“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Richard Crashaw HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1613
On some day in about this year Richard Crashaw was born at London, a son of that enemy of all things Catholic, the divine Dr. William Crashaw (1572-1626).
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
Richard Crashaw “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1631
July: Richard Crashaw had been at Charterhouse School near Godalming in Surrey, but at this point was admitted to Pembroke College of Cambridge University.
LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Richard Crashaw HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1633
Rector George Herbert’s THE TEMPLE: SACRED POEMS AND PRIVATE EJACULATIONS.
GEORGE HERBERT This collection of poems seems to have had an influence immediately upon Richard Crashaw and in less than two generations of human life, it would have gone through a dozen reprintings. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
Eventually, it would be having an impact upon Harvard student David Henry Thoreau as well.
Constancie. Who is the honest man? He that doth still and strongly good pursue, To God, his neighbour, and himself most true: Whom neither force nor fawning can Unpinne, or wrench from giving all their due.
Whose honestie is not So loose or easie, that ruffling winde Can blow away, or glittering look it blinde: Who rides his sure and even trot, While the world now rides by, now lags behinde. Who, when great trials come, Nor seeks, nor shunns them; but doth calmly stay, Till he the thing and the example weigh: All being brought into a summe, What place or person calls for, he doth pay. Whom none can work or wooe To use in anything a trick or sleight; For above all things he abhorres deceit: His words and works and fashion too All of a piece, and all are cleare and straight. Who never melts or thaws At close tentations: when the day is done, His goodnesse sets not, but in dark can runne: The sunne to others writeth laws, And is their vertue; Vertue is his Sunne. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
Who, when he is to treat With sick folks, women, those whom passions sway, Allows for that, and keeps his constant way: Whom others faults do not defeat; But though men fail him, yet his part doth play. Whom nothing can procure, When the wide world runnes bias, from his will To writhe his limbes, and share, not mend the ill, This is the Mark-man, safe and sure, Who still is right, and prayes to be so still.
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Richard Crashaw HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1634
Richard Crashaw graduated from Pembroke College of Cambridge University, with the degree of BA, and put out a volume of Latin verses, EPIGRAMMATUM SACRORUM LIBER.
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Richard Crashaw HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1636
Richard Crashaw removed to Peterhouse College of Cambridge University.
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
Richard Crashaw “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1637
Richard Crashaw was made a fellow of Peterhouse College of Cambridge University, and achieved note as an eloquent and powerful preacher.
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
Richard Crashaw “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1638
Richard Crashaw graduated from Peterhouse College of Cambridge University with the degree of MA and became a priest for the Church of St. Mary the Less in Cambridge.
He would made the acquaintance and secure the lasting friendship of Abraham Cowley. He would also come to be on terms of intimacy with Nicholas Ferrar, and frequently visit him at his house at Little Gidding. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1641
Richard Crashaw may have gone briefly to Oxford. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1643
When Abraham Cowley departed from Cambridge for refuge at Oxford, Richard Crashaw elected to remain in position. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1644
Vicar Robert Herrick would have written his poem “To the King upon his Coming with his Army into the West” in this year. WELCOME, most welcome to our vows and us, Most great and universal genius! The drooping west, which hitherto has stood As one, in long-lamented widowhood, Looks like a bride now, or a bed of flowers, Newly refresh’d, both by the sun and showers. War, which before was horrid, now appears Lovely in you, brave prince of cavaliers! A deal of courage in each bosom springs By your access, O you the best of kings! Ride on with all white omens ; so that where Your standard’s up, we fix a conquest there.
Despite his humble birth, at the age of 16 John Wray or Ray had been sent to study at Trinity College and Catharine Hall in Cambridge University.
After the disintegration in the vicinity of Cambridge of the influence of King Charles I in the ongoing English Civil War, Richard Crashaw refused to take the oath of the Covenant and was forcibly ejected by Parliamentarians from his fellowship at Peterhouse College of Cambridge University. Escaping to Paris, he converted to Catholicism and became a secretary to the exiled Queen Henrietta Maria and her court. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
Queen Henrietta Maria HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1646
An anonymous friend had been collecting the religious and secular poems of Richard Crashaw during his exile in France and in this year, with the poet reduced to destitution in Paris, they appeared as STEPS TO THE TEMPLE. SACRED POEMS, WITH OTHER DELIGHTS OF THE MUSES. BY RICHARD CRASHAW, FOMETIMES OF PEMBROKE HALL, AND LATE FELLOW OF S. PETERS COLL. IN CAMBRIDGE. PRINTED AND PUBLIFHED ACCORDING TO ORDER. LONDON, PRINTED BY TW. FOR HUMPHREY MOFELY, AND ARE TO BE FOLD AT HIS FHOP AT THE PRINCES ARMES IN ST. PAULS CHURCH-YARD, 1646. The initial portion of this volume contained the hymn to St Teresa and the version of Marini’s Sospetto d’Herode. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
Queen Henrietta Maria took pity on the economic plight of the Catholic poet and provided him with a letter of introduction that enabled him to journey to Rome and be accepted at the Venerable English College as an attendant to Cardinal Giovanni Battista Maria Pallotta.
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
Richard Crashaw “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1648
Publication, at Paris, of two hymns in Latin by the Catholic poet Richard Crashaw. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1649
April 24, Tuesday (Old Style): In Rome, Richard Crashaw had been denouncing the misdeeds of others, and in an attempt to shield him from vengeance Cardinal Giovanni Battista Maria Pallotta designated him a canon of the Holy House at Loretto (a shrine credited as being the actual house of the Virgin Mary from the village of Nazareth, magically transported to Italy by angels toward the close of the 13th century).
Early August: Richard Crashaw arrived at the Holy House in Loretto, where he had been made a canon.
August 25, Saturday (Old Style): Richard Crashaw succumbed to a fever. It seems rather plausible that his enemies had poisoned him. His remains are in the Lady chapel at Loreto. Here is the English Protestant poet Abraham Cowley’s elegy to his Catholic friend: His Faith perhaps in some nice Tenents might Be wrong; his Life, I’m sure, was in the right. And I my self a Catholick will be, So far at least, great Saint, to Pray to thee. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1652
Publication at Paris of a collection of the religious poems of Richard Crashaw, CARMEN DEO NOSTRO. This volume was dedicated as the dead poet had desired to a faithful friend during his sufferings, the countess of Denbigh. It contains 13 engravings of the poet’s own design.
Barnabas Oley edited, at London, HERBERT’S REMAINS, OR SUNDRY PIECES OF THAT SWEET SINGER, MR. GEORGE HERBERT, CONTAINING A PRIEST TO THE TEMPLE, OR THE COUNTREY PARSON, JACULA PRUDENTUM, &C. (the unsigned preface is by Oley). HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1670
Richard Crashaw’s 1646 STEPS TO THE TEMPLE appeared in a 4th edition (London: In the Savoy, printed by T.N. for Henry Herringman at the Blew Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange; erroneously designated as 2d edition), bound with THE DELIGHTS OF THE MUSES, and CARMEN DEO NOSTRO. This is the edition that would be in the library of Bronson Alcott and therefore available to Henry Thoreau. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1844
January 17, Wednesday: Waldo Emerson checked out from Harvard Library, for Henry Thoreau, the 6th volume of Alexander Chalmers’s 1810 anthology, THE WORKS OF THE ENGLISH POETS, FROM CHAUCER TO COWPER,1 the volume that contains William Browne’s “Britannia’s Pastorals” (1613) and “The Shepherd’s Pipe” (1614), Francis Beaumont’s THE HONEST MAN’S FORTUNE, Richard Crashaw’s “Sospetto d’Herode,” Charles Cotton’s “The World,” “The Morning Quatrains,” “Evening Quatrains,” “The Tempest,” “On the Death of the Most Noble Thomas Earl of Ossory,” and “Contentment,” the poetry of Sir John Beaumont, Sir William Davenant’s preface to “Gondibert,” the poetry of Giles Fletcher and Phineas Fletcher, William Habington’s “To Roses in the Bosome of Castara,” and Sir John Birkenhead’s “On the Happy Collection of Mr. FLETCHER’S Works, never before printed.” PERUSE VOLUME VI JOHN BIRKENHEAD WILLIAM BROWNE CHARLES COTTON RICHARD CRASHAW WILLIAM DAVENANT GILES FLETCHER PHINEAS FLETCHER WILLIAM HABINGTON Thoreau would make notes on this reading in his Literary Notebook and Miscellaneous Extracts.2
1. THE WORKS OF THE ENGLISH POETS, FROM CHAUCER TO COWPER; INCLUDING THE SERIES EDITED WITH PREFACES, BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, BY DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON: AND THE MOST APPROVED TRANSLATIONS. THE ADDITIONAL LIVES BY ALEXANDER CHALMERS IN TWENTY-ONE VOLUMES. London, 1810.
2. See page 320 of the William Browne text. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
WALDEN: Breed’s hut was standing only a dozen years ago, though PEOPLE OF it had long been unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. It WALDEN was set on fire by mischievous boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake. I lived on the edge of the village then, and had just lost myself over Davenant’s Gondibert, that winter that I labored with a lethargy, –which, by the way, I never knew whether to regard as a family complaint, having an uncle who goes to sleep shaving himself, and is obliged to sprout potatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order to keep awake and keep the Sabbath, or as the consequence of my attempt to read Chalmers’ collection of English poetry without skipping. It fairly overcame my Nervii. I had just sunk my head on this when the bells rung fire, and in hot haste the engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of men and boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook. We thought it was far south over the woods, –we who had run to fires before,– barn, shop, or dwelling-house, or all together. “It’s Baker’s barn,” cried one. “It is the Codman Place,” affirmed another. And then fresh sparks went up above the wood, as if the roof fell in, and we all shouted “Concord to the rescue!” Wagons shot past with furious speed and crushing loads, bearing, perchance, among the rest, the agent of the Insurance Company, who was bound to go however far; and ever and anon the engine bell tinkled behind, more slow and sure, and rearmost of all, as it was afterward whispered, came they who set the fire and gave the alarm. Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence of our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard crackling and actually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall, and realized, alas! that we were there. The very nearness of the fire but cooled our ardor. At first we thought to throw a frog-pond on to it; but concluded to let it burn, it was so far gone and so worthless. So we stood round our engine, jostled one another, expressed our sentiments through speaking trumpets, or in lower tone referred to the great conflagrations which the world has witness, including Bascom’s shop, and, between ourselves we thought that, were we there in season with our “tub”, and a full frog-pond by, we could turn that threatened last and universal one into another flood. We finally retreated without doing any mischief, –returned to sleep and Gondibert. But as for Gondibert, I would except that passage in the preface about wit being the soul’s powder, –“but most of mankind are strangers to wit, as Indians are to powder.”
DAVENANT HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
A WEEK: PEOPLE OF Gazed on the Heavens for what he missed on Earth. A WEEK — Britania’s Pastorals.
WILLIAM BROWNE
A WEEK: PEOPLE OF Man is man’s foe and destiny. A WEEK — COTTON.
CHARLES COTTON The World. ODE. I Fy! What a wretched World is this? Nothing but anguish, griefs, and fears, Where, who does best, must do amiss, Frailty the Ruling Power bears In this our dismal Vale of Tears. II Oh! who would live, that could but dye, Dye honestly, and as he shou’d, Since to contend with misery Will do the wisest Man no good, Misfortune will not be withstood. III The most that helpless man can do Towards the bett’ring his Estate Is but to barter woe for woe, And he ev’n there attempts too late, So absolute a Prince is Fate. IV But why do I of Fate complain; Man might live happy, if not free, And Fortunes shocks with ease sustain, If Man would let him happy be: Man is Man’s Foe, and Destiny. V And that Rib Woman, though she be But such a little little part; Is yet a greater Fate than he, HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
And has the Power, or the Art To break his Peace; nay break his Heart. VI Ah, glorious Flower, lovely piece Of superfine refined Clay, Thou poyson’st only with a Kiss, And dartest an auspicious Ray On him thou meanest to betray. VII These are the World, and these are they That Life does so unpleasant make, Whom to avoid there is no way But the wild Desart straight to take, And there to husband the last stake. VIII Fly to the empty Desarts then, For so you leave the World behind, There’s no World where there are no Men, And Brutes more civil are, and kind, Than Man whose Reason Passions blind. IX For should you take an Hermitage, Tho’ you might scape from other wrongs, Yet even there you bear the rage Of venemous, and slanderous tongues, Which to the Innocent belongs. X Grant me then, Heav’n, a wilderness, And there an endless Solitude, Where though Wolves howl, and Serpents hiss, Though dang’rous, ’tis not half so rude As the ungovern’d Multitude. XI And Solitude in a dark Cave, Where all things husht, and silent be, Resembleth so the quiet Grave, That there I would prepare to flee, With Death, that hourly waits for me. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
1858
The poems of Richard Crashaw were collected in one volume by William Barclay Turnbull. RICHARD CRASHAW
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Richard Crashaw HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST
Prepared: September 11, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT
GENERATION HOTLINE
This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX
RICHARD CRASHAW RICHARD CRASHAW
Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.
First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with