sclose mere vacant haze. It must be owned,
the good Jocelin, spite of his beautiful childlike character, is
but an altogether imperfect 'mirror' of these old-world things!
The good man, he looks on us so clear and cheery, and in his
neighbourly soft-smiling eyes we see so well our _own_ shadow,--
we have a longing always to cross-question him, to force from him
an explanation of much. But no; Jocelin, though he talks with
such clear familiarity, like a next-door neighbour, will not
answer any question: that is the peculiarity of him, dead these
six hundred and fifty years, and quite deaf to us, though still
so audible! The good man, he cannot help it, nor can we.

But truly it is a strange consideration this simple one, as we go
on with him, or indeed with any lucid simple-hearted soul like
him: Behold therefore, this England of the Year 1200 was no
chimerical vacuity or dreamland, peopled with mere vaporous
Fantasms, Rymer's Foedera, and Doctrines of the Constitution, but
a green solid place, that grew corn and several other things.
The Sun shone on it; the vicissitude of seasons and human
fortunes. Cloth was woven and worn; ditches were dug,
furrowfields ploughed, and houses built. Day by day all men and
cattle rose to labour, and night by night returned home weary to
their several lairs. In wondrous Dualism, then as now, lived
nations of breathing men; alternating, in all ways, between
Light and Dark; between joy and sorrow, between rest and toil,
between hope, hope reaching high as Heaven, and fear deep as very
Hell. Not vapour Fantasms, Rymer's Foedera at all! Coeur-de-
Lion was not a theatrical popinjay with greaves and steelcap on
it, but a man living upon victuals,--_not_ imported by Peel's
Tariff. Coeur-de-Lion came palpably athwart this Jocelin at St.
Edmundsbury; and had almost peeled the sacred gold _'Feretrum,'_
or St. Edmund Shrine itself, to ransom him out of the Danube Jail.

These clear eyes of neighbour Jocelin looked on the bodily
presence of King John; the very John _Sansterre,_ or Lackland,
who signed _Magna Charta_ afterwards in Runnymead. Lackland,
with a great retinue, boarded once, for the matter of a
fortnight, in St. Edmundsbury Convent; daily in the very
eyesight, palpable to the very fingers of our Jocelin: O
Jocelin, what did he say, what did he do; how looked he, lived
he;--at the very lowest, what coat or breeches had he on?
Jocelin is obstinately silent. Joceli