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William Crowe (poet)

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English poet

William Crowe
William Crowe, 1808 caricature byRobert Dighton
Born	1745 Midgham,Berkshire
Died	(1829-02-09)9 February 1829 Queen Square (Bath)
Alma mater	New College, Oxford
Genre	Poetry

William Crowe (1745–1829) was an English poet, the son of acarpenter and educated as a foundationer atWinchester College. He went toOxford, where he becamepublic orator.

Crowe was aclergyman andrector ofAlton Barnes inWiltshire. He wrote a popular, but somewhat conventional poem,Lewesdon Hill in 1789, editedWilliam Collins'sPoems in 1828, and lectured on poetry at theRoyal Institution. His poems were collected in 1804 and 1827.^[1]

Life

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William Crowe was born atMidgham,Berkshire, and baptised 13 October 1745. His father, a carpenter by trade, lived during Crowe's childhood atWinchester, where the boy occasionally sang as achorister in Winchester College chapel. At the election in 1758, he was placed on the roll for admission as a scholar at the college, and was duly elected a "poor scholar". He was fifth on the roll forNew College, Oxford at the election in 1764, and succeeded to a vacancy on 11 August 1765. After two years of probation he was admitted asFellow in 1767, and became a tutor of his college. On 10 October 1773, he took the degree ofB.C.L.^[1]

Crowe continued to hold his fellowship until November 1783, although, according toThomas Moore, he had several years previously married "a fruitwoman's daughter at Oxford" and had become the father of several children. In 1782, on the presentation of his college, he was admitted to the rectory ofStoke Abbott in Dorset, which he exchanged for Alton Barnes in Wiltshire in 1787, and on 2 April 1784 he was elected thepublic orator ofOxford University. Crowe retained this position and the rectory of Alton Barnes until his death in 1829, and he discharged his duties as orator until he was advanced in years.^[1]

According to theClerical Guide, Crowe was also rector until his death atLlanymynech in Denbighshire, from 1805, and incumbent ofSaxton in Yorkshire, valued at about £80 a year, from the same date. A portrait of Crowe is preserved in New College library. A grace for the degree ofD.C.L. was passed by his college on 30 March 1780, but he does not seem to have proceeded to take it.^[1]

Crowe andSamuel Rogers were close friends. After a short illness, he died atQueen Square,Bath on 9 February 1829, aged 83.^[1]

Reputation

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Anecdotes were told of his eccentric speech and his rustic manners. In politics he was an extreme Whig, close to being a republican, and he sympathised with the early stages of theFrench Revolution. He was accustomed to walk from his living in Wiltshire to his college at Oxford. His appearances in the pulpit or in theSheldonian Theatre at Oxford were always welcomed by the graduates of the university; his Latin sermons at St. Mary's or his orations at commemoration, graced as they were by a fine rich voice, enjoyed great popularity.^[1]

Crowe was interested in architecture, and occasionally read a course of lectures on that subject in New College hall. The merits of his lectures at the Royal Institution on poetry were praised byThomas Frognall Dibdin. When he visitedHorne Tooke atWimbledon, a considerable portion of his time was spent in the garden. He was skilled in valuing timber, from associating with farmers. His portrait as "a celebrated public orator" was drawn byRobert Dighton January 1808 in full-length academicals and with a college cap in his hand.^[1]

Works

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Lewesdon Hill is Crowe's poem onthe hill in the western part of Dorset, on the edge of the parish ofBroadwindsor, of which Tom Fuller was rector, and near Crowe's benefice of Stoke Abbott. The poet is depicted as climbing the hill-top on a May morning and describing the prospect, with its associations, which his eye surveys. The first edition, issued anonymously and dedicated toJonathan Shipley, was published at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in 1788. A second impression, with its authorship avowed, was demanded in the same year, and later editions, in a much enlarged form, and with several other poems, were published in 1804 and 1827.^[1]

Crowe's other works were:

‘A Sermon before the University of Oxford at St. Mary's, 5 Nov. 1781.’
‘On the late Attempt on her Majesty's Person, a sermon before the University of Oxford at St. Mary's, 1786.’
‘Oratio ex Instituto ... Dom. Crew.’ 1788. From the preface it appears that the oration was printed in refutation of certain slanders as to its character which had been circulated. It contained his views on theGlorious Revolution of 1688.
‘Oratio Crewiana,’ 1800. On poetry and the poetry professorship at Oxford.
‘Hamlet and As you like it, a specimen of a new edition of Shakespeare’; anonymous byThomas Caldecott and Crowe, 1819, with later editions in 1820 and 1832. The two authors contemplated a new edition of Shakespeare. Caldecott was Crowe's schoolfellow at Winchester and lifelong friend.
‘A Treatise on English Versification,’ 1827, dedicated to Caldecott.
‘Poems of William Collins, with notes, and Dr. Johnson's Life, corrected and enlarged,’ Bath, 1828.

Crowe's son died in battle in 1815, and inNotes and Queries^[2] there is a Latin monody by his father on his loss. His verses intended to have been spoken at the theatre at Oxford on the installation of the Duke of Portland as chancellor were praised by Rogers and Moore. His sonnet toPetrarch is included in the collections of English sonnets byRobert Fletcher Housman andAlexander Dyce.^[1]

Crowe contributed articles toRees's Cyclopædia, but the topics are not known.