rammar learning in Sutton's-Hospital called the Charter-House, near
London, and in academical, partly in Pembroke-Hall, of which he was a
scholar, and afterwards in Peterhouse, Cambridge, of which he was a
fellow, where, as in the former house, he was distinguished for his
Latin and English poetry. Afterwards he took the degree of master of
arts; but being soon after thrown out of his fellowship, with many
others of the University of Cambridge, for denying the Covenant during
the time of the rebellion, he was for a time obliged to shift for
himself, and struggle against want and oppression. At length being
wearied with persecution and poverty, and foreseeing the calamity
which threatened and afterwards fell upon his church and country, by
the unbounded fury of the Presbyterians, he changed his religion,
and went beyond sea, in order to recommend himself to some Popish
preferment in Paris; but being a mere scholar was incapable of
executing his new plan of a livelihood. Mr. Abraham Cowley hearing of
his being there, endeavoured to find him out, which he did, and to his
great surprize saw him in a very miserable plight: this happened in
the year 1646. This generous bard gave him all the assistance he
could, and obtained likewise some relief for him from Henrietta Maria
the Queen Dowager, then residing at Paris. Our author receiving
letters of recommendation from his Queen, he took a journey into
Italy, and by virtue of those letters became a secretary to a Cardinal
at Rome, and at length one of the canons or chaplains of the rich
church of our lady of Loretto, some miles distant from thence, where
he died in 1650.

This conduct of Crashaw can by no means be justified: when a man
changes one religion for another, he ought to do it at a time when no
motive of interest can well be supposed to have produced it; for it
does no honour to religion, nor to the person who becomes a convert,
when it is evident, he would not have altered his opinion, had not
his party been suffering; and what would have become of the church
of England, what of the Protestant religion, what of christianity in
general, had the apostles and primitive martyrs, and later champions
for truth, meanly abandoned it like Crashaw, because the hand of power
was lifted up against it. It is an old observation, that the blood of
the martyrs is the seed of the church; but Crashaw took care that
the church mould reap no benefit by his perseverance. Before he left
E