There is some obscurity in these Donne- or Ben-Jonson-like rugged lines,
but none as to the opinions of their writer on Popery. Thus up to 1634
at least, or until his twenty-second or twenty-third year, Crashaw the
younger was as thoroughly Protestant, in all probability, as his father
could have desired. The '_change_' accordingly was a radical one when he
left his mother-Church, and one laments that our light is so dim and our
view so distant. Anthony a-Wood (as before) and the usual authorities
state that our Crashaw became famous as a preacher: he became, says
Willmott, 'a preacher of great energy and power,' _id est_, in England,
and therefore while still belonging to the Church of England. I have an
impression that somehow the son has been confounded with the father,
whose renown as a preacher was lasting; just as it seems certain that
son and father have been confounded by the continuous editors of
Selden's 'Table-Talk,' wherein the illustrious Thinker recounts
somewhat proudly that he had converted Crashaw from his opposition to
stage-plays. We may as well expiscate this point here. The younger
Crashaw, then, never expressed himself, so far as is known, against
stage-plays: contrari-wise, in his fine Epigram on Ford's 'Love's
Sacrifice' and 'Broken Heart' he is in sympathy with these
'stage-plays.' On the other hand, in one of his most impassioned
sermons, his father had, with characteristic pungency, condemned 'Plaies
and Players'--as given below.[17] To return: be this as it may in the
matter of 'preaching,' the matter-of-fact is, that our Crashaw retained
his Fellowship up to his ejection on the 11th of June 1644 (vol. i. pp.
xxxiii.-iv.), or when he was in his 32d-33d year; or, as gentle Father
Southwell gently put it, about his 'dear Lord's' age. We get a glimpse
of his religious life while a Protestant, in the original 'Preface to
the Reader' of 'Steps to the Temple,' &c. as follows: 'Reader, we stile
his Sacred Poems, Steps to the Temple, and aptly; for in the Temple of
God, under His wing, he led his life, in St. Marie's Church neere St.
Peter's Colledge: there he lodged under Tertullian's roofe of angels;
there he made his nest more gladly than David's swallow neere the house
of God, where, like a primitive saint, he offered more prayers in the
night than others usually offer in the day; there he penned these poems,
STEPS for happy soules to climbe heaven by' (vol. i. p. xlvii.).
Coinciding with this is the love he had for the writings of 'Sainte
Teresa,' when (in his own words) 'the Author' of 'A Hymn to the Name
and Honor of the admirable Sainte Teresa' was 'yet among the
Protestants.' In his 'Apologie for the foregoing Hymn'--than which, for
subtle, delicate, fin_est_ mysticism, in words that are not so much
words as music, and yet definite words too, changing with the quick
bright changes of a dove's neck, there is hardly anything truer--the
Poet traces up his devotion to her to his 'reading' of her books; as
thus:
'Thus haue I back again to thy bright name,
Fair floud of holy fires! transfus'd the flame
I took from reading thee....
... O pardon, if I dare to say
Thine own dear bookes are guilty.' (vol. i. p. 150.)
The words of the Preface (as above) remind us also that Crashaw took his
part in the Fasts and Vigils and austerities of the Ferrars and the
saintly, if ascetic, 'Little Gidding' group.[18] Going back on the
'Hymn,' such lines as these show how even then the Poet had drunk-in the
very passion of Teresa: _e.g._
'Loue toucht her heart, and, lo, it beates
High, and burnes with such braue heates,
Such thirsts to dy, as dares drink vp
_A thousand cold deathes in one cup_.
Good reason: for she breathes all fire;
Her white breast heaues with strong desire.
. . . . .
Sweet, not so fast! lo, thy fair Spouse,
Whom thou seekst with so swift vowes,
Calls thee back, and bidds thee come
T'embrace a milder martyrdom.
Blest powres forbid thy tender life
Should bleed vpon a barbarous knife:
Or some base hand have power to raze
Thy brest's chast cabinet, and vncase
A soul kept there so sweet: O no,
Wise Heaun will neuer haue it so.
Thou art Love's victime, and must dy
A death more mystical and high:
Into Loue's armes thou shalt let fall
A still-suruiuing funerall.
His is the dart must make the death
Whose stroke shall tast thy hallow'd breath;
A dart thrice dipt in that rich flame
Which writes thy Spouse's radiant name
Vpon the roof of Heau'n, where ay
It shines; and with a soueraign ray
Beates bright vpon the burning faces
Of soules which in that Name's sweet graces
Find everlasting smiles. . .
O how oft shalt thou complain
Of a sweet and subtle pain;
Of intolerable ioyes;
Of a death, in which who dyes
Loues his death, and dyes again,
And would for ever so be slain,
And liues and dyes; and knowes not why
To live, but that he thus may neuer leaue to dy.'
It is deeply significant to find such a Hymn as that written while 'yet
among the Protestants.' Putting the two things together--(_a_) his
recluse, shy, meditative life 'under Tertullian's roofe of angels,' and
his prayers THERE in the night; (_b_) his passionately sympathetic
reading, as of Teresa, and going forth of his most spiritual yearnings
after the 'sweet and subtle pain,' and Love's death 'mystical and
high'--we get at the secret of the 'change' now being considered.
However led to it, Crashaw's reading lay among books that were as fuel
to fire brought to a naturally mystical and supersensitive temperament;
and however formed and nurtured, such self-evidently was his
temperament. His innate mysticism drew him to such literature, and the
literature fed what perchance demanded rather to be neutralised.[19] I
feel satisfied one main element of the attraction of Roman Catholicism
for him was the nutriment and nurture for his profoundest though most
perilous spiritual experiences in its Writers. His great-brained,
strong-thewed father would have dismissed such 'intolerable ioyes' as
morbid sentimentalism; but the nervous, finely and highly-strung
organisation of his son was as an Aeolian harp under their touch. To all
this must be added certain local influences, and ultimately the crash of
the Ejection. The history of the University during the period of
Crashaw's residence makes it plain that there was then, as later, a
revival of what may be technically called Ritualism--as an intended
help-meet to Faith--and that by some of the most cultured and gracious
scholars of the Colleges. I am not vindicating, much less judging such,
any more than would I 'sit in judgment' on the Ritualist revival of our
own day, _i.e._ of its adherents. For myself, I find it a diviner and
grander thing to 'walk by faith' rather than by 'sight,' and not
'bodied' but 'disembodied truth' the more spiritual. But to not a
few--and to such as Crashaw--the sensible, the visible, the actually
looked-at--sanctified with the hoar of centuries--light up and
etherealise. Contemporary records show that the chapel of
Peterhouse--Crashaw's college--which was built in 1632, and consecrated
by Francis White, Bishop of Ely, was a 'handsome' one, having a
beautiful ceiling and a noble east window--its glass 'hid away in the
troublesome times.' Among the benefactors to its building were
(afterwards bishops) Cosin and Wren, and also Shelford, whose 'Five
learned Discourses' were graced with a noticeable 'commendatory poem'
by Crashaw (vol. ii. pp. 162-5). Before this chapel was built the
society made use of the chancel of the adjacent church of Little St.
Mary's, into which there was a door from Peterhouse College. The reader
may at this point turn to our poet's heart-broken 'pleadings' for the
'restoration' of his College, now made 'to speak English.' On all which,
and the like, dear old Fuller, in his History of the University, thus
speaks, under a somewhat later date (1642), but _the_ very
turning-period with Crashaw: 'Now began the University to be much
beautified in buildings; every college, after casting its skin with the
snake, or renewing its bill with the eagle, having their courts, or at
least their fronts and gatehouse, repaired and adorned. But the greatest
attention was in their chapels, most of them being graced with the
accession of organs,' &c.
Contemporary records farther lead us to Peterhouse and Pembroke Colleges
as specially 'visited' and 'spoiled' in the Commission from the
Parliament in 1643 to remove crosses. We may read one 'report' out of
many. 'Mr. Horscot: We went to Peterhouse, 1643, Dec. 21, with officers
and soldiers, and [in] the presence [of] Mr. Wilson, of the president
Mr. Francis, Mr. Maxy and other Fellows, Dec. 20 and 23, we pulled down
two mighty great angells with wings, and divers other angells and the
four Evangelists and Peter with his keies, over the Chappell Dore, and
about a hundred cherubims and angells and divers superstitious letters
in gold; and at the upper end of the chancel these words were written as
followeth: "Hic locus est Domini Dei, nil aliud et Porta coeli."
Witness, Will. Dowsing, Geo. Long.' Farther: 'These words were written
at Keie's Coll. and not at Peterhouse, but about the walls were written
in Latin, "We prays thee ever;" and on some of the images was written
"Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus;" or other, "Gloria Dei et Gloria Patri,"
and "Non nobis Domine;" and six angells in the windowes.' So at
Pembroke, 'We brake and pulled down 80 superstitious pictures;' and so
at Little St. Mary's, 'We brake down 60 superstitious pictures, some
Popes and crucifixes and God the Father sitting in a chayer and holding
a glass in his hand.' Looking on the since famous names of Peterhouse
and Pembroke (Spenser's college)--Cosin, Wren, Shelford, Tournaye,
Andrewes--they at once suggest ritualistic, if not Roman Catholic,
proclivities.
Thus from all sides came potent influences of personal friendship--of
his friends and associates more onward--to give impulse and _momentum_
to Crashaw's mystical Roman-Catholic sympathies. The 'Ejection' of 1644
found Crashaw in the very heart of these influences, not swayed simply,
but mastered by them. To one so secluded and unworldly, a crisis in
which the pillars of the throne were shattered, and in which not the
many for the one, but the one rather than the many, must be sacrificed,
was a dazing bewilderment, and terror, and agony. All was chaos and
weltering confusion; no resting-place in England for his dove-feet:
dissonance, blasphemy as he weened, came to his shuddering heart: he saw
the lifting-up of anchors never before lifted, and the Church drifting,
drifting away aimlessly and helplessly (as he misjudged). Moses-like, he
looked this way and that way, and saw no man--saw not The Man--and
failed, I fear, to look UP, because of his very agony of looking down
and in. And so, in his tremor and sorrow and weariness, he passed over
to Roman Catholicism as the 'ideal' of his reading, and as the 'home' of
the sainted ones whose words were as manna to his spirit. Not a strong,
defiant, masterful soul, by any means--frail, timorous, shrinking,
rather--he would 'fly away,' even if out to the wilderness, to be 'at
rest.' The very 'inner life' of God was in his soft gentle heart, and
that he carried with him through after-years, as Cowley bore brave
witness by his magnanimous title of 'Saint.' Conscience
too--ill-instructed possibly, yet true to its light, if true also to
feelings that ought to have been wrestled with, not succumbed to--went
with him: and what of God's grace is in a man keeps him, wherever
ecclesiastically he may abide.
Such is our solution of the 'change' of Crashaw from Protestantism to
Catholicism. It is sheer fanaticism to rave against the 'change,' and to
burrow for ignoble motives. Gross ignorance of the facts of the period
is betrayed by any one who harshly 'judges' that the humble 'ejected
Fellow' made a worldly 'gain' by his 'change.' Nay verily, it was no
'gain,' in that paltry sense, for an Englishman then to become a Roman
Catholic. It was to invite obloquy, misconstruction, 'evil-speaking.' In
Crashaw's case he had wealthy uncles and aunts, and other relatives, who
should have amply provided for him, and 'sheltered' him through the
'troublous times.' Prynne's 'Legenda Lignea, with an Answer to Mr.
Birchley's Moderator (pleading for a Toleration of Popery) and a
Character of some hopeful saints revolted to the Church of Rome' (1653),
is brutal as it is inaccurate; but it must be adduced as an example of
what 'Revolters' (so called) had to endure, albeit Crashaw was gone into
the silences whither no clamour reaches, when the bitter book came
forth. 'Master Richard Crashaw (son to the London divine, and sometime
Fellow of St. Peterhouse in Cambridge) is another slip of the times that
is transplanted to Rome. This peavish sillie seeker glided away from his
principles in a poetical vein of fancy and impertinent curiosity, and
finding that verses and measured flattery took and much pleased some
female wits, Crashaw crept by degrees into favour and acquaintance with
some court ladies, and with the gross commendations of their parts and
beauties (burnished and varnished with some other agreeable adulations)
he got first the estimation of an innocent, harmless convert; and a
purse being made by some deluded, vain-glorious ladies and their
friends, the poet was despatched on a pilgrimage to Rome, where, if he
had found in the see Pope Urban the Eighth instead of Pope Innocent, he
might possibly have received a greater quantity and a better number of
benedictions; for Urban was as much a pretender to be prince and
oecumenical patron of poets as head of the Church; but Innocent being
more harsh and dry, the poor small poet Crashaw met with none of the
generation and kindred of Mecaenas, nor any great blessing from his
Holiness; which misfortune puts the pitiful wier-drawer to a humour of
admiring his own raptures; and in this fancy (like Narcissus) he is
fallen in love with his own shadow, conversing with himself in verse,
and admiring the birth of his own brains; he is only laughed at, or at
most but pitied, by his few patrons, who, conceiving him unworthy of any
preferment in their Church, have given him leave to live (like a lean
swine almost ready to starve) in a poor mendicant quality; and that
favour is granted only because Crashaw can rail as satirically and
bitterly at true religion in verse as others of his grain and complexion
can in prose and loose discourses: this fickle shuttlecock, so tost with
every changeable puff and blast, is rather to be laughed at and scorned
for his ridiculous levity than imitated in his sinful and notorious
apostacy and revolt' (cxxxviii.).
The short and crushing answer to all this Billingsgate is: The poems of
Crashaw are now fully before the reader, and he will not find, from the
first page to the last, one line answering to Prynne's jaundiced
representations: 'flatteries,' 'adulations,' 'railings,' you look for in
vain. The wistfulness of persuasion of the Verse-Letter to the Countess
of Denbigh would have been trampled on as a blind man or a boor
tramples on a bed of pansies, by the grim lawyer-Puritan. Then, the very
lowliness and (alleged) mendicancy of his post in the Church of Rome
might have suggested a grain of charity, seeing that worldly advancement
could not be motive to an all-but friendless scholar. As to the 'birth
of his own brains,' and 'conversing with himself in verse,' would that
we had more such 'births' and 'conversings'! Other accusations are
malignant gossip, where they are not nonsense. Far different is the
spirit of Dr. John Bargrave; whose MS. has at last been worthily edited
and published for the Camden Society.[20] His notice of Crashaw at Rome
is as follows: 'When I went first of my four times to Rome, there were
there four revolters to the Roman Church that had been Fellows of
Peterhouse in Cambridge with myself. The name of one of them was Mr. R.
Crashaw, who was one of the _Seguita_ (as their term is): that is, an
attendant or of the followers of this Cardinal, for which he had a
salary of crowns by the month (as the custom is), but no diet. Mr.
Crashaw infinitely commended his Cardinal, but complained extremely of
the wickedness of those of his retinue; of which he, having the
Cardinal's ear, complained to him. Upon which the Italians fell so far
out with him that the Cardinal, to secure his life, was fain to put him
from his service, and procuring him some small employ at the Lady's of
Loretto; whither he went on pilgrimage in summer time, and, overheating
himself, died in four weeks after he came thither, and it was doubtful
whether he was not poisoned' (p. 37). That brings before us a true,
white-souled Man 'of God,' resolute to 'speak out,' whoever sinned in
his sight; and it is blind sectarianism to deny that, from the noble and
holy Loyola to our own Faber and Spencer and the living Newman, the
Church of Rome has never been without dauntless preachers of the very
righteousness of God, or unhesitant rebukers of the wickedness,
immoralities, and frivolities of their co-religionists. The suspicion of
'poyson' I am unwilling to accept. Onward I shall give our recovered
record of his death. Summarily, then, the 'change' of Crashaw from
Protestantism to Roman Catholicism had its root and carries its solution
in his 'mystical' dreamy temperament and yearnings, as these were
over-encouraged instead of controlled; and as formative influences there
were--(_a_) his reading in Teresa and kindred literature, until not
'hands,' but brain and heart, imagination and fancy, grew into the
elements wherein they wrought--as one finds sprays of once-green moss
and delicate-carven ferns changed by the dripping limestone into
limestone: (_b_) the ritualistic revival being in the hands of those
most loved and trusted, and from whom he fetched whatever of spiritual
life and peace and joy and hope was in him--these too being of stronger
will, and decisive in opinion and action--his vague 'feeling-after' rest
was centred in the Rest of ideal Roman Catholicism: (_c_) the confusions
and strifes of the transition-period of the Commonwealth terrified and
wounded him; he mistook the crash of falling scaffolding, whose end was
served, for the falling of the everlasting skies; saw not their serene
shining beyond the passing clouds, lightning-charged for divine
clarifying; and a 'quiet retreat,' which Imagination beckoned him to,
won him to 'hide' there his weeping and dismay. Nothing sordid or
expedient, or facing-both-ways, or unworthy, moved him to 'change.'
Every one who has self-respect based on self-knowledge, and who thus has
experienced the mystery of his deepest beliefs, will make all gentlest
allowances, hold all tenderest sympathies with him, and feel the coarse
abuse of Prynne and later as a personal wrong. Richard Crashaw was a
true 'man of God,' and acted, I believe, in sensitive allegiance to his
conscience as it spake to him. 'Change,' even fundamental change, in
such a man is to be accepted without reserve as 'honest' and righteous
and God-fearing. He dared not sign the 'Solemn League and Covenant,'
however 'solemn' it might be to others; and so he went out.[21] I pass
to--
II. _His friends and associates, as celebrated in his writings._ I use
the word 'Writings' here rather than 'Poems,' because in his Epistles,
_e.g._ to the 'Epigrammata' and those printed by us for the first time,
as well as in his Poetry, names are found over which one pauses
instinctively. Commencing with his school-days at the Charterhouse,
there is Robert Brooke, 'Master' ('Preceptor') from 1628 to 1643.[22]
Very little has come down to us concerning him, and the present head of
the renowned School has been unable to add to Alexander Chalmers'
testimony, 'A very celebrated Master.' All the more have I pleasure in
inviting attention to the new 'Epistola' and related poems addressed to
him, and which must be studied along with the previous poem,
'Ornatissimo viro praeceptori suo colendissimo, Magistro Brook' (vol. ii.
pp. 319); and perhaps the humorous and genial serio-comic celebration of
'Priscianus' grew from some school-incident (vol. ii. pp. 308, 315)
having in the latter year, like Crashaw, been 'ejected' from the
Charterhouse for not taking the 'Solemn League and Covenant.' He had
been usher from 1626 to 1628. An apartment in the building is still
called from him Brooke Hall ('Chronicles,' pp. 129, 159).
The next prominent name is that of Benjamin Lany--sometimes Laney, as in
Masson's Milton (i. 97)--afterwards successively Bishop of Peterborough
and Lincoln and Ely. We have already noted his marked Protestantism in
the verse-eulogy of the elder Crashaw, so that probably it was as his
father's son, Lany, then Master of Pembroke, received our Worthy there.
Lany was of the 'ejected' in 1644. The present Bishop of Ely, with all
willingness to help us, found no MSS. or biographic materials in his
custody. When may we hope each bishopric will find a qualified
historian-biographer? A portrait of Lany is in the Master's Lodge at the
Charterhouse ('Chronicles,' 1847, p. 140).
Crashaw's tutor at Pembroke was 'Master Tournay,' to whose praise and
friendship he dedicates a Latin poem (vol. ii. pp. 371 et sqq.). Dr.
Ward, Master of Sidney College, writes to Archbishop Usher thus of him:
'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 ii. 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 that are great
abettors of M. Tournay, the party above mentioned, who, no doubt, are
backed by others' (June 14, 1643. Life of Parr, p. 470: Willmott, 1st
series, pp. 302-3). In relation to Tournay's heresy on 'Justification,'
it is profoundly interesting, biographically, to remember Crashaw's most
striking Latin poems--so carelessly overlooked, if not impudently
suppressed, by Turnbull--first published by Crashaw in the volume of
1648, viz. 'Fides, quae sola justificat, non est sine spe et dilectione,'
and 'Baptismus non tollit futura peccata.' The student will do well to
turn to these two poems in their places (vol. ii. pp. 209, 216).[23]
Robert Shelford, 'of Ringsfield in Suffolk, Priest,' was another
'_suspect_:' as in Huntley's [ = Prynne] _Breviate_ (3d ed. 1637, p.
308) we read, 'Master Shelford hath of late affirmed in print, that the
Pope was never yet defined to be the Antichrist by any Synods.' More
vehemently writes Usher 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 unto 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 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' (as before). It was to
these 'Five Discourses' our Poet furnished a 'commendatory' poem--given
by us unmutilated from the volume (vol. i. pp. 162-5). Shelford, like
his friend, was of Peterhouse. Another college-friend was William Herrys
(or Herries or Harris), who was of Essex. He died in October 1631. He
was of Pembroke and Christ's. The poems and 'Epitaph' consecrated to his
memory are in various ways remarkable. But beyond a few college-dates, I
have failed to recover notices of him. He seems to have been to Crashaw
what young King was to Milton and his fellow-students (vol. i. pp.
220-30; vol. ii. pp. 378 et sqq.).[24] So with James Stanninow (or
Staninough), 'fellow of Queene's Colledge'--the poem on whose death was
first printed by us (vol. i. pp. 290-92). He has a Latin poem prefixed
to Isaacson's 'Chronology' (our vol. i. pp. 246-49).[25] So too with
'Master Chambers,' of the fine pathetic hitherto anonymous poem 'Vpon
the death of a Gentleman' (vol. i. pp. 218-19). Neither have I been able
to add one syllable to the name and heading: 'An Epitaph vpon Mr.
Ashton, a conformable citizen.' Wren, Cosin, and others of Cambridge,
not being named by Crashaw, do not come under these remarks. The new
poems on Dr. Porter (vol. i. pp. 293-4), Dr. Mansell (vol. ii. p. 323),
and others, explain themselves--with our notes. Of Cardinal Palotta, or
Palotto, we get most satisfying glimpses in Dr. Bargrave's volume
(already quoted). The Protestant Canon's testimony is: 'He is very
papable [placable], and esteemed worthy by all, especially the princes
that know his virtue and qualities, being a man of angelical life; and
Rome would be glad to see him Pope, to pull down the pride of the
Barberini. Innocent the Xth, now reigning, hath a great regard for him,
though his kindred care not for him, because he speaketh his mind freely
of them to the Pope' (p. 36).[26]
It only remains that I notice our Crashaw's friendship with (_a_)
Abraham Cowley; (_b_) the Countess of Denbigh.
(_a_) ABRAHAM COWLEY. Of the alternate-poem on Hope, composed by Cowley
and Crashaw (vol. i. pp. 175-181), and that 'Vpon two greene Apricockes
sent to Cowley by Sir Crashaw' (ib. pp. 269-70), more in our next
division. These remain as the ever-enduring 'memorial' of their
friendship, while the thought-full, love-full 'Elegy,' devoted by the
survivor to the memory of his Friend, can never pale of its glory (vol.
i. pp. xxxvi.-viii.). All honour to Cowley that he kept the traduced
'Apostate' and 'Revolter' in his heart-of-hearts, and 'sought' him out
in his lowly 'lodgings' in the gay, and yet (to him) sad Paris. It is my
purpose one day worthily to reproduce the Works of this in form
fantastic, but in substance most intellectual, of our Poets; and I shall
have then, perhaps, something additional to communicate on this
beautiful Friendship. They had appeared together as Poets in the 'Voces
Votivae.' The various readings show that Cowley's portion of Hope was
revised in Paris; and this, with the gift of the 'apricockes,' expresses
that they had some pleasant intercourse.[27]
(_b_) COUNTESS OF DENBIGH. By the confiding goodness of the present Earl
and Countess of Denbigh, I have, among my 'Sunny Memories,' most
pleasant hours of a long summer day spent in examining the Library and
family MSS. and portraits at Newnham Paddox, and a continued and
sympathetic correspondence, supplemented with kindred helpfulness on the
part of the good Father-priest of the house. It is one of the anomalies
of our national historic Biography that the sister of Buckingham--Susan,
daughter of Sir George Villiers, of Brokesby, first Countess of
Denbigh--should have died and made no 'sign,' and left no memorial; for
it is absolutely unknown when or where she did die. But as it is known
that _she_ became a Roman Catholic,[28] while it is not known that
Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of Edward Bourchier, Earl of Bath, who
became third wife (of four) of Basil, second Earl of Denbigh, so
'changed,' we must conclude that Turnbull and others are mistaken in
regarding the latter as Crashaw's 'patron' and friend. The family-papers
show that Susan Countess of Denbigh was a lady of intellect and force;
equally do they show that Elizabeth Bourchier was (to say the least)
un-literary. I have from Newnham Paddox a sheaf of rarely-vivid and
valuable Letters of 'Susan'--with some of 'Elizabeth;' and if I can only
succeed in discovering the date of the former's death, so as to
determine whether she was living up to Crashaw's death in 1650, or
thereby--as dowager-countess--I intend to prepare a short Monograph on
her, wherein I shall print, for the first time, such a series of Letters
as will compare with any ever given to the world; and I should greatly
like to engrave her never-yet engraved magnificent face at Newnham
Paddox. For the present, a digression may be allowed, in order to
introduce, as examples of these recovered Letters, a short and
creditable one from Buckingham to his mother, and one from Susan,
Countess of Denbigh, to her son; others, that are long and fact-full,
hereafter (as _supra_). These in order: