Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/587

Rh entirely perished; but of his celebrated work On Grirf numerous extracts have been preserved in Plutarch and in Cicero DC Consolatiorte.  CRAPE is a silk fabric of a gauzy texture, having a peculiar crisp or crimpy appearance. It is woven of hard spun silk yarn in the gum &quot; or natural condition. There are two distinct varieties of the textile 1st, soft, Canton, or Oriental crape, and 2d, hard or crisped crape. The wavy appearance of Canton craps results from the peculiar manner in which the weft is prepared, the yarn from two bobbins being twisted together iu the reverse way. Tho fabric when woven is smooth and even, having no crept appearance, but when tho gum is subsequently extracted by boiling it at once becomes soft, and the weft, losing its twist, gives the fabric the waved structure which constitutes its distinguishing feature. Canton crapes are used, either white or coloured, for ladies scarves and shawls, bonnet trimmings, &c. The Chinese and Japanese excel in tho manufacture of soft crapes. The crisp and elastic structure of hard crape is not produced either in the spinning or in the weaving, but is due to processes through which the gauze passes after it is woven. What the details of these processes are is known to only a few manufacturers, who eo jealously guard their secret that, in some cases, tho different stages in the manufacture are conducted in towns far removed from each other. Commercially they are dis tinguished as single, double, three-ply, and four-ply crapes, according to the nature of the yarn used in their manufac ture. They are almost exclusively dyed black and used in mourning dress, and among Roman Catholic communities for nuns veils, fcc. In Great Britain hard crapes are made at Braintree in Essex, Norwich, Yarmouth, Manchester, and Glasgow. A very successful imitation of real crape is made in Manchester of cotton yarn, and sold under the name of Victoria crape.  CRASHAW, (1613-1650), the poet, styled &quot;the divine,&quot; was born in London in 1613. He was the son of a strongly anti-papistical divine, Dr William Crashaw, who distinguished himself, even in those times, by the exces sive acerbity of his writings against the Catholics. Richard Crashaw was originally put to school at Charter House, but in July 1631 ho was admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.A. in 1634. The publication of Herbert s Temple in 1633 seems to have finally determined the bias of his genius in favour of religious poetry, and next year he published his first book, Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber, a volume of Latin verses In March 1636 he removed to Peterhouse, and was made a fellow of that college in 1637. It was about this time that he made the acquaintance and secured the lasting friendship of Cowley. In 1641 he is said to have gone to Oxford, bufc only for a short time; for when in 1643 Cowley left Cambridge to seek a refuge at Oxford, Crashav/ remained behind, and was forcibly ejected from his fellow ship in 1644, In the confusion of the civil wars he escaped to France, where he finally embraced the Catholic religion, towards which he had long been tending. During his exile his religious and secular poems were collected by an anony mous friend, and published under the title of Steps to tho Temple and The Deliyhts of the Muses, in one volume, in 1646. This same year Cowley found him in great destitu tion at Paris, and induced Queen Henrietta Maria to extend towards him what influence she still possessed. At her introduction he proceeded to Italy, where he becamo secretary at Rome to Cardinal Palotta. In 1648 he pub lished two Latin hymns at Paris. lie remained until 1649 in the service of the cardinal, to whom he had a great personal attachment ; but his retinue contained persons whose violent and licentious behaviour were a source of ceaseless vexation to the sensitive English mystic. At last bis denunciation of their excesses becamo so public that the animosity of those persons was excited against him, and in order to shield him from their revenge, he was sent by the cardinal in 1650 to Loretto, where he was made a anon of the Holy House. In less than three weeks, how ever, he sickened of fever, and died, not without grave suspicion of having been poisoned. He was buried in tho Lady Chapel at Loretto. A collection of his latest religious poems, entitled Carmen Deo Ncstro, was brought out in 1652, dedicated at the dead poet s desire to the faithful friend of his sufferings, the countess of Denbigh. Crashaw excelled in all manner of graceful accomplishments ; besides being an excellent Latinist and Hellenist, he had an intimate knowledge of Italian and Spanish ; and his skill in music, painting, and engraving was no less admired in his lifetime than his skill in poetry. Cowley embalmed his memory in an elegy that ranks among the very finest in our language, in which he, a Protestant, well expressed the feeling left on the minds of contemporaries by the character, of the young Catholic poet:—

The poetry of Crashaw will be best appreciated by Ihoso who can with most success freo themselves from the bond age of a traditional sense of the dignity of language. The custom of his age permitted the use of images and phrases which we now justly condemn as incongruous and unseemly, and the fervent fancy of Crashaw carried this licence to the most rococo excess. At the same time his verse is studded with fiery beauties and sudden felicities of language, unsurpassed by any lyrist between his own time and Shelley s. There is no religious poetry in English so full at once of gross and awkward images and imaginative touches of the most etherial beauty. The temper of his intellect seems to have been delicate and weak, fiery and uncertain; he has a morbid, almost hysterical, passion about him even when his ardour is most exquisitely ex pressed, and his adoring addresses to the saints have an effeminate falsetto that makes them almost repulsive. The faults and beauties of his very peculiar style can be studied nowhere to more advantage than in the Hymn to Saint Theresa. Among the secular poems of Crashaw the best are Hfvsic s Duel, which deals with that strife between the musician and. the nightingale which has inspired so many poets, from Strada down to Coppee, and Wishes to his supposed Mistress. In his latest sacred poems, the Carmen Deo Nostro, sudden and eminent beauties are not wanting, but the mysticism has become more pronounced, and the ecclesiastical mannerism more harsh and repellant. The themes of Crashaw s verse are as distinct as possible from those of Shelley s, but it may, on the whole, be said that at his best moments he reminds the reader more closely of the author of Epipsycliidion than of any earlier or later poet.

1em  CRASSUS, (140-91 B.C.), a celebrated Roman orator most highly praised by Cicero. He com menced his political career, at the age either of nineteen or of twenty-one, by bringing a charge against Carbo tho friend of the Gracchi, who in consequence took poison. He took part in more than one of the most famous cases in the annals of Roman law, and attained a wonderful reputation. In 95 B.C. he became consul, and at the ex piration of his term of office proconsul in Gaul. He was almost as much distinguished for his wealth and the elegant luxury in which he indulged as for h s eloquence and wit.