Vntill the bitter raging of that Stound

Had laid most vnder; left but few 'boue ground;

Thus, thus she was, ô thus like Iob she sate

A patient-bearer of a ruin'd state:

In Sorrow, Fasting, Sack-cloth, Ashes she
Shewes as her elder sister Niniue:

Nor shop nor house, naught open, but her Eyes,
And those but ope to see her Miseries :
Nothing was gratious in her at this time,

But that she had the Grace to know her Crime,
And with repentant Marie, wash in Teares

Her Sauiours feet, and wipe them with her haires :
Eu'n thus she was:-Thus (like Iosephus) I

Partooke of her distresses heauily:

And though a heauenly Titus kept mee free

And (with Tobias Angèll) guarded me,

So that I neither had the sores, nor dyde,

(For which my sacrifice of Thankes shall bide

A Monument eternall :) yet (alas)

I from her Markes not so exempted was,

Her Markes of Penury, Expence, and Woes)

Of Debts, engagements, all heart-breaking throes;

But that I still about me beare the signe

And still shall doe, till by some Power diuine

(As this of yours) I from the same be cleer'd,
My heart reuiued, and my soule re-cheer'd.

This edition is unnoticed by Lowndes, who only mentions the former one in 1621. Copies of the first impression sold in Bindley's sale, pt. i. No. 1244, for 3l. 5s.; Rice's ditto, No. 657, 5l.; Sir Mark M. Sykes's ditto, pt. i. No. 807, 97. 10s.; Horner's ditto, No. 1854, 137. 158. The present copy came from Sir Francis Freeling's collection, No. 282, where it sold for 21. 2s., and is the only one of this impression that we know of. Collation: Title one leaf; then Sig. A to C 7, in eights. In Calf neat.

CRANLEY, (THOMAS.)-The Converted Courtezan, or, The Reformed Whore. Being a true Relation of a penitent Sinner, shadowed under the name of Amanda. By Thomas Cranley, Gent. Admiranda canunt, credenda aliquando Poetæ.

Poets doe tell of strange things not a few,

Yet oftentimes those things, though strange, are 'true.

London, Printed for Bernard Langford, and are to be sold at the Signe of the Blew Bible, at Holbourne-Bridge. 1639. 4to, pp. 96.

This work was first published in 1635 under the title of "Amanda, or the Reformed Whore and other Poems composed and made by Thomas Cranley, Gent. now a Prisoner in the Kings Bench. Anno Dom. 1635." 4to. The present is the same work with merely an alteration of the title. It is dedicated by the author "To the worshipfull, his worthy friend, and Brother in law, Thomas Gilbourne Esquire," at the end of which is the licencer's certificate for printing it, dated July 1, 1635, and a metrical address from "The Author to his Booke." The title is a sufficient intimation of the nature of the contents of this poetical volume, which relates the story of a converted and penitent Magdalen, written while he was a prisoner for many months in the King's Bench. It is written partly in prose and partly in verse, consisting of seven-line stanzas, and paints in strong colours the dress, manners, and habits of the vicious and licentious denizens of the Metropolis. After describing the furniture and dress of Amanda, the author thus notices the books that then formed the fashionable reading of such characters:

And then a heape of bookes of thy devotion

Lying upon a shelfe close underneath,

Which thou more think'st upon then on thy death.

They are not prayers of a grieued soule,

That with repentance doth his sins condole,

But amorous Pamphlets, that best likes thine eyes,

And Songs of love, and Sonets exquisite.

Among these Venus and Adonis lies,

With Salmacis, and her Hermaphrodite :

Pigmalion's there, with his transform'd delight

And many merry Comedies, with this,

Where the Athenian Phryne acted is.

The following historical allusions to the evil effects of incontinence are selected for quotation, and may be presented as a specimen of the author's versification :

Behold the strange events,

The ruines, downfals, and the desolations,

Bloudy destructions, feareful accidents,

Of Kings, of People, Countreys, Kingdomes, Nations,
Their miseries, and their depopulations.

That have been wrought by foul concupiscence,

And by that ougly sinne, Incontinence.

How many Kings have lost Emperiall Crownes ?
Their lives, their Wives, their Children, Subjects all?
How many Cities, and renowned Townes,

Have into ashes been observ'd to fall,
By that one sinne, that sinne veneriall?

It were too long, too teadious to relate,
"Twould tire thy sences to enumerate.

Had Helena beene true, the famous Troy
Had never suffer'd by the Gracians armes.
She had not tasted of that sad annoy

Which was procured by their proud alarmes,

Nor they themselves, had suffer'd halfe those harmes.
Young Alexander had not lost his life,
And Menelaus had enjoy'd his Wife.

Hector had liv'd, that died so well belov'd.
The stately tower of Ilion had stood,
And the Palladium had not beene remov'd.
Old Priam, and his fifty headed broode,
Had not all by the sword pour'd out their bloud.
The Gracians had not stoned Hecuba,

Nor had they sacrifiz'de Polixena.

These mischiefes, and a thousand others moe,

By lust, and by concupiscences rage,

Did all accrue, that else had not beene so.

The like enormities in every age

Still swell apace, and never will asswage.

This part extends to one hundred and ninety stanzas, after which follows "The penitential answer of the reformed Amanda," in one hundred and six stanzas, from which we learn, that dying to sin, and living unto grace, she spent the remainder of her days devoted to goodness and holy comtemplation:

Two yeares she liv'd in sound and perfect health,

The most reformed creature on the earth.

After two years she fell through grief into a hectic fever, which at length carried her off:

Death vanquisht life, concluding of her paine,

Shee liv'd, to die, and di'd to live againe.

Little is known of Cranley except that he was an intimate friend of George Wither, and in the Abuses Stript and Whipt there is a copy of verses by Wither "To his deare Friend Mr. Thomas Cranley," and also one prefixed to the same work addressed "To the impartial Author," subscribed "Thy deare Friend Th. C." which is believed to be Cranley. See the Restituta, vol. i. p. 342 and 352, and the Brit. Bibliogr., vol. i. p. 5.

The edition of 1635 sold in Perry's sale, pt. i. No. 1270, for 42 5s.; Heber's ditto, pt. iv. No. 526 (imperfect), 17. 11s. 6d.; Bindley's ditto, pt. i. No. 2195, 5l. 178. 6d.; Jolley's ditto, pt. ii. No. 1843, 81. 88. Collation: Sig. A to M 4, in fours.

Bound by Bedford. In Red Morocco, gilt leaves.

CRASHAW, (RICHARD.) Steps to the Temple, Sacred Poems. With the Delights of the Muses. 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 Churchyard. 1648. 12mo, pp. 204.

The poems of Crashaw were first printed in 1646, again in the present edition of 1648, at Paris in 1652, and in 1670. Crashaw was the son of William Crashaw, a clergyman of the Church of England, educated at the Charterhouse, and afterwards at Cambridge, first as a scholar at Pembroke College, and then of Peter House, of which he became a Fellow in 1637, and was also incorporated of Oxford. He was distinguished for his classical learning and for his talent in poetry, both Latin and English, and became a popular preacher in Cambridge; but was ejected from his fellowship in 1644 by the Parliament party, along with others, for refusing to take the Covenant. Retiring to France he soon afterwards embraced the Roman Catholic faith, and appears to have been in distressed circumstances, from which he was relieved by Cowley the poet, who recommended him to the notice of Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I., then abroad, by whose

means he was sent into Italy, and after a while obtained a canonry or chaplaincy in the church of Loretto, at which place he died of a fever in 1650. Besides being a master of five languages in addition to his own, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French and Italian, he was also accomplished in music, drawing, painting and engraving. He was of a warm and enthusiastic imagination, a soft and amiable disposition, and of fervent piety; but debased by a spirit of superstition and mystical devotion, which led him away to the Church of his choice.

Crashaw was one of that class of poets termed metaphysical, formed upon the Italian style of Marini, of which Cowley and Donne were the leaders, full of laboured conceits and false tastes, and a continual straining after unnatural display and effect. Still there is much to admire in the poetry of Crashaw, which is never dull, but abounds in beautiful images, often expressed with great power and felicity of language. Much of his poetry is of a devotional kind, and this is the least attractive; but some of his other short and occasional poems and translations possess charms of a higher kind, and contain passages of much tenderness, beauty of thought, and correctness of versification.

The present volume, which in size and style of printing much resembles the early editions of Herbert's Temple, was published by a friend of Crashaw's during his exile abroad. It has an engraved title or frontispiece by T. Cross prefixed, representing the interior of a church with persons ascending the "Steps." The printed title is followed by a warm and enthusiastic "Preface to the Reader" by the friend of the author, who speaks of him as "Herberts 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." He says:

It were prophane but to mention here in the Preface those under-headed Poets, Retainers to seven shares and a halfe; Madrigall fellowes, whose onely businesse in verse is to rime a poore sixpenny soule a Suburb sinner into hell: May such arrogant pretenders to Poetry vanish, with their prodigious issue of tumorous 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 Angells.

Crashaw, while at Cambridge, was in the habit of frequenting St. Mary's