e. Celibacy, therefore, began to be
extolled as the indispensable duty of priests; and the pope undertook to
make all the clergy, throughout the western world, renounce at once
the privilege of marriage; a fortunate policy, but at the same time
an undertaking the most difficult of any, since he had the strongest
propensities of human nature to encounter, and found that the same
connections with the female sex, which generally encourage devotion,
were here unfavorable to the success of his project. It is no wonder,
therefore, that this master-stroke of art should have met with violent
contradiction, and that the interests of the hierarchy, and the
inclinations of the priests, being now placed in this singular
opposition, should, notwithstanding the continued efforts of Rome have
retarded the execution of that bold scheme during the course of near
three centuries.

Dunstan was born of noble parents in the west of England; and being
educated under his uncle Aldhelm, then archbishop of Canterbury, had
betaken himself to the ecclesiastical life, and had acquired some
character in the court of Edmund. He was, however, represented to
that prince as a man of licentious manners;[*] and finding his fortune
blasted by these suspicions, his ardent ambition prompted him to repair
his indiscretions, by running into an opposite extreme. He secluded
himself entirely from the world; he framed a cell so small, that he
could neither stand erect in it, nor stretch out his limbs during his
repose; and he here employed himself perpetually either in devotion
or in manual labor.[**] It is probable that his brain became gradually
crazed by these solitary occupations, and that his head was filled with
chimeras, which, being believed by himself and his stupid votaries,
procured him the general character of sanctity among the people. He
fancied that the devil, among the frequent visits which he paid him,
was one day more earnest than usual in his temptations, till Dunstan,
provoked at his importunity, seized him by the nose with a pair of
red-hot pincers, as he put his head into the cell; and he held him there
till that malignant spirit made the whole neighborhood resound with his
bellowings. This notable exploit was seriously credited and extolled by
the public; it is transmitted to posterity by one, who, considering the
age in which he lived, may pass for a writer of some elegance;[***]
and it insured to Dunstan a reputation which no real piety,