Hymns and Poems, Original and Translated

SOLD HY Thomas Baker HYMNS &> POEMS HYMNS e- POEMS ORIGINAL ^ TRANSLATED BY EDWARD CASWALL Of the Oratory A NEW EDITION WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE BY EDWARD BELLASIS Lancaster Herald Francis J. Schunk LONDON BURNS AND GATES 28 Orchard Street W 1908 Letchtvorth: tAt the tArden Tress BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE REV. EDWARD CASWALL THE REVEREND EDWARD CASWALL was the fourth son of the Reverend Robert Clarke Caswall, B.C.L., of Oxford University (BaUiol and St John's Colleges), Vicar of Yately, Hants, and grandson of the Reverend John Caswall of Swalcliffe, CO. Oxford. His mother was Mary Burgess, niece of Dr Burgess, Bishop of St David's, afterwards of Salisbury, a learned divine of the Established Church of England. The Caswalls came from Leominster, in Herefordshire. Two of them, Sir George Caswall and his son John, were representatives in Parliament for that borough; while the Reverend John Caswall's grandfather, the said Sir George Caswall, M.P., was summoned to the Bar of the House of Commons in 1720, in connexion with the affair of the South Sea Company, or " Bubble," as it was called.* Edward Caswall was born on St Swiihin'sday, July 15, 1 8 14, at Yately, and was one of nine children. His eldest brother, the Reverend Henry Caswall, some time Vicar of Figheldean, Wilts, and prebendary of Salis- * For considerable portions of this sketch, a rough autobiographical summary of his life (occasionally quoted), written by Father Caswall's own hand, April 23, 1864, has been laid under contribution. 6 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON bury, became well known in 1842-3 as the author of 7he City of the Mormons and l^he Prophet of the Nine- teenth Century. He visited Joseph Smith, the leader, and his two books remain authorities on the subject.* Edward Caswall went first to Chigwell Smealey Grammar School in Essex, and then to King Edward's Grammar School at Marlborough, Wilts. Gaining a scholarship at the latter, he proceeded to Oxford, where he entered at Brasenose College and matricu- lated March 15, 1832. Although reading hard in 1836 for his degree of B.A., which he took in that year, he gained but a second class in classics, which is to be ac- counted for by the distraction of literary pursuits freely indulged in; for, firstly, he was the author of " The Oxonian," a series of papers that appeared in 7he Metropolitan Magazine; then, in 1835, he brought out Pluck Examination Papers and the Art of Pluck, a witty and scholarly pamphlet, which university Hfe continues to relish. In a letter addressed to the Rev. Henry Form- by, from the Vicarage House, Stratford-sub-Castle, Wilts, February 3, 1843, appended to later editions of this Treatise after the Fashion of Aristotle, the author, abridging some of the Examination Papers, explains the omissions of other portions as "invest- ing certain passages of the Divine Word with ridicu- lous associations." This had special references to the section on Divinity, duly showing how to get His America and the Âmerican Church is reviewed in Cardinal New- man's Essays. THE REV. EDWARD CASWALL' 7 *' plucked " in the examinations for the same. He ob- serves upon this dehghtful skit, " As a satire upon the extravagances and idle habits of undergraduates it may be said to have had a good aim."* " This brochure,''^ he continues, " was followed by another little work of a more popular character, raising a similar laugh at the expense of the opposite sex." " This wâs Sketches of Toung Ladies^ by Quiz," illustrated by " Phiz " (Hablot K. Browne) (London: Chapman and Hall), who accepted the work February 20, 1837. " It ^^^ ^^ extraordinary run," writes the author, " and its success caused me at the time to think offturning my attention to writing as a profession. I had, indeed, gone so far as to prepare a companion to it, Sketches of Toung Gentlemen, but on calm delibera- tion, resolving to give myself up to the ministry, I put it aside." Charles Dickens expressed his wish to see Mr Caswall when next in town, and ultimately took up the writing of Sketches of Toung Gentlemen and Sketches of Toung Couples, and all three duly appeared, at first * The original title is A New Art Teaching hove to he Fluci^d; other- Tfise a Treatise after the Fashion of Aristotle, writ for the Use of Students in the Vni'versities, to which is added ^ Synopsis of Drinking (fourth edition): in later editions, to luhich is added Fragments from the Examination Tapers, by Scriblerus Redivivus. The second edition, with a second Pre- face, notifying additions, appeared in 1835. The third, with an advertise- ment, advocating the pamphlet's perusal as suitable for Cambridge as well as Oxford men, was succeeded by the fourth edition as early as 1836. twelfth edition came out in 1 all published by Vincent, at A 874, J. Oxford. Messrs Bliss, Sands and Foster, London, in 1893, issued an edition, with ornamental cover, the author's name appearing for the first time on the title page. Plucf^ Examination Papers was originally a separate work. 8 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON separately in original illustrated covers by " Phiz,'* and finally in one volume anonymously.* In 1838 Mr Caswall brought out an allegorical nar- rative entitled Morals from the Churchyard, in a Series of Cheerful Fables, with [eight] Illustrations by H. K. Brozvne ['^ Vhiz ^^] (London: Chapman and Hall).| It has a short preface signed " E.C.," wherein he ex- " plains The object of this allegory . for the amuse- ment and instruction of the young," and " written in a kind of prose poetry." He writes, " I can detect traces of a leaning toward the old Catholic theology, but I do not think I was aware of this at the time." It marks his change to serious thought. J After taking his B.A. degree, Mr Caswall remained two years at his college as Hulme Exhibitioner, and proceeded to M.A. in 1838, in which year he was or- dained deacon at Wells, and in 1839 priest at Bath. He was first of all curate at Bishop's Norton; then at Mil- verton, Somerset, under the Reverend John Tre- velyan, brother of Sir Charles Trevelyan. Later on he became curate at St Dunstar's, Fleet Street, London, and at Shenley, Herts. He settled down at length in *The question of authorship was discussed in Notes and Queries, 1867-8. f Another title in MS. is The Fable of the Qraês. X Other works in MS. are History of a late Term at the Uni'versity after the plan of Niebuhr, and The Elements of the World as influencing the for- mation of character, considered in themsehes and in their di'vinely pro'vided counteragents, the one amusing, the other serious. Other humorous works sketched out are The : Life and Ad'ventures of Paul Pickering ; Furniture Dialogues; Telescopic Obser'âtions upon the Earth; Tra'vels to the Castles in the Air, etc. THE REV. EDWARD CASWALL 9 1840 as perpetual curate of Stratford-sub-Castle, near Salisbury. In 1841 he married Louisa Mary Stuart, only child of General Walker, of Whetleigh House, Taunton. In 1835 ^^ ^^^ gone abroad so far as Milan, and in 1846 to Switzerland, and was pleased with the Catholic services. He had begun to read ^he Tracts for the Times. In March, 1846, after a zealous ministry, with two services daily, he resigned his living. In the same year he issued The Child'' s Manual: Forty Days' Meditations on the Chief Truths of Religion, as container in the Churches Catechism and Sermons on the Seen and Unseen (London: James Burns). In 1 846 he began a diary (630pp., 4to) con- tinued till he became a Catholic, and "which," he says, " I have sometimes thought of publishing in an abridged form." In the summer he visited, with his wife and brother, Thomas Caswall (Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge), Cork, Killarney, Limerick and DubHn in order to compare there the Established and Catholic Churches. His tour was cut short by his father's illness and death in the autumn. In December, 1846, Mr and Mrs Caswall went to Rome, and on January 18, 1847, he was received into the Church by Cardinal Acton. His wife's reception took place on the 25th, and both were confirmed by Dr Folding, Archbishop of Sydney, who chanced to be visiting Rome ad limina. Meanwhile Thomas Caswall had also been received in England. With independent means and no special occupation, Mr Caswall now began those wonderful metrical translations, known more or less throughout the 10 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON English-speaking Christian world, some two hundred hymns in all, and published in 1848 by James Burns under the title of Lyra Catholica* The later editions made improvements in the renderings and additions to the collection, and, along with new translations for the Birmingham Oratory Hymn Book^ " by degrees found their way into books of devotion, Protestant as well as Catholic. Mr Oldknow, for instance, the incum- bent of Trinity Chapel, Birmingham, introduced, with my permission, nearly fifty of them, in his parochial hymn book, within a year of their publication.! From the first I never refused any application for the hymns from whatever quarter it came, wishing that if there was anything good in them, it should be the common property of all, and indeed it was with this view I re- tained the copyright in my own possession. I daresay I have had appHcation from at least twenty clergymen of the Church of England." ;[: Dr Martineau, the cele- * And ''containing the Hymns at Uespers, Compline and Benedictiony vcith those in the Office of the Blessed Virgin and in the Missal." Translated from the Latin by Edward Caswall, M.A., (London : James Burns, mdcccxlviii).

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