Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/243

Crowder portrait. This prayer-book was a favourite with the queen. Gee, in his 'Foot out of the Snare,' 1624, sig. S. 1, alludes to a book with this title, and attributes it to Simons, a Carmelite, then in London, and he states that the work had lately issued from a press in London, and that the same author also wrote two other books, called 'The Way to find Ease, Rest, and Repose unto the Soul.' 3. 'The Dayley Exercise of the Devout Rosarists,' Amsterdam, 1657, 12mo; 6th edit. Dublin, 1743, 8vo; 8th edit. Cork, 1770, 12mo, frequently reprinted. In the dedication to Sir Henry Tichborne, bart., reference is made to the Tichborne dole, given to all comers on 25 March.

 CROWDER, RICHARD BUDDEN (1795–1859), judge, eldest son of Mr. William Henry Crowder of Montagu Place, Bloomsbury, was born in 1795. He was educated at Eton, and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge, but appears to have taken no degree. In 1821 he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, and joined the western circuit, and both on circuit and in London enjoyed a good practice, particularly through his aptitude for influencing juries. In 1837 he was appointed a queen's counsel, in August 1846 he succeeded Sir Charles Wetherell as recorder of Bristol, and for a lone time he held the appointments of counsel to the admiralty and judge-advocate of the fleet. In January 1849 he was elected in the liberal interest for the borough of Liskeard in Cornwall, in succession to Mr. Charles Buller, and he continued to hold the seat until March 1854, when he was appointed a puisne justice in the court of common pleas in succession to Mr. Justice Talfourd, and was knighted. In 1859 he was suffering from an inveterate ague, which affected his heart, and, although a long vacation at Brighton enabled him to resume his seat on the bench during the Michaelmas term, and even to sit at chambers on the day but one before his death, he died suddenly on 5 Dec. He never married.

 CROWE, CATHERINE (1800?–1876), novelist and writer on the supernatural, was born at Borough Green in Kent about 1800. Her maiden name was Stevens. She appears to have principally resided in Edinburgh, and in her tract on spiritualism speaks of herself as having been 'a disciple of George Combe.' Her first literary work was a tragedy, 'Aristodemus,' published anonymously m 1838. She next produced a novel, 'Manorial Rights,' 1839, and in 1841 wrote her most successful work of fiction, 'Susan Hopley.' In 1844 'The Vestiges of Creation,' which Sedgwick had pronounced on internal evidence to be the work of a woman, was not unfrequently attributed to her, and she amused those in the secret by her apparent readiness to accept the honour. She was, however, employed upon quite a different class of investigation, translating Kemer's 'Seeress of Prevorst' in 1845, and publishing her 'Night Side of Nature' in 1848. This is one of the best collections of supernatural stories in our language, the energy of the authoresses own belief lending animation to her narrative. It has little value from any other point of view, being exceedingly credulous and uncritical. 'Lilly Dawson,' the most successful of her novels after 'Susan Hopley,' was published in 1847. The 'Adventures of a Beauty' and 'Light and Darkness' appeared in 1852, 'Linny Lockwood' in 1854. She also wrote another tragedy, 'The Cruel Kindness,' 1853; abridged 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' for juvenile readers; and contributed some effective tales to periodicals. In 1859 appeared a little treatise on 'Spiritualism, and the Age we live in,' with slight reference to the nominal subject, but evincing a morbid and despondent turn of mind, which resulted in a violent but brief attack of insanity. After her recovery she wrote little, but several of her works continued to be reprinted. She died in 1876. Mrs. Crowe will probably be best remembered by her 'Night Side of Nature,' but her novels are by no means devoid of merit. They are a curious and not unpleasing mixture of imagination and matter of fact. The ingenuity of the plot and the romantic nature of the incidents contrast forcibly with the prosaic character of the personages and the unimpassioned homeliness of the diction. Curiosity and sympathy are deeply excited, and much skill is shown in maintaining the interest to the last.

 CROWE, EYRE EVANS (1799–1868), historian, born at Redbridge, Southampton, 20 March 1799, was the son of David Crowe, captain in an East India regiment, whose wife had been a Miss Hayman of Walmer. David Crowe's father was another Eyre Evans Crowe, also in the army; and an ancestor was William Crowe, dean of Clonfert from