The Sun.
London, England, 1830-07-19 00:00:00

DEATH OF BECKET.

Pour knights of distinguished rank, William
de Tracy, Hugh de Moreville, Richard 13ritto,
and Reginald Fitz. Urge, (Dec. 28,) interpreted
the King's complaints as commands. They re-
paired to Canterbury, confirmed in their purpose
by finding that Becket had recomtnenced his
excemmunications by that of Robert de 13roc,
and that he had altered his course homeward to
avoid the Royalist Bishops on their way to the
Court in Normandy ; they instantly went to his
house, and required him, not very mildly, to
withdraw the censure of the prelates, and take
the oath to his lord paramount. He refused.
John of Salisbury, his faithful and learned secre-
tary, ventured at this alarming moment to COUll•
sel peace. The Primate, perhaps precipitately,
but not pusillanimously, thought that nothing
was left for him but a becoming death. The
knights retired to put on their armour : and
there seems to have been a sufficient interval
either for negociation or escape. At that mo-
ment, indeed, measures were preparing Ibr legal
proceedings against him. But the visible ap-
proach of peril awakened his sense of dignity,
and breathed an unusual decorum over his lan-
guage and deportment. The monks could not
prevail on hire to be absent from vespers. He
went through the cloisters into the church, whi-
ther he was followed by his enemies, attended
by a band of soldiers, such as they had hastily
gathered. They rushed into the church with
drawn swords. They cried out, " Where is the
traitor ? Where is the Archbishop ?" Becket,
who stood before the altar of St. Bennet, an-
swered gravely, " Here am 1: no traitor, but the
Archbishop. Tracy pulled him by the sleeve,
saying. " Came hither—thou art a prisoner."
They advised him to flee, He pulled back his
arm with such force as to make Tracy stagger,
and said, " What meaneth this, William ? I
have clone thee many pleasures. Comest thou
with armed men into my church ?"...".." It is not
possible that thou shouldst live any longer,"
called out Fitz-Urse: The intrepid Primate re-
plied, " I am ready to die for my God in de-
fence of the liberties of the church." At that
moment, either by a relapse into his old disor•
ders, or to show that his non-resistance sprung,
not from weakness, but from duty, be took hold
of Tracy by the habergeon or gorget, and flung
him with such violence as had nearly thrown him
to the ground. He then bowed his head as if
he would pray, and uttered his last words,—
" To God and St. Mary I commend my soul
and the cause of the church." Tracy aimed a
heavy blow at him, which fell on a bystander.
The assassins fell on bins with many strokes ;
and though the second brought him to the
ground, they did not cease till his brains were
scattered over the pavement.
Thus perished a man of extraordinary abilities
and courage, turbulent and haughty indeed ;
without amiable virtues, but also without mean
vices ; who doubtless believed that he was pro-
moting the reign of justice by subjecting the
men of blood to the ministers of religion ; but
who was neither without ambition, nor above the
vulgar means of pursuing his objects. That
Henry did not intend the murder of Becket may
be concluded from the legal hostilities which
were in contemplation against him, and from a
confidence that so sagacious a monarch must
have foreseen ninth of the mischief which this
atrocious deed actually brought on him. It is
deserving of observation, bow many murders
were perpetrated in churches in those ages,
when they sheltered the worst criminals from
justice. Since the period when they are consi-
dered with reasonable respect, and have ceased
to enjoy a discreditable immunity, they have also
ceased to be the theatre of such bloody scenes
Or. Lardner',l Cabinet Cyclaprdia, Vol. VIII

OSSTAN, MACPIIEUSON, and NAPOLEON

Some fragments of the songs of the Scottish
highlanders, of very uncertain antiquity, appear
to have fallen into the hands of Macpherson, a
young man of no mean genius, unacquainted
with the higher criticism applied to the genuine-
ness of ancient writings, and who was too much
a stranger to the 13tudiouri world to have learnt
those refinements which extend plobity to lite-
rature as well as to property. Elated by the
praise not unjustly bestowed on some of these
fragments, instead of insuring a general assent
to them by a publication in their natural state,
he unhappily applied his talents for skilful imi-
tation to complete poetical works in a style si-
miler to the fragments, and to work them into
the unsuitable shape of epic and dramatic poems.
fie was not aware of the impossibility of
poems, preserved only by tradition, being hue!.
ligible after thirteen centuries, to readers who
knew only the language of their own times ; and
he did not perceive the extravagance of peopling
the Caledonian mountains in the fourth wittily
with a race of men so generous and merciful, so
gallant, ao mild, and so magnanimous, that the
1108 t, ingenious romances of the age of chivalry
could not have ventured to represent a single
hero as on a level with their common virtues.—
Be did not consider the prodigious absurdity of
inserting as it were a people thus advanced in
moral civilization, between the Britons, ignorant
and savage as they are painted by Cesar, and the
Ifighlanders, fierce and rude as they are pre•
sented by the first accounts of the chroniclers of
the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Even the
better part of the Scots were, in the latter period,
thus spoken of In Scotland ye shall find no
man lightly of honour or gentleness : they be
like wykle and savage people." The great his-
torian who made the annals of Scotland a prat
or European literature bad sufficiently warned
his countrymen against such faults, by the deci•
aye observation that their forefathers were mse-
painted with the art of .writing, which alone
presence language from total change, and great
events from oblivion. Macpherson was en.
:ouraged to overleap these and many other itn.•
rrobabilities by youth, talent, and applause :
rerhaps he did not at first distinctly present to
tie mind the permanence of the deception. It
a morejnobable, anti it is a supposition counte-
lanced by many circumstances, that after enjoy-
He, the pleasure of duping eo many critics, be
41tended ant dityto claim the poems as his own
Ind if he had such a considerable obsta.
tics to its execution arose around him, lie win
loaded with so much praise, that be seemed
bound in honour to his admirers not to desert
them. The support f 0 rib torn country appeers. to
render adherence to flume poems which Scotland
[ll,ousideretely sanctioner) u son of national oNi,
Ration. Exaol4ratetb tile other band '1.))
the, perhaps, unduly vehement, and '`
very coarse attacks rudder lar:lttlines
willing to eurrender to MIL li Cippulle Irlill"'
valved himself at 14fit tlecply to leave 11""1.
utr decent retreat. Since the t,reen liturell::°
of ,
tt pupublicationmr. Laing west: puelna hrot
"alien in reputation, as they lost the character w
renuinenese. They had been admired by aL

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