One of the younger members of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement, Edward Caswall exemplifies the spirit of Tractarian devotional poetry carried into the Roman Catholic communion. An ardent admirer of John Henry Newman, Caswall wrote hymns and poems that show the influence of Newman, John Keble, and other Tractarian poets even as they also exhibit a more intensely Roman commitment than is associated with the purely Tractarian experience.

Caswall came from a well-placed Anglican family. His father, Robert Clarke Caswall, was a vicar in Hampshire; his brother, Henry, was a prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral; and his uncle, Thomas Burgess, was the bishop of Salisbury. Caswall was educated at Marlborough School and at Brasenose College, Oxford, from which he graduated B.A. in 1836 and M.A. in 1838. He took holy orders in the Church of England in 1838 and accepted a living in Wiltshire in his uncle's diocese. But in...