. Here it is:

Jam Sol a medio pronus deflexerat orbeMitius, e radiis vibrans crinalibus ignem.Cum Fidicen, propter Tiberina fluenta, sonantiLenibat plectra curas, aestumque levabat,Ilice defensus nigra scenaque virenti.Audiit hunc hospes silvae Philomela propinquaeMusa loci, nemoris siren, innoxia siren;Et prope succedens stetit abdita frondibus, alteAccipiens sonitum, secumque remurmurat, et quosIlle modos variat digitis, haec gutture reddit.Sensit se Fidicen Philomela imitante referri,Et placuit ludum volucri dare; plenius ergoExplorat citharam, tentamentumque futuraePraebeat ut pugnae, percussit protinus omnesImpulsu pernice fides, nec segnius illa.Mille per excurrens variae discrimina vocis,Venturi specimen praefert argutula cantus.Tunc Fidicen per fila movens trepidantia dextram,Nunc contemnenti similis diverberat ungue,Depectitque pari chordas, et simplice ductu:Nunc carptim replicat, digitisque micantibus urgetFila minutatim, celerique repercutit ictu.Mox silet. Illa modis totidem respondet, et artemArte refert. Nunc seu rudis aut incerta canendiProjicit in longum, nulloque plicatile flexuCarmen init, simili serie, jugique tenore,Praebet iter liquidum labenti e pectore voce;Nunc caesim variat, modulisque canora minutis.Delibrat vocem, tremuloque reciprocat ore.Miratur Fidicen parvis e faucibus ireTam varium, tam dulce melos; majoraque tentansAlternat mira arte fides; dum torquet acutasInciditque, graves operoso verbere pulsat,Permiscetque simul certantia rauca sonoris,Ceu resides in bella viros clangore lacessat.Hoc etiam Philomela canit: dumque ore liquentiVibrat acuta sonum, modulisque interplicat acquis;Ex inopinato gravis intonat, et leve murmurTurbinat introrsus, alternantique sonoreClarat, et infuscat ceu martia classica pulset.Scilicet erubuit Fidicen, ...Non imitabilibus plectrum concentibus urget.Namque manu per fila volat, simul hos, simul illosExplorat numeros, chordaque laborat in omni,Et strepit, et tinnit, crescitque superbius, et seMultiplicat religens, plenoque choreumate plaudit.[36]

It will be noted by the student that such word-painting as in these lines belongs to Crashaw, not Strada:

'and streightway sheCarves out her dainty voyce as readily.· · · · · · · ·Through the sleeke passage of her open throatA clear unwrinckled song;· · · · · · · ·closes the sweet quarrell, rowsing all,Hoarce, shrill at once; as when the trumpets callHot Mars to th' harvest of Death's field, and wooMen's hearts into their hands:'· · · · · · · ·staggers in a warbling doubtOf dallying sweetnesse, hovers o'er her skill,And folds in wav'd notes with a trembling bill· · · · · · · ·a tideOf streaming sweetnesse,which in state doth rideOn the wav'd backe of every swelling straine,Rising and falling in a pompous traine.· · · · · · · ·Thus high, thus low,as if her silver throatWould reach the brazen voyce of War's hoarce bird.... his hands sprightly as fire, he flingsAnd witha quavering coynesse tasts the strings.The sweet-lip't sisters, musically frighted,Singing their feares, are fearefully delighted,Trembling as when Appolo's golden hairesAre fan'd and frizled, in the wanton ayresOf his own breath: which marryed to his lyreDoth tune the spheares.· · · · · · · ·with nectar drop,Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup.· · · · · · · ·The lute's light genius now does proudly rise,Heav'd on the surges of swolne rapsodyes,· · · · · · · ·Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone.'

... his hands sprightly as fire, he flingsAnd witha quavering coynesse tasts the strings.The sweet-lip't sisters, musically frighted,Singing their feares, are fearefully delighted,Trembling as when Appolo's golden hairesAre fan'd and frizled, in the wanton ayresOf his own breath: which marryed to his lyreDoth tune the spheares.· · · · · · · ·with nectar drop,Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup.· · · · · · · ·The lute's light genius now does proudly rise,Heav'd on the surges of swolne rapsodyes,· · · · · · · ·Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone.'

In the words of Willmott (as before), 'We shall seek in vain in the Latin text for the vigour, the fancy, and the grandeur of these lines. These remain with Crashaw, of whose obligations to Strada we may say, as Hayley [stupidly, if picturesquely] remarked of Pope's debt to Crashaw, that if he borrowed anything from him in this article, it was only as the sun borrows from the earth, when, drawing from thence a mere vapour, he makes it the delight of every eye, by giving it all the tender and gorgeous colouring of heaven' (vol. i. p. 323). The richness and fulness of our Poet as a Translator becomes the more clear when we place beside his interpretation of Strada the 'translations' of others, as given in the places (vol. i. pp. 203-6). A third (anonymous) version we discovered among the Lansdownemss.3910, pt. lxvi., from which we take a specimen:

'Now the declininge sunn 'gan downward bendeFrom higher heauene, and from his locks did sendeA milder flame; when neere to Tyber's floweA Lutaniste allayde his carefull woe,With sondinge charmes, and in a greeny seateOf shady oake, toke shelter from the heate.A nitingale ore-hard hym that did useTo soiourne in yeneighbour groues, the MuseThat files the place, the syren of the wood:Poore harmeles Syren, steling neere she stoodClose lurkinge in the leaues attentiuely:Recordinge that vnwonted mellodye,She condt it to herselfe, and every straineHis fingers playde, her throat return'd againe.'

A nitingale ore-hard hym that did useTo soiourne in yeneighbour groues, the MuseThat files the place, the syren of the wood:Poore harmeles Syren, steling neere she stoodClose lurkinge in the leaues attentiuely:Recordinge that vnwonted mellodye,She condt it to herselfe, and every straineHis fingers playde, her throat return'd againe.'

And so to the end (MS.3910, pp. 114-17). We have reserved until now incomparably the second, but only a far-off second, to Crashaw's, from John Ford's 'Lover's Melancholy' (1629); which probably was our Poet's guide to Strada. Here is the substance of the fine reminiscent version, from act i. scene 1:

Menaphon.A sound of music touched mine ears, or rather,Indeed, entranced my soul. As I stole nearer,Invited by the melody, I sawThis youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute,With strains of strange variety and harmony,Proclaiming, as it seemed, so bold a challengeTo the clear choristers of the wood, the birds,That as they flocked about him all stood silent,Wondering at what they heard. I wondered too.Amethus.And do so I: good, on.Men.A nightingale,Nature's best-skilled musician, undertakesThe challenge, and for every several strainThe well-shaped youth could touch, she sung her own:He could not run division with more artVpon his quaking instrument than sheThe nightingale did with her various notesReply to: for a voice and for a sound,Amethus, 'tis much easier to believeThat such they were, than hope to hear again.Ameth.How did the rivals part?Men.You term them rightly.For they were rivals, and their mistress, Harmony.Some time thus spent, the young man grew at lastInto a pretty anger, that a bird,Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes,Should vie with him for mastery, whose studyHad busied many hours to perfect practice.To end the controversy, in a rapture,Vpon his instrument he plays so swiftlySo many voluntaries, and so quick,That there was curiosity and cunning,Concord in discord, lines of differing methodMeeting in one full centre of delight.Ameth.Now for the bird.Men.The bird, ordained to beMusic's first master, strove to imitateThese several sounds; which when her warbling throatFailed in, for grief down dropped she on his lute,And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness,To see the conqueror upon her hearseTo weep.[37]

Amethus.And do so I: good, on.

Men.A nightingale,Nature's best-skilled musician, undertakesThe challenge, and for every several strainThe well-shaped youth could touch, she sung her own:He could not run division with more artVpon his quaking instrument than sheThe nightingale did with her various notesReply to: for a voice and for a sound,Amethus, 'tis much easier to believeThat such they were, than hope to hear again.

Ameth.How did the rivals part?

Men.You term them rightly.For they were rivals, and their mistress, Harmony.Some time thus spent, the young man grew at lastInto a pretty anger, that a bird,Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes,Should vie with him for mastery, whose studyHad busied many hours to perfect practice.To end the controversy, in a rapture,Vpon his instrument he plays so swiftlySo many voluntaries, and so quick,That there was curiosity and cunning,Concord in discord, lines of differing methodMeeting in one full centre of delight.

Ameth.Now for the bird.

Men.The bird, ordained to beMusic's first master, strove to imitateThese several sounds; which when her warbling throatFailed in, for grief down dropped she on his lute,And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness,To see the conqueror upon her hearseTo weep.[37]

Comment is needless on such pale, empty literality, as compared with the vitality andélanof Crashaw, in all but Ford's; while even Ford's is surpassed in every way by the 'Musick's Duell.'

The 'Suspicion of Herod,' by Marino (c. i.), is a grand poem in the original. Milton knew it, and was taken by it. Our Poet had glorious materials whereon to work, accordingly, when he turned Translator of this all-too-little known Singer of Italy. But Crashaw's soul was more spacious, his imagination more imperial, his vocabulary wealthier, than even Marino's. The greatness and grandeur and force of the Italian roused the Englishman to emulation. Willmott (as before) has placed the original Italian beside Crashaw's interpretation, and the advance in the Translator on his original is almost startling.We prefer adducing Crashaw, and then giving a close rendering of the original:e.g.

'He saw Heav'n blossome with a new-borne light,On which, as on a glorious stranger, gaz'dThe golden eyes of Night.' (st. xvii.)

literally in Marino:

'He sees also shining from heaven,With beauteous ray, the wondrous star,Which, brilliant and beautiful, goesPointing the way straight towards Bethlehem.'

Again:

'He saw how in that blest Day-bearing Night,The Heav'n-rebukèd shades made hast away;How bright a dawne of angels with new lightAmaz'd the midnight world, and made a DayOf which the Morning knew not.' (st. xv.)

literally in Marino:

'He sees the quiet shades and the darkHorrors of the happy, holy NightSmitten and routed by heavenly voices,And vanquished by angelic splendours.'

Once more: when Alecto, the most terrible of the infernal sisters, ascends to Earth at the command of Satan:

'Heav'n saw her rise, and saw Hell in the sight:The fields' faire eyes saw her, and saw no more,But shut their flowry lids for ever;' (st. xlviii.)

for

'Parvero i fiori intorno e la verduraSentir forza di peste, ira di verno;'

literally:

'soon as Hell had vomited outThis monster from the dark abyss,The flowers all around and the verdure appearedTo feel the strength of the plague, the fury of winter.'

This naked simplicity of wording is very fine: yet do Crashaw's adornments bring new charm to Marino. The soliloquy of Satan, though close as the skin to the body,has a ruddiness (so-to-say) from Crashaw. Nothing in Milton is grander than st. xxv. to xxx.; and in all there are touches from the cunning hand of Crashaw:e.g.

'And for the never-fading fields of light;' (st. xxvii.)

for Marino's

'Che più può farmi omai chi la celesteReggia mi tolse, e i regni i miei lucenti?'

literally:

'What more can He now do to me, Who tookFrom me the heavenly palace and my bright realms?'

Again:

'Bow our bright heads before a king of clay;' (st. xxviii.)

for Marino's

'Volle alle forme sue semplici e prime,Natura sovralzar corporea e bassa,E de' membri del ciel capo sublimeFar di limo terrestre eterna massa;'

literally:

'He turns to his simple primitive forms,To raise Nature above the corporeal and low,And to make an unworthy mass of earthly clayThe sublime head of the heavenly members.'

Compare also st. x. in Crashaw with the original as literally rendered:

'Disdainefull wretch, how hath one bold sinne costThee all the beauties of thy once bright eyes!How hathone black eclipse cancell'd and crostThe glories that did gild thee in thy rise!Proud morning of a perverse day, how lostArt thou unto thy selfe, thou too selfe-wiseNarcissus! foolish Phaeton, who for allThyhigh-aym'd hopes, gaind'st but a flaming fall.'

Literally in Marino:

'O wretched Angel, once fairer than light,How thou hast lost thy primeval splendour!Thou shalt have from the eternal RequiterDeserved punishment for the unjust crime:Proud admirer of thy honours,Rebellious usurper of another's seat!Transformed, and fallen into Phlegethon,Proud Narcissus, impious Phaethon!'

Milton takes from Crashaw, not Marino, in his portrait of the Destroyer:

'From Death's sad shades to the life-breathing ayreThis mortall enemy to mankind's goodLifts hismalignant eyes, wasted with care,To become beautifull in humane blood.' (st. xi.)

Literally in Marino:

'He from the shades of death to the living air,Envious in truth of our human state,Lifted aloft his eyes by whereThe hollow vent-hole opened straight down.'

Well-nigh innumerable single lines and words are inevitably marked:e.g.

'the rebellious eyeOf sorrow.' (st. xlix.)

So the eyes of Satan:

'the sullen dens of Death and NightStartle the dull ayre with a dismal red;' (st. vii.)

for Marino's

'Negli occhi ove mestizia alberga e morte,Luce fiammeggia torbida e vermiglia;'

literally:

'In the eyes where sadness dwells and deathA turbid vermilion-coloured light shines.'

Again: the sun is seen by the Tempter to

Make proud the ruby portalls of the East;' (st. xvi.)

for 'la Reggia Oriental.' Crashaw has the same vivid fancy in the Hymn for Epiphany:

'Aurora shall set opeHer ruby casements.'

Finally, to show that even where our Translator keeps closest to the original, he yet gives the creative touches of which I have already spoken, read his st. v. beside this literal translation:

'Under the abysses, at the very core of the world,In the central point of the universe,Within the bowers of the darkest deep,There stands the fiendly perverse Spirit:With sharp thongs an impure groupBinds him with a hundred snakes athwart:With such bonds girds him for ever,The great champion who conqueredHIMin Paradise.'

Thus we might go over the entire poem, and everywhere we should gather proofs that he was himself all he conceived in his splendid portraiture of the true Poet's genius:

'no rapture makes it liveDrest in the glorious madnesse of a Muse,Whose feet can walke the Milky Way,Her starry throne, and hold up an exalted armTo lift me from my lazy urn and climbeUpon the stoopèd shoulders of old Time,And trace eternity.' (vol. i. p. 238.)[38]

Fully to estimate Crashaw's own grander imaginative faculty the Reader must study here the now-first-printed and very Miltonic poems on Apocalypse xii. 7 (Vol. II. pp. 231-3) and 'Christe, veni' (ib.pp. 223-5). It is profoundly to be regretted that our Poet should have limited himself to BookI.of the 'Strage degli Innocenti,' viz. 'Sospetto d'Herode.' BookVII.especially, 'Della Gerusalemme Distruta,' would have demanded all his powers. The entire poem was 'done in English,' and it is 'done' (by T.R. 1675).

With reference to our own Translations of Crashaw, if in some instances we have enlarged on our original, and adventured to fill-in what in the Latin the Poet is fettered in uttering, may we apologise by pleading his own example as a Translator, though with unequal steps and far off? I would specify the very remarkable 'Bulla,' in which, indeed, I find Crashaw's highest of pure poetic faculty within the region of Fancy in its delicatest and subtlest symbolisms; also the scarcely less remarkable address 'To the Reader' ('Lectori'); and his 'Fides &c. &c.' and his classical legends of 'Arion,' and his University 'Laments' and 'Appeals' for Peterhouse. Throughout, my co-workers and myself have aimed to give thethoughtof Crashaw; and, unless I egregiously mistake, we have together earned some gratitude from admirers of our Worthy.

I leave to other Scholars to deal critically with the Latin and Greek of these Poems and Epigrams now first translated. Read unsympathetically, I fear that very often his quantities and versification will be regarded as barbarous; but we have done something, it is believed, to neutralise Turnbull's most discreditable misprints herein, as in the English Poems. In the places (vol. ii. pp. 5-6, 244, and 332) we have recorded some of his more flagrant blunders; but besides we have silently corrected as many more of the original and early editions.

That Crashaw was not an accurate scholar the Greek Epigrams (as well as some of the Latin ones) furnish sufficient proof. Of the many obvious errors in quantity and construction, I have only corrected such as may have been mere oversights, some of them perhaps caused by his MS. having been misread; in other cases I have followed the original editions, and corrected the numerous errors made by Turnbull from his not being able to read the Greek ligatures &c. It may be well to indicate a few ofthe typical corrections that I felt obliged to make, and note other lapses which I did not feel justified in altering.

InXI.last line,ἀπέῤῥιπτονforἀπόῤῥιπτον;CXXI.last line,ἔηνforἔη;CXXV.line 5.κεῖν'forκεῖν;CLXXX.line 1 hasπλάνηas if the penult were long instead of short, andἄλημιan unused form, so that the line offends both quantity and usage—it might be amended thus,Εἷς μὲν ἐγὼ, ᾗ μού τε πλάνη περιῆγεν, ἀλῶμαι;CLXXXII.line 1,ἐπέβαλλενforἐπίβαλλεν;CLXXXIII.line 2,συκόμωρεshould beσυκόμορε, but altered for scansion; line 3,ἐκκρήμνηςshould perhaps beἐκκρημνὰς; line 4, unscanable; and inCXXV.line 4,δασίοιςshould beδασέσιν.οὐρανὸς, the penult of which is short, he uses as either long or short.

I must add, that the accentuation was as often wrong as right. I have carefully corrected it throughout. And this seems to me to be the only allowable way of reproducing Crashaw. An Editor cannot be held responsible for his Author writing imperfect Greek or Latin, any more than for his mistakes either in opinion or in matters-of-fact or taste.

Anderson's and Chalmers' Poets, and Peregrine Phillip's Selections, and Turnbull's edition in Russell Smith's 'Old Authors' and that in Gilfillan's Poets (a selection only), are our predecessors in furnishing Crashaw's Poetry. We confess to a feeling of just pride (shall we say?) in being the first worthily and adequately to present as remarkable Poetry, in its own region, as is anywhere to be found.Richard Crashawhas assuredly not yet gathered all his fame.[39]

Alexander B. Grosart.

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