Caswall, Edward

(1814-1878)

   Hampshire-born clergyman, he was educated at Marlborough College and Brasenose College, Oxford. Ordained as an Anglican priest in 1840, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1847, and when his wife died in 1851 he joined the Oratory of St. Philip Neri under Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Newman. His writing career started while at Oxford, when he published two pamphlets under the pen name "Scriblerus Redivivus": Pluck Examination Papers (1836); A new Art, teaching how to be plucked, being a treatise after the fashion of Aristotle (1837). Later, Sermons on the Seen and Unseen (1846). Besides poems (mainly sacred), he wrote several hymns and translated others, many of which are included in most modern hymnbooks. His translation from St. Bernard, "Jesus, The Very Thought of Thee," is one of the finest. "See Amid the Winter's Snow" is a popular Christmas carol. "The Good Shepherd" is set to a German melody. Some of his other poems: "Associations with Places," "Autumn," "Before Our Lady in the Temple," "Captive Linnet," "Lines Written on Leaving Oxford," "The Dependence of all Things on God," "The Angels," "The Third Degree of Humility."

   Sources: Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition, 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Poems by Edward Caswall. Thomas Richardson and Son, 1861. The Cyber Hymnal (http://www.cyberhymnal.org/index.htm). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk).