careful that every Englishman, of whatever rank, should be ready, when need called, to serve his country at home with the arms befitting his rank. But for wars beyond sea, the great nobles might come, mercenaries or volunteers might come; but King Henry would not drag the country gentleman, the citizen, or the yeoman from his home against his will.* That anti-feudal policy which was hereditary in our kings, since the Conqueror dealt the greatest of all blows to feudalism at Salisbury, was here ably seconded by Chancellor Thomas. So again with Henry's reforms in the administration of justice. The first stages of them must have been largely the work of Thomas. The use of recognitions in judicial proceedings, the greatest of all particular steps towards the full developement of jury-trial, is spoken of by the Justiciar Randolf of Glanville as Henry's special gift to his people, as a mode of discerning truth and falsehood far better than the chances of the battle or the ordeal. The recognition, the decision of matters by the oaths of lawful men, was certainly no invention either of Henry or of Thomas. But it was during the reign of Henry that it was systematically used on all kinds of occasions, in a way in which it had not been used before, least of all during the days of anarchy. And the practice of recognition is assumed in the Constitutions of Clarendon as something which was already fully established. It can therefore hardly fail to have been established during the administration of Thomas. Here again we have another sign of the work of that busy chancellorship. So again, among the charters of boroughs granted by Henry some come early enough in his reign to bear the signature of Thomas the Chancellor. Here there are three great changes, three great beginnings of reform and growth, in our military, our judicial, and our municipal system, which come within that part of the reign of Henry where every account sets Thomas before us as his all-trusted and all-powerful minister. We must not expect the biographers and chroniclers of the age to enlarge on points like these. They are more inclined to enlarge on personal adventures, on striking pageants, on warlike or diplomatic achievements. The war of Toulouse and the mission to Paris stand out in their pages in a way in which the legislative work of King and Chancellor does not stand out. But they tell us in a general way of Thomas' influence with the King, of his authority over the realm. And from other sources, from incidental notices here and there, we can find out how that influence was used. And, following up our researches in this way, we are fully justified in saying that the man whom Mr. Froude knows only as an unscrupulous and tyrannical minister, stained with deeds of murder and rapine of Mr. Froude's own finding out, is entitled to a place in the Mr. Robertson (34) quotes from Robert de Monte, that "the King had recourse to this nolens vexare agrarios milites, nec burgensium nec rusticorum multitudinem.'" My copy of Robert is far away; but I know that I can trust Mr. Robertson. A little later "rustici" distinctively means " villains;" here it seems to take in all below knightly, or at least gentle, rank. The churls were now fast sinking into villains. foremost rank of those who helped to give the laws of England their later shape. In claiming his due honour for the Chancellor we in no way lessen the honour due to the King. For a young prince like Henry to choose or to accept a minister like Thomas, for him to be guided by his counsels till one false step parted them asunder, is the surest sign that, if the minister was worthy of the King, the King was also worthy of the minister. Henry was by instinct a lawgiver; he carried on his work of legislation during his whole reign, even at the most unfavourable times. But he began while he was yet a youth with Thomas as his guide. When Kings reign but do not govern, we give their ministers all the credit or discredit of their actions. And when Kings govern as well as reign, we must also give their ministers much of the credit and discredit of their actions, though in another way. The honour-and that honour is great indeed-which belongs to Henry of Anjou for the acts of the first eight years of his reign, must in all fairness be shared with him by Thomas the Chancellor, the son of Gilbert Becket of London. I have then, I trust, rescued the memory, whether of a saint or not, at least of a great English minister, from the hasty slanders of a man who seems to write whatever first comes into his head, without stopping to see whether a single fact bears his statements out or not. But the question now comes: Theobald procured Thomas' appointment to the chancellorship with certain objects; how far did Thomas carry out those objects? The answer to that question is perhaps less simple than may appear at first sight. I believe that Thomas' two great appointments, to the chancellorship and to the archbishopric, have strong points of analogy to one another. That is, in both cases he largely disappointed the expectations which had been formed of him. I believe that it was in the nature of the man that he should in both cases disappoint the expectations which had been formed of him. Had he been either a greater or a smaller man, had he been either a creative genius or a mere clever official, he would probably have fulfilled them better. Being what he was, he disappointed them. But I must put off till another time my picture-very unlike Mr. Froude's picture-of the personal character of both Chancellor and Archbishop. To mind Thomas is much the same kind of man in both characters. Only an office for which he was fitted brought out the stronger side of him; an office for which he was unfitted brought out the weaker side. Meanwhile those who have followed me thus far will be able to make up their minds whether they will accept my statement of facts or Mr. Froude's. With those who take the latter alternative I can walk no further. I claim no power of inspiration or divination; I cannot get beyond my books. I have indeed made certain inferences; but I have made them from the only facts that I can get at, and from the general bearing of all those facts. Mr. Froude, from a few facts picked here and there, garnished with a few other statements to be found my nowhere but in Mr. Froude's own papers, has made, logically enough, widely different inferences. But, before I put forth my inferences, my position must be understood. Those who accept the Life of Thomas, as it stands in recorded history, will, I hope, accept my inferences when I come to state them in full, as a reasonable explanation of those facts. Those who on the other hand accept, not the Life of Thomas to be found in recorded history, but the quite different Life of Thomas which is contained in Mr. Froude's papers in the Nineteenth Century, may save themselves the trouble of following me any further. From the pages of history I believe that my inferences may be drawn; from the pages of Mr. Froude I certainly could not draw them. EDWARD A. FREEMAN. THE IRIS OF HOMER: AND HER RELATION TO GENESIS IX. 11-17. Gay Being, born to flutter and decay.” G OETHE* has well called the Greek deities a bunt Gewimmel, a motley swarm. He spoke of them, without doubt, as they are presented to us in the classical period of Greece. In his time, attention had not yet been given to the necessity of severing the Homeric from the post-Homeric mythology, and making the two the subjects of two separate studies. The scholar, who treats the deities of Homer according to the measures of the historic time, would be like the geologist who should investigate the periods of the granite, the slate, the coalmeasures, the limestones, and the sandstones, only by the aid of miscellaneous heaps, in which some broken morsels from each were confusedly massed together. In the Homeric Poems the deities are still, in one sense, a bunt Gewimmel, a throng marvellously diversified; but the threads of orderly division can for the most part be traced. Also the lines of paternity can be followed upwards. We can, to a considerable extent, assign to each of the divine, and quasi-divine, personages of Homer his or her true ethnical origin. Nay, among the characters properly Hellenic and Olympian, we can in some measure discern where and how far he is at one time handling conceptions already embedded in the popular worship; at another setting up the airy creatures, such as his Ossa and his Phuza, of his own imagination; at another handling, with the freedom of a master artist, material with which he had been supplied by tradition, but in a shape indeterminate enough to leave him a large range of choice as to the filling in of outlines, and the ultimate form of presentation. To this third class belongs the Homeric Iris. She is a peculiarly pleasing and characteristic conception: humanized, but not earthy; thoroughly practical, but most ethereal. She has the high and joyous * In the "Bride of Corinth." conditions of the supernal life, but is wholly unencumbered with the cares of godhead, such as took away the sleep of Zeus, or stirred the dark bile of Poseidon. She has a true, subtle likeness to the cheery beneficial Ariel of the "Tempest," and might address her master in the same words. "Grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure, be't to fly, The Iris of Homer belongs strictly to the family, not of Pelasgian or Phoenician, but of Hellenic traditions. This may be judged in great part from the freedom of hand with which the poet draws the picture; for, although his movements are everywhere unconstrained, it is not difficult to observe that when he deals with what was to him home and not foreign religion he marches with a peculiar elasticity of step. She is part of the Olympian life and society, of which he was not only the chronicler, but probably in great part the organizer, and in describing which he has employed the fullest and freest power of his imagination. She fills her niche; she is thoroughly at home in her work, which never falters or miscarries; the delineation is as perfect as it is slight. And, slight as it may be, it illustrates many of the principles on which the Homeric Theomythology, as I have sometimes ventured to call it, is constructed. Such indeed is the completeness of the delineation, and yet such the slightness of the materials used, that we feel as if the poet was fearful of impairing the complete harmony of character and function, and felt that in the portrait of the winged messenger there must not be a single touch that could suggest the idea of weight, or any physical attribute other than motion pure and simple. The peculiar marks which attach to Iris, and which give her a right of domicile in Olumpos, are these:-First, the negative but not unimportant mark, that she is nowhere named in the Odyssey. Secondly, her office as the messenger goddess, and its limiting conditions. Thirdly, the rather sharp division which separates her from the elemental deities or Nature-Powers. Fourthly, the link which connects her with the Rainbow. Fifthly, the further association which is thus established with the Hebrew tradition, recorded in Genesis ix. 11-17. Postponing for the moment the negative mark, I have to observe that the character and office of Iris are (as is usual with Homer) nowhere described, except by the simple use of epithets, full, as the Homeric epithets will commonly be found, far beyond those used by any other poet, of meaning and refined adaptation. She is 1. Aellopos, the storm-footed (viii. 409; xxiv.). 2. Angelos, the messenger (II. ii. 786; iii. 121; xviii. 167, 182). 3. Chrusopteros, golden-winged (viii. 398). * Tempest, i. 2. |