1 thorough mastery of all classical learning and literature. Taking priest's orders he was soon a learned student of divinity, and an enlightened teacher alike of profane and sacred letters. His native temperament preserved him from any tincture of pedantry, and implanted in him a perennially vivid interest in every aspect of human endeavour and experience. Above all things he was a penetrating critic— a critic of life as well as of literature, and he was able to express his critical views with an airiness, a charm, a playfulness of style, which secured for his conclusions a far wider acceptance than was possible to a more formal, more serious, and more crabbed presentation. He was an adept in the use of banter and satire, when exposing the abuses and absurdities whether of religious or secular society of his time. But he met with the usual fate of independent and level-headed critics to whom all extremes are obnoxious, and whose temperament forbids them to identify themselves with any distinctly organised party or faction. In the religious conflicts of the hour Erasmus stood aloof from Protestant revolutionaries like Luther, and from Orthodox cham、pions at the Paris Sorbonne of the ancient faith of papal Rome. In the struggle over the progress of humanistic learning, he treated with equal disdain those who set their faces against the study of pagan writers, and those who argued that the human intellect should be exclusively nurtured on servile imitation of classical style. As a consequence Erasmus was denounced by all parties, but he was unmoved by clamour, and remained faithful to his idiosyncrasy to the last. In the era of the Renaissance he did as much as any man to free humanity from the bonds of superstition, and to enable it to give free play to its reasoning faculties. Erasmus spent much time in England while More's life for More. was at its prime, and the two men became the closest of friends. Erasmus at once acknowledged More's Erasmus's fascination. My affection for the man is so friendship great,' he wrote, in the early days of their acquaintance, that if he bade me dance a hornpipe, I should do at once what he bid me.' Until death separated them, their love for one another knew no change. Erasmus's enlightened influence and critical frankness offered the stimulus that More's genius needed to sustain his faith in humanism at the moment that it was threatened by his religious zeal. At the Parliament. Neither More's spiritual nor his intellectual interests detached him from practical affairs. His progress at the bar was rapid, and after the customary manner of English barristers, he sought to improve his worldly bar and in position by going into politics and obtaining a seat in Parliament. He was a bold and independent speaker, and quickly made his mark by denouncing King Henry VII.'s heavy taxation of the people. A ready ear was given to his argument by fellow members of the House of Commons, and they negatived, at his suggestion, one of the many royal appeals for money. The King angrily expressed as nishment that a beardless boy should disappoint his purpose, and he invented a cause of quarrel with More's father by way of revenge. IV Marriage. Meanwhile More married. As a wooer he seems to have been more philosophic than ardent. He made the acquaintance of an Essex gentleman named Colte, who had three daughters, and the second daughter, whom he deemed 'the fairest and best favoured,' moved affection in More. But the young philosopher curbed his passion; he considered that it would be both great grief and some shame also to the eldest to see her younger sister preferred before her in marriage.' Accordingly of a certain pity' he 'framed his fancy towards' the eldest daughter, Jane. He married her in 1505. The union, if the fruit of compassion, was most satisfactory in result. His wife was very young, and quite uneducated, but More was able, according to his friend Erasmus, to shape her character after his own pattern. Teaching her books and music, he made her a true companion. Acquiring a house in the best part of the City of London, in Bucklersbury, More delighted in his new domestic life. He reckoned the enjoyment of his family a necessary part of the business of the man who does not wish to be a stranger in his own house,' and such leisure as his professional work allowed him was happily divided between the superintendence of his household and literary study. Unluckily his wife died six years after marriage. She left him with a family of four children. More lost no His second time in supplying her place. His second wife was a widow, who, he would often say with a laugh, was neither beautiful nor well educated. She lacked one desirable faculty in a wife, the ability to appreciate her husband's jests. But she had the virtues of a good housewife, and ministered to More's creature comforts. He ruled her, according to his friend Erasmus, with caresses and with jokes the point of which she missed. Thus he kept her sharp tongue under better control than sternness and assertion of authority could achieve. With characteristic sense of humour, More made her learn harp, cithern, guitar and (it is said) flute, and practise in his presence every day. wife. More, after his second marriage, removed from the bustling centre of London to what was then the peaceful riverside Settlement at Chelsea. hamlet of Chelsea. There he lived in simple patriarchal fashion, surrounded by his children. Ostentation was abhorrent to him, but he quietly gratified his love for art and literature by collecting pictures and books. Under- More prospered in his profession. The small legal post of Under-sheriff, which he obtained from the Corporation of London, brought him into relations with the merchants, who admired his quickness of wit. The Government was contemplating a new commercial treaty with Flanders, and required the assistance of a representative of London's commercial interest with a view to improving business relations with the Flemings. More was recommended for the post by a city magnate to Henry VIII.'s great Minister, Cardinal Wolsey, and he received the appointment. Thus, not long after he had fallen under the sway of the greatest intellectual leader of the day, Erasmus, did he first come under the notice of the great political chieftain. First visit to the Continent. But for the present Wolsey and More worked out their destinies apart. The duties of the new office required More to leave England. For the first time in his life he was brought face to face with Continental culture. He chiefly spent his time in the cities of Bruges, Brussels and Antwerp, all of which were northern strongholds of the art and literature of the Italian Renaissance. More's interests were widened and stimulated by the enlightened society into which he was thrown. But he had his private difficulties. His salary was small for a man with a growing family, and he humorously expressed regret at the inconsiderateness of his wife and children in failing to fast from food in his absence. But, however ill More was remunerated at the moment, Social recreation at Antwerp. this first visit to the Continent invigorated, if it did not create, a new ideal of life, and impelled him to offer his fellow-men a new counsel of perfection, which, although it had little bearing on the practical course of his own affairs, powerfully affected his reputation with posterity. At Antwerp More met a thoroughly congenial companion, the great scholar of France and friend of Erasmus, Peter Giles or Egidius. Versatility of interest , was a mark of Renaissance scholarship. With Giles, More discussed not merely literary topics but also the contemporary politics and the social conditions of England and the Continent. In the course of the debates the notion of sketching an imaginary commonwealth, which should be freed from the defects of existing society, entered More's brain. VI From Antwerp More brought back the first draft of his Utopia. That draft ultimately formed the second book of the completed treatise. But the first and shorter book which he penned after his return home merely served the purpose of a literary preface to the full and detailed exposition of the political and social ideals which his foreign tour had conjured up in his active mind. First draft of the Utopia. Increasing practice at the Bar, and the duties of his judicial office in the City, delayed the completion of the Utopia, which was not published till the end of 1516, a year after More's return. Detach The Utopia of Sir Thomas More is the main monument of his genius. It is as admirable in literary form as it is original in thought. It displays a mind revelling ment of the in the power of detachment from the sentiment Utopia. and the prejudices which prevailed in his personal To a large extent this power of detachment environment. |