chapel the organs go: Convent and Town, and all
the west side of Suffolk, are in gala; knights, viscounts,
weavers, spinners, the entire population, male and female, young
and old, the very sockmen with their chubby infants,--out to have
a holiday, and see the Lord Abbot arrive! And there is
'stripping barefoot' of the Lord Abbot at the Gate, and solemn
leading of him in to the High Altar and Shrine; with sudden
'silence of all the bells and organs,' as we kneel in deep prayer
there; and again with outburst of all the bells and organs, and
loud _Te Deum_ from the general human windpipe; and speeches by
the leading viscount, and giving of the kiss of brotherhood; the
whole wound up with popular games, and dinner within doors of
more than a thousand strong, _plus quam mille comedentibus in
gaudio magno._

In such manner is the selfsame Samson once again returning
to us, welcomed on _this_ occasion. He that went away with his
frock-skirts looped over his arm, comes back riding high;
suddenly made one of the dignitaries of this world. Reflective
readers will admit that here was a trial for a man. Yesterday a
poor mendicant, allowed to possess not above two shillings of
money, and without authority to bid a dog run for him, this man
today finds himself a _Dominus Abbas,_ mitred Peer of Parliament,
Lord of manorhouses, farms, manors, and wide lands; a man with
'Fifty Knights under him,' and dependent swiftly obedient
multitudes of men. It is a change greater than Napoleon's; so
sudden withal. As if one of the Chandos daydrudges had, on
awakening some morning, found that he overnight was become Duke!
Let Samson with his clear-beaming eyes see into that, and discern
it if he can. We shall now get the measure of him by a new scale
of inches, considerably more rigorous than the former was. For
if a noble soul is rendered tenfold beautifuller by victory and
prosperity, springing now radiant as into his own due element and
sunthrone; an ignoble one is rendered tenfold and hundredfold
uglier, pitifuller. Whatsoever vices, whatsoever weaknesses were
in the man, the parvenu will shew us them enlarged, as in the
solar microscope, into frightful distortion. Nay, how many mere
seminal principles of vice, hitherto all wholesomely kept latent,
may we now see unfolded, as in the solar hothouse, into growth,
into huge universally-conspicuous luxuriance and development!

But is not this, at any rate, a singular aspect