Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln

cler, or some thought-worn modern historian. If we say with the Great Life that Hugh was ordained Levite in his nineteenth year, we upset Giraldus Cambrensis and the metrical biographer, who put it in his fifteenth; and Matthew Paris and the Legend, who write him down as over sixteen. Mr. Dimock would have us count from his entry into the canonry, and so counts him as twenty-four; Canon Perry and Father Thurston say "nineteenth year," or "nineteen." The Canons Regular of Villarbenoit seem to have been rather liberal in their interpretation of church regulations, but it is hardly likely that the bishop of Grenoble would so far stretch a point as to ordain a lad much below the canonical age, even if he were of a great house and great piety. Anyhow it is hardly worth while for the general reader to waste time over these ticklish points. It is enough to say that Hugh was ordained young, that he looked pink and white over his white stole and broidered tunic, and that he soon preached vigorously, warmly, and moving