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.

gold

Thou liftest reverently on high

woods,

And cottage roofs and ancient spires,

While night retires.

5.

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.