were--(_a_) his reading in Teresa and kindred literature, until not 'hands,' but brain and heart, imagination and fancy, grew into the elements wherein they wrought--as one finds sprays of once-green moss and delicate-carven ferns changed by the dripping limestone into limestone: (_b_) the ritualistic revival being in the hands of those most loved and trusted, and from whom he fetched whatever of spiritual life and peace and joy and hope was in him--these too being of stronger will, and decisive in opinion and action--his vague 'feeling-after' rest was centred in the Rest of ideal Roman Catholicism: (_c_) the confusions and strifes of the transition-period of the Commonwealth terrified and wounded him; he mistook the crash of falling scaffolding, whose end was served, for the falling of the everlasting skies; saw not their serene shining beyond the passing clouds, lightning-charged for divine clarifying; and a 'quiet retreat,' which Imagination beckoned him to, won him to 'hide' there his weeping and dismay. Nothing sordid or expedient, or facing-both-ways, or unworthy, moved him to 'change.' Every one who has self-respect based on self-knowledge, and who thus has experienced the mystery of his deepest beliefs, will make all gentlest allowances, hold all tenderest sympathies with him, and feel the coarse abuse of Prynne and later as a personal wrong. Richard Crashaw was a true 'man of God,' and acted, I believe, in sensitive allegiance to his conscience as it spake to him. 'Change,' even fundamental change, in such a man is to be accepted without reserve as 'honest' and righteous and God-fearing. He dared not sign the 'Solemn League and Covenant,' however 'solemn' it might be to others; and so he went out.[21] I pass to-- II. _His friends and associates, as celebrated in his writings._ I use the word 'Writings' here rather than 'Poems,' because in his Epistles, _e.g._ to the 'Epigrammata' and those printed by us for the first time, as well as in his Poetry, names are found over which one pauses instinctively. Commencing with his school-days at the Charterhouse, there is Robert Brooke, 'Master' ('Preceptor') from 1628 to 1643.[22] Very little has come down to us concerning him, and the present head of the renowned School has been unable to add to Alexander Chalmers' testimony, 'A very celebrated Master.' All the more have I pleasure in inviting attention to the new 'Epistola' and related poems addressed to him, and which must be studied along with the previous poem, 'Ornatissimo viro præceptori suo colendissimo, Magistro Brook' (vol. ii. pp. 319); and perhaps the humorous and genial serio-comic celebration of 'Priscianus' grew from some school-incident (vol. ii. pp. 308, 315) having in the latter year, like Crashaw, been 'ejected' from the Charterhouse for not taking the 'Solemn League and Covenant.' He had been usher from 1626 to 1628. An apartment in the building is still called from him Brooke Hall ('Chronicles,' pp. 129, 159).