The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw Volume I Part 3

By RICHARD CRASHAW, _sometimes of_ Pembroke Hall, _and late fellow of_ S. Peters _Coll._ in Cambridge.

_The second Edition wherein are added divers pieces not before extant._

LONDON,

Printed for _Humphrey Moseley_, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Princes Armes in St. _Pauls_ Church-yard.

1648. [12o]

The t.i.tle-page to the 'Delights of the Muses' is exactly the same with that of 1646, except the date '1648.' Collation: Engraved t.i.tle-page; t.i.tle-page (printed); the Preface to the Reader and the Author's Motto, pp. 6; 'Steps,' pp. 110; the Table, pp. 4; the 'Delights;' t.i.tle-page; the Table, pp. 3; Poems, pp. 71.

_3d edition, 1652._

CARMEN

DEO NOSTRO,

TE DECET HYMNVS

SACRED POEMS,

Collected, Corrected, Avgmented, Most humbly Presented.

To My Lady The Covntesse of DENBIGH By Her most deuoted Seruant.

R.C.

In heaty [_sic_] acknowledgment of his immortall obligation to her Goodnes & Charity.

AT PARIS

By PETER TARGA, Printer to the Archbishope ef [_sic_] Paris, in S. Victors streete at the golden sunne.

M.DC.LII. [8vo]

Collation: t.i.tle-page; Verses by CAR, pp. 3; Verse-Letter to Countess of Denbigh, pp. 3 [all unpaged]; the Poems, pp. 131. (See our Preface for more on this and preceding and succeeding volumes, and for notice of a separate edition of the Verse-Letter to the Countess of Denbigh.)

_4th edition, erroneously designated 2d edition_, 1670.

STEPS

TO THE

TEMPLE,

THE DELIGHTS Of The Muses, and Carmen Deo Nostro.

By _Ric. Crashaw_, sometimes Fellow of _Pembroke Hall_, and late Fellow of _St. Peters Colledge_ in _Cambridge_.

_The 2d. Edition._

In the Savoy,

Printed by T.N. for _Henry Herringham_ at the _Blew Anchor_ in the _Lower Walk_ of the _New Exchange_. 1670. [8vo]

Collation: Engraving of a 'Temple;' t.i.tle-page; the Preface to the Reader and the Author's Motto, pp. 8; the Table, pp. 6 [all unpaged]; 'Steps,' pp. 77; 'Delights,' pp. 81-137; 'Carmen Deo Nostro, Te Decet Hymnvs,' pp. 141-208. For later editions see our Preface, as before, and for details on all, early and recent, and Ma.n.u.scripts; and also our Memorial-Introduction and Essay. The 'Preface' of 1646 was reprinted in 1648 without change, save a few slight orthographical differences, and these: p. xlvi. line 3, 'their' for 'its dearest:' p. xlvii. line 1, 'subburd' for 'suburb:' and ibid, line 19, 'then' for 'than:' 1648 our text. It follows this Note in its own place. G.

STEPS TO THE TEMPLE, &c.

THE PREFACE TO THE READER.

LEARNED READER,

The Author's friend will not usurpe much upon thy eye: This is onely for those whom the name of our divine Poet hath not yet seized[11] into admiration. I dare undertake that what JAMBLICUS[12] (_in vita Pythagorae_) affirmeth of his Master, at his contemplations, these Poems can, viz. They shall lift thee, Reader, some yards above the ground: and, as in _Pythagoras_ Schoole, every temper was first tuned into a height by severall proportions of Musick, and spiritualiz'd for one of his weighty lectures; so maist thou take a poem hence, and tune thy soule by it, into a heavenly pitch;[13] and thus refined and borne up upon the wings of meditation, in these Poems thou maist talke freely of G.o.d, and of that other state.

Here's _Herbert's_[14] second, but equall, who hath retriv'd Poetry of late, and return'd it up to its primitive use; let it bound back to heaven gates, whence it came. Thinke yee ST. AUGUSTINE would have steyned his graver learning with a booke of Poetry, had he fancied its dearest end to be the vanity of love-sonnets and epithalamiums? No, no, he thought with this our Poet, that every foot in a high-borne verse, might helpe to measure the soule into that better world. Divine Poetry, I dare hold it in position, against SUAREZ on the subject, to be the language of the angels; it is the quintessence of phantasie and discourse center'd in Heaven; 'tis the very out-goings of the soule; 'tis what alone our Author is able to tell you, and that in his owne verse.

It were prophane but to mention here in the Preface those under-headed Poets, retainers to seven shares and a halfe;[15] madrigall fellowes, whose onely businesse in verse, is to rime a poore six-penny soule, a suburb-sinner[16] into h.e.l.l:--May such arrogant pretenders to Poetry vanish, with their prodigious issue of tumorous[17] heats and flashes of their adulterate braines, and for ever after, may this our Poet fill up the better roome of man. Oh! when the generall arraignment of Poets shall be, to give an accompt of their higher soules, with what a triumphant brow shall our divine Poet sit above, and looke downe upon poore HOMER, VIRGIL, HORACE, CLAUDIAN, &c.? who had amongst them the ill lucke to talke out a great part of their gallant genius, upon bees, dung, froggs, and gnats, &c., and not as himself here, upon Scriptures, divine graces, martyrs and angels.

Reader, we stile his Sacred Poems, Steps to the Temple, and aptly, for in the Temple of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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. And those other of his pieces, int.i.tuled The Delights of the Muses, (though of a more humane mixture) are as sweet as they are innocent.

The praises that follow, are but few of many that might be conferr'd on him: he was excellent in five languages (besides his mother tongue), vid. Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, the two last whereof he had little helpe in, they were of his own acquisition.

Amongst his other accomplishments in accademick (as well pious as harmlesse arts) he made his skill in Poetry, Musick, Drawing, Limming, Graving (exercises of his curious invention and sudden fancy) to be but his subservient recreations for vacant houres, not the grand businesse of his soule.

To the former qualifications I might adde that which would crowne them all, his rare moderation in diet (almost Lessian temperance[18]); he never created a Muse out of distempers, nor (with our Canary scribblers[19]) cast any strange mists of surfets before the intellectuall beames of his mind or memory, the latter of which he was so much a master of, that he had there under locke and key in readinesse, the richest treasures of the best Greek and Latine poets, some of which Authors hee had more at his command by heart, than others that onely read their works, to retaine little, and understand lesse.

Enough Reader, I intend not a volume of praises larger than his booke, nor need I longer transport thee to think over his vast perfections: I will conclude all that I have impartially writ of this learned young Gent. (now dead to us) as he himselfe doth, with the last line of his poem upon Bishop Andrews' picture before his Sermons: _Verte paginas_,

'Look on his following leaves, and see him breath.'[20]

THE AUTHOR'S MOTTO.

Live Iesus, live, and let it bee My life, to dye for love of Thee.