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Rh would be hard, indeed, to over-estimate the influence of this newly-canonised Spanish nun, alike upon his literary and his spiritual life, for he seems to have paid her the devotion of a lover, a disciple and a religious enthusiast. Strange and awesome are the ways by which a soul draws near to the Source of Life; one counts the visible milestones, but dares only guess at the mysteries of that inner guidance. So with Richard Crashaw: not too closely may we trace the gradual steps which led him further and further from his past, and on to the very gates of Peter's Stronghold. Once there, he paused, waiting doubtless for strength to proceed; like Dante's Beatrice, he had "attained to look upon the beginnings of peace"—but its consummation was not yet.

The cannon of the Civil War were destined to awake the dreamer, cruelly indeed, yet kindly in the end. Crashaw had woven the glory of his own visions about the Church of England; he was soon to see her stripped of her beauties. A few days before Christmas, 1643, Manchester and his soldiers began their "reform" of Cambridge, and the lovely chapel there was sacked and desecrated. One of the official reports describes with evident elation how the Puritans came to Peterhouse "with officers and soldiers," and "pulled down two mighty great angells with wings, and divers other angells, and the foure Evangelists and Peter with his keyes, and divers superstitious letters in gold." A few months later the Parliamentary commissioners presented the Solemn League and Covenant to all fellows of that University: Crashaw with four others refused to sign, and the little band was formally ejected. The shock to a nature like our poet's must have been terrific—the very ground seemed cut from beneath his feet. For twelve years Cambridge had been