In a Study of the Life and Poetry of our present Worthy, which will be found in our Volume II.--thus postponed in order that the completed Works may be before the student-reader along with it--I venture to hope new light will be shed on both, and his character as a Man and Poet--one of the richest of the minor Poets of England--vindicated and interpreted as never hitherto they have been. Some memories cannot bear the '_cruel light_' of close scrutiny, some poetries when tested prove falsetto-noted. RICHARD CRASHAW grows on us the more insight we gain. If he were as well known as GEORGE HERBERT, he would be equally cherished, while his Poetry would be recognised as perfumed with all his devoutness and of a diviner '_stuff_' and woven in a grander loom; in sooth, infinitely deeper and finer in almost every element of true singing as differenced from pious and gracious versifying. In this hurrying-scurrying age, only twos-and-threes take time to hold communion with these ancient Worthies; and hence my Essay, as with the FLETCHERS and LORD BROOKE and HENRY VAUGHAN, may win-back that recognition and love due to CRASHAW. Then, in a much fuller and more adequate Memoir than hitherto furnished of WILLIAM CRASHAW, B.D., father of our Poet--also in our Volume II.--the usually-given ancestral details will appear from new and unused sources. So that here and now I intend to limit myself to a brief statement of the few outward Facts, _i.e._ reserving their relation to the central thing in RICHARD CRASHAW'S life--his passing from Protestantism to Catholicism, and to contemporaries and inner friends, and to his Poetry--to our announced Study.