TAUNTON PRIORY. G9 



excellencies of the Scholar and the saint. He was both 

 patron and professor of the literature of his age ; and his 

 home breathed of the refinement of his elegant mind, and 

 bore the unpress of his exquisite taste. Here the master 

 influenae was most conspicuously evidenced. Here, in their 

 beautiful House, amid sights and soiinds that fit men for 

 heaven, amid holy labours and the quiet study of earlier 

 Christianity, lived, as I have elsewhere endeavoured to 

 picture them and their brethren, the inmates of the fair 

 Priory of Taunton. Removed fn)m the petty cares of 

 ordinary existence, they attained to a degree of mental 

 cultivatiou to which few others could aspire. And this 

 was combined in numberless instances with that clear and 

 sagacious perception of the character of their times, which 

 made them accoraplished men of society as well as profound 

 students of the cloister. A body of ecclesiastics thus ruled 

 for several centuries the religious destinies and spiritual 

 life of Taunton ; and their government, so far as we can 

 now arrive at an insight into it, was characterized by the 

 excellencies of the rulers themselves. The outer man, too, 

 symbolized the inner, for even in the Canon's very aspect 

 there was that which was imposing in no little degree. 

 He wore an albe that reached to the foot, and was fastened 

 round the waist Avith a girdle of black leather. His amice 

 enwrappcd his Shoulders like a cloke. Over these he had 

 a long black mantle, to which was fastened a hood of the 

 same colour ; and a high black cap covered his head, and 

 contrastcd well with his flowing beard. Few ecclesiastics 

 of other Orders could have rivalled either in mental 

 dignity or in cxternal bearing the Augustine Canon of 

 Taunton. 



The Church and Priory were no doubt worthy of the 

 companionship. That the former was raagnificent we have 



