sight of it
again; and, on the whole, that the _Dominus Rex_, at departing, gave
us 'thirteen _sterlingii_,' one shilling and one penny, to say a mass
for him; and so departed,--like a shabby Lackland as he was! 'Thirteen
pence sterling,' this was what the Convent got from Lackland, for all
the victuals he and his had made away with. We of course said our mass
for him, having covenanted to do it,--but let impartial posterity
judge with what degree of fervour!

And in this manner vanishes King Lackland; traverses swiftly our
strange intermittent magic-mirror, jingling the shabby thirteen pence
merely; and rides with his hawks into Egyptian night again. It is
Jocelin's manner with all things; and it is men's manner and men's
necessity. How intermittent is our good Jocelin; marking down, without
eye to _us_, what _he_ finds interesting! How much in Jocelin, as in
all History, and indeed in all Nature, is at once inscrutable and
certain; so dim, yet so indubitable; exciting us to endless
considerations. For King Lackland _was_ there, verily he; and did
leave these _tredecim sterlingii_, if nothing more, and did live and
look in one way or the other, and a whole world was living and looking
along with him! There, we say, is the grand peculiarity; the
immeasurable one; distinguishing, to a really infinite degree, the
poorest historical Fact from all Fiction whatsoever. Fiction,
'Imagination,' 'Imaginative Poetry,' &c. &c., except as the vehicle
for truth, or _fact_ of some sort,--which surely a man should first
try various other ways of vehiculating, and conveying safe,--what is
it? Let the Minerva and other Presses respond!--

But it is time we were in St. Edmundsbury Monastery, and Seven good
Centuries off. If indeed it be possible, by any aid of Jocelin, by any
human art, to get thither, with a reader or two still following us?

FOOTNOTES:

[3] _Chronica_ Jocelini de Brakelonda, _de rebus gestis Samsonis
Abbatis Monasterii Sancti Edmundi nunc primum typis mandata, curante
Johanne Gage Rokewood._ (Camden Society, London, 1840)

CHAPTER II.

ST. EDMUNDSBURY.

The _Burg_, Bury, or 'Berry' as they call it, of St. Edmund is still a
prosperous brisk Town; beautifully diversifying, with its clear brick
houses, ancient clean streets, and twenty or fifteen thousand busy
souls, the general grassy face of Suffolk; looking out right
pleasantly, from its hill-slope, towards the rising Sun: and on the
eastern edge of i