14456.6.5 B London: C. J. CLAY AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MARIA LANE. Glasgow: 50, WELLINGTON STREET. Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS. New York: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 678*76 [All Rights reserved] PRUTED IN GREAT BRITAIN T1 NOTE. 'His edition contains the whole of Crashaw's Poems, English and Latin, now for the first time collected in one volume. Although not English Classics,' it has been thought best to include Crashaw's Latin and Greek poems, for completeness' sake. These are reproduced faithfully from the original issues printed at the Cambridge University Press in 1634 and 1670 and from photographs of the Sancroft MS. No attempt has been made to "improve" Crashaw's spelling or punctuation save in the one or two trifling instances mentioned in the notes, and save in the use of the modern type-forms for j, s, u, m, etc. The arrangement of the text is as follows: I. Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber, from the volume (5 × 3 ins.) of 1634. A few additional epigrams that occur in the second edition of 1670 will be found on pp. 299-306. II. Steps to the Temple and The Delights of the Muses. The text of 1648 (5 × 3 ins.) has been followed, but only those poems have been printed which were not revised at a later date for the volume entitled Carmen Deo Nostro, 1652 (see III. below). The text of the first edition of Steps to the Temple. Sacred Poems, with other Delights of the Muses... Printed and Published according to Order... Printed by T. W. for Humphrey Moseley,... 1646, has been collated with that of 1648, and both texts with that of Carmen Deo Nostro, and the verbal alterations, omissions and additions in these three texts will be found in the Appendix, this course being deemed more satisfactory than to form an eclectic text by guesswork. Certain poems belonging to these three volumes are also in Archbishop Sancroft's MS. (see IV. below) and in the British Museum MSS. (see V. below); variations between these MSS. and the printed volumes will be found in the Appendix. In the text, the latest published form has been printed in each case. For the loan of copies of the texts of 1646 and 1648 I am indebted to the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. III. The revised collection of poems entitled Carmen Deo Nostro (6 x 4 ins.), printed and published in Paris in 1652 and adorned with small plates engraved from Crashaw's own drawings, has been followed from the first page to the last. It bears evidence of having been printed abroad, as its simple errors of the press are numerous. These have been corrected and their places marked by square brackets, and in the Appendix will be found reproductions of the engravings, with indications of their place. Copies of the edition of 1652 are very rare indeed, and it has been thought well to preserve its eccentricities of spacing and its generosity in the matter of titles and half-titles. IV. The volume of Crashaw's (and other) poems, copied by Archbishop Sancroft and now preserved in the Bodleian, was kindly forwarded from Oxford to the Cambridge University Library, to enable me to collate it. I am much indebted to the authorities at Oxford for this privilege, and to the University Librarian here for making the examination of the MS. as easy as possible. |