Dunstan was born of noble parents in the west of England; and being educated under his uncle Aldhelm, then archbishop of Canterbury, had betaken himself to the ecclesiastical life, and had acquired some character in the court of Edmund. He was, however, represented to that prince as a man of licentious manners;[*] and finding his fortune blasted by these suspicions, his ardent ambition prompted him to repair his indiscretions, by running into an opposite extreme. He secluded himself entirely from the world; he framed a cell so small, that he could neither stand erect in it, nor stretch out his limbs during his repose; and he here employed himself perpetually either in devotion or in manual labor.[**] It is probable that his brain became gradually crazed by these solitary occupations, and that his head was filled with chimeras, which, being believed by himself and his stupid votaries, procured him the general character of sanctity among the people. He fancied that the devil, among the frequent visits which he paid him, was one day more earnest than usual in his temptations, till Dunstan, provoked at his importunity, seized him by the nose with a pair of red-hot pincers, as he put his head into the cell; and he held him there till that malignant spirit made the whole neighborhood resound with his bellowings. This notable exploit was seriously credited and extolled by the public; it is transmitted to posterity by one, who, considering the age in which he lived, may pass for a writer of some elegance;[***] and it insured to Dunstan a reputation which no real piety, much less virtue, could, even in the most enlightened period, have ever procured him with the people. [* Osberne, p. 95. M. West, p. 187.] [** Osberne, p. 96.] [*** Osberne, p. 97.] Supported by the character obtained in his retreat, Dunstan appeared again in the world; and gained such an ascendent over Edred who had succeeded to the crown, as made him not only the director of that prince’s conscience, but his counsellor in the most momentous affairs of government. He was placed at the head of the treasury,[*] and being thus possessed both of power at court, and of credit with the populace, he was enabled to attempt with success the most arduous enterprises. Finding that his advancement had been owing to the opinion of his austerity, he professed himself a partisan of the rigid monastic rules; and after introducing that reformation into the convents of Glastonbury and Abingdon, he endeavored to render it universal in the kingdom.