This third expedition was by far the most important and imposing of the three, though it had the slightest issues. It consisted of fifteen ships, which assembled at Harwich on the 27th of May, and sailed on the 30th of May, 1578.

The captains assembled at Court to take leave of the Queen, who gave to Frobisher "a faire chain of gold."

The first misadventure was the foundering of the bark Dennis, of 100 tons, with the frame of the house for the colonists on board. This vessel received such a blow from a rock of ice that she sunk down therewith in sight of the whole fleet, her crew being with difficulty saved by the boats of the other ships. After the loss of the Dennis-which seems to have been regarded as an evil omen in the fleet-they met with a "sudden, terrible tempest " from the S.E. Having weathered the storm, they found themselves encompassed by the ice-pack, "having left much behind them thorow which they had passed, and finding more before them thorow which they could not pass. In this perilous situation each man did the best he could for the safety of his ship. "Some of the ships, where they could find a place more cleared of yce, and get a little berth of sea roome, did take in their sayles, and there lay adrift; other some fastened, and moored anker upon a great island of yce; and again, some were so fast shut up, and compassed in amongst an infinite number of great countreys and islands of yce, that they were faine to submit themselves and their ships to the mercy of the unmerciful yce, and strengthened the sides of their ships with junk of cables, beds, masts, planks, and such like, which being hanged overboard, on the sides of their ships, might better defend them from the outrageous sway and strokes of the said yce." Very amazing to them was the noise made by the churning of the ice in a tempestuous sea. “Truly it was wonderful to see and hear the rushing and the noise that the tides did make in that place, with so violent a force, that the ships lying a-lull were turned sometimes round about, even in a moment, after the manner of a whirlpool; and the noise of the stream no lesse to be heard afar off than the waterfall of London Bridge." It appears that in the stress of the weather they lost their reckoning, and that Frobisher was aware of it, but would not even hint it to his followers, lest they should be disheartened, and desire to return. At length, after great perils, in which the hardy and consummate seamanship of the various captains conspicuously appears, the whole fleet assembled in the Countess of Warwick's Sound, about the middle of August, and preparations were at once commenced for accomplishing the object of the expedition. It was proposed to leave one hundred men there to colonize the country, there being no notion at that time in England of what the winter temperature of the lands about the mouth of Davis's Straits might be. Poor Hudson's fate. and the terrible sufferings of Captain James, let some light in upon that in the succeeding reigns. But the foundering of the Denis, with the house on board, mercifully defeated the plan. The provisions, too, for the 100 men were not forthcoming in sufficient quan

tity; "so, for these and sundry good and sufficient reasons, it was resolved that no settlement should be there this yeare." On the 30th of August a council was held, and it was resolved to return as fully laden with ore as might be; but on the morrow, the 31st, the fleet was fairly blown out to sea by a tremendous storm, and scattered. The homeward passage was most tempestuous; "many of the ships were dangerously distressed, and severed almost asunder;" but the whole of them arrived safely at length, at different ports and at different times, the last on the 31st of October, 1578.

He

The adventures of the several ships are full of the deepest interest, did our space allow us to dwell on them. Captain Best, in the Anne Frances, showed singular hardihood. I give an extract from his narrative-it must serve as a sample of the rest. had the materials of a small pinnace on board his ship, with the important exception of nails. He had the boat put together as well as he could manage it, and resolutely determined to explore the straits, as the ship could not pass. He found it difficult to get volunteers. "But manful and honest John Gray" volunteered to accompany him, and several at once followed his example; though the carpenter who put it together affirmed that he would not venture in it for five hundred pounds. They set forth; the rest I must give as far as I can in their own words :

"On the 19th, Captain Best, accompanied by Captain Upcot, of the Moon, a worthy compeer, and eighteen hands, embarked in the small pinnesse, in prosecution of the hazardous voyage that was in contemplation. Having only the helpe of man's labour with ores,' and encountering much difficulty and danger in forcing their way through ice, they accomplished, by the 22nd of August, between forty and fifty leagues, and entered, as they imagined, the Countess of Warwick's Sound; but the identity of the place is not clear. Wherever they were, however, a variety of circumstances concurred to involve them in sore perplexity. On landing, the adventurers found great stones set up, as it seemed, by natives for marks. They also found crosses of stone, as if Christian people had been there. Re-embarking, and pulling along the shore, they noticed a smoke of a fire under a hill's side, 'whereof they diversely deemed." Human figures then appeared in the distance, but too far off to be distinguished. Drawing nearer, the people ashore wafted, or seemed to waft, a flag, but the natives were wont to do the same when they saw a strange boat. Anon the perplexed mariners perceived certain tents; and they made the ensign to be of mingled colours, black and white, after the English fa-hion.' This discovery rather increased than diminished their amazement. No ship was to be seen; no harbourage was known of in the vicinity. Besides, it was not the practice of the English to visit those parts. Apprehension ensued. It was feared that by storms some ship had been driven up, or in some dense fog had missed the way that the people had been wrecked and spoiled by the natives, by whom it was conjectured might be used the sundry-coloured flagge for a policie to bring others within their danger.' The resolution of the party was immediately taken. They determined to recover the same ensign, if it were so, from the base people, or els to lose their lives, and all together. But, in the end, they discerned them to be their countrymen, and then they deemed them to have lost their ships, and so to be gathered together for their better strength.' On the other hand,. the companie ashoare feared that the captaine, having lost his ship, came to seeke forth the fleete for his reliefe in his poor pinnesse, so that their extremities caused eche partie to suspect the worst.'

Under

these circumstances, Captain Best took the precaution which prudence dictated. On nearing the shore, he 'commanded his boate carefully to be kepte aflote, lest, in their necessitie, they might winne the same from him, and seeke first to save themselves; for every man, in that case, is next himself.' But no strife, he observes, followed the meeting of the two parties. On the contrary, unbounded delight predominated. They haled one another according to the manner of the sea, and demanded, What cheer? and either party answered the other, that all was well; whereupon there was a sudden and joyful outshoute, with greate flinging up of caps, and a brave voly of shotte, to welcome one another. And truly,' it is observed, it was a most strange case to see how joyfull and gladde every partie was to see themselves meete in safetie againe, after so strange and incredible dangers yet, to be short,' the narrator devoutly remarks, as their dangers were greate, so their God was greater.'

The poor pinnace came to grief on the way home. She foundered at sea almost the moment after Captain Best and the adventurous crew who had embarked in her were received safely and joyfully on board. The other ships met with an abundant share of the special difficulties and dangers with which recent narratives of Arctic discovery have made us familiar. There is a dreary monotony of danger and suffering in the records of Arctic navigation, which stretch through near 300 years. Frobisher led the van-M'Clintock, completing Franklin's work, has closed it, for a time. We have given our readers a brief sketch of the first Arctic trilogy. It ends, for the time, in disappointment and confusion. As far as its immediate object was concerned, like all the rest, it failed. But I venture to think that it ended in a high success, if the daring and hardihood of her sons is the glory of a country, her chief defence in war, her sinew of strength in an honourable peace. In this school many of the men were trained whose nimble and daring seamanship bewil dered and outmanoeuvred the most renowned captains of Spain at England's Salamis. Frobisher, Fenton, Best, the heroes of these expeditions, were all there, foremost among the champions of England and the Gospel. Victors in such a strife as I have endeavoured to picture, to them it was but merry sport, "a morris dance on the waters," to scatter and shatter the grandest armada which Europe has ever sent forth on the seas, and to challenge for England that naval supremacy which has never yet been disputed by an equal, and never will be-let them build ships as they like-while the world endures. One broad feature in the history of Arctic enterprise is the pious and God-fearing character of the men who have made themselves its heroes. There is here a grand and almost unbroken unity from Frobisher to Franklin. Bibles, and books which may be the companions of godly men, are the most notable of the relics of our gallant countrymen which bestrew those dreary regions; and I extract from the sailing orders of Frobisher's squadron, Article 8, which contains the watchword: "If any man in the fleet come up in the night, and hale his fellow, he shall give him the watchword, 'Before the world was God;' the other shall answer him, if one of ours, that after God came Christ, his Son.'"

B. B.

III.

THOMAS BECKET.*

WELL nigh seven hundred years have passed away since the fresh blood of Thomas Becket stained the steps of St. Benedict's altar at Canterbury. The proud line of the Plantagenets has been succeeded by the Tudors, the Tudors by the Stuarts, the Stuarts by the Guelphs; and the Cathedral where, during twelve generations, St. Thomas was installed far above "our ladye" now echoes with the chants of a Protestant service, and dignitaries, chosen solely by the royal will, now minister at her altars. Still, the strife of the regal and ecclesiastical powers-typified so vividly by Plantagenet and Becket has not ceased; and here, in the year 1860, two portly volumes claim our notice; the one by a clergyman of the Church of Rome, elevating Becket, of course, into an immaculate saint and martyr; the other by Canon Robertson, who-as member of a Church which, not content with rendering to "Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's," has most lavishly rendered him "the things which are God's"-also can do but scant justice to his hero, so profound is his reverence for "Church and State."

For ourselves, as heartily opposed to royal authority in matters of religion as to priestly domination, and belonging to neither Church, we will take a view of Becket and his contest from a Nonconformist standpoint, and going over more at length the history of his earlier life, and marking the various influences and associations by which he was surrounded, endeavour to form a just estimate of his character. It were easy to make the story of Becket as dull as a Chancery report, but thus treated, and in the light of his own stirring times, it is an interesting episode in our history, and not without its moral.

Little can be ascertained respecting Becket's family save that his father was a citizen of London; and tradition has reported that he was a goldsmith. But the pretty little romance-how Gilbert Becket set forth with his fellow croises to the far east, and was taken captive, and released by the Soldan's fair daughter; how the fair Mathild found, when the Christian soldier was gone, that he had taken her heart with him; and then how she fled, and wandering to Acre with only the two English words on her lips, "Gilbert" and "London" she sought passage over the sea, and arrived in London, and stood desolate in the streets, asking for "Gilbert," while the crowd gazed wonderingly on her strange garb and her strange beauty; until, guided to Gilbert's home, she there, after being like Harold the Dauntless, "christened and wed," became the mother of St. Thomas. This pretty tale we regret to say we must give up, for

Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury: a Biography." By James Craigie Robertson, M.A., Canon of Canterbury.

not even an allusion to it is to be found in the narratives of the four contemporary writers who have supplied us with the most authentic information; and it is first told in the chronicle of "fabling Brompton.”

Although in this case, reluctantly agreeing with Canon Robertson, we cannot allow that Becket was of Norman parentage. His father at one time during his life held high office in the city-according to Fitz Stephen, that of "portreve," an office subsequently merged in the higher dignity of lord mayor. Now, most unlikely was it that in a community so thoroughly Saxon as London, the representative of East Anglia, and the capital of the kingdom of Mercia, a stranger of Norman birth should have been thus honoured. His election must have taken place some time during the thirty-five years of Henry's reign; and his charter, granted on his accession, expressly secures to the citizens the proud right of choosing both their sheriffs and magistrates. Tradition asserts, too, that Becket's father was a goldsmith. Now, this alone, and it has never been contradicted, would prove that he was of Saxon race, for we have no instance whatever until late in the history of our city guilds of a Norman belonging to the fraternity of "St. Dunstan, of the goldsmiths." Becket's answer, however, to his great enemy, Gilbert Foliot, who seems to have taunted him as being of low origin, is, we think, conclusive on this subject. "For, if you refer to my descent and to my forefathers, truly they were London citizens, dwelling, without blame, among their fellow-citizens, nor by any means among the lowest." It is difficult to imagine any one, save a Saxon inhabitant of London, using words like these within a century after the Norman conquest.

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The year 1118, and the 21st December, whence his name, has been given as the date of Becket's birth. We are told that both father and mother in piety resembled Zacharias and Elizabeth; and that his mother carefully instructed him from infancy, and early placed him under the protection of the Virgin, directing him " to cast all his trust upon her after Christ," for Mary was not as yet Queen of Heaven." It affords a suggestive trait of those times so characterised by abundant almsgiving, when we find one of his biographers relating that the mother was from time to time accustomed to weigh her boy, filling the opposite scale with money, food, and clothing, which were afterwards duly distributed among the poor. He does not appear to have had any brothers; but three sisters are mentioned, one of whom, subsequently to his death, became Abbess of Barking.

When ten years old Thomas was sent to the Augustine priory at Merton, but he was soon after brought back to London, where he attended school-very probably, we think, the old cathedral school at St. Paul's; but being by no means given to study, and probably being early taken under the protection of Richer de l'Aigle, a noble who owned the proud castle of Pevensey, and who lodged at Gilbert Becket's house, as was customary with barons when the king held his court in London, and had taken a strong liking to the boy, he seems to have received no farther education, but to have