"A' the bells o' merrie Lincoln Without men's hands were rung, And a' the books o' merrie Lincoln Were read without man's tongue; And ne'er was such a burial Sin' Adam's days begun." Passing by the shower of gold rings, necklaces, and bezants which were given at his shrine, it is certain that the coals of enthusiasm were blown by the report of miracles, never for very long together kept at bay by mediaeval writers. While wishing to avoid the _affirmatio falsi_ and to give no heed to lying fables, we must not risk being guilty of a _suppressio veri_. The miracles at the tomb come in such convenient numbers that their weight, though it possibly made the guardians of the shrine, yet breaks the tottering faith of the candid reader. But some are more robust, and for them there is a lively total which makes Giraldus's lament for the fewness of miracles in his day seem rather ungrateful. "Four quinsies"--well, strong emotion will do much for quinsies. "One slow oozing"--the disease being doubtful, we need not dispute the remedy. "Three paralytics"--in the name of Lourdes, let them pass. "Three withered, two dumb, two hunchbacks, one boy dead"--here we falter. "One jaundice case" sounds likelier; "one barren woman" need not detain us. "Four dropsies, four blind, and nine lunatics"--and now we know the worst of it. It would have been a great deal easier to accept the whole in a venture (or forlorn hope) of faith if Hugh had witnessed and some one else performed these miracles, for he had a scrupulously veracious mind. He was so afraid of even the shadow of a lie that he used to attemper what he said with words of caution whenever he repeated what he had done or heard: "that is only as far as I recollect." He would not clap his seal to any letter which contained any questionable statement. "We remember to have cited you elsewhere," a common legal phrase, would damn a document if he did not remember, literally and personally, to have done so. His influence, too, can be discerned in the candid Adam, whose honest tale often furnishes us with an antidote to his impossible surmises. But veracity, unfortunately, is not highly infectious, and it is a little difficult not to believe that the high and serene virtues of the great man gone were promptly exploited for the small men left. One miracle there seems no reason to doubt. John, in an almost maudlin fit of emotional repentance, made peace at the funeral with his Cistercian enemies and founded them a home at Beaulieu in the New Forest. Indeed, these were the true miracles which recommended Hugh to the English people, so that they regarded him as a saint indeed, and clamoured for him to be called one formally--the miracles wrought upon character, the callous made charitable, liars truthful, and the lechers chaste; the miracles of justice, of weak right made strong against proud might, and poor honesty made proof against rich rascality; the miracle