ems to have been a Norman Englishman; the surname _de Brakelonda_
indicates a native of St. Edmundsbury itself, _Brakelond_ being the
known old name of a street or quarter in that venerable Town. Then
farther, sure enough, our Jocelin was a Monk of St. Edmundsbury
Convent; held some '_obedientia_,' subaltern officiality there, or
rather, in succession several; was, for one thing, 'chaplain to my
Lord Abbot, living beside him night and day for the space of six
years;'--which last, indeed, is the grand fact of Jocelin's existence,
and properly the origin of this present Book, and of the chief meaning
it has for us now. He was, as we have hinted, a kind of born
_Boswell_, though an infinitesimally small one; neither did he
altogether want his _Johnson_ even there and then. Johnsons are rare;
yet, as has been asserted, Boswells perhaps still rarer,--the more is
the pity on both sides! This Jocelin, as we can discern well, was an
ingenious and ingenuous, a cheery-hearted, innocent, yet withal
shrewd, noticing, quick-witted man; and from under his monk's cowl has
looked out on that narrow section of the world in a really _human_
manner; not in any _simial_, canine, ovine, or otherwise _in_human
manner,--afflictive to all that have humanity! The man is of patient,
peaceable, loving, clear-smiling nature; open for this and that. A
wise simplicity is in him; much natural sense; a _veracity_ that goes
deeper than words. Veracity: it is the basis of all; and, some say,
means genius itself; the prime essence of all genius whatsoever. Our
Jocelin, for the rest, has read his classical manuscripts, his
Virgilius, his Flaccus, Ovidius Naso; of course still more, his
Homilies and Breviaries, and if not the Bible, considerable extracts
of the Bible. Then also he has a pleasant wit; and loves a timely
joke, though in mild subdued manner: very amiable to see. A learned
grown man, yet with the heart as of a good child; whose whole life
indeed has been that of a child,--St. Edmundsbury Monastery a larger
kind of cradle for him, in which his whole prescribed duty was to
_sleep_ kindly, and love his mother well! This is the Biography of
Jocelin; 'a man of excellent religion,' says one of his contemporary
Brother Monks, '_eximiae religionis, potens sermone et opere_.'

For one thing, he had learned to write a kind of Monk or Dog-Latin,
still readable to mankind; and, by good luck for us, had bethought him
of noting down thereby what things seem