Mark Pattison

“ For as a romance the Utopia has little interest either of incident or of character. It does not, as has been said, anticipate the economical doctrines of Adam Smith, and much of it is fanciful without being either witty or ingenious. ”

“ The foe that was advancing in the opposite direction, though without the conscience of a hostile purpose, was the new power of human reason animated with the revived sentiment of classicism. In More’s mind both these hostile influences found a congenial home. Each had its turn of supremacy, and in his early years it seemed as if the humanistic influence would gain the final victory. ”

“ Cresacre More’s Life cannot be alleged as evidence for any facts which are not otherwise vouched. It has been remarked by Hunter that More’s life and works have been all along manipulated for political purposes, and in the interest of the holy see. In Mary’s reign, and in the tide of Catholic reaction, Roper and Harpsfield wrote lives of him; Ellis Heywood dedicated his Il Moro (Florence, 1556) a fanciful account of More’s life at Chelsea, to Cardinal Pole, and Tottell reprinted the folio of his English works. ”

“ There is not any man living so affectionate to his children as he, and he loveth his old wife as if she were a girl of fifteen. Such is the excellence of his disposition that whatsoever happeneth that could not be helped, he is as cheerful and as well pleased as though the best thing possible had been done. In More’s house you would see that Plato’s Academy was revived again, only, whereas in the Academy the discussions turned upon geometry and the power of numbers, the house at Chelsea is a veritable school of Christian religion. ”

“ If we must admit the correctness of the date of Ep. 14 in the collection of Erasmus’s Epistolae, we should have to assume that their acquaintance had begun as early as 1497. It rapidly ripened into warm attachment. This contact with the prince of letters revived in More the spirit of the “new learning,” and he returned with ardour to the study of Greek, which had been begun at Oxford. The humanistic influence was sufficiently strong to save him from wrecking his life in monkish mortification, and even to keep him for a time on the side of the party of progress. ”

“ Somewhere about this period of More’s life two things happened which gave in opposite directions the determining impulse to his future career. More’s was one of those highly susceptible natures which take more readily and more eagerly than common minds the impress of that which they encounter on their first contact with men. ”

“ But my counsel is that we fall not to the lowest fare first: we will not, therefore, descend to Oxford fare, nor to the fare of New Inn, but we will begin with Lincoln’s Inn diet, where many right worshipful men of great account and good years do live full well; which if we find ourselves the first year not able to maintain, then we will in the next year come down to Oxford fare, where many great learned and ancient fathers and doctors are continually conversant ”

“ More’s attention to the new studies was always subordinate to his resolution to rise in his profession, in which he was stimulated by his father’s example. As early as 1502 he was appointed under-sheriff of the city of London, an office then judicial and of considerable dignity. He first attracted public attention by his conduct in the parliament of 1504, by his daring opposition to the king’s demand for money. Henry VII. was entitled, according to feudal laws, to a grant on occasion of his daughter’s marriage. ”

“ This growing favour, by which many men would have been carried away, did not impose upon More. He discouraged the king’s advances, showed reluctance to go to the palace, and seemed constrained when there. Then the king began to come himself to More’s house at Chelsea, and would dine with him without previous notice. William Roper, husband of More’s eldest daughter, mentions one of these visits, when the king after dinner walked in the garden by the space of an hour holding his arm round More’s neck. ”

“ For the moment the balance of his faculties seemed to be restored by a revival of the antagonistic sentiment of humanism which he had imbibed from the Oxford circle of friends, and specially from Erasmus. The dates as regards More’s early life are uncertain, and we can only say that it is possible that the acquaintance with Erasmus might have begun during Erasmus’s first visit to England in 1499. ”

“ He affirmed that, having himself admitted in the course of this conversation “that there were things which no parliament could do—e.g. no parliament could make a law that God should not be God,” Sir Thomas had replied, “No more could the parliament make the king supreme head of the Church.” By this act of perjury a verdict of “guilty” was procured from the jury. The execution of the sentence followed within the week, on the 7th of July 1535. The head was fixed upon London Bridge. The vengeance of Henry was not satisfied by this judicial murder of his friend and servant ”

“ His only son, John, married an heiress, Ann Cresacre, and was the grandfather of Cresacre More, Sir Thomas More’s biographer. His eldest daughter, Margaret (1505–1544) , married to William Roper (1496–1578) , an official of the court of king’s bench and a member of parliament under Henry VIII., Edward VI. and Mary, is one of the foremost Women in the annals of the country for her virtues, high intelligence and various accomplishments. She read Latin and Greek, was a proficient in music, and in the' sciences so far as they were then accessible. Her devotion to her father is historical ”

“ It was not long before he attracted the attention of the young king and of Wolsey. The spirit with which he pleaded before the Star Chamber in a case of The Crown v. The Pope recommended him to the royal favour, and marked him out for employment. More obtained in this case judgment against the Crown. Henry, who was present in person at the trial, had the good sense not to resent the defeat, but took the counsel to whose advocacy it was due into his service. In 1514 More was made master of the requests, knighted, and sworn a member of the privy council. ”