dor suitable to their dignity, obliged him to keep many servants; but he never suffered any of them to be idle, lest they should acquire a habit of sloth, or gaming, or other profligate courses. Yet let not the reader hence infer, that he was a sour and splenetic philosopher. On the contrary, in his hours of relaxation from business, he delighted in music, and other chaste amusements. He was also a lover of the polite arts, of which we have an instance in his patronage of Hans Holbein, who upon Erasmus' recommendation was retained in his house, till he had painted the portraits of all his family. He, then, took occasion to show his pieces to the King; who, struck with the talent they displayed, instantly inquired whether or not the artist were alive, and to be procured for money? The generous patron replied, by producing Holbein, who was immediately taken into the royal service.

It must be confessed, however, that while Sir Thomas was adorned with the gentlest manners and the purest integrity, he displayed upon many occasions a culpable hostility to what he deemed heresy ;* which

"In this very land of liberty, what enormities have not been committed under the sacred names of justice and religion! The wise and pious Sir Thomas More caused the rack to be used in his presence. Cranmer led Arians and Anabaptists to the stake. Under the auspices of Bishop Gardiner, two hundred and seventy-seven Protestants were burnt alive; and, in all these instances, the future damnation of the heretic was believed to be the inevitable consequence of his death. Such were the horrors of religious infatuation! The cloud, which then overspread us, did not stop here. Superstition, unchanging in it's nature, varied only in it's object. In 1593, three persons were executed at Huntingdon for witchcraft; an aged man and woman, and a young woman their daughter. In 1664, two women were exe

can only be excused upon the principle of conscience, and his general good character. In defence of the

cuted in Suffolk. In 1712 (the Augustan age of English literature and science, when our country was adorned by a Newton, a Halley, a Swift, a Clarke, and an Addison') a woman was condemned at Hertford: and in 1716 a woman and her daughter, a child of eleven years of age, were executed at Huntingdon :and to murthers like these was the great and good Sir Matthew Hale doomed to lend himself, under the quaint advice of Sir Thomas Browne, one of the first physicians and philosophers of his time, who was devoting his life to the confutation of what he deemed 'Vulgar Errors.'—And these things were not done in a corner, not in remote provinces, where knowledge was circulating slowly; but at the heart where it beat strongest, within a little space of a learned university, and a day's journey of a great metropolis, and in the midst of a people who said they were of Christ." (Montagu's Opinions of different Authors upon the Punishment of Death,' II. Pref.)

A sad proof of More's intolerance occurs in the case of Bain. ham, a Templar, recorded by Burnet in his History of the Reformation,' (I. 165) whom Sir Thomas, it is said, caused to be whipped in his own presence, and afterward tortured in the Tower. "He (More) was a notable tyrant," said old Luther indignantly and justly. "He was one of the bitterest enemies," observes Burnet, "of the new preachers, not without great cruelty when he came into power, though he was otherwise a very goodnatured man:" and though, in the opinion of Dr. Jortin, “he had once been free from that bigotry, which grew upon him afterward in life" (one of his first and coolest thoughts indeed, as contained in a maxim of his own Utopia, was that no man ought to be punished for his religion'); yet, his philosophy, his sagacity, his piety, and his benevolence, did not preserve him from the reigning prejudices of his day against the crime of heresy. They, who will consult Mr. Lysons' excellent work on the Environs of London, must be led to many serious reflexions on human infirmity, when they read the wanton cruelties which in More's presence, or even by his own hand, were exercised upon heretics at a tree, which he employed for this very purpose in his garden at Hammersmith. For his holy but barbarous zeal he could easily find pretexts, which disgust and shock us when

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Romish faith, he wrote several virulent books against the advocates of the Reformation: an act of zeal so acceptable to the English clergy, that they unanimously agreed, in full convocation, to make him a present of four or five thousand pounds as a recompence for his holy labours. The sum being raised by a general contribution, three bishops were deputed to wait upon him in the name of the whole body, with their warmest acknowledgements, and to entreat his acceptance of this testimony of their gratitude. "It is no small comfort to me," said he, "that such

produced by other apologists for rigour upon other occasions. Thus he writes, in a letter to Erasmus: " Quòd in Epitaphio profiteor hæreticis me fuisse molestum, hoc ambitiosè feci. Nam omninò sic illud genus hominum odi, ut illis, nisi resipiscant, tam invisus esse velim quàm qui maximè ; quippe quos indies magis ac magis experior tales, ut mundo ab illis vehementer metuam." Characters of Fox, by Philop. Varvic.

What must have been the rancour of that odium theologicum, which could so far overpower the natural mildness even of a More, one not only of the most accomplished, but also of the most heavenly-minded of men, that few of the religious disputants of his time surpassed him in virulence of abuse, or (to adopt a phrase of his own day) in the talent of "calling bad names in good Latin," &c. (See Ed. Rev. xxviii. 373.) a charge, particularly applied to his Responsio ad Convitia M. Lutheri, &c. in defence of his sovereign! His attachment to the ancient superstition was so extravagant, that even when Chancellor, he is said to have put on a surplice, and assisted the priest in saying mass in Chelsea-church. Few inquisitors, indeed, have surpassed him in their talent for persecution; and yet he appears to have anticipated the eventual success of the Reformation: "I pray God, son Roper (said he) that some of us, as high as we seem to sit upon the mountains, treading heretics under our feet like ants, live not the day that we would gladly be at league and composition with them, to let them have their churches quietly to themselves, so that they would be contented to let us have ours quietly to ourselves."

wise and learned men so well accepted of my works; but I never will receive any reward for them, but at the hand of God." The bishops, finding that he could not by any means be induced to touch the money, desired leave to present it to his family; "Not so, indeed, my Lords," he replied, "I had rather see it all cast into the Thames, than that I, or any of mine, should have a penny of it: for though your Lordships' offer is very friendly and honourable to me, yet I set so much by my pleasure and so little by my profit, that in good faith I would not for a much larger sum have lost the rest of so many nights as were spent upon these writings; and yet I wish, upon condition that all heresies were suppressed, that all my books were burnt, and my labour entirely lost." Upon which the prelates, perceiving that it was in vain to urge him any longer, desisted from farther importunity.

It has been asserted by many historians, that the King gave the great seal to More, purely with the view of engaging a man so eminent for piety and learning in favour of his divorce from Queen Katharine. But, if this were really his object, he knew very little of the person he had to deal with. Sir Thomas always vowed, that he thought the marriage lawful in the sight of God, as it had once received the sanction of the Apostolic Council: for, though he stood foremost among those who were for abolishing the illegal jurisdiction exercised by the popes in England, he was far from desiring a total rupture with the see of Rome, which he plainly perceived was in the event of Henry's divorce unavoidable. Knowing therefore that he must one way or other, on account of his office, be engaged in the contest, and of course either

offend his conscience or disoblige his prince, he never ceased soliciting his powerful friend the Duke of Norfolk to intercede with his Majesty, that he might be allowed to retire from a station, for which through many infirmities of body he affirmed he was no longer fit: and the Duke at length, yielding to his entreaties, obtained permission for him to resign. But when he waited on Henry for that purpose, the monarch, notwithstanding what he called Sir Thomas' obstinacy with regard to his great affair, expressed much unwillingness to part with so useful a servant; and giving him many commendations for his admirable execution of a most important trust, assured him that, in any request which he might have occasion to make concerning either his interest or his honour, he should always find the crown ready to assist him.

As More had sustained the office of chancellor for above two years and a half with the utmost wisdom and integrity, so he retired from it with unparallelled dignity; not being able to defray even the necessary expenses of his private family, after he had divested himself of that employment. About the time of his resignation died, in a very advanced age, his father, whom he frequently visited and comforted in his illness, and to whom he expressed the most filial affection in his last moments. This event, however, brought him a very inconsiderable increase of fortune, as the principal part of Sir John's estate was settled upon his second wife, who out-lived her step-son many years. On delivering up the great seal, he wrote an apology for himself, in which he declared to the public, that all his revenues and pensions derived from his father, his wife, or his own purchase (with the exception of the manors given him by the King) did not