ABSTRACT
The anonymous preface to Crashaw’s ‘Steps to the Temple’ has been supposed to be the work of Joseph Beaumont, a close friend of the poet’s and given much to the florid style characteristic of the following lines (see Austin Warren, ‘Richard Crashaw’ (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1939), p. 220). Beaumont was Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and, after the Restoration, the College’s Master; his well-attested tribute to Herbert is given in No. 13.
Source: from The Preface to the Reader, in ‘Steps to the Temple’ (as in No. 11); reproduced from Martin’s edition, p. 75.
