> THE HOLIDAYS. "O that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me when his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness as I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle: when the Almighty was yet with me."-Joв xxix, 2—5. NOTWITHSTANDING the manifest mutability and transient nature of the world, we are sometimes witnesses to scenes and situations, beauties and enjoyments in it, which declare the elements of a more permanent and more elevated condition. The state of conscience, which accompanies a pious and innocent life, that peace of God that passeth all understanding, possesses us with intimations and knowledge of a spiritual and unsuffering kingdom. The same conscious spirit of delight and liberty seems especially to dwell within us in the days of our childhood and early life, and the elevation, grandeur, and beauty of all our enjoyments then, seem to cast upon the scenery of nature and society a splendour and perfection not made to fade and pass away. Indeed the childlike simplicity of character and detachment from the world which Christianity recommends us to hold through life, would preserve, (if we were obedient to it) the conviction strongly and vividly in our nature; and we find it to be the characteristic of genius that it is strong enough to effect this triumph over the world, that it carries the joys and delight of youth into manhood and old age, proving the words of the poet, that "To things immortal time can do no wrong, And that which never is to die, for ever must be young." But the passions and businesses of the world, for the most part, soon overwhelm us with the veil of their mortality, obscuring all those brilliant intimations and sweet assurances of our original nature, its gay fearlessness of decay, its bright earnests of enjoyment. In manhood, then, when we look back upon the glorified feelings which were spread over every object, and our then belief in their unalterableness and permanency, we should remember them as declarations and acknowledgements by our nature, of its estate of immortality and blessedness; we should recall them, as the first, and often strongest, evidence to the essential character of our nature, to its adaptation and appointment for glory and happiness. Nor do these feelings arise, as some would account for them, from the then novelty of all external things about us, for that novelty would not awaken a pleasure in the same degree pure and splendid in an evil and a worldly spirit, "Who beholds undelighted all delight." It is rather explained by a daily analogy of which all are conscious, the peculiar and happy feeling of the morning, when the spirit, refreshened by sleep, comes re-created, as it were, from the hand of its Maker, and feels (notwithstanding their familiarity) "all things to be good." Like this is youth, our "morning of life," when the intentions and workmanship of the Divine Artist appear plain and unworn upon us, and his spirit of a blissful and eternal nature, envelopes and possesses us, clearly displaying our origin and our destination. These declarations of our original are gradually obscured by the world, whose spirit almost overwhelms us, and that bright light which we brought with us, and in which we first "lived and moved, and had our being," is with difficulty retained in the strife and debasement of earthly intercourse. Yet to preserve it is the voice of nature and the direction of Christianity; and to revert to those early scenes when the light of heaven shone happily before us and around us, must tend to strengthen our hope and conviction, that that which once has been, shall not altogether, and for ever, have passed away. I never witness the presence, and the gay and innocent delight of boys, in their Christmas and Summer holidays, when let loose upon society from their little monasteries of concealment, but they seem to me as two gleams of splendour appointed to appear twice every year, spreading themselves over the world to cheer and irradiate the living landscape of good and evil, and to keep alive the remembrance of that unclouded, unanxious, and happy spirit, which is our true inheritance. To view it as Gray has done in the latter part of his Ode on Eton, is to anticipate and dwell upon a temporary absence of it only, and a transient and casual eclipse by the vices and evils of the world, which, though falling, in a certain degree, on all who pass through it, yet is so far from a genuine consequence, and probable termination, a priori, of the character and promises of early life, that it stands there as in contradiction, and most unnatural dissimilarity to them. Gray has considered vice and suffering (for the sake of the pathos and contrast in his poem) as if they were the fulfilment of our being, which, in truth, are only its accident and its perversion.* He who received and knew our nature, has declared that Sin and Death are permitted to dwell with us only for a while, and that they shall not in the end prevail. If we listen to him in obedience, we shall find that these prompt and spontaneous notices of our opening life are appointed, all of them, to endure and to triumph, and that the bright promises of boyhood are to re "God made not death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living. For he created all things that they might have their being: and the generations of the world were healthful: and there is no poison of destruction in them; nor the kingdom of death upon the earth. For righteousness is immortal. But ungodly men with their works and words called it unto them."- Wisdom of Solomon, ch. i. v. 13—–16. ceive their natural growth and fulfilment-" for of such is the kingdom of heaven. That life of happiness and light of truth, which arose so enchantingly upon us, shall then have an end assimilated in harmony to its early expectations, and the song of the poet, when he witnesses or adverts to the scenes of youth and its enjoyments, shall not be the anticipation of evil and of sorrow, but the earnests and convictions of beauty, immortality, and joy : - "Pure to the soul and pleasing to the eyes, T. THOMAS A BECKET. Continued from Vol. II. p. 459. MEANS USED TO SECURE HIS ELECTION AS ARCHBISHOP. We now come to the remaining point which we stated our intention to notice-the means used to secure Becket's election to the archbishopric; and that we may not be suspected of under-stating the arguments for the view which we question, we will give them in the words of Lord Lyttleton : "Him, [Becket] therefore, he [the king] resolved to advance to that dignity [the archbishopric] at this critical time. Becket himself much desired it, if we may believe Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, who, in a letter which he wrote to him afterwards, and on another occasion, affirms that his eyes were watchfully fixed on the archbishopric before Theobald died, and that he did all he could to secure it to himself on that event.' As this prelate [Gilbert Foliot] then [when the letter was sent] possessed the confidence of the king, he might be assured of the fact from the mouth of that prince; and without such information, or other very strong evidence, it is not probable that he would have ventured to charge Becket with it in such positive terms. Some friends of the latter, in their accounts of his life, assert indeed that when Henry first acquainted him with his intention of making him archbishop, he gave that monarch a fair warning that it would certainly produce a quarrel between them, because his conscience would not allow him to suffer many things which he knew the king would require, and even already presumed to do in ecclesiastical matters.' They add, that as he foresaw that by accepting this offer he should lose the favour either of God or of the king, he would fain have refused it, and was with great difficulty prevailed upon to accept it by the pope's legate. "But that any part of this apology for him is true, I greatly doubt, as it stands contradicted by the affirmation of Gilbert Foliot, which in this particular is evidence of far greater credit than the word of Becket himself, and as it ill agrees with the methods which were undeniably taken to procure his election-methods he must have known to be very inconsistent with the canons of the church, and what was then called its freedom. "It appears from an epistle sent to Becket afterwards by all the bishops and clergy of England, that, as far as they durst, they signified at this time their disapprobation of the king's desire to promote him to Canterbury; and that in spite of the popularity which he so much affected, the whole nation cried out against it. We are also assured by the same evidence, which can hardly be rejected, that Matilda did her utmost to dissuade her son from it. But though upon other occasions Henry paid her the greatest respect, he determined to act in this matter by his own judgment; and having taken his part, as he believed on good reasons, his passions were heated by the opposition he met with, and his affection for his favourite concurred with the pride of royal dignity to make him adhere to his purpose. "Nor was Becket himself less eager than his master in this affair, if we may believe the testimony of the Bishop of London, who says in the letter I have quoted before, that as soon as the death of archbishop Theobald was known to that minister, he hastened to England in order to procure the vacant See for himself. Yet he found such unwillingness in the electors, that notwithstanding all his power, and the address which he always shewed in the conduct of business, he was not elected till above a twelvemonth after his predecessor's decease. "Henry at last growing impatient of so long a delay, sent over from Normandy his justiciary, Rich. de Luci, to bear his royal mandate to all the monks of Canterbury and suffragan bishops, that without further deliberation they should immediately elect his chancellor, Becket, to be their archbishop. So great a minister who brought such an order from a king, whom no person in his realm had ever disobeyed,— except the Lord Mortimer, whose rebellion had ended so disgracefully to himself, could hardly be resisted by ecclesiastics. Yet the Bishop of London had the courage to resist him; and, if we may believe what he himself avers in his letter to Becket, did not give way till banishment and proscription had been denounced against himself and all his relations by the justiciary of the kingdom. The same threats, he tells us, were used to the other electors: all were made to understand that if they refused to comply, they would be deemed the king's enemies, and treated as such with the utmost rigour. The sword of the king,' says the above mentioned prelate to Becket, was in your hands, ready to turn its edge against any on whom you should frown; that sword which you had before plunged into the bowels of your holy mother, the church.' He explains these last words to mean the wound which had been given to the privileges of the church by the imposition which the chancellor had laid on the clergy for the war of Toulouse; and concludes these severe remonstrances on the irregularity of his election with the following words:- That if, as he had himself asserted in a letter to which this was an answer, the liberty of the church was the life of the church, he then had left her lifeless.' It was, indeed, a more violent and arbitrary proceeding than any that had hitherto been known in this reign. For though Henry ever since his accession to the crown had maintained the indisputable prerogative of it, not to let any archbishop or bishop be chosen without his recommendation, which the chapters and others concerned had always obeyed, yet still some appearance of a free election was kept; the electors were influenced rather than compelled, or at least the compulsion which they were really under was decently hidden. But in this instance all the terrors of power were employed without disguise, and even beyond the bounds of justice." Such is Lord Lyttleton's account of Becket's election; which, as will have been observed, is drawn entirely from two sources. 1. A letter to Becket from the bishops and clergy of the province of Canterbury-" evidence which can hardly be rejected." And, 2. A letter written shortly after the former, by Gilbert Foliot, who "might" have derived his information from the king, and who, "without such information, or other very strong evidence," would never "have ventured to charge Becket in such positive terms." Indeed, whose "affirmation" is sufficient to set aside the united testimony of all Becket's historians, since " in this particular it is an evidence of far greater credit than that of Becket himself"? The first of these letters, the "evidence which can hardly be rejected," is brought forward to prove the unpopularity of Becket's election with both clergy and laity, and the opposition of the empress Matilda. The first of these charges is so vague, and the second so immaterial, that we do not feel much concerned about the "evidence," whether it can be "rejected" or no. It may, however, be just worth while to state the circumstances under which this letter was written. It is a well known fact, that in the year 1165, all the clergy who ventured to take part with Becket were, with their relations, obliged to leave the kingdom; and that those who remained were entirely under the control of Henry. For some time things went on very smoothly. Becket's own authority, unsupported by the pope, was not sufficient to compel the obedience of his suffragans; and as long as the state of Alexander's affairs was such as to render Henry's displeasure an object of fear with him, Becket, who, as was said of him at the time, "only barked when he was prepared to bite," thought it prudent to remain inactive. This state of things continued till the spring of 1166, at which time the Pope felt himself in a condition to authorise effective measures, and gave Becket permission to excommunicate all those of the king's officers who had taken a decided part against him; to suspend the Bishop of Salisbury, for an act of insubordination; and if these measures failed, to come to extremities with the king himself. Of this the king's party obtained speedy intelligence; and since, according to the ecclesiastical law of the time, an appeal against a sentence of excommunication was only valid if made before the sentence was pronounced, the Bishop of Lisieux and other messengers of consequence, were immediately dispatched to Pontigni, to give Becket formal notice that they appealed VOL. III.-Jan. 1833. F |