ngton was Abbot at this time, a vigorous and resolute personage,
who ruled the convent with a firm hand. Like all really able men, he was
ably seconded, for he knew how to choose his subordinates. At first the
monks had repented of their choice, and there were quarrels and
litigation and appeals to the Pope, and many serious 'unpleasantnesses;'
but as time went on, Abbot William had won the allegiance of all the
convent, and they were proud of him. He was a man of books, among his
other virtues, and had an eye for bookish men; and when he deposed Roger
de Wendover from being Prior of Belvoir with a somewhat high hand, and
brought him back to St. Alban's, he doubtless did so because he knew
that at Belvoir he was a square man in a round hole, while in the
scriptorium of the Abbey he would be in his right place. Certainly the
event proved that the Abbot was right, and it was to this judicious
removal of a student and man of letters to his proper home that we owe
so much of our knowledge of those interesting minutiae of English history
which the writer has revealed. It was under the eye of Robert de
Wendover that Matthew Paris grew up, rendering him every year more and
more substantial assistance in the library and in the scriptorium.

But the young man was not only a bookworm and a copyist, he soon got to
be looked upon as a prodigy. He was a universal genius; he could do
whatever he set his hand to, and better than any one else. He could
draw, and paint, and illuminate, and work in metals. Some said he could
even construct maps; he was versed in everything, and noticed everything
from 'the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop upon the wall;' he was
an expert in heraldry; he could tell you about whales, and camels, and
buffaloes, and elephants--he could even draw an elephant--illustrate his
history, in fact, with the elephant's portrait, the first elephant, he
says, that had ever been seen in our northern climes. It was centuries
before men had dreamt of what the science of geology would one day
reveal. Then, too, he had vast capacity for work, and was a courtly
person, and he had the gift of tongues, and had been a great traveller;
he had early been sent by the convent to study at the University of
Paris, and wherever he went, he was the man to make friends. When the
Benedictines in Norway had convinced themselves that there was sore need
of a reform of their rule and discipline, they applied to Pope Innocent
IV. to sen