Saluft's History of the Jugurthian war tranflated into English.

The Caftle of Labour, translated from the French into English.

Bayle gives this author but an indifferent character as to his morals; he is faid to have intrigued with women notwithstanding his clerical profeffion; it is certain he was a gay courtly man, and perhaps, tho' he efpoufed the Church in his profeffion, he held their celibacy and pretended chastity in contempt; and being a man of wit thought himfelf at liberty to indulge himself in those pleafures, which feem to be hereditary to the poets.

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Sir THOMAS MORE.

HO' poetry is not the chief excellence for which this great man was diftinguished, yet as he wrote fome verses with tolerable fpirit, and was in almost every other respect one of the foremoft geniuffes our nation ever produced, 'tis imagined a fhort account of his life will not be difagreeable to our readers, especially as all former Biographers of the Poets have taken notice of him, and rank'd him amongst the number of British Bards. Sir Thomas More was born in Milk-ftreet, London, A. D. 1480. He was fon to Sir John_More, Knight, one of the Juftices of the King's-Bench; a a man held in the highest efteem for his knowledge in the law, and his integrity in the administration of justice. It was objected by the enemies of Sir Tho

mas,

mas, that his birth was obfcure, and his family mean; but far otherwise was the real cafe. Judge More having his coat of arms quartered, which proves his having come to his inheritance by defcent. His mother was likewise a woman of family, and of extraordinary virtue.

Doctor Clement relates, from the authority of Sir Thomas himself, a dream which his mother had the next night after her marriage. She thought fhe faw in her fleep, engraven in her wedding ring, the number and countenances of all the children fhe was to have, of whom the face of one was fo dark and obfcure, that she could not well difcern it, and indeed the afterwards fuffered an untimely delivery of one of them: The face of the other fhe beheld fhining gloriously, by which the future fame of Sir Thomas was pre-fignified. She also bore two daughters. This story is told with warmth by his great grandfon, who writes his life; but he was a Roman-Catholic, and difpofed to a fuperftitious belief in miracles and vifions. Lady More, however, might perhaps communicate this vifion to her fon, and 'tis poffible he believed it.

Another story is related by Stapleton, which is faid to have happened in the infancy of More. His nurfe one day croffing a river, and her horse stepping into a deep place, expofed both her and the child to great danger. She being more anxious for the fafety of the child than her own, threw him over a hedge into a field adjoining, and escaping likewise from the imminent danger, when she came to take him up, fhe found him unhurt.

He was put to the free-fchool in London called St. Anthony's, under the care of the famous Nicholas Holt, and when he had with great rapidity acquired a knowledge of his grammar rules, he was placed by his father's intereft under the great Cardinal Merton, archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord High Chancellor; whofe gravity and learning, ge

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nerofity and tenderness allured all men to love and honour him. To him More dedicated his Utopia, which of all his works is the most masterly and finished. The Cardinal finding himself too much incumbered with business, and hurried with ftate affairs, to fuperintend his education, placed him in Canterbury-College, Oxford; where by his affiduous application to books, and his extraordinary temperance, and vivacity of wit, he acquired the first character among the ftudents, and then gave proofs of a genius that would one day make a great blaze in the world. At eighteen years old he wrote many epigrams, which were highly efteemed by men of eminence, as well abroad as at home. But, one Brixius a German, who envied the reputation of this young epigrammatift, wrote a book against thefe epigrams, under the title of Antimorus; which had no other effect than the drawing Erafmus into the field, who celebrated and honour'd More; and whofe patronage was the greatest compliment the most ambitious writer of that time could expect.

About the fame time of life he tranflated, for his exercise, one of Lucian's Orations out of Greek into Latin, which he calls his Firft Fruits of the Greek Tongue; and adds another oration of his own to answer that of Lucian; written with fuch force of wit and language, that it seems not to be inferior to Lucian's, either in invention or eloquence. When he was about twenty years old, finding his appetites and paffions very predominant, he struggled with all the heroifm of an anchorite against their influence, and inflicted fevere whippings and auftere mortifications upon himself every friday and on high fafting days, left his fenfuality should grow too infolent. But notwithstanding all his efforts, finding the flesh was like to grow too ftrong for the fpirit, he wifely determined to marry: a reme

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dy

dy much more natural than perfonal inflictions; and as a pattern of life, he proposed the example of a fingular lay-man, John Picus Earl of Mirandola, who was a man famous for chastity, virtue and learning. He tranflated this Nobleman's life, as alfo many of his letters, and his twelve receipts of good life, which are extant in the beginning of his English works. For this end he alfo wrote a treatife of the four laft things, which he did not quite finish, being called to other ftudies.

At his meals he was very abftemious, nor ever eat but of one difh, which was moft commonly powdered beef, or fome fuch falt meat. In his youth he abftained wholly from wine; and as he was temperate in his diet, fo was he heedlefs and negligent in his apparel. Being once told by his fecretary Mr. Harris, that his fhoes were all torn, he bad him tell his man to buy him new ones, whofe bufinefs it was to take care of his cloaths, and whom for this reafon he called his tutor. His first wife's name was Jane Cole, defcended from a genteel family, who bore him four children. Upon her decease, which in not many years happened, he married a widow, one Mrs. Alice Middleton, by whom he had no children. This, he fays, he did, not to indulge his paffions (for he obferves that it is harder to keep chastity in wedlock than in a fingle life) but to take care of his children and houthold affairs. This fecond wife was a worldly-minded woman, had a very indifferent perfon, was advanced in years, and poffeffed no very agreeable temper.

Much about this time he became obnoxious to Henry VII. for oppofing his exactions upon the people. Henry was a covetous prince, and entirely devoted to the counfels of Empfon and Dudley, who then were very juftly reckoned the caterpillars of the ftate. The king demanded a large fubfidy to beftow on his eldest daughter, who

was

was then about to be married to James IV. of Scotland. Sir Thomas being one of the burgeffes, fo influenced the lower houfe by the force of his arguments, (who were cowardly enough before not to oppose the king) that they refufed the demands, upon which Mr. Tiler, of the king's Privy-Chamber, went presently to his majefty, and told him that More had disappointed all their expectations which circumftance not a little enrag'd the king against More; and Henry was mean enough to pick a quarrel without cause, with Sir John More, Sir Thomas's father, and in revenge to the fon, clapt him in the Tower, keeping him there prifoner till he had forced him to pay a fine of one hundred pounds, for no offence.

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King Henry foon after dying, his fon, who began his reign with fome popular acts, tho' afterwards he degenerated into a tyrant, caused Dudley and Empfon to be impeached of high treafon for giving bad advice to his father; and, however illegal fuch an arraignment might be, yet they met the juft fate of oppreffors and traitors to their country.

About the year 1516, he compofed, in Latin, his famous book called the Utopia, and gained by it great reputation. Soon after it was published, it was tranflated into French, Italian, Dutch, and English. Dr. Stapleton enumerates the opinions of a great many learned men in its favour. This work tho' not writ in verfe, yet in regard of the fancy and invention employed in compofing it, may well enough pafs for an allegorical poem. It contains the idea of a compleat Commonwealth in any imaginary island, (pretended to be lately discovered in America) and that fo well counterfeited, that many upon reading it mistook it for a real truth, in fo much (fays Winftanly) that fome learned men, out of a principle of fervent zeal, wifhed that fome excellent divines might be fent thither to preach Chrift's Gofpel.

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