undecided to the end of the world. Abbot Samson answers by word or act, in this or the like pregnant manner, having justice on his side, innumerable persons: Pope's Legates, King's Viscounts, Canterbury Archbishops, Cellarers, Sochemanni;—and leaves many a solecism extinguished.
On the whole, however, it is and remains sore work. 'One time, during my chaplaincy, I ventured to say to him: "Domine, I heard thee, this night after matins, wakeful, and sighing deeply, valde suspirantem, contrary to thy usual wont." He answered: "No wonder. Thou, son Jocelin, sharest in my good things, in food and drink, in riding and suchlike; but thou little thinkest concerning the management of House and Family, the various and arduous businesses of the Pastoral Care, which harass me, and make my soul to sigh and be anxious." Whereto I, lifting up my hands to Heaven: "From such anxiety, Omnipotent merciful Lord deliver me!"—I have heard the Abbot say, If he had been as he was before he became a Monk, and could have anywhere got five or six marcs of income,' some three-pound ten of yearly revenue, 'whereby to support himself in the schools, he would never have been Monk nor Abbot. Another time he said with an oath, If he had known what a business it was to govern the Abbey, he would rather have been Almoner, how much rather Keeper of the Books, than Abbot and Lord. That latter office he said he had always longed for, beyond any other. Quis talia crederet?' concludes Jocelin, 'Who can believe such things?'
Three-pound ten, and a life of Literature, especially of quiet Literature, without copyright, or world-celebrity of literary-gazettes,—yes, thou brave Abbot Samson, for thyself it had been better, easier, perhaps also nobler! But then, for thy disobedient Monks, unjust Viscounts; for a Domain of St. Edmund overgrown with Solecisms, human and other, it had not been so well. Nay neither could thy Literature, never so quiet, have been easy. Literature, when noble, is not easy; but only when ignoble. Literature too is a quarrel, and internecine duel, with the whole