Crashaw, RICHARD (circa 1613-49), an English religious poet, was the son of a clergyman in the English Church, and was born in London about 1613. He was educated at the Charterhouse, and at Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship at Peterhouse in 1637. His leanings towards Roman Catholicism prevented him from receiving Anglican orders, and in 1644 he was ejected from his fellowship by the parliament for refusing to take the Covenant. He went to Paris, adopted the Roman Catholic faith, and suffered great pecuniary distress, until about 1648, through Cowley's influence, he was introduced to Queen Henrietta Maria, who recommended him to certain dignitaries of the church in Italy. He obtained a humble office in the household of Cardinal Palotta, but in April 1649, a few months before his death, he became sub-canon of the church of Our Lady of Loreto. In 1634 Crashaw published a volume of Latin poems, Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber (2d ed. 1670), in which appeared the famous line on the miracle at Cana:
'Nympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit'
(The modest water saw its God and blushed).
In 1646 appeared his Steps to the Temple; Sacred Poems, with other Delights of the Muscs—in which there is much fervid poetry. The title of this collection, which is due to the editor, not the author, refers to its affinity with George Herbert's Temple. An edition (the third) was published at Paris in 1652, under the title Carmen Deo Nostro, with 12 vignette engravings designed by Crashaw. A collective edition of Crashaw's works was published in 1858, at London, by W. D. Turnbull, and a fuller edition in 1872 by Dr A. B. Grosart. Crashaw greatly resembles George Herbert in his cast of thought, and is not inferior to him in richness of fancy, though his conceits are more strained, and less under the control of taste. His devotional strains are nobly worded. Tutin's selections (2 vols. 1887 and 1900) are almost a complete edition.