d, and
the violent impetuous character of Dunstan.

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 [h]: 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 labour [i]. 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
neighbourhood 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 eloquence [k]; and it ensured to Dunstan a
reputation which no real piety, much less virtue, could, even in the
most enlightened period, have ever procured him with the people.
[FN [h] Osberne, p. 95 Matth West, p. 187. [i] Osberne, p. 96. [k]
Osberne, p. 97.]

Supported by the character obtained in his retreat, Dunstan appeared
again in the world; and gained such an ascendant over Edred, who had
succeeded to the crown, as made him not only the director of that
prince's conscience, but his counsellor in the most momentous affairs
of government. He was placed at the head of the treasury [l], and
being thus possessed both of power at court, and of credit with the
populace, he was enabled to attempt with success the most arduous
enterprises. Finding that his advancement had been owing to the
opinion of his austerity, he professed himself a partisan of the rigid
monastic rule