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makes it exceeding proud. The appointed censor of all other men, finds himself at once in the possession of power, and how many reasons are there at hand why he should increase it! Must he not govern in order to guide and instruct? And mark how well he is provided for the strife of ambition! It is the rudest game of life, and no passion involves in such continuous struggle, or leads to such terrible reverses, as the love of power. But he whose ambition is intermingled with his religion, may at once be elated by the passion, and animated in the conflict, and yet be fortified against its perils and disasters. Is his course prosperous? he has the natural animation of hope and enterprise, and the sense of triumph steals upon his heart. Is it clouded with adversity? -he has other consolations than the world-which to disappointed ambition is a dead thing-can possibly supply. While he succeeds, the victory is his if he fails, the cause is God's. He was responsible, not for success, only for endeavour; and the very shame of his defeat is transferred to his triumphant but guilty opponent. He conquers, and his adversary lies at his feet; he is subdued, and he wraps himself in the consciousness of duty, or rises into the glory of martyrdom. There are few characters more captivating to the imagination than his who displays this combination of piety and ambition. Enough of human pride remains to rejoice in the victory, but nothing of human weakness to give terror to defeat. Such a man, even at the height of his power, seems superior to his own acquisition; he makes no boast-he abases himself in profound humility; he is nothingknows of nothing but the great service he is set to perform-meanwhile he has usurped the thunders of Heaven, and is governing the world!

Of this mixed character we conceive Becket to have been. He entered on his high office resolved to be the stanch and faithful champion of the Church; he opposed his crosier at all hazards to the monarch's sceptre; and, overcome by violence, he sunk on the altar of his cathedral, greater and more triumphant in his death than the most complete success could have rendered him in life.

In England, the Church not only

stood in occasional opposition to the Crown, but there was a constant bickering between it and the courts of common-law. And here let one observation be made. It is a remark of Blackstone, and it is one of those remarks which, having been once made, are therefore frequently and without examination repeated that the clergy, in the contempt they displayed for our common law, had acted contrary to their usual policy - had overreached themselves and, by withdrawing from the national jurisprudence, had allowed a brotherhood of lawyers to rise up in the country as keen-witted as themselves, and who proved the most awkward enemies they had to deal with. This remark betrays an inattention both to the current views of the clergy, and to the nature of that jurisprudence which it is supposed they refuse to preside over. The early Christians held it a sacred duty to determine their differences amongst themselves; they could not enter courts of justice profaned by heathen superstitions. When this objection no longer prevailed, and judicial institutions were purged from Pagan idolatries, the clergy still retained this obligation of determining amongst themselves, for the sake of decency and propriety, their own disputes; and courts were granted them for this purpose by the first Christian emperor. They obtained their judicial privileges on the very ground that they would not appear and carry on a litigation before lay tribunals. It was only, therefore, by extending their own courts, and grafting the civil on the canon law, that they could possess themselves of any share of the jurisprudence of a country; and this course they never showed themselves slack or unskilful in pursuing. Not only was it adverse to the current of opinion, it was never within their power to take a prominent part in the administration of our common law. This, during feudal times, was necessarily placed in the hands of the military baron, who alone could enforce the execution of its decrees; not to mention that the law itself, as in the case of the judicial combat, was often such as a Christian clergy could not possibly have administered. And before the country and its jurisprudence were somewhat humanized, the lawyers bred in the king's court, the curia regis, had grown up into a distinct and powerful profession.

In Saxon times, the bishop occasionally sat with the earl or sheriff in the county court; but this was considered as an indecorum which the Saxon church, by reason of its remoteness from the source of orthodoxy, had fallen into; and William, at the Conquest, separating the bishop, placed him in a court of his own. When the clergy had thus obtained their own courts, they cannot be accused of any remissness or reluctance in administer

ing their canon or civil law, and in drawing to those courts cases which belonged to the decision of the king's judges, which was the only method they had of participating in the jurisprudence of the country. Every act which savoured of religion was made a subject for their spiritual jurisdiction. If it were a question of debt, and the obligation had been sanctioned by an oath, although in essence a mere civil contract, they laid claim to determine the controversy. If land were merely asserted to be held in frankalmoigne, (to have been a free gift to the Church, and exonerated from the usual

burdens of feudal tenure,) without allowing this fact to be first determined by a court of law, they proceeded immediately to adjudicate upon any question relating to it. These encroachments the common law, with its prohibitions, was perpetually resisting. Some departments of jurisprudence the Courts Christian contrived, however, to appropriate; and what perhaps is rather singular, considering the various revolutions that have passed over their heads, have contrived to retain to this day. It is still an ecclesiastical court which gives efficacy to the testa. ment of the deceased, or authorizes the distribution of his goods, if he died intestate, to the next of kin. As it was the duty of all good Christians to leave something to the Church for prayers and masses, the clergy, anxious that such good intentions should not be frustrated, took charge themselves, in the first instance, of all the goods and chattels of the defunct. It is still an ecclesiastical court which enquires into the validity of the marriage contract, which listens to the matrimonial complaint, and grants a relaxation of those bonds which nothing, however, but an act of the legislature can dissolve.

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SWEET Morn! from countless cups of On lands and seas, on fields and

gold

Thou liftest reverently on high

woods,

And cottage roofs and ancient spires,

While night retires.

5.

More incense fine than earth can hold, O, Morn! thy gaze creative broods, To fill the sky.

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Aloft the mountain ridges beam
Above their quiet steeps of grey;
The eastern clouds with glory stream,
And vital day.

6.

By valleys dank, and river's brim, Through corn-clad fields and wizard groves,

O'er dazzling tracks and hollows dim, One spirit roves.

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Yet those clear eyes that seek and read the True,
Which disappoints not long the earnest view,
Though firm their faith, sometimes with doubt may mark
The fearful signs when Heaven, it seems, is dark.

4.

When hoary rule and custom's hallow'd sway
By selfish force are lavish'd all away,

NO. CCXCI, VOL. XLVII,

F

Misused by pride and gain, while power impure
Reveres no right, so leans on none secure ;

5.

When through the ranks of grave ancestral state Poor Baseness creeps, and saps whate'er was great, Chokes with sweet baits a nation's vital breath, And decks it out to be a prey for death;

6.

When ancient glories blazon modern shame,
And Folly blows the moss-grown trump of Fame,
When waste profuse, and idlest joys alone,
Degrade the Council's halls and Monarch's throne;

7.

Then Faith and Conscience note with sober ken
The brood of woes begot by sins of men,
And, standing fast, behold majestic Law
By those its chosen hands, despoil'd of awe.

8.

No self-subjecting force of soul is theirs,
That public toil as noblest honour bears;
And seeks to raise, from step to step of good,
The hearts that now but long for daily food.

9.

To build their tower they undermine the wall,
And let, to feed their fire, the roof-tree fall;
To frame a wine-cup, they pluck off their crown,
And play in lordly sloth the drunken clown.

10.

So spreads from hearth to hearth o'er all the land The rumour whispering late revenge at hand; And countless hosts unsheath at last and wield The curses long within the heart conceal'd.

11.

Then eyes, made hard and dull by want and woe, With bestial fierceness each select a foe;

And souls, untrain'd to yearn for purer joy,

With Hate's dark instinct burst, pursue, destroy.

12.

Unrighteous deeds of long-departed time,
Forgotten follies, ghosts of buried crime,
Each inner chamber's thoughts of lust and gore
All start to view, and sweep with ocean's roar.

13.

The glittering legends fraught with smooth delight,
The names revered, and blazonries of right,
All ties of living love, pride, ease, and trust,

Laws, charters, customs, quiet, crash to dust;

14.

While madd'ning stars in new-found courses wheel,
And earth's invaded bases quake and reel,

Each frantic wish, and strange deluding cry,
Like mountain flames and ashes, leap on high.

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Yet o'er the whirl of ruin, 'mid the shock
That smites all towers, makes all foundations rock,
It is thy arm, O God! which, wrapt in cloud,
Weighs down the strong, and thunderstrikes the proud.

20.

With blasting flames thy holiest judgments shine,
And lightnings flash around thy face benign,
While clad in wrath and night thy blessings dwell,
And seem the horrid shades of Death and Hell.

21.

And thus, through all Destruction's 'whelming course, A hopeful promise works with secret force,

O'er those remains, immense and shatter'd soil,

Bids new-born powers with happier purpose toil,

22.

Now Law to peace and reverence moulds again
The sadden'd hearts and firmer thoughts of men;
And rights by bad occasion long subdued
To bolder growth arise, at heart renew'd.

23.

Uprear'd to loftier height on surer ground,
A nation lifts the head serene and crown'd,
And o'er the waste of battle-fields and graves,
With strong feet stands, and sun-bright pinions waves.

24.

Through fast-receding skirts of storm and dread,
With kindling eyes it sees thy glory spread;
With songs triumphant over vanquish'd ill,
Thy love proclaims and hymns thy peaceful will.

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