[34] He also quotes, as complete in themselves and 'best alone,' these two lines from No. LI.:
'This new guest to her eyes new laws hath given; Twas once _look up_, 'tis now look down to heaven.'
Dr. Robert Wilde in his Epitaph upon E.T. has the same idea, and puts it quaintly:
'Reader, didst thou but know what sacred dust Thou tread'st upon, thou'dst judge thyself unjust Shouldst thou neglect a shower of tears to pay, To wash the sin of thy own feet away. That actor in the play, who, looking down When he should cry 'O heaven!' was thought a clown And guilty of a solecism, might have Applause for such an action o'er this grave. Here lies a piece of Heaven; and Heaven one day Will send the best in heaven to fetch't away.'
[35] The 'conceit' is found in Vida's Christiad, lib. ii. 431, iii. 984: also in a Hymn of St. Ambrose. Cf. too Psalm lxvii. 16. Victor Hugo has adapted it as follows: 'Here is a whimsical explanation of the miracle of the wedding at Cana in Galilee:
La nymphe de ces eaux aperçut Jésus-Christ, Et son pudique front de rougeur se couvrit.'
The nymph of these waters perceived Jesus Christ, And her modest brow was dyed with shame.
(Victor Hugo: a Life, 1863, i. 269). Whence the brilliant Frenchman fetched his 'whimsical explanation' is not doubtful. In the last line of Crashaw's epigram the reading in Poemata Anglorum Latina is
'Lympha' is inferior, and a (mis)reading for 'nympha.'
[37] Gifford here has one of his many singular notes, because he could think of no other meaning than 'merriment' for 'mirth,' which, as 'joy' or 'gladness,' is quite in place, and indeed accurately descriptive of the combined gladness and sadness of the pathetic contest.
[38] Professor M'Carthy, who finds the influence of Crashaw in Shelley, has suggested one line from the 'Suspicion' as a motto for Hood's 'Song of the Shirt,' viz. in st. xliii.
'They prick a bleeding heart at every stitch.'
[39] I place here a copy of the document that had gone astray (Vol. I. p. xxxv.): 'It results from a Papal Bull dated 24th April 1649, that Richard Crashaw, an Englishman, was admitted to a benefice ('Beneficiato') of the Basilica-Church of our Lady of Loreto, through strong interest in his favour by Cardinal Pallotta, then Protector of the so-called Holy House of Loreto, and in whose service Richard Crashaw was. But as it appears from another Bull dated 25th August 1649, that a successor was named to Richard Crashaw, it is evident that he was a Beneficiary in Loreto for only about three months--too short a time to furnish sufficient materials for the illustration of his biography.--N.B. A Beneficiary in ecclesiastical hierarchy is a grade under a Canon, and his duty in church is more assiduous than that of the Canon; but it is not necessary to be a Beneficiary before becoming a Canon.'