most illustrious of these, the Chronicles have a value in our eyes beyond that which properly belongs to them. In the following extract, the matter of a remarkable scene in Richard III. is found, and it is worthy of notice, how well the prose narration reads beside the poetical one.

[Scene in the Council-Room of the Protector Gloucester.] The Lord Protector caused a council to be set at the Tower, on Friday the thirteen day of June, where there was much communing for the honourable solemnity of the coronation, of the which the time appointed approached so near, that the pageants were a making day and night at Westminster, and victual killed, which afterward was cast away.

These lords thus sitting, communing of this matter, the Protector came in among them, about nine of the clock, saluting them courteously, excusing himself that he had been from them so long, saying merrily that he had been a sleeper that day. And after a little talking with him, he said to the Bishop of Ely, My Lord, you have very good strawberries in your garden a Holborn; I require you let us have a mess of them.' Giadly, my Lord,' quoth he; I would I had some better thing, as ready to your pleasure as that; and with that in all haste he sent his servant for a dish of strawberries. The Protector set the lords fast in communing, and thereupon prayed them to spare him a little; and so he departed, and came again between ten and eleven of the clock in to the chamber, all changed, with a sour angry countenance, knitting the brows, frowning and fretting, and gnawing on his lips; and so set him down in his place. All the lords were dismayed, and sore marvelled of this manner and sudden change, and what thing should him ail. When he had sitten a while, thus he began: What were they worthy to have, that compass and imagine the destruction of me, being so near of blood to the king, and protector of this his royal realm?' At which question, all the lords sat sore astonished, musing much by whom the question should be meant, of which every man knew himself clear.

Then the Lord Hastings, as he that, for the familiarity that was between them, thought he might be boldest with him, answered and said, that they were worthy to be punished as heinous traitors, whatsoever they were; and all the other affirmed the same. That is, quoth he, yonder sorceress, my brother's wife, and other with her;' meaning the queen. Many of the lords were sore abashed which favoured her; but the Lord Hastings was better content in his mind, that it was moved by her than by any other that he loved better; albeit his heart grudged that he was not afore made of counsel of this matter, as well as he was of the taking of her kindred, and of their putting to death, which were by his assent before devised to be beheaded at Pomfret, this self same day; in the which he was not ware, that it was by other devised that he himself should the same day be beheaded at London. Then,' said the Protector, in what wise that sorceress and other of her counsel, as Shore's wife, with her affinity, have by their sorcery and witchcraft thus wasted my body!" and therewith plucked up his doublet sleeve to his elbow, on his left arm, where he showed a very withered arm, and small, as it was never other.' And thereupon every man's mind misgave them, well perceiving that this matter was but a quarrel for well they wist that the queen was both too wise to go about any such folly, and also, if she would, yet would she of all folk make Shore's wife least of her counsel, whom of all women she most hated, as that concubine whom the king, her husband, most loved.

theless, the Lord Hastings, which from the death of King Edward kept Shore's wife, his heart somewhat grudged to have her whom he loved so highly accused, and that as he knew well untruly; therefore he answered and said, Certainly, my Lord, if they have so done, they be worthy of heinous punishment.' 'What!' quoth the Protector, thou thee, they have done it, and that will I make good servest me, I ween, with if and with and; I tell on thy body, traitor!' And therewith, as in a great anger, he clapped his fist on the board a great rap, at which token given, one cried treason without the chamber, and therewith a door clapped, and in came rushing men in harness, as many as the chamber could hold. And anon the Protector said to the Lord Hastings, I arrest thee, traitor!' What! me! my Lord,' quoth he. Yea, the traitor,' quoth the Protector. And one let fly at the Lord Stanley, which shrunk at the stroke, and fell under the table, or else his head had been cleft to the teeth; for as shortly as he shrunk, yet ran the blood about his ears. Then was the Archbishop of York, and Doctor Morton, Bishop of Ely, and the Lord Stanley taken, and divers others which were bestowed in divers chambers, save the Lord Hastings, whom the Protector commanded to speed and shrive him apace. For, by Saint Poule,' quoth he, I will not dine till I see thy head off.' It booted him not to ask why, but heavily he took a priest at a venture, and made a short shrift, for a longer would not be suffered, the Protector made so much haste to his dinner, which might not go to it till this murder were done, for saving of his ungracious oath. So was he brought forth into the green, beside the chapel within the Tower, and his head laid down on a log of timber, that lay there for building of the chapel, and there tyrannously stricken off, and after his body and head were interred at Windsor, by his master, King Edward the Fourth; whose souls Jesu pardon. Amen.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

Passing over Fortescue, the first prose-writer who mingled just and striking thought with his language, and was entitled to the appellation of a man of genius, was unquestionably the celebrated chancellor of Henry VIII., SIR THOMAS MORE (1480-1535). Born the son of a judge of the King's Bench, and educated at Oxford, More entered life with all external advantages, and soon reached a distinguished situation in the law and in state employments. He was appointed Lord Chancellor in 1529, being the first layman who ever held the office. At all periods of his life, he was a zealous professor of the Catholic faith, insomuch that he was at one time with difficulty restrained from becoming a monk. When Henry wished to divorce Catherine, he was opposed by the conscientious More, who accordingly incurred his displeasure, and perished on the scaffold. The cheerful, or rather mirthful, disposition of the learned chancellor forsook him not at the last, and he jested even when about to lay his head upon the block. The character of More was most benignant, as the letter to his wife, who was ill-tempered, written after the burning of some of his property, expressively shows, at the same time that it is a good specimen of his English prose. The domestic circle at his house in Chelsea, where the profoundly learned statesman at once paid reverence to his parents and sported with his children, has been made the subject of an interesting picture by the great artist of that age, Holbein,

a curious philosophical work under the title of Utopia, which, describing an imaginary pattern country and people, has added a word to the English language, every scheme of national improve

* The following is a specimen of Sir Thomas More's juvenile poetry :

He that hath lafte the hosier's crafte,
And fallth to makyng shone;
The smyth that shall to painting fall,
His thrift is well nigh done.

A black draper with whyte paper,

To goe to writing scole,

An old butler become a cutler

I wene shall prove a fole.

And an old trot, that can God wot,
Nothing but kyss the cup,

With her physicke will kepe one sicke,
Till she hath soused hym up.

A man of law that never sawe
The wayes to buy and sell
Wenyng to ryse by merchandyse,
I pray God spede him well!
A merchaunt eke, that will go seke
By all the meanes he may,
To fall in sute till he dispute
His money cleane away;
Pletyng the lawe for every stray
Shall prove a thrifty man,

With bate and strife, but by my life
I cannot tell you whan.

Whan an hatter will smatter

In philosophy,

Or a pedlar waxe a medlar

In theology, &c.

ment founded on theoretical views being since then termed Utopian. The most of the English writings of More are pamphlets on the religious controversies of his day, and the only one which is now of value is A History of Edward V., and of his Brother, and of Richard III., which Mr Hallam considers as the first English prose work free of vulgarisms and pedantry.

The intention of Sir Thomas More in his Utopia is to set forth his idea of those social arrangements whereby the happiness and improvement of the people may be secured to the utmost extent of which human nature is susceptible; though, probably, he has pictured more than he really conceived it possible to effect. Experience proves that many of his suggestions are indeed Utopian. In his imaginary island, for instance, all are contented with the necessaries of life; all are employed in useful labour; no man desires, in clothing, any other quality besides durability; and since wants are few, and every individual engages in labour, there is no need for working more than six hours a-day. Neither laziness nor avarice finds a place in this happy region; for why should the people be indolent when they have so little toil, or greedy when they know that there is abundance for each? All this, it is evident, is incompatible with qualities inherent in human nature: man requires the stimulus of self-interest to render him industrious and persevering; he loves not utility merely, but ornament; he possesses a spirit of emulation which makes him endeavour to outstrip his fellows, and a desire to accumulate property even for its own sake. With much that is Utopian, however, the work contains many sound suggestions. Thus, instead of severe punishment of theft, the author would improve the morals and condition of the people, so as to take away the temptation to crime; for, says he, if you suffer your people to be illeducated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves, and then punish them?' In Utopia, we are told, war is never entered on but for some gross injury done to themselves, or, more especially, to their allies; and the glory of a general is in proportion, not to the number, but to the fewness of the enemies, whom he slays in gaining a victory. Criminals are generally punished with slavery, even for the greatest misdeeds, since servitude is no less terrible than death itself; and, by making slaves of malefactors, not only does the public get the benefit of their labour, but the continual sight of their misery is more effectual than their death to deter other men from crime. It is one of the oldest laws of the Utopians, that no man ought to be punished for his religion; it being a fundamental opinion among them, that a man cannot make himself believe anything he pleases; nor do they drive any to dissemble their thoughts by threatenings, so that men are not tempted to lie or disguise their opinions among them; which, being a sort of fraud, is abhorred by the Utopians.' Every man may endeavour to convert others to his views by the force of amicable and modest argument, without bitterness against those of other opinions; but whoever adds reproach and violence to persuasion, is to be condemned to banishment or slavery. Such tolerant views were extremely rare in the days of Sir Thomas More, and in later life were lamentably departed from by himself in practice; for in persecuting the Protestants, he displayed a degree of intolerance and severity which were strangely at variance both with the opinions of his youth and the general mildness of his disposition.

really the better for having fine clothes, in which they think they are doubly mistaken, both in the opinion that they have of their clothes, and in the opinion that they have of themselves; for if you consider the use of clothes, why should a fine thread be thought better than a coarse one? And yet that sort of men, as if they had some real advantages beyond others, and did not owe it wholly to their mistakes, look big, and seem to fancy themselves to be the more valuable on that account, and imagine that a respect is due to them for the sake of a rich garment, to which they would not have pretended if they had been more meanly clothed; and they resent it as an affront, if that respect is not paid them. It is also a great folly to be taken with these outward marks of respect, which signify nothing; for what true or real pleasure can one find in this, that another man stands bare, or makes legs to him? Will the bending another man's thighs give you any ease? And will his head's being bare cure the madness of yours? And yet it is wonderful to see how this false notion of pleasure bewitches many, who delight themselves with the fancy of their nobility, and are pleased with this conceit, that they are descended from ancestors who have been held for some successions rich, and that they have had great possessions; for this is all that makes nobility at present; yet they do not think themselves a whit the less noble, though their immediate parents have left none of this wealth to them; or though they themselves have squandered it all away. The Utopians have no better opinion of those who are much taken with gems and precious stones, and who account it a degree of happiness next to a divine one, if they can purchase one that is very extraordinary, especially if it be of that sort of stones that is then in greatest request; for the same sort is not at all times of the same value with all sorts of people; nor will men buy it, unless it be dismounted and taken out of the gold. And then the jeweller is made to give good security, and required solemnly to swear that the stone is true, that by such an exact caution, a false one may not be bought instead of a true; whereas if you were to examine it, your eye could find no difference between that which is counterfeit and that which is true; so that they are all one to you, as much as if you were blind. And can it be thought that they who heap up an useless mass of wealth, not for any use that it is to bring them, but merely to please themselves with the contemplation of it, enjoy any true pleasure in it? The delight they find is only a false shadow of joy. Those are no better whose error is somewhat different from the former, and who hide it, out of the fear of losing it; for what other name can fit the hiding it in the earth, or rather the restoring it to it again, it being thus cut off from being useful, either to its owner or to the rest of mankind? And yet the owner having hid it carefully, is glad, because he thinks he is now sure of it. And in case one should come to steal it, the owner, though he might live perhaps ten years after that, would all that while after the theft, of which he knew nothing, find no difference between his having it or losing it, for both ways it was equally useless to him.

Among those foolish pursuers of pleasure, they reckon all those that delight in hunting, or birding or gaming of whose madness they have only heard, for they have no such things among them.

* *

Thus though the rabble of mankind looks upon these, and all other things of this kind which are indeed innumerable, as pleasures; the Utopians, on the contrary, observing that there is nothing in the nature of them that is truly pleasant, conclude that they are not to be reckoned among pleasures. For though these things may create some tickling in the senses (which seems to be a true notion of pleasure), yet they reckon that this does not arise from the thing itself, but

from a depraved custom, which may so vitiate a man's taste, that bitter things may pass for sweet; as pregnant women think pitch or tallow tastes sweeter than honey; but as a man's sense when corrupted, either by a disease or some ill habit, does not change the nature of other things, so neither can it change the nature of pleasure.

They reckon up several sorts of these pleasures, which they call true ones; some belong to the body, and others to the mind. The pleasures of the mind lie in knowledge, and in that delight which the contemplation of truth carries with it; to which they add the joyful reflections on a well-spent life, and the assured hopes of a future happiness. They divide the pleasures of the body into two sorts; the one is that which gives our senses some real delight, and is performed, either by the recruiting of nature, and supplying those parts on which the internal heat of life feeds; and that is done by eating or drinking: Or when nature is eased of any surcharge that oppresses it. There is another kind of this sort of pleasure, that neither gives us anything that our bodies require, nor frees us from anything with which we are overcharged; and yet it excites our senses by a secret unseen virtue, and by a generous impression, it so tickles and affects them, that it turns them inwardly upon themselves; and this is the pleasure begot by music.

Another sort of bodily pleasure is, that which consists in a quiet and good constitution of body, by which there is an entire healthiness spread over all the parts of the body not allayed with any disease. This, when it is free from all mixture of pain, gives an inward pleasure of itself, even though it should not be excited by any external and delighting object; and although this pleasure does not so vigorously affect the sense, nor act so strongly upon it, yet, as it is the greatest of all pleasures, so almost all the Utopians reckon it the foundation and basis of all the other joys of life; since this alone makes one's state of life to be easy and desirable; and when this is wanting, a man is really capable of no other pleasure. They look upon indolence and freedom from pain, if it does not rise from a perfect health, to be a state of stupidity rather than of pleasure. There has been a controversy in this matter very narrowly canvassed among them; whether a firm and entire health could be called a pleasure or not? Some have thought that there was no pleasure but that which was excited by some sensible motion in the body. But this opinion has been long ago run down among them, so that now they do almost all agree in this, That health is the greatest of all bodily pleasures; and that, as there is a pain in sickness, which is as opposite in its nature to pleasure, as sickness itself is to health, so they hold that health carries a pleasure along with it. And if any should say that sickness is not really a pain, but that it only carries a pain along with, they look upon that as a fetch of subtility that does not much alter the matter. So they think it is all one, whether it be said, that health is in itself a pleasure, or that it begets a pleasure, as fire gives heat; so it be granted, that all those whose health is entire have a true pleasure in it: and they reason thus. What is the pleasure of eating, but that a man's health which had been weakened, does, with the assistance of food, drive away hunger, and so recruiting itself, recovers its former vigour? And being thus refreshed, it finds a pleasure in that conflict. And if the conflict is pleasure, the victory must yet breed a greater pleasure, except we will fancy that it becomes stupid as soon as it has obtained that which it pursued, and so does neither know nor rejoice in its own welfare. If it is said that health cannot be felt, they absolutely deny that; for what man is in health that does not perceive it when he is awake? Is there any man that is so dull and