d thus, having frightened
the king into what concessions I thought proper, I dismissed my army and
fleet, with which I intended, could I not have succeeded otherwise, to
have sacked the city of London and ravaged the whole country.

"I was no sooner re-established in the king's favor, or, what was
as well for me, the appearance of it, than I fell violently on the
archbishop. He had of himself retired to his monastery in Normandy; but
that did not content me: I had him formally banished, the see declared
vacant, and then filled up by another.

"I enjoyed my grandeur a very short time after my restoration to it; for
the king, hating and fearing me to a very great degree, and finding no
means of openly destroying me, at last effected his purpose by poison,
and then spread abroad a ridiculous story, of my wishing the next
morsel might choke me if I had had any hand in the death of Alfred; and,
accordingly, that the next morsel, by a divine judgment, stuck in my
throat and performed that office.

"This of a statesman was one of my worst stages in the other world. It
is a post subjected daily to the greatest danger and inquietude, and
attended with little pleasure and less ease. In a word, it is a pill
which, was it not gilded over by ambition, would appear nauseous and
detestable in the eye of every one; and perhaps that is one reason why
Minos so greatly compassionates the case of those who swallow it: for
that just judge told me he always acquitted a prime minister who could
produce one single good action in his whole life, let him have committed
ever so many crimes. Indeed, I understood him a little too largely,
and was stepping towards the gate; but he pulled me by the sleeve, and,
telling me no prime minister ever entered there, bid me go back again;
saying, he thought I had sufficient reason to rejoice in my escaping
the bottomless pit, which half my crimes committed in any other capacity
would have entitled me to."

CHAPTER XXI

Julian's adventures in the post of a soldier.

"I was born at Caen, in Normandy. My mother's name was Matilda; as for
my father, I am not so certain, for the good woman on her death-bed
assured me she herself could bring her guess to no greater certainty
than to five of duke William's captains. When I was no more than
thirteen (being indeed a surprising stout boy of my age) I enlisted into
the army of duke William, afterwards known by the name of William the
Conqueror, landed