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. Jocelin marks down what interests
_him;_ entirely deaf to _us._ With Jocelin's eyes we discern
almost nothing of John Lackland. As through a glass darkly, we
with our own eyes and appliances, intensely looking, discern at
most: A blustering, dissipated, human figure, with a kind of
blackguard quality air, in cramoisy velvet, or other uncertain
texture, uncertain cut, with much plumage and fringing; amid
numerous other human figures of the like; riding abroad with
hawks; talking noisy nonsense;--tearing out the bowels of St.
Edmundsbury Convent (its larders namely and cellars) in the most
ruinous way, by living at rack and manger there. Jocelin notes
only, with a slight subacidity of manner, that the King's
Majesty, _Dominus Rex,_ did leave, as gift for our St. Edmund
Shrine, a handsome enough silk cloak,--or rather pretended to
leave, for one of his retinue borrowed it of us, and we never got
sight of it again; and, on the whole, that the _Dominus Rex,_ at
departing, gave us 'thirteen _sterlingii,'_ one shilling and one