bed for the world the
hopes, the aspirations, the sorrows of his troubled life. He lived but
thirty-four years--the volume of his verses is not less nor more than the
kindred books of the brother poets with whom we are now associating his
memory. A small body of verse will hold much life; for the poet gives us a
concentrated essence, an elixir, a skillful confection of humanity, which,
diluted with the commonplaces of every-day thought and living, may cover
whole shelves of libraries. The secret of the whole of one life may be
expressed in a song or a sonnet. The little books of the world are not the
least.

Crashaw, also, was a scholar. The son of a clergy-man, he was educated at
the famed Charter-house and afterward at Cambridge. The Revolution, too,
overtook him. He refused the oath of the covenant, was ejected from his
fellowship, became a Roman Catholic, and took refuge in Paris, where he
ate the bread of exile with Cowley and others, cheered by the noble
sympathy--it could not be much more--of Queen Henrietta Maria. She
recommended him to Rome, and the sensitive poet carried his joys and
sorrows to the bosom of the church. He lived a few years, and died canon
of Loretto, at the age of thirty-four.

Though the son of a zealous opponent of the Roman church, Crashaw was born
with an instinct and heart for its service. There runs through all his
poetry that sensuousness of feeling which seeks the repose and luxury of
faith which Rome always offers to her ardent votaries. It is profitable to
compare the sentiment of Crashaw with the more intellectual development of
Herbert. What in the former is the paramount, constant exhibition, in the
latter is accepted, and holds its place subordinate to other claims.
Without a portion of it there could be no deep religious life--with it,
in excess, we fear for the weakness of a partial development. There is so
much gain, however, to the poet, that we have no disposition to take
exception to the single string of Crashaw. The beauty of the Venus was
made up from the charms of many models. So, in our libraries, as in life,
we must be content with parcel-work, and take one man's wisdom and
another's sentiment, looking out that we get something of each to enrich
our multifarious life.

Crashaw's poetry is one musical echo and aspiration. He finds his theme
and illustration constantly in music. His amorous descant never fails him:
his lute is always by his side. Following the "Steps o