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Good Effects of the Conquest-the Great Charter.

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ciple appealed to against abuses in those forms, has survived to check tendencies to excess in other forms, down to our own day. The article which said that no scutage or aid should be raised in the kingdom without the consent of the general council of the kingdom, placed that council abreast of the royal authority in matters of taxation, and in so doing established one of the foundation principles of the English Constitution.

In security of person and property we have the two main provisions in every scheme of liberty. On the first of these points the Charter provided that, no freeman should be imprisoned or ' outlawed, or in any way injured or proceeded against, otherwise 'than by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.' The Great Charter, accordingly, gave the germ of the maxim that the Englishman shall not be taxed without his consent, condemned all restraint on the person except as sanctioned by the law of the land,' and confirmed, by the weight of its authority, the great principle of trial by jury.

It is true, the Charter left the Parliamentary power of the realm wholly in the hands of those who were the direct tenants of the crown-that is, to the aristocracy. But it made the suffrage of that assembly indispensable, not only to the legislative action of the crown, but to its right to levy taxes, and provided, moreover, for its being duly and regularly convened. We are not surprised, therefore, all these facts being reviewed, that the reign which followed that of King John should be found to give us a parliament including, not only nobles, but representatives of the commons.

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It is true, also, that the provisions of the Charter did not descend more than indirectly and partially to the lowest classthe serfs of those days. But even the villain,' a species of serf, was not to be destrained of his waggonage;' and it is no small matter to find these haughty barons stipulating that there shall be no sale, no delay, no denial of justice,' when demanded even by the humblest freeman. The tendency and purpose of this stipulation was to put the law in the place of the lawlessness both of king and nobles. To the Saxon population of those times it was thus a double benefit. The barons surrendered much themselves in calling on the king to make this surrender.

Our readers may see from this retrospect what the subject is to the elucidation of which Sir Francis Palgrave has devoted so much time. In prosecuting this labour he brings together facts which are often of great value, but his opinions are not uniformly trustworthy. Take the following passage as an illustration:

'Hildebrand had no respect to persons in judgment. Sin levelled emperors and beggars before him. The stigma attached to Hilde

brand's name speaks the world's opinion of his inflexible zeal and impartial justice. Talleyrand designated history as a universal conspiracy against truth-never was this sarcasm more pungently appropriate than when applied to the treatment sustained by Becket, Anselm, and Hildebrand.'-Hist. Norm. i. 112.

This is strong writing. Of Anselm little need be said: he was a man of learning and piety, and of some scholastic acuteness, but he was rigid, priestly, and obstinate in his notions, and without exactly meaning it, would have given us all into the hands of his order. Concerning Hildebrand, it may be sufficient to ask, Was it a sense of 'impartial justice' that prompted him to claim the place of feudal superior to all Christendom, calling upon all princes to hold their crowns as fiefs of the papacy? Had his inflexible zeal' been restricted to a war against simony, or against a married priesthood, it might have been possible to imagine him sincere, but the damning fact mentioned above is enough to show that in this instance at least, history has not been so much a conspirator as a truth-teller. According to Sir Francis, the conduct of our kings in insisting on their rights of investiture, was as though Queen Victoria should insist on imposing a Mayor or a Recorder on the city of London, without the suffrage of its citizens. But did the ecclesiastics of the middle age oppose the choosing of bishops by the crown because they wished them to be chosen by the people? Nothing of the sort. It was simply because they had their reasons for preferring allegiance to a foreign priest to allegiance to their sovereign. The real philosophy of this business is not very hard to reach. When the popes affected to be, not merely the head of the church, but kings over all kings, the natural results followed. Kings must have subjects; very powerful kings must have powerful subjects, and many of them. Hence the necessity that the popes should have official rank to confer, large wealth to distribute. Only by such means could they hope to create such subjects. In the meanwhile, the actual patrimony of the successor of St. Peter is very small. If rank and wealth, accordingly, were to be at the disposal of his Holiness, they must be found in the national churches which profess submission to him. But over every such church there is a chief magistrate, who can hardly fail to regard the wealth of his dominions, whether ecclesiastical or civil, as a matter of which he is the natural guardian. The struggle about investitures, accordingly, was no struggle about a mere ceremony-its purpose was to determine which of these two powers should have the chief part in the distribution of wealth and authority through the hierar

Sir Francis and the Medieval Churchmen.

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chies of Christendom. Kings and lay patrons in general were not always pure-minded in the administration of their trust, but to them that trust pertained rather than to the papacy, and to the people rather than to either. St. Ambrose was elected by acclamation and universal suffrage.' Good-why not say encore, Sir Francis?

Becket's sincerity is, in our judgment, even more questionable than that of Hildebrand. Until more than forty years of age he was the most ostentatious subject that any Norman king had seen in England-at home in hunting, in hawking, in the splendour of state ceremonies, in the gorgeous banquet, and even in the exploits of knighthood, more than in the modest duties befitting him as a clergyman. But the crosier, the symbol of his spiritual sovereignty, once in his hand, he is the gay chancellor no longer. He is no more seen at the head of his festive board. He is no more the chief figure in a state pageant designed to fill even the court of Paris with wonder. He takes to sackcloth, and even that is allowed to be peopled with vermin. The water he drinks is made nauseous by infusions of fennel. He washes the feet of poor men daily in his cell, and sends them away with his blessing and with money. He exposes his back to stripes. He affects to be a devout reader of the Holy Scriptures. He is supposed to be much in prayer. He wanders about in gloomy cloisters, musing and in tears. He diffuses his charities everywhere around him. But when he ministers at the altar, his coarse and filthy under-clothing is covered with the most splendid vestments.

Now had Becket been, at this time, a young man, with a character only partially developed, it might have been less difficult to look on this change as sincere. Or had he been a weak man, liable to be carried away by an ill-regulated imagination, sensibility, or conscientiousness, the idea of honesty would have been possible. Or had this apparent revolution in character been followed by a life of unostentatious lowliness and piety, the event, though not a little extraordinary, might admit of favourable explanation. But Becket, as we have said, was now more than forty years old. He was anything but a weak man. He never failed, moreover, from this time forth, to give signs of being, as he had always been, one of the most haughty and ambitious men of his age. Change of object there was, but change of character there was none. The resolve of Becket was to be as great a man as the king-and even greater; and as the superstitions of the age furnished the only means by which that end could possibly be realized, he resolved to avail himself to the utmost of the strength to be derived from that source. The

King of England was the natural guardian of the wealth and independence of England: and the clergy, as his subjects, were naturally amenable to his courts in all civil, and eminently in all criminal cases. The attempt to set up an ecclesiastical state in this realm, the persons and properties of which should be in all cases subject to a foreign authority, and not to the authority of the king, was nothing short of treason in its essence, if not such according to statute. No, Sir Francis, the clergy are not the Church; nor is the Church made for the clergy, the clergy are made for the Church. We thank you very cordially for your historical materials, but we feel bound to demur very seriously to some of your opinions, both ecclesiastical and political.

ART. II.-(1.) The Chinese and their Rebellions, viewed in connexion with their National Philosophy, Ethics, Legislation, and Administration; to which is added an Essay on Civilization, and its present state in the East and West. By THOMAS TAYLOR MEADOWS, Chinese Interpreter in H. M. Civil Service. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1856.

(2.) Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet. By M. L'ABBÉ Huc, formerly Missionary Apostolic in China. 2 vols. London: Longmans. 1857.

(3.) An Aide-de-Camp's Recollections of Service in China, a Residence in Hong Kong, and Visits to other Islands in the Chinese Seas. By COLONEL ARTHUR CUNYNGHAME. London: Richard Bentley. 1853.

(4.) China; Pictorial, Descriptive, and Historical. By MISS CORNER. London: Bohn. 1853.

MR. MEADOWS writes with authority. For ten years and a half he was employed as interpreter to the British Consulate in China, at the two principal ports of Canton and Shanghae. There he had ample opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of the Chinese character, not only in its mandarin phases, but also in the shape of Celestial rogues and river-pirates. Ample, we say, if it is remembered that the interior of the country is almost a sealed region to Europeans, and that the idiosyncrasy of the natives is not to be studied on the high roads, or learnt from a few flying trips in a palanquin. Mr. Meadows, too, fell in love with the 'Flowery Land' whilst a youth-his affections, however, being somewhat distracted by the charms of the mummies of old Egypt-and therefore he writes with all the tenderness of an

Meditation on the Pyramid.

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ethnological passion. But there is a sort of oracular air about the work, which has marred our pleasure in its perusal. It gives promise of greater things than are realized, and of floods of light which never burst upon the eye. One day, when seated upon the summit of the Great Pyramid, on his return home, the author fell into a reverie touching the Chinese, and wondered that nobody inquired how they could have prolonged their existence for so vast a period as four thousand years. 'I believe,' said he, "I am the only man living that has given himself serious trouble 'to investigate and elucidate the causes.' Perhaps we ought not to construe a dreamy soliloquy, spoken in the dread presence of the forty centuries, whom Napoleon invoked, as if it were in tended for publication on the house-tops of England; but, making all reasonable allowances, there is something very significant of the character of the book in the Credo which Mr. Meadows murmured whilst throned on that venerable pinnacle of the past. In his preface, also, this gentleman comes forward as the avowed champion of the Chinese; and thinking it too bad, as it doubtless is, that 360 millions of human beings should be included in one sweeping libel, he gives a kind of general notice to all future writers on China, that they must not be surprised if their labours are subjected to his guardian criticism. We cannot find any fault with Mr. Meadows because he entertains so high a regard for the natives or for the institutions of this piquant country, nor are we disposed to canvass the necessity for an announcement which sounds like an intimation that spring-guns and man-traps are planted all over the topic; but we regret that he has not taken due pains to render his work as attractive as it is substantial. Elaborate it certainly is; but the industry expended upon the book has not been employed in chiselling and adjusting his materials so as to frame them into a shapely whole. It consists, in fact, of fragments of three different productions, apparently designed on a scale of considerable extent; and as it is always difficult to mould great masses into a new fabric, the usual penalty has been paid, and Mr. Meadows's treatise assumes a very cumbrous and disjointed air. Nearly 150 pages are occupied with an Essay on Civilization,' and its present state in the East and the West; and though this disquisition contains much striking remark and is well worthy of general perusal, yet having no very special application to the Chinese, the reader will probably wonder at its appearance in such a volume, as much as country visitors to Kew may be puzzled to know how it is that a pagoda has strayed into a British garden. Such, indeed, is the author's miscellaneous turn, that he gives us an article in the appendix on military dress, denouncing, amongst other things,

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