The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-11 00:00:00

LuiNING, A LTG UST 11, 1868.

c 1 'and heart, he ought to know
can Stanley. Any one reading his
latun on the murder of Becket in his
qualities of of howl.
b47evtlteliemorials of Canterbury ' might suppose
that the Saint died because of a squabble be-
tween the sees of Canterbury and York, and
because he excommunicated the Brocs for
poaching on his manors and docking the tails
of his horses and mules. The Dean's con-
ception of S. Thomas of Canterbury is worthy
of being placed side by side with the Becket
of the Ingoldsby Legend of the Prior of
Birchington.' It might seem invidious to no-
tice what, after all, is only a lecture ad pop-
lunt, if it were not a type of a whole class of
compositions which tend perhaps more than
any other to falsify the truth of history. The
fact is worth dwelling upon.

"It is said that all languages in their infancy
are sensuous. To barbarians all abstractions
are concrete, and all ideas are images. In
their High Dutch,' says Gustav Freytag of
the Germans in uncivilized times, as it rolled
sonorously, with varied, harsh inflexions of
voice, from their lips, there still clung to nearly
all the words the primitive sensuousness of the
expression, just as when it was first educed
from the soul. Abstractions, words for con-
ceptions, unclothed of all sensible image were
almost wholly wanting.' It seems as if lite-
rature in its decrepitude returns to primitive
infancy. Images take the place of thought.
History becomes picturesque, and nothing
more. When the weary soul has given up the
search after the truth, which is the right key
to the understanding of the great world-drama,
it takes to vivid painting of the outside of facts.
Very beautiful are Dean Stanley's pictures, for
instance, of the Council of Niewa. The Ches-
nut woods, the sloping hills, the tranquil lake,
the snowclad. Olympus looking over the scene,
—the whole landscape is before us. Then we
have Arius, tall and thin, in his long coat
with short sleeves, and his hair in a tangled
mass,' confronted with Athanasius, the small
insignificant young man, of lively manners and
speech, and of bright serene countenance.' We
take in all these details, and are thankful. The
reader is bewitched with the diorama un-
rolled before his view ; but if he recovers from
his intoxication, and asks for the inner mean-
ing of it all—if he begs for the truth wrapped
up in all these images, Dean Stanley's answer
is, that there was absolutely none. When we
perceive the abstract questions on which it
turned—when we reflect that they related not
to any dealings of the Deity with man, not
even, properly speaking, to the Divinity or the
Humanity of Christ, nor to the doctrine (for
all these points were acknowledged by both
parties), but to the ineffable relations of the
Godhead before the remotest beginnings of
time, it is difficult to conceive thatby, inquiries
such as these the passions of mankind shotbld
be roused to fury." According to Dead Stialt
ley, the question was one of words. Nov,
I maintain that this is simply untrue. The
question was whether Christ was eternal God.
if before the first beg,inning of time' (I am
using the Dean's words) the Son was not,
then He was not God.' Surely this is not so
very unintelligible a question. Is God an ab-
straction ? What the Arians denied was no
less than the Christian conception of God.
Surely it is perfectly conceivable that indig-
nation should be roused when a party of men
calling themselves Catholics not only denied
the first elements of the faith, but did their
best to force their views upon the Church.
Furthermore, the honor of Christ surely justi-
fies a little enthusiasm. It is only when the
sad infirmity of the dreamy latitudinarianism,
which has not the courage to believe, has
seized upon the mind, that the heart ceases to
burn about a Christ, who is too shadowy to be
worth fighting for. To represent the question
as unimportant is simply to speak what is un-
true. For Heaven's sake, let us have a little
solid truth, instead of all this lively untruth.
Chesnut groves and vivid photographs are but
poor substitutes for a real knowledge of the,
bearings of the great contest.
S. Thomas has fared like the champions of
the Christian idea of God. Here also the
grand inner motives of the combatants are
ignored and concealed; and we have in their
stead a picture of the event. In this case,
however, the offence is greater. The picture is
so cleverly managed, that a strong light, falls
precisely on those parts which make it vulgar.
Now I submit that this is to falsify history.
If the relative position of events is altered—
if what in the acting of the very deed was
thoroughly in the background, is, on the con-
trary, put into the front, then I maintain that
the picture is false. There is an old German
painting of the Virgin. in which the artist has
put two dogs into the foreground. Now, even
granting the fact of the presence of the dogs,
we should hardly call the picture a real repre-
sentation of the event, if the animals were
tphaeintyedir:i-itn the life, and the graceful form of
was
only dimly seen in the dis-
&ince. Thus, to make history true, little things
must keep to their place, and great things
must not be slurred over. By a wilful neglect
of this rule, the narrative becomes positively
false. It is a cheap and easy artifice; for in all
events, however great there are many things
common-place and out of keeping with our
notions of dignity. The reality aims at neither
the romantic nor the picturesque. All death-
beds, for instance, have degrading details,
though death is the grandest, event of life,
Much more is this true of a murder, an ken
of a martyrdom : and it is an unworiliAick
'of writing to attempt to take away the sym-
pathy of the world from heroism, because the
victim does not wrap his robes about him with
the dignity of the Virgin in the Greek tragedy.
It was an artificewhich we might have expected
from Mr. Fronde, but which pains us in Dean
Stanloy.
Even if the old Adam had come out. in S.
Thomas during that terrible scene, it would
not have been wonderful. That the martyrdom
was well-nigh "an unseemly brawl" we utterly
deny. Dean Stanley has managed to make it
appear so by the shabbiest ingenuity. He has
laid stress upon and thrown into prominence
things which formed so small a part of the
event that they are hardly noticed by the spec-
tators. Even these he has distorted. S. Thomas
knew that death was inevitable, and he came
to meet his murderers, offering himself as a
victim for God's Church. His only wish, how-
ever, was to die in his own cathedral, before
God's altar and at the foot of the crucifix. Ac-
cordingly, when his murderers tried to drag
him out and despatch him in secret, he resisted.
At this moment occurred the circumstance of
which 'the Dean has made so much. Herbert
of Bosham says : Taking hold of the other
knight by his coat of mail, he shook him off so
strongly that he almost threw him on the pave-
ment.' This our author converts into the fol-
lowing words In the scuffle Becket fastened
upon Tracy, shook him by his coat of mail,
and, exerting his great strength, flung him
down upon the pavement. So insignificant
a part of the deed was this circumstance, that
not a single spectator mentions it; it was
known long afterwards by Tracy's own con-
fession. It is this which the Dean of West-
minster exaggerates, and on which he makes
the event so turn as to give him a right to call
it a scuffle and a brawl. Again, he makes the
Archbishop, heated to anger by the fray,'
use a coarse epithet.' But does Dr. Stanley
know what word S. Thomas used ? We sus-
pect not ; for he does not cite Garnier,,,thesonly
French contemporary author, for the circum-
stance ; and the Archbishop did not speak
Latin. This, however, is of little consequence.
The crime itself of Reginald was not such as
would admit of being spoken of in the society
of ladies in a drawing-room. S. Thomas, how-
ever, was being murdered, and was not in a
drawingroom. This was precisely a point
in which the great struggle came forth in all
its nakedness, unclothed of conventionalities.
The Church and her excommunications were
the only barrier interposed between defenceless
virtue and lawless power. S. Thomas was
the guardian of Christian morals, and. it was
in defence of that very power which enabled

him to protect the weak and to punish the vio-
lent that he was dying. ' Are you going to
excommunicate us all?' was the cry of Fitzurse
at their last interview. Now that the great
champion of virtue stood unarmed face to face
with the licentious nobles, who were the repre-
sentatives of brute force and coarse lust, it
was no time for mincing words. Dean Stanley's
aim is evident. He has wished to -vulgarize S.
Thomas. So far his success has been perfect.
His conception of the Saint is thoroughly vul-
gar.

" Unfortunately for himself, he has conde-
scended to argue in a note. He has pleaded
for his client, Henry VIII., in the following
terms : It is this part of the narrative, that
was—not altogether without justice—selected
by Henry VIII., representing him (Becket)
as having fallen in a scuffle with the knights,
in which he and they were equally aggressors.'
For the sake of one so worthy of respect as
the Dean of Westminster, we wish that these
words had never been written. A more
dastardly and cowardly murder than that of
the Archbishop of Canterbury was never per-
petrated. To make it cease to be a murder,
it would have been necessary to show that it
was not premeditated, and that it arose out of
the expressiou cited by the document. Never,
however, was murder so deliberately planned.
The four knights cross the sea to kill the Arch-
bishop. They put on their armor for the
purpose. Ruffians and victim alike know that
he is to die. The only difference between them
was as to where it was to be done. Hence,
and hence alone, arose what Dean Stanley
and Henry VIII. call a scuffle. I deny the
justice of the disgraceful plea in every possible
sense."

THE PRESIDENT'S CONS 7 ITCI7IONAL
AMENDMEN7S.
(From the Anglo-American 2 imes.)

ANDREW JOHNSON, after a good deal of expe-
rience and reflection, has pronounced himself dis-
satisfied with the Constitution. That ANDREW
JOHNSON should think that the Constitution could
be amended may surprise those who, for years
past, have heard him quote it as others quote the
Bible. After the Tammany nomination the PRE-
SIDENT fell into a trance, and the four following
suggestions presented themselves :—The A bolition
of the Election of the President by the Electoral
College, substituting a direct election by the popu-
lar vote, for which the States should be divided into
as many districts as for the Congressional elections,
the majority of the votes in each, counting one for
the candidate for whom they were thrown, Con-
gress to meet for the purpose of counting the votes,
and to declare that person President who had re-
ceived most; for a term of six years, but to be in-
eligible for re-election. His second amendment
provides for the succession; in the event of removal,
death, or disability of both the President and Vice-
President, the Secretary of State should succeed ;
of the Treasury, failing him ; of War; of the Navy
and of the Interior; the Postmaster-General; and,
finally, the Attorney-General ; which, he con-
siders, might secure the succession for the term
of six years without giving Congress a chance
of interfering, as he holds it to be wrong
that any member of the Legislature or of the Judi-
ciary should as now have any interest in creating a
vacancy in the Executive Chair. The third pro-
posal is to abolish the present system of electing
Senators, taking the selection from the State Legis-
latures and giving it directly to the people. The
fourth is that the Federal judges be appointed for
twelve years only, instead of as now for life.
That a change is desirable we have already de-
clared to be our opinion, but there are grave objec-
tions to the changes which Mr. JOHNSON proposes.
We consider that the original design regarding
the Electoral College to be good if it could be carried
into practice, but time has defeated the intention of
the framers. However beautiful in theory, there is no
use in.adhering to rules which experience has shown
will not work ; but whether Mr. JOHNSON'S system
of election would work better has to be tried. A
longer term is an improvement, for reasons we
have before given ; while rendering the incumbent
ineligible for a second term would prevent much
abuse, and make the PRESIDENT more efficient to
the end of his period. At present the nation is not
likely to regard a lengthened term with satisfaction,
for in its mind the office is associated with
ANDREW JOHNSON—the first idea being "what would
have been our position had these amendments been
effected during the present term. We have Wen
supported and restrained by the knowledge that
there was a speedy end to our endurance, and that
time would recompense us by soon bringing to the
Chair a Representative worthy of the nation, and
enable us to see the last of the Tennesseean as he dis-
appeared for ever into the wilds of his State." The
succession is not a matter of real consequence,
although it should be well defined, either having
the Executive subject to Congress or else wholly
unconnected, the successor following the Vice-
President not having a seat in either House. The
other two suggestions are after ANDREW JOHN-
SON'S peculiar turn of mind, and both are as bad
as can well be conceived. Mr. JOHNSON holds the
true Democratic notion, that the voice of the
people is the voice of GOD, though we be-
lieve history shows it to be at least as
often the voice of the Devil. In proposing
the election of Senators directly by the) people,
he forces a comparison between the Houses. Hav-
ing the most complete means of judging what the
men are sent up by the people, and what they are
sent up by the State Legislatures, we naturally turn
to the test. Few will differ from us when we state
that the House of Representatives is an assembly
of which the United States has no particular cause
to be proud ; while the Senate is perhaps the most
dignified and able legislative body in the world.
No comparison could be more damaging . to Mr.
JOHNSON'S suggestion, and that he could have made
it in the face of facts patent to all may surprise the
people in England, but creates no astonishment in
the United States, where he is so well known. The
Senate and the Supreme Court are the two finest
developments of the United States Constitution.
Whatever it has done, this much is conceded, that
it produced a noble House of Assembly in the Up-
per Chamber, and that it seated on the Federal
bench a learned, incorruptible, and able judiciary.
Wherever else we turn, there may be so much room
for improvement that a change is well worth hazard-
ing; but it is a singular fact, and one to which we desire
to draw the attention of our readers, as illustrative
of ANDREW Jourisox's character, that he has attacked
and marked out for reform the two bodies not only
the most perfect of which the United States can
boast, but which we believe to be unequalled Else-
where. We pointedly remark on this, for we have
more than once alluded to what Americans call the
" cussedness" of his nature, and here it is illus-
trated. He has exactly hit the very nail on the
head which would destroy the virtue of both these
bodies if his proposals were adopted. What
makes the Senate so good is that the members
are in truth the cream of the people carefully skim-
med. They have gone through the testing process,
and not only have they been elected by the people,
but have been selected from among the elected. Mr.
JOHNSON would destroy this, leaving the people to
shovel up the Senators themselves. Now we can
understand why a man like ANDREW JOHNSON
should prefer such a mode of election. To him, and
to such as he is, it means a career. As a dema-
gogue, and as a bold partisan leader, he is a power;
but in no other way could he have a chance. his
courage, his obstinacy, and his extreme views carry
a mob; but cull the intellect of that mob, and put
ANDREW JOHNSON among them, hnd he is nowhere.
But although this applies to his proposal of
electing both the President and the Se-
nate, he required another way in which to
destroy the Federal Bench. On it the judges sit
for life or good behaviour, and he would limit the
tenure to twelve years. If we desired a compari-
son we have it at baud. rile judiciary of some of
the States is notoriously corrupt. That of New
York, for instance, presented a marvellous scene
during the Erie and Vanderbilt war ; but this is
the attraction, we presume, to ANDREW JOHNSON,
who knows that the chief reason of the superiority
of the Federal bench is the independence ac-
quired by the security of tenure, We presume,

too, that Mr. JOHNSON would like to see all
the judges named by the people, so as fully t 9
carry out the Reform in which his soul delights,
though it is not a kindness to give any one a privi-
lege he is incompetent to exercise. What is most
curious about this message is the time chosen for its
delivery. If there be one thing for which ANDREW
JOHNSON is chiefly noted, it is the opportunities he
selects, even more than the nature of the plans he
proposes. Doubtless he " lay awake at nights"
thinking over his amendments, as he says, " for a
long time;" but he waits till the candidates are fairly
started for the White House before he brings for-
ward the result of his cogitations, as if the proper
time for calm deliberation on a change of the con-
ditions of the race was after the " start." Did we
want an instance of the way in which Mr. JOHN-
SON defeats his own ends, we have it here. Of
course at such a time no one pays the slightest
attention to him or his message. We only write
about it as the subject is of interest, and ANDREW
JOIINSON is an historical personage, whose character,
inexplicable in this country, is not inaptly illus-
trated by these proposals.