Austen Warren considers that the Hymn "may have been written as early as 1638," when Crashaw was still at Cambridge.--Cf. Richard Crashaw, a Study in Baroque Sensibility, 1939, p. 140.
For notes on the text and on the history of the Manuscript, see the Crashaw folder.
Manuscript written in two hands: the first (A) for the poem as a whole; the second (B) for textual alterations and for the display-title. The second hand (B) may be that of the author.
Text differs from the first printed versions (1646, 1648, 1652), and represents an earlier stage of composition.--Cf. Martin.
The Apologie is not titled in MA 1385.
The display-title contains an additional 9 lines of text that have never been printed. Full title reads: "A Hymn / to the name and honour / of the renouned / S. Theresia / Foundres of the Reformation of the Order of / barefoote Carmelites; / A Woman / for Angelicall height of Contemplation, / for Masculine courage of performance, / more than a woman. / Who yet a Child / outranne Maturity, / & durst plot a Martyrdome; / but was reserved by God / to dy the living death of the life of his love, / of whose great impressions / as her noble heart had most high experiment, / so hath she in her life most heroically expresst them, / and in these her heavnly writings / most sublimely, most sweetly / taught them to ye world."
Manuscript contains the text for both the Hymn and its sequel, which was later published as "Apologie for the fore-going Hymn as having been writt when the author was yet among the protestantes."