CHAP. VI. Hero-worship.

Enlightened Egoism, never so luminous, not the rule by which man's life can be led: A soul, different from a stomach in any sense of the word. Hero-worship done differently in every different epoch of the world. Reform, like Charity, must begin at home. 'Arrestment of the knaves and dastards,' beginning by arresting our own poor selves out of that fraternity. (p. 29.) The present Editor's purpose to himself full of hope. A Loadstar in the eternal sky: A glimmering of light, for here and there a human soul. (31.)

BOOK II.-THE ANCIENT MONK,

CHAP. I. Jocelin of Brakelond.

How the Centuries stand lineally related to each other. The one Book not permissible, the kind that has nothing in it. Jocelin's 'Chronicle,' a private Boswellean Notebook, now seven centuries old. How Jocelin, from under his monk's cowl, looked out on that narrow section of the world in a really human manner: A wise simplicity in him; a veracity that goes deeper than words. Jocelin's Monk-Latin; and Mr. Rokewood's editorial helpfulness and fidelity. (p. 34.)-A veritable Monk of old Bury St. Edmunds worth attending to. This England of ours, of the year 1200: Coeur-deLion King Lackland, and his thirteenpenny mass. The poorest historical Fact, and the grandest imaginative Fiction. (37.)

CHAP. II. St. Edmundsbury.

St. Edmund's Bury, a prosperous brisk Town: Extensive ruins of the Abbey still visible. Assiduous Pedantry, and its rubbish-heaps called 'History. Another world it was, when those black ruins first saw the sun as walls. At lowest, O dilettante friend, let us know always that it was a world. No easy matter to get across the chasm of Seven Centuries: Of all helps, a Boswell, even a small Boswell, the welcomest. (p. 40.)

CHAP. III. Landlord Edmund.

'Battle of Fornham,' a fact, though a forgotten one. Edmund, Landlord of the Eastern Counties: A very singular kind of 'landlord.' How he came to be 'sainted.' Seen and felt to have done verily a man's part in this life-pilgrimage of his. How they took up the slain body of their Edmund, and reverently embalmed it. (p. 44.)-Pious munificence, ever growing by new pious gifts. Certain Times do crystallise themselves in a magnificent manner; others in a rather shabby one. (48.)

CHAP. IV. Abbot Hugo.

All things have two faces, a light one and a dark: The Ideal has to grow in the Real, and to seek its bed and board there, often in a very sorry manner. Abbot Hugo, grown old and feeble. Jew debts and Jew creditors. How approximate justice strives to accomplish itself. (p. 50.)-In the old monastic Books almost no mention whatever of 'personal religion.' A poor Lord Abbot, all stuck-over with horse-leeches: A royal commission of inquiry,' to no purpose. A monk's first duty, obedience. Magister Samson, Teacher of the Novices. The Abbot's providential death. (52.)

CHAP. V. Twelfth Century.

Inspectors or Custodiars; the King not in any breathless haste to appoint a new Abbot. Dim and very strange looks that monk-life to us. Our

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venerable ancient spinning grandmothers, shrieking, and rushing out with their distaffs. Lakenheath eels too slippery to be caught. (p. 54.)- How much is alive in England, in that Twelfth Century; how much not yet come into life. Feudal Aristocracy; Willelmus Conquæstor: Not a steeple-chimney yet got on end from sea to sea. (57.)

CHAP. VI. Monk Samson.

Monk-Life and Monk-Religion: A great heaven-high Unquestionability, encompassing, interpenetrating all human Duties. Our modern Arkwright Joe-Manton ages: All human dues and reciprocities changed into one great due of cash-payment.' The old monks but a limited class of creatures, with a somewhat dull life of it. (p. 58.)-One Monk of a taciturn nature distinguishes himself among those babbling ones. A Son of poor Norfolk parents. Little Samson's awful dream: His poor Mother dedicates him to St. Edmund. He grows to be a learned man, of devout grave nature. Sent to Rome on business; and returns too successful: Method of travelling thither in those days. His tribulations at home: Strange conditions under which Wisdom has sometimes to struggle with folly. (60.)

CHAP. VII. The Canvassing.

A new Abbot to be elected. Even gossip, seven centuries off, has significance. The Prior with Twelve Monks, to wait on his Majesty at Waltham. An 'election' the one important social act: Given the Man a People choose, the worth and worthlessness of the People itself is given. (p. 64.)

CHAP. VIII. The Election.

Electoral methods and manipulations. Brother Samson ready oftenest with some question, some suggestion that has wisdom in it. The Thirteen off to Waltham, to choose their Abbot: In the solitude of the Convent, Destiny thus big and in her birthtime, what gossiping, babbling, dreaming of dreams! (p. 66.)-King Henry II. in his high Presence-chamber. Samson chosen Abbot: the King's royal acceptation. (69.)-St. Edmundsbury Monks, without express ballot-box or other winnowing machine. In every Nation and Community there is at all times a fittest, wisest, bravest, best. Human Worth and human Worthlessness. (71.)

CHAP. IX. Abbot Samson.

The Lord Abbot's arrival at St. Edmundsbury: The selfsame Samson yesterday a poor mendicant, this day finds himself a Dominus Abbas and mitred Peer of Parliament. (p. 73.)-Depth_and opulence of true social vitality in those old barbarous ages. True Governors go about under all manner of disguises now as then. Genius, Poet; what these words mean. George the Third, head charioteer of England; and Robert Burns, gauger of ale in Dumfries. (74.)-How Abbot Samson found a Convent all in dilapidation. His life-long harsh apprenticeship to governing, namely obeying. First get your Man; all is got. Danger of blockheads. (75)

CHAP. X. Government.

Beautiful, how the chrysalis governing-soul, shaking off its dusty slough and prison, starts forth winged, a true royal soul! One first labour, to institute a strenuous review and radical reform of his economics. Wheresoever Disorder may stand or lie, let it have a care; here is a man that has declared war with it. (p. 78.)-In less than four years the Convent debts are all liquidated, and the harpy Jews banished from St. Edmundsbury. New life springs beneficent everywhere: Spiritual rubbish as little tolerated as material. (80).

CHAP. XI. The Abbot's Ways.

Reproaches, open and secret, of ingratitude, unsociability: Except for 'fit men' in all kinds, hard to say for whom Abbot Samson had much favour. Remembrance of benefits. (p. 81.)-An eloquent man, but intent more on substance than on ornament. A just clear heart the basis of all true talent. One of the justest of judges: His invaluable talent of silence.' Kind of people he liked worst. Hospitality and stoicism. (83.)--The country in those days still dark with noble wood and umbrage: How the old trees gradually died out, no man heeding it. Monachism itself, so rich and fruitful once, now all rotted into peat. Devastations of four-footed cattle and Henry-the-Eighths. (85.)

CHAP. XII. The Abbot's Troubles.

The troubles of Abbot Samson more than tongue can tell. Not the spoil of victory, only the glorious toil of battle, can be theirs who really govern. An insurrection of the Monks: Behave better, ye remiss Monks, and thank Heaven for such an Abbot. (p. 86.)-Worn down with incessant toil and tribulation: Gleams of hilarity too; little snatches of encouragement granted even to a Governor. How my Lord of Clare, coming to claim his undue 'debt,' gets a Roland for his Oliver. A Life of Literature, noble and ignoble. (87.)

CHAP. XIII. In Parliament.

Confused days of Lackland's usurpation, while Coeur-de-Lion was away: Our brave Abbot took helmet himself, excommunicating all who should favour Lackland. King Richard a captive in Germany. (p. 90.)—St. Edmund's Shrine not meddled with: A heavenly Awe overshadowed and encompassed, as it still ought and must, all earthly Business whatsoever. (91.)

CHAP. XIV. Henry of Essex.

How St. Edmund punished terribly, yet with mercy: A Narrative significant of the Time. Henry Earl of Essex, standard-bearer of England: No right reverence for the Heavenly in Man. A traitor or a coward. Solemn Duel, by the King's appointment. An evil Conscience doth make cowards of us all. (p. 92.)

CHAP. XV. Practical-Devotional.

A Tournament proclaimed and held in the Abbot's domain, in spite of him. Roystering young dogs brought to reason. The Abbot a man that generally remains master at last: The importunate Bishop of Ely outwitted. A man that dare abide King Richard's anger, with justice on his side. Thou brave Richard, thou brave Samson! (p. 95.)—The basis of Abbot Samson's life truly religion. His zealous interest in the Crusades. The great antique heart, like a child's in its simplicity, like a man's in its earnest solemnity and depth. His comparative silence as to his religion precisely the healthiest sign of him and it. Methodism, Dilettantism, Puseyism. (99.)

CHAP. XVI. St. Edmund.

Abbot Samson built many useful, many pious edifices: All ruinous, incomplete things an eye-sorrow to him. Rebuilding the great Altar: A glimpse of the glorious Martyr's very Body. What a scene; how far vanished from us, in these unworshipping ages of ours! The manner of men's Hero-worship, verily the innermost fact of their existence, determining all the rest. (p. 102.)-On the whole, who knows how to reverence the Body of Man? Abbot Samson, at the culminating point of his existence: Our real-phantasmagory of St. Edmundsbury plunges into the bosom of the Twelfth Century again, and all is over. (107.)

CHAP. XVII. The Beginnings.

Formulas the very skin and muscular tissue of a Man's Life: Living Formulas and dead. Habit the deepest law of human nature. A pathway through the pathless. Nationalities. Pulpy infancy, kneaded, baked into any form you choose: The Man of Business; the hard-handed Labourer; the genus Dandy. No Mortal out of the depths of Bedlam but lives by Formulas. (p. 108.)-The hosts and generations of brave men Oblivion has swallowed: Their crumbled dust, the soil our life-fruit grows on. Invention of Speech; Forms of Worship; Methods of Justice. This English Land, here and now, the summary of what was wise and noble, and accordant with God's Truth, in all the generations of English Men. The thing called Fame.' (111.)

BOOK III.-THE MODERN WORKER.

CHAP. I. Phenomena.

How men have 'forgotten God;' taken the Fact of this Universe as it is not; God's Laws become a Greatest-Happiness Principle, a Parliamentary Expediency. Man has lost the soul out of him, and begins to find the want of it. (p. 117.)-The old Pope of Rome, with his stuffed dummy to do the kneeling for him. Few men that worship by the rotatory Calabash, do it in half so great, frank or effectual a way. (118.)-Our Aristocracy no longer able to do its work, and not in the least conscious that it has any work to do. The Champion of England 'lifted into his saddle.' The Hatter in the Strand, mounting a huge lath-and-plaster Hat. Our noble ancestors have fashioned for us, in how many thousand senses, a 'life-road;' and we their sons are madly, literally enough, 'consuming the way.' (120.)

CHAP. II. Gospel of Mammonism.

Heaven and Hell, often as the words are on our tongue, got to be fabulous or semi-fabulous for most of us. The real 'Hell' of the English. Cashpayment, not the sole or even chief relation of human beings. Practical Atheism, and its despicable fruits. (p. 124.)-One of Dr. Alison's melancholy facts: A poor Irish Widow, in the Lanes of Edinburgh, proving her sisterhood. Until we get a human soul within us, all things are impossible: Infatuated geese, with feathers and without. (128.)

CHAP. III. Gospel of Dilettantism.

Mammonism at least works; but 'Go gracefully idle in Mayfair,' what does or can that mean?-Impotent, insolent Donothingism in Practice and Saynothingism in Speech. No man now speaks a plain word: Insincere Speech the prime material of insincere Action. (p. 129.)-Moslem parable of Moses and the Dwellers by the Dead Sea : The Universe become a Humbug to the Apes that thought it one. (130.)

CHAP. IV. Happy.

All work noble; and every noble crown a crown of thorns. Man's pitiful pretension to be what he calls 'happy:' His Greatest-Happiness Principle fast becoming a rather unhappy one. Byron's large audience. A philosophical Doctor: A disconsolate Meat-jack, gnarring and creaking with rust and work. (p. 132.)-The only 'happiness' a brave man ever troubled himself much about, the happiness to get his work done. (134.)

CHAP. V. The English.

With all thy theoretic platitudes, what a depth of practical sense in thee, great England! A dumb people, who can do great acts, but not describe

them. The noble Warhorse, and the Dog of Knowledge: The freest utterances not by any means the best. (p. 135.)-The done Work, much more than the spoken Word, an epitome of the man. The Man of Practice, and the Man of Theory: Ineloquent Brindley. The English, of all Nations the stupidest in speech, the wisest in action: Sadness and seriousness: Unconsciously this great Universe is great to them. The silent Romans. John Bull's admirable insensibility to Logic. (136.)-All great Peoples conservative. Kind of Ready-Reckoner a Solecism in Eastcheap. Berserkir rage. Truth and Justice alone capable of being 'conserved.' Bitter indignation engendered by the Corn-Laws in every just English heart. (140.)

CHAP. VI. Two Centuries.

The 'Settlement' of the year 1660 one of the mournfulest that ever took place in this land of ours. The true end of Government, to guide men in the way they should go: The true good of this life, the portal of infinite good in the life to come. Oliver Cromwell's body hung on the Tyburn gallows, the type of Puritanism found futile, inexecutable, execrable. The Spiritualism of England, for two godless centuries, utterly forgettable: Her practical material Work alone memorable. (p. 143.)-Bewildering obscurations and impediments: Valiant Sons of Toil enchanted, by the million, in their PoorLaw Bastille. Giant Labour yet to be King of this Earth. (145.)

CHAP. VII. Over-Production.

An idle Governing Class addressing its Workers with an indictment of Over-production.' Duty of justly apportioning the Wages of Work done. A game-preserving Aristocracy, guiltless of producing or apportioning anything. Owning the soil of England. (p. 146.)-The Working Aristocracy steeped in ignoble Mammonism: The Idle Aristocracy, with its yellow parchments and pretentious futilities. (148.)

CHAP. VIII. Unworking Aristocracy.

Our Land the Mother of us all: No true Aristocracy but must possess the Land. Men talk of 'selling' Land: Whom it belongs to. Our muchconsuming Aristocracy: By the law of their position bound to furnish guidance and governance. Mad and miserable Corn-Laws. (p. 150.)-The Working Aristocracy, and its terrible New-Work: The Idle Aristocracy, and its horoscope of despair. (152.)—A High Class without duties to do, like a tree planted on precipices. In a valiant suffering for others, not in a slothful making others suffer for us, did nobleness ever lie. The Pagan Hercules; the Czar of Russia. (154.) — Parchments, venerable and not venerable. Benedict the Jew, and his usuries. No Chapter on the CornLaws: The Corn-Laws too mad to have a Chapter. (155.)

CHAP. IX. Working Aristocracy.

Many things for the Working Aristocracy, in their extreme need, to consider. A National Existence supposed to depend on 'selling cheaper' than any other People. Let inventive men try to invent a little how cotton at its present cheapness could be somewhat justlier divided. Many 'impossibles' will have to become possible. (p. 157.)-Supply-and-demand: For what noble work was there ever yet any audible demand' in that poor sense? (160.)

CHAP. X. Plugson of Undershot.

Man's philosophies usually the 'supplement of his practice: Symptoms of social death. Cash-Payment: The Plugson Ledger, and the Tablets of Heaven's Chancery, discrepant exceedingly. (p. 161.)-All human things do require to have an Ideal in them. How murderous fighting became a