the clergy; and this
peculiar merit challenged, and not in vain, a suitable acknowledgment to
his memory. Endless were the panegyrics on his virtues; and the miracles
wrought by his relics were more numerous, more nonsensical, and more
impudently attested than those which ever filled the legend of any
confessor or martyr. Two years after his death, he was canonized by Pope
Alexander; a solemn jubilee was established for celebrating his merits;
his body was removed to a magnificent shrine, enriched with presents
from all parts of Christendom; pilgrimages were performed to obtain his
intercession with Heaven, and it was computed, that in one year above
a hundred thousand pilgrims arrived in Canterbury, and paid their
devotions at his tomb. It is indeed a mortifying reflection to those
who are actuated by the love of fame, so justly denominated the last
infirmity of noble minds, that the wisest legislator and most exalted
genius that ever reformed or enlightened the world, can never expect
such tributes of praise an are lavished on the memory of pretended
saints, whose whole conduct was probably to the last degree odious or
contemptible, and whose industry was entirely directed to the pursuit
of objects pernicious to mankind. It is only a conqueror, a personage no
less entitled to our hatred, who can pretend to the attainment of equal
renown and glory.

It may not be amiss to remark, before we conclude this subject of Thomas
a Becket, that the king, during his controversy with that prelate,
was on every occasion more anxious than usual to express his zeal for
religion, and to avoid all appearance of a profane negligence on that
head. He gave his consent to the imposing of a tax on all his dominions,
for the delivery of the Holy Land, now threatened by the famous Salad
me: this tax amounted to twopence a pound for one year, and a penny a
pound for the four subsequent.[*] Almost all the princes of Europe
laid a like imposition on their subjects, which received the name of
Saladine's tax. During this period there came over from Germany about
thirty heretics of both sexes, under the direction of one Gerard,
simple, ignorant people, who could give no account of their faith, but
declared themselves ready to suffer for the tenets of their master. They
made only one convert in England, a woman as ignorant as themselves; yet
they gave such umbrage to the clergy, that they were delivered over to
the secular arm, and were punished by