CRASHAW, RICHARD (1613?-1649), English poet, styled "the divine," was born in London about 1613. He was the son of a strongly anti-papistical divine, Dr. William Crashaw (1572— 1626). Richard Crashaw was educated at Charterhouse, and at Pembroke college, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.A. in 1634. The publication of Herbert's Temple in 1633 seems to have finally determined the bias of his genius in favour of relig ious poetry, and next year he published his first book, Epigram matum sacrorum Tiber, a volume of Latin verses. In 1636 he removed to Peterhouse, was made a fellow of that college in and proceeded M.A. in 1638. About this time began his lasting friendship with Abraham Cowley. He was also on terms of intimacy with the Anglican monk Nicholas Ferrar, and frequently visited him at Little Gidding. In 1641 he is said to have gone to Oxford, but only for a short time ; for when in 1643 Cowley left Cambridge to seek a refuge at Oxford, Crashaw remained behind, and was forcibly ejected from his fellowship in In the confusion of the civil wars he escaped to France, where he finally embraced the Catholic religion.
During his exile his religious and secular poems were collected by an anonymous friend, and published under the title of Steps to the Temple and The Delights of the Muses, in one volume, in 1646. The first part includes the hymn to St. Teresa and the version of Marini's Sospetto d'Herode. This same year Cowley found him in great destitution at Paris, and induced Queen Henrietta Maria to give him introductions in Rome, where he became attendant to Cardinal Palotta. In 1648 he published two Latin hymns at Paris. He _remained until 1649 in the service of the cardinal, to whom he had a great personal attachment ; but his retinue contained persons whose violent and licentious behaviour was a source of ceaseless vexation to the sensitive English mystic. He was sent by the cardinal in 1649 to Loretto, where he was made a canon of the Holy House. In less than three weeks, however, he sickened of fever, and died on Aug. 25, not without grave suspicion of having being poisoned. He was buried in the Lady chapel at Loretto. A collection of his religious poems, entitled Carmen Deo nostro, was brought out in Paris in 1652, dedicated to the countess of Denbigh. The book is illus trated by 13 engravings after Crashaw's own designs.
Crashaw excelled in all manner of graceful accomplishments; besides being an excellent Latinist and Hellenist, he had an intimate knowledge of Italian and Spanish ; and his skill in music, painting and engraving was no less admired in his lifetime than his skill in poetry. Cowley embalmed his memory in a very fine elegy.
Crashaw's verse is studded with fiery beauties and sudden felici ties of language, unsurpassed by any lyrist between his own time and Shelley's. There is no religious poetry in English so full at once of gross and awkward images and imaginative touches of the most ethereal beauty, and these peculiarities can be studied nowhere to more advantage than in the Hymn to Saint Teresa. Among the secular poems of Crashaw the best are Music's Duel, which deals with strife between the musician and the nightingale, and Wishes to his supposed Mistress. In his latest sacred poems, included in the Carmen Deo nostro, the mysticism has become more pronounced, and the ecclesiastical mannerism more harsh and repellent.
Crashaw's works were first collected, in one volume, in 1858, by W. B. Turnbull. In 1872 an edition, in 2 volumes, was printed for private subscription by the Rev. A. B. Grosart. A complete edition was edited (19o4) for the Cambridge University Press by Mr. A. R. Waller. See also L. C Martin, The Poems, English, Latin and Greek, of Richard Crashaw (1927).