England. For four years our new Lord Abbot never went abroad but
Jew creditors and Christian, and all manner of creditors, were
about him; driving him to very despair. Our Prior is remiss;
our Cellarers, officials are remiss, our monks are remiss: what
man is not remiss? Front this, Samson, thou alone art there to
front it; it is thy task to front and fight this, and to die or
kill it. May the Lord have mercy on thee!

To our antiquarian interest in 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