poor Jocelin and his Convent,
where the whole aspect of existence, the whole dialect, of
thought, of speech, of activity, is so obsolete, strange, long-
vanished, there now superadds itself a mild glow of human
interest for Abbot Samson; a real pleasure, as at sight of man's
work, especially of governing, which is man's highest work, done
_well._ Abbot Samson had no experience in governing; had served
no apprenticeship to the trade of governing,--alas, only the
hardest apprenticeship to that of obeying. He had never in any
court given _vadium_ or _plegium,_ says Jocelin; hardly ever
seen a court, when he was set to preside in one. But it is
astonishing, continues Jocelin, how soon he learned the ways of
business; and, in all sort of affairs, became expert beyond
others. Of the many persons offering him their service 'he
retained one Knight skilled in taking _vadia_ and _plegia;'_ and
within the year was himself well skilled. Nay, by and by, the
Pope appoints him Justiciary in certain causes; the King one of
his new Circuit judges: official Osbert is heard saying, "That
Abbot is one of your shrewd ones, _disputator est;_ if he go on
as he begins, he will cut out every lawyer of us!"

Why not? What is to hinder this Samson from governing? There is
in him what far transcends all apprenticeships; in the man
himself there exists a model of governing, something to govern
by! There exists in him a heart-abhorrence of whatever is
incoherent, pusillanimous, unveracious,--that is to say, chaotic,
_un_governed; of the Devil, not of God. A man of this kind
cannot help governing! He has the living ideal of a governor in
him; and the incessant necessity of struggling to unfold the
same out of him. Not the Devil or Chaos, for any wages, will he
serve; no, this man is the born servant of Another than them.
Alas, how little avail all apprenticeships, when there is in your
governor himself what we may well call _nothing_ to govern by:
nothing;--a general grey twilight, looming with shapes of
expediencies, parliamentary traditions, division-lists, election-
funds, leading-articles; this, with what of vulpine alertness
and adroitness soever, is not much!

But indeed what say we, apprenticeship? Had not this Samson
served, in his way, a right good apprenticeship to governing;
namely, the harshest slave-apprenticeship to obeying! Walk this
world with no friend in it but God and St. Edmund, you will
either fall