and to loose, he who does not understand the Scriptures? How -?""

And then "another said of another, alius de alio, 'That Frater is a homo literatus, eloquent, sagacious; vigorous in discipline; loves the Convent much, has suffered much for its sake.' To which a third party answers, 'From all your great clerks, good Lord deliver us! From Norfolk barrators and surly persons, That it would please thee to preserve us, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord!' Then another quidam said of another quodam, 'That Frater is a good manager (husebondus);' but was swiftly answered, 'God forbid that a man who can neither read nor chant, nor celebrate the divine offices, an unjust person withal, and grinder of the. faces of the poor, should ever be Abbot!"" One man, it appears, is nice in his victuals. Another is indeed wise, but apt to slight inferiors; hardly at the pains to answer, if they argue with him too foolishly. And so each aliquis concerning his aliquo, through whole pages of electioneering babble. "For," says Jocelin, "So many men, as many minds." Our Monks "at time of blood-letting, tempore minutionis," holding their sanhedrim of babble, would talk in this manner: Brother Samson, I remarked, never said anything; sat silent, sometimes smiling; but he took good note of what others said, and would bring it up, on occasion, twenty years after. As for me Jocelin, I was of opinion that "some skill in Dialectics, to distinguish true from false," would be good in an Abbot. spake, as a rash Novice in those days, some conscientious words of a certain benefactor of mine; "and behold, one of those sons of Belial" ran and reported them to him, so that he never after looked at me with the same face again! Poor Bozzy!

I

Such is the buzz and frothy simmering ferment of the general mind and no-mind; struggling to "make itself up," as the phrase is, or ascertain what it does really want: no easy matter, in most cases. St. Edmundsbury, in that Candlemas. season of the year 1182, is a busily fermenting place. The very cloth-makers sit meditative at their looms; asking, Who shall be Abbot? The sochemanni speak of it, driving their

ox-teams afield; the old women with their spindles: and none yet knows what the days will bring forth.

The Prior, however, as our interim chief, must proceed to work; get ready "Twelve Monks," and set off with them to his Majesty at Waltham, there shall the election be made. An election, whether managed directly by ballot-box on public hustings, or indirectly by force of public opinion, or were it even by open alehouses, landlords' coercion, popular club-law, or whatever electoral methods, is always an interesting pheA mountain tumbling in great travail, throwing up dust-clouds and absurd noises, is visibly there; uncertain yet what mouse or monster it will give birth to.

nomenon.

Besides, it is a most important social act; nay, at bottom, the one important social act. Given the men a People choose, the People itself, in its exact worth and worthlessness, is given. A heroic people chooses heroes, and is happy; a valet or flunky people chooses sham-heroes, what are called quacks, thinking them heroes, and is not happy. The grand summary of a man's spiritual condition, what brings out all his herohood and insight, or all his flunky-hood and horn-eyed dimness, is this question put to him, What man dost thou honor? Which is thy ideal of a man; or nearest that? So too of a People: for a People too, every People, speaks its choice, were it only by silently obeying, and not revolting, in the course of a century or so. Nor are electoral methods, Reform Bills and such like, unimportant. A People's electoral methods are, in the long-run, the express image of its electoral talent; tending and gravitating perpetually, irresistibly, to a conformity with that and are, at all stages, very significant of the People. Judicious readers, of these times, are not disinclined to see how Monks elect their Abbot in the Twelfth Century: how the St. Edmundsbury mountain manages its midwifery; and what mouse or man the outcome is.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ELECTION.

ACCORDINGLY our Prior assembles us in Chapter; and, we adjuring him before God to do justly, nominates, not by our selection, yet with our assent, Twelve Monks, moderately satisfactory. Of whom are Hugo Third-Prior, Brother Dennis, a venerable man, Walter the Medicus, Samson Subsacrista, and other esteemed characters, though Willelmus Sacrista, of the red nose, too is one. These shall proceed straightway to Waltham; and there elect the Abbot as they may and can. Monks are sworn to obedience; must not speak too loud, under penalty of foot-gyves, limbo, and bread-and-water: yet monks too would know what it is they are obeying. The St. Edmundsbury Community has no hustings, ballot-box, indeed no open voting: yet by various vague manipulations, pulsefeelings, we struggle to ascertain what its virtual aim is, and succeed better or worse.

This question, however, rises; alas, a quite preliminary question: Will the Dominus Rex allow us to choose freely? It is to be hoped! Well, if so, we agree to choose one of our own Convent. If not, if the Dominus Rex will force a stranger on us, we decide on demurring, the Prior and his Twelve shall demur: we can appeal, plead, remonstrate; appeal even to the Pope, but trust it will not be necessary. Then there is this other question, raised by Brother Samson: What if the Thirteen should not themselves be able to agree? Brother Samson Subsacrista, one remarks, is ready oftenest with some question, some suggestion, that has wisdom in it. Though a servant of servants, and saying little, his words all tell, having sense in them; it seems by his light mainly that we steer ourselves in this great dimness.

What if the Thirteen should not themselves be able to agree? Speak, Samson, and advise. Could not, hints Samson, Six of our venerablest elders be chosen by us, a kind of electoral committee, here and now: of these, "with their hand on the Gospels, with their eye on the Sacrosancta," we take oath that they will do faithfully; let these, in secret and as before God, agree on Three whom they reckon fittest; write their names in a Paper, and deliver the same sealed, forthwith, to the Thirteen: one of those Three the Thirteen shall fix on, if permitted. If not permitted, that is to say, if the Dominus Rex force us to demur, the paper shall be brought back unopened, and publicly burned, that no man's secret bring him into trouble.

So Samson advises, so we act; wisely, in this and in other crises of the business. Our electoral committee, its eye on the Sacrosancta, is soon named, soon sworn; and we, striking up the Fifth Psalm, "Verba mea,

Give ear unto my words, O Lord,
My meditation weigh,"

march out chanting, and leave the Six to their work in the Chapter here. Their work, before long, they announce as finished: they, with their eye on the Sacrosancta, imprecating the Lord to weigh and witness their meditation, have fixed on Three Names, and written them in this Sealed Paper. Let Samson Subsacrista, general servant of the party, take charge of it. On the morrow morning, our Prior and his Twelve will be ready to get under way.

This, then, is the ballot-box and electoral winnowingmachine they have at St. Edmundsbury: a mind fixed on the Thrice Holy, an appeal to God on high to witness their meditation by far the best, and indeed the only good electoral winnowing-machine, if men have souls in them. Totally worthless, it is true, and even hideous and poisonous, if men have no souls. But without soul, alas, what winnowingmachine in human elections can be of avail? We cannot get along without soul; we stick fast, the mournfulest spectacle ; and salt itself will not save us!

On the morrow morning, accordingly, our Thirteen set forth; or rather our Prior and Eleven; for Samson, as general servant of the party, has to linger, settling many things. At length he too gets upon the road; and, "carrying the sealed Paper in a leather pouch hung round his neck; and froccum bajulans in ulnis [thanks to thee, Bozzy Jocelin], his frock-skirts looped over his elbow," showing substantial sternworks, tramps stoutly along. Away across the Heath, not yet of Newmarket and horse-jockeying; across your Fleam-dike and Devil's-dike, no longer useful as a Mercian East-Anglian boundary or bulwark: continually towards Waltham, and the Bishop of Winchester's House there, for his Majesty is in that. Brother Samson, as purse-bearer, has the reckoning always, when there is one, to pay; "delays are numerous," progress none of the swiftest.

But, in the solitude of the Convent, Destiny thus big and in her birthtime, what gossiping, what babbling, what dreaming of dreams! The secret of the Three our electoral elders alone know some Abbot we shall have to govern us; but which Abbot, oh, which! One Monk discerns in a vision of the night-watches, that we shall get an Abbot of our own body, without needing to demur: a prophet appeared to him clad all in white, and said, "Ye shall have one of yours, and he will rage among you like a wolf, sæviet ut lupus." Verily! - then which of ours? Another Monk now dreams: he has seen clearly which; a certain Figure taller by head and shoulders than the other two, dressed in alb and pallium, and with the attitude of one about to fight; - which tall Figure a wise Editor would rather not name at this stage of the business! Enough that the vision is true: that St. Edmund himself, pale and awful, seemed to rise from his Shrine, with naked feet, and say audibly, "He, ille, shall veil my feet;" which part of the vision also proves true. Such guessing, visioning, dim perscrutation of the momentous future: the very cloth-makers, old women, all townsfolk speak of it, "and more than once it is reported in St. Edmundsbury, This one is elected; and then, This one, and That other." Who knows?