spleen. We are dull, insipid men, many of us; easy-minded;
whom prayer and digestion of food will avail for a life. We have
to receive all strangers in our Convent, and lodge them gratis;
such and such sorts go by rule to the Lord Abbot and his special
revenues; such and such to us and our poor Cellarer, however
straitened. Jews themselves send their wives and little ones
hither in war-time, into our _Pitanceria;_ where they abide
safe, with due _pittances,_--for a consideration. We have the
fairest chances for collecting news. Some of us have a turn for
reading Books; for meditation, silence; at times we even write
Books. Some of us can preach, in English-Saxon, in Norman
French, and even in Monk-Latin; others cannot in any language or
jargon, being stupid.

Failing all else, what gossip about one another! This is a
perennial resource. How one hooded head applies itself to the
ear of another, and whispers--_tacenda._ Willelmus Sacrista, for
instance, what does he nightly, over in that Sacristy of his?
Frequent bibations, _'frequentes bibationes et quaedam tacenda,'_
--eheu! We have _'tempora minutionis,'_ stated seasons of
bloodletting, when we are all let blood together; and then
there is a general free-conference, a sanhedrim of clatter. For
all our vow of poverty, we can by rule amass to the extent of
'two shillings;' but it is to be given to our necessitous
kindred, or in charity. Poor Monks! Thus too a certain
Canterbury Monk was in the habit of 'slipping, _clanculo_ from
his sleeve,' five shillings into the hand of his mother, when she
came to see him, at the divine offices, every two months. Once,
slipping the money clandestinely, just in the act of taking
leave, he slipt it not into her hand but on the floor, and