ho speaks of it (Acad. ii. 44. 135) in the highest terms (aureolus et ad verbum ediscendus). Crantor paid especial attention to ethics, and arranged “good” things in the following order—virtue, health, pleasure, riches.
See F. Kayser, De Crantore Academico (1841); M. H. E. Meier, Opuscula academica, ii. (1863); F. Susemihl, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit, i. (1891), p. 118.
CRANWORTH, ROBERT MONSEY ROLFE, Baron (1790–1868), lord chancellor of England, elder son of the Rev. E. Rolfe, was born at Cranworth, Norfolk, on the 18th of December 1790. Educated at Bury St Edmunds, Winchester, and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1816, and attached himself to the chancery courts. He represented Penryn and Falmouth in parliament from 1832 till his promotion to the bench as baron of the exchequer in 1839. In
1850 he was appointed a vice-chancellor and created Baron Cranworth, and in 1852 he became lord chancellor in Aberdeen’s ministry. He continued to hold the chancellorship in the administration of Palmerston until the latter’s resignation in 1857. He was not reappointed when Palmerston returned to office in 1859, but on the retirement of Lord Westbury in 1865 he accepted the great seal for a second time, and held it till the fall
of the Russell administration in 1866. Cranworth died in London on the 26th of July 1868. Never a very zealous law reformer, Cranworth’s name is associated in the statute book with only one small measure on conveyancing. But as a judge he will continue to hold first rank. His judgments were marked by sound common
sense, while he himself was remarkably free from the prejudices of his profession. Few men of his day enjoyed greater personal popularity than Cranworth. He left no issue and the title became extinct on his death.
See The Times, 27th of July 1868; E. Manson, The Builders of our Law (1904); E. Foss, The Judges of England (1848–1864); J. B. Atlay, Lives of the Chancellors, vol. ii. (1908).
CRAPE (an anglicized version of the Fr. crêpe), 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” or natural
condition. There are two distinct varieties of the textile—soft,
Canton or Oriental crape, and hard or crisped crape. The wavy
appearance of Canton crape results from the peculiar manner in
which the weft is prepared, the yarn from two bobbins being
twisted together in the reverse way. The fabric when woven is
smooth and even, having no crêpé appearance, but when the 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 the
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 so jealously guard their secret that, in
some cases, the different stages in the manufacture are conducted
in towns far removed from each other. Commercially they are
distinguished as single, double, three-ply and four-ply crapes,
according to the nature of the yarn used in their manufacture.
They are almost exclusively dyed black and used in mourning
dress, and among Roman Catholic communities for nuns’ veils,
&c. In Great Britain hard crapes are made at Braintree in Essex,
Norwich, Yarmouth, Manchester and Glasgow. The crape
formerly made at Norwich was made with a silk warp and
worsted weft, and is said to have afterwards degenerated into
bombazine. A very successful imitation of real crape is made in
Manchester of cotton yarn, and sold under the name of Victoria
crape.
CRASH, a technical textile term applied to a species of narrow
towels, from 14 to 20 in. wide. The name is probably of Russian
origin, the simplest and coarsest type of the cloth being known as
“Russia crash.” The latter is made from grey flax or tow yarns,
and sometimes from boiled yarns. The simple term “crash” is
given to all these narrow cloths, but the above distinction is
very convenient, as also are the following: grey, boiled, bleached,
plain, twilled and fancy crash. A large variety obtains with and
without fancy borders, while of late years cotton has been
introduced as warp, as well as mixed and jute yarns for weft.
After the cloth has passed through all the finishing operations,
it is cut up into lengths of about 3 yds., the two ends sewn
together and it is then ready to be placed over a suspended roller;
for this reason it is often termed “roller towelling.”
CRASHAW, RICHARD (1613–1650), English poet, styled “the divine,” was born in London about 1613. He was the son of a strongly anti-papistical divine, Dr William Crashaw (1572–1626), who distinguished himself, even in those times, by the excessive acerbity of his writings against the Catholics. In spite
of these opinions, however, he was attracted by Catholic devotion,
for he translated several Latin hymns of the Jesuits. Richard
Crashaw was originally put to school at Charterhouse, but in
July 1631 he 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,
was made a fellow of that college in 1637, and proceeded
M.A. in 1638. It was about this time that he made the acquaintance
and secured the lasting friendship of Abraham Cowley.
He was also on terms of intimacy with the Anglican monk
Nicholas Ferrar, and frequently visited him at his religious
house at Little Gidding. In 1641 he is said to have gone to
Oxford, but only for a short time; for when in 1643 Cowley left
Cambridge to seek a refuge at Oxford, Crashaw remained behind,
and was forcibly ejected from his fellowship 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 anonymous friend, and published under the title of Steps to the Temple and The Delights of the Muses, in one volume, in 1646. The first part includes the hymn to St Teresa and the version of Marini’s Sospetto d’ Herode. This same year Cowley found him in great destitution 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 became attendant to Cardinal Palotta at Rome. In 1648 he published two Latin hymns at Paris. He 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 was a source of ceaseless vexation to the sensitive English mystic. At last his denunciation of their excesses became 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 canon of the Holy House. In less than three weeks, however, he sickened of fever, and died on the 25th of August, not without grave suspicion of having been poisoned. He was buried in the Lady chapel at Loretto. A collection of his religious poems, entitled Carmen Deo nostro, was brought out in Paris in 1652, dedicated at the dead poet’s desire to the faithful friend of his sufferings, the countess of Denbigh. The book is illustrated by thirteen engravings after Crashaw’s own designs.
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:—
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“His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might |
The poetry of Crashaw will be best appreciated by those who can with most success free themselves from the bondage of a traditional
