year 1170, they came to Canterbury, concealing their arms as much as was poffible, and dividing their followers into many fmall parties, that they might give no alarm. Presently afterwards the four knights entered the palace unarmed, and a meffage being fent by them to acquaint the archbishop, that they were come to speak with him on the part of the king their master, he admitted them into his chamber, where they found him in converfation with fome of his clergy. They fat down before him without returning his falutation; and, after a long filence, Reginald Fitzurfe faid to him, We bring you orders from the king. Will you hear them in public, or in private ? Becket answered, that should be as pleased them best. Fitzurfe then defiring him to dismiss all his company, he bid them leave the room; but the porter kept the door open; and after the above-mentioned gentleman had delivered a part of what he called the king's orders, Becket, fearing fome violence from the rough manner in which he spoke, called in again all the clergy who were in the antichamber, and told the four knights, that whatever they had to inform him of might be faid in their prefence. Whereupon Fitzurfe commanded him in the name of the king, to release the excommunicated and suspended bishops. He faid, the pope, not he, had past that sentence upon them, nor was it in his power to take it off. They replied, it was inflicted by his procurement. To which he boldly made answer, that if the pope had been pleased thus to revenge the injury done to his church, he confeft, it did not displease him. These words gave occafion to very bitter reproaches from the rage of Fitzurfe. He charged the archbishop with having violated the reconciliation fo lately concluded, and having formed a defign to tear the crown from the head of the young king. Becket made answer, that faving the honour of God, and his own foul, he earnestly defired to place many more crowns upon the head of that prince, instead of taking this off, and loved him more tenderly than any other man could except his royal .father.

A vehement difpute then arose between Fitzurfe and him, about fome words which he affirmed the king to have spoken, on the day when his peace was made, permitting him to obtain what reparation or juftice he could from the pope, against those bishops who had invaded the rights of his fee, and even promifing to affift him therein; for the truth of which he appealed to Fitzurfe himself, as having been prefent. But that gentleman constantly denied that he had heard it, or any thing like it, and urged the great improbability that the king fhould have consented to give up his friends to Becket's revenge for what they did by his orders. And certainly, if it was true,

one

one cannot but wonder, that the archbishop fhould not have mentioned it in any one of his letters, and particularly in the account which he wrote to the pope of all that passed on that day! The words he repeated there, as fpoken by Henry, even admitting that they were given without any exaggeration, would not authorife the conftruction he now put upon them. But that he himself did not believe he had fuch a permiffion, appears from the apprehenfions he expreft to his Holiness, in a fubfequent letter, of the offence that he should give to the king by these acts, and from the extraordinary care he took to conceal his intention till after he had performed it.

:

Their conversation concerning this matter being ended, the four knight's declared to him, it was the king's command, that he and all who belonged to him should depart out of the kingdom for that neither he nor his fhould any longer enjoy the peace he had broken. He replied, that he would never again put the fea between him and his church: adding, that it would not have been for the honour of the king to have sent such an order. They faid, they would prove that they had brought it from, the king and urged, as a reafon for it, Becket's having opprobriously caft, out of the church, at the inftigation of his own furious paffions, the minifters and domestic servants of the king; whereas he ought to have left their examination and punishment to the royal juftice. He anfwered with warmth, that if any man whatsoever presumed to infringe the laws of the holy Roman fee, or the rights of the church of Chrift, and did not voluntarily make fatisfaction, he would not spare fuch an offender, nor delay any longer to pronounce ecclefiaftical cenfures against him. They immediately rofe up, and going nearer to him, faid, 'We give you notice that you have spoken to the peril of your head.' His answer was, . come to kill me? I have committed my cause to the Supreme Judge of all, and am therefore unmoved at your threats. Nor are your fwords more ready to ftrike than my mind is to suffer martyrdom.' At thefe words one of them turned to the ecclefiafticks there present, and in the name of the king commanded them to fecure the person of Becket; declaring, they should anfwer for him, if he escaped. Which being heard by him, he afked the knights, Why any of them fhould imagine he intended to fly? Neither for fear of the king, nor of any man living, will I (faid he) be driven to flight. I came not hither to fly, but to ftand the malice of the impious, and the rage of affaffins.' Upon this they went out and commanded the knights of his houfhold, at the peril of their lives, to go with them, and wait the event in filence and tranquility. Proclamation was likewife made to the fame effect in the city.

6

Are you

After

their departure John of Salisbury reproved the primate for hav ing spoken to them fo fharply, and told him, he would have done better, if he had taken counsel of his friends, what answer to make. But he replied, "There is no want of more counsel, What I ought to do I well know.' Intelligence being brought to him that the four knights were arming, he said with an air of unconcern, 'What matters it? let them arm.' Nevertheless fome of his fervants fhut and barred the abbey-gate: after which, the monks who were with him, alarmed at his danger, led him into the church, where the evening service was per forming, by a private way through the cloysters.

"The knights were now come before the gate of the abbey, and would have broken it open with inftruments they had brought for that purpose: but Robert de Broc, to whom the houfe was better known, fhewed them a paffage through a window, by which they got in, and, not finding Becket in any chamber of the palace, followed him to the cathedral. When the monks within faw them coming, they haftened to lock the door; but the archbishop forbad them to do it, faying, 'You ought not to make a caftle of the church. It will protect us fufficiently without being shut: nor did I come hither to refift, but to fuffer.' Which they not regarding, he himfelf opened the door, called in fome of the monks, who stood without, and then went up to the high altar.

God

"The knights, finding no obftacle, rushed into the choir, and, brandishing their weapons exclaimed, Where is Thomas Becket? where is that traitor to the king and kingdom?' At which he making no anfwer, they called out more loudly, Where is the archbishop?' He then turned, and coming down the steps of the altar, faid, Here am I, no traitor, but a prieft. What would you have with me? I am ready to suffer in the name of him who redeemed me with his blood. forbid that I should fly for fear of your fwords, or recede from juftice.' They once more commanded him to take off the excommunication and fufpenfion of the bishops. He replied, No fatisfaction has yet been made; nor will I absolve them. Then (said they) thou shalt instantly die, according to thy desert.' I am ready to die (answered he) that the church may obtain liberty and peace in my blood. But, in the name of God, I forbid you to hurt any of my people.' They now rushed upon him, and endeavoured to drag him out of the church, with an intention (as they afterwards declared themselves) to carry him in bonds to the king; or, if they could not do that, to kill him in a lefs facred place. But he clinging faft to one of the pillars of the choir, they could not force him from thence. During the ftruggle he fhook William de Tracey fo roughly,

that

that he almost threw him down ; and as Reginald Fitzurfe preft harder upon him than any of the others, he thrust him away, and called him pimp. This opprobrious language more enraged that violent man; he lifted up his sword against the head of Becket, who then bowing his neck, and joining his hands together, in a posture of prayer, recommended his own foul, and the cause of the church, to God, and to the faints of that cathedral. But one of the monks of Canterbury interpofing his arm to ward off the blow, it was almoft cut off; and the archbishop alfo was wounded in the crown of his head. He ftood a second stroke, which likewife fell on his head, in the fame devout pofture, without a motion, word, or groan: but, after receiving a third, he fell proftrate on his face; and all the accomplices preffing now to a fhare in the murder, a piece of his skull was ftruck off by Richard Brito. Laftly, Hugh the fubdeacon, who had joined himself to them at Canterbury, fcooped out the brains of the dead archbishop with the point of a fword, and scattered them over the pavement.'

The death and character of Becket close the second volume of this history, and the third contains only the authorities upon which the two former volumes are founded. These are fo copious and fatisfactory, that we cannot hesitate in pronouncing this work, fo far as it has advanced, to be the most difficult in the execution, but at the fame time the best supported as to its authority, and the most elegant in its compofition, of any of the kind that has appeared in the English language.

II. The Works of Horace, tranflated into Verfe, with a Profe Interpretation, for the help of Students. And Occafional Notes. By Christopher Smart, A. M. Same Time Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and Scholar of the University. In 4 Vols. 8vo. Pr. l. Flexney.

IN

N our laft Review we had occasion to speak of pastoral, we are now to confider lyric poetry, a fpecies of composition as different from the other as poetry is in general from profe. The one requires fimplicity, the other elevation and transport. Of the nature and genius of the latter, we may take our idea from Horace. On fubjects of mirth and gallantry his odes are full of sprightly thoughts, beautiful expreffions, and exquifite ftrokes of delicacy. When he writes upon fubjects of dignity and importance, he affumes an air of majefty; his conceptions are fublime, his images bold and metaphoric, his defcriptions picturefque, his periods full and harmonious. What he says of deftiny, we may apply to his lyric ftrains. They flow like a

viver, which sometimes glides quietly down its channel into the fea; and at other times overflows its banks, sweeping away rocks, trees, herds, and houses, making diftant forefts and mountains refound with the roaring of its waters.

A writer who undertakes to translate these beautiful compofitions, ought to be perfectly acquainted with the meaning and the defign of his author, and write with the fame fire and fancy. If he does not preserve the vivacity, the splendor, the energy of the original, compenfating with equivalent beauties those that cannot be equally retained in both languages, he only gives us an unpleasing caricatura. He deforms his author, as old age deforms a beautiful face. Between the original and the copy there is, indeed, a likeness, as there is between the fame features at twenty and at fourscore; but we may exclaim with Horace,

Quò fugit Venus? heu! quove color? decens
Quò motus? quid habes illius, illius

Quæ fpirabat amores ?"

Let us enquire how the present translator acquits himself in this attempt. He tells us, that he has particularly attended to what the critics call the curiofa felicitas of Horace. How he has fucceeded, the learned reader may judge by the following examples.

**Quis multâ gracilis te puer in rofà
Perfufus liquidis urget odoribus,

Grato, Pyrrha, fub antro?

Cui flavam religas comam

Simplex munditiis?"

Lib 1. ode 5.

Say what flim youth, with moist perfumes
Bedaub'd, now courts thy fond embrace,
There, where the frequent rofe-tree blooms,
And makes the grot so sweet a place ?

Pyrrha, for whom with fuch an air
Do you bind back your golden hair?

So feeming in your cleanly veft,

Whose plainness is the pink of taste.'

The word bedaub'd gives us an indelicate idea of the lover; perfumes and blooms do not exactly correfpond in found; the feventh line is at beft a deviation from the original; the last is happily expreffed.

"Crefcit, occulto velut arbor ævo,

Fama Marcelli: micat inter omnes
Julium fidus, velut inter ignes

Luna minores."

Ode 12.

This