ART. III. SIR THOMAS MORE.

Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More, Lord-Chancellor of England, and Martyr under Henry VIII. By the Rev. T. E. BRIDGETT, of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. (London, 1891.)

THERE are some names in history which shine with a bright and enduring lustre down the ages. Time cannot dim their beauty, or evil report darken their whiteness. Now and then, it is true, some passing shadow may be cast over the fair memory of these great and good men. Ignorance and calumny do their worst to blacken them. Party hatred and political strife make use of their names as watchwords. They are condemned for words which were never spoken, for deeds which have been never done. But these are only transient clouds-the dust of the roadside which for a moment obscures our vision and is soon blown away. We move on a little further and look around us. Some fresh discovery has been made, some old record has come to light, and the slur is removed, the stainless name is as pure and unsullied as of yore. The shadows are gone, the clouds have passed away, and once more our star shines down upon us, radiant and

serene.

So it has been with the memory of Sir Thomas More. In his lifetime he was honoured both abroad and at home as the foremost Englishman of his day. Since his death his name has been cherished with the same devotion by successive generations of his countrymen. His lot was cast in troublous times, and neither his virtues nor his learning could save him from disgrace and ruin. In the heat of controversy he has been stigmatized as a bigot and a persecutor. But his own deeds, his own words, are his best defence. The cause

churches, excluding perhaps those of modern date, with their dedications; noting those destroyed, either at the fire of 1666 or since, a sadly long list); and of the religious houses, with the date of foundation and the monastic order to which they belonged. We should be glad also of lists of the churches and public buildings designed by Inigo Jones, Wren, Hawkesmore, Gibbs, Kent, Soane, Smirke, Wilkins, and other architects of note. We need not say how largely the value and teaching power of the work would be enhanced by the addition of some maps and plans such as those given in Mr. Loftie's two works. Some more cross references are also wanted. We ourselves wasted a considerable time in hunting up the Cistercian house of St. Mary of Graces, omitted under that heading, which at last was found under its popular name of 'Eastminster.'

for which he died was an unpopular one. The principle which he upheld was alien to the national character and hostile to the constitution and liberties of England. But the purity of his motive has never been questioned, and there is not a name dearer to Englishmen than that of the great chancellor who laid down his life rather than wrong his conscience at the bidding of a despotic king.

A new life of Sir Thomas More was certainly needed. Since Sir James Mackintosh's eloquent and candid sketch appeared, more than fifty years ago, no complete biography of him has been written. Even Mr. Seebohm, whose work on the Oxford reformers of 1498 gives so vivid and interesting an account of More's early history, breaks off with the death of Dean Colet in 1519, and does not enter on the most important phase of his life. During the interval a flood of light has been poured on this period of our history. The stores of the Record Office have become accessible to students, and a mass of literature on Tudor times has been the result. Above all, the publication of the Calendars of Letters and State Papers, during the Reign of Henry VIII., under the able editorship of Dr. Brewer and Mr. Gairdner, has revealed many important documents bearing on the conduct of More, and illustrating the circumstances of his life.

Father Bridgett, the author of the present volume, has neglected none of these sources of information, and spared no pains to make his book worthy of his subject. His previous work on Bishop Fisher, More's friend and companion in prison and martyrdom, had already made him familiar with the records of the period, and the list of authorities which he gives us in his preface bears witness to the industry and care which he has bestowed on his task. He deserves credit, both for the fulness and accuracy of his details and for the fairness of the tone which, as a rule, marks the controversial part of his work. His biography is certainly on the whole the best Life of Sir Thomas More which has yet appeared. That it satisfies us in every particular we cannot pretend to say. the first place, it is impossible not to regret the introduction of so much controversial matter. Modern writers, in their eagerness to number More among Protestant reformers, had, we confess, given him considerable provocation. But it was hardly necessary to devote so many chapters and so much elaborate argument to the justification of certain passages in More's writings, which after all merely show his keen sense of those abuses and evils in the Church which he never failed to deplore. Whether the passage in question concerns

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the choice of a vocation, or is merely a witty epigram flung off in the impulse of the moment, our author is always contending for his hero's orthodoxy, always suspicious that false conclusions may be drawn from his words. In the second place, Father Bridgett has diminished the value of his book by dwelling too exclusively upon one aspect of More's character. He shows us the beauty of his holiness, the absolute integrity and goodness of the man, both in his public and private life. We see in him the saintly confessor and fearless defender of the faith, the upright judge, the good husband and father. But we are not helped to realise that ardent love of letters and passionate enthusiasm for human welfare which made him the most distinguished representative of the new learning in this country. Yet it is just this union of deep practical religion and tender family affection, with a profound love of liberty and genuine devotion to literature, which forms the rare charm of this remarkable man, and explains the strange fascination which he has for us all. By neglecting this aspect of More's character Father Bridgett has done his hero injustice, and impaired the truth and beauty of his portrait. For a description of More as a scholar and a humanist, as a political and social reformer, we must still turn to other writers to the history of Mr. J. R. Green and the Oxford Reformers of Mr. Seebohm, a book not without faults, but which hardly deserves the contemptuous epithets of 'fantastic and misleading' applied to it by Father Bridgett (p. xii).

The three principal sources from which all biographers of More draw their material are the letters of Erasmus, the Life of More by his son-in-law, William Roper, and the Chancellor's own works. These last, we regret to say, are still in a great measure inaccessible to general readers. Even the British Museum only contains a single copy of his English writings, in the black-letter folio edition of Queen Mary's time. One of his early and most interesting works, a translation of the Life of Pico della Mirandola, indeed, has lately been republished, with excellent notes, by Mr. J. M. Rigg; but we agree with Father Bridgett, that not only English Catholics, but students at large, will be to blame if during the next few years there is not a complete edition of all More's writings, both Latin and English. For without a careful and attentive study. of his own works we cannot arrive at any real understanding of his mind or just appreciation of the motives which governed his actions. The letters of Erasmus, More's life-long friend, throw a bright light on the private life of the great English

man whom he loved so well; while Roper's Life is by far the best that has come down to us. As the husband of More's favourite daughter, Margaret, William Roper lived for sixteen years under the same roof in the closest intimacy with his father-in-law. Writing as he did twenty years after More's death, and eleven after that of his wife, he naturally makes a few slips, and is occasionally wrong in his dates; but the simplicity and frankness of his narrative is the best proof of its truth, and the substantial accuracy of his facts has been confirmed by historic documents. His recollections were frequently copied, handed about in manuscript for seventy years after they were written, and only first printed at Paris in 1626. Subsequent biographers have all made use of these Notes, and although their narrative is fuller, and in some cases they may supply a few additional anecdotes and traditions, they have nothing of importance to add to Roper's simple and touching tale. The best of these later writers is Thomas Stapleton, Prebendary of Chichester in Mary's reign, who spent forty-two years in exile after Elizabeth's accession, and was Professor and Canon at the University of Louvain. In 1588 he published a Latin Life of Sir Thomas More, at Douai, and tells us in his Introduction that he enjoyed the friendship of More's favourite scholar, Dr. Clements, and his secretary, John Harris, as well as that of their two wives, Margaret Gigs and Dorothy Colly, who had also been inmates of More's household. Many particulars that Stapleton has preserved had been learnt from their lips, while he had also made a careful study of More's own writings and of Roper's Notes. Another Life of More, which we often see quoted, is the English biography written by his great-grandson, Cresacre More, between the years 1615 and 1620. This, again, contains but little original information, although here and there the author adds some interesting bit of family tradition. But his style is more diffuse than that of Roper, and his more ornate periods strike us as less trustworthy than the plain and unvarnished record of the carlier writer.

The year of Sir Thomas More's birth, incorrectly given by Stapleton and Cresacre More, and not recorded at all by Roper, was discovered a few years ago by Mr. Aldis Wright in a forgotten manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. We know now that he was born on the 7th of February 1478, at his father's house in Milk Street, in the city of London. His family, to quote his own words, was 'not illustrious, yet honourable.' His father, afterwards Sir John More, and a judge of the King's Bench, 'a man,' in his

son's words, 'courteous, affable, innocent, gentle, merciful, just, and uncorrupted,' was at that time a struggling barrister of Lincoln's Inn, with a rapidly increasing family. After learning Latin at a free school belonging to the Hospital of St. Anthony, in Threadneedle Street, young More was placed in the household of Cardinal Morton, where his quick wit soon attracted that prelate's notice. This child here, waiting at table,' the Cardinal would often say to his guests, will prove a marvellous man.' At the age of fourteen More was sent to Oxford by his patron's influence, and entered as a scholar at Canterbury Hall, an ancient foundation of Archbishop Islip, which was soon to be incorporated in Wolsey's new college of Christ Church. The life of an Oxford scholar in those days was a hard one, and the allowance which More received from his father barely sufficed to supply him with the necessaries of life. He had not even money to mend his worn-out shoes without applying to his father, whose severity, however, in this respect More himself always praised. 'It was thus,' he says, 'that I indulged in no vice or pleasure, and spent my time in no vain or hurtful amusements; I did not know what luxury meant, and never learnt to use money badly; in a word, I loved and thought of nothing but my studies' (p. 10).

Erasmus declares that the harshness with which More's father treated him arose from his displeasure at his son's love of Greek and philosophy, which taste he feared would cause him to neglect the study of law. Certainly, at the end of two years More was removed from the university, without taking a degree, and placed by his father at New Inn, an Inn of Chancery depending on Lincoln's Inn, where he continued. to read law until, in February 1496, he was entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn. But in that brief period of Oxford life he had laid the foundations of all his future greatness. Not only had he 'wonderfully profited in the Latin and Greek tongues,' but his genius and the charm of his nature had attracted the attention of the foremost scholars of the day.

The times were big with coming changes. In Oxford itself the moment was a memorable one. A little band of scholars, fired with enthusiasm for the new learning, were struggling to revive the flame which had so long slumbered in England. Fresh from their studies in Italy, from the company of Greek professors and of Florentine Platonists, these men were seeking to inspire the youth of Oxford with the new ideas and new culture which they had found south of the Alps. There Grocyn was delivering those Greek lec