and which he had come to ntter, became suddenly mute, and losing all the strength of his body, he fell down before the king and expired. But as the king passed over this event with indifferent eyes, and persisted the more vehemently in his demand, it was still uncertain how much every one was to pay to the king. The consequence was, that different persons told different stories, varying from time to time ; and so, after eating sour grapes, at last, when they were assembled in the refectory of the monks at Westminster, a knight, John Havering by name, rose up in the midst of them, and said, " My venerable men, this is the demand of the king—the annual moiety of the revenues of your churches. And if any one objects to this, let him rise up in the middle of this assembly, that his person may be recognised and taken note of, as he is guilty of treason against the king's peace." When they heard this, all the prelates were disturbed, and immediately agreed to the king's demands. After these events, when the course of this melancholy year was proceeding onward to its end, pope Celestine, choosing, like the blessed Mary, the better part of a contemplative life, on the sweetness of which he had been already fed and fattened in no slight degree, threw himself into the middle of the brethren, stripping himself of his birret and his mantle, and renouncing all the honour and burden and favour and dancer of his office, on account of the cares of worldly affairs which it brought upon him, he refused any longer to discharge the office of governor of the Romans, asserting that he was not fit for the execution of such laborious duties. Truly the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. But he adjured them in the name of the Holy and indivisible Trinity, without any delay or dissension, to elect an energetic and serviceable man, who might undertake the discharge of this burthen, to the honour of God and his own salvation. And being requested by the brethren to point out and sanction the nomination of some worthy person, since they looked upon him himself, he named aman called Benedict, a man of wisdom beyond all his fellows, and who had often transacted business in the court of Rome. For this Benedict was a native of Cadiz, having been first of all a procurator, then an advocate, afterwards a notary, then cardinal deacon of the title of Saint Nicholas in the Tullian prison. Then the