for sending all these beggars to monasteries, the men to the Benedictines to be lay-brothers, and the women to be nuns.' The cardinal smiled, and арproved of it in jest; but the rest liked it in earnest.

"There was a divine present who, though he was a grave, morose man, yet he was so pleased with the reflection that was made on the priests and the monks, that he began to play with the fool, and said to him, this will not deliver you from all beggars, except you take care of us friars.' 'That

is done already,' answered the fool; for the cardinal has provided for you by what he proposed for the restraining vagabonds, and setting them to work; for I know no vagabonds like you!'58 This was well entertained by the whole company, who, looking at the cardinal, perceived that he was not ill-pleased at it; only the friar himself was so bit, as may be easily imagined, and fell out in such a passion that he could not forbear railing at the fool, and calling him knave, slanderer, backbiter, and son of perdition, and cited some dreadful threatenings out of the scriptures against him.59

least, have not. They remain just as they were when Cardinal Morton's fool had the painting of them.

$8 No doubt the fool's experience had furnished him with nothing in the matter of vagabondage equal to the friars. On this point they clearly outdo the priests themselves, who are generally less given to roaming; though one meets a tolerable sprinkling of them too, wherever there is sin or pleasure to be found, from the fox's tail to the Parisian salon.

59 If the reader will have the goodness to refer to Sterne's chapter of curses in "Tistram Shandy," he will see with what originality scholars can swear. Our friar was still more inge

Now the jester thought he was in his element, and laid about him freely. He said, 'Good friar, be not angry! for it is written, "In patience possess your soul." The friar answered, (for I shall give you his own words,) 'I am not angry, you hangman! at least I do not sin in it; for the Psalmist says, “ Be ye angry and sin not.' Upon this the cardinal admonished him gently, and wished him to govern his passions. No, my lord!' said he, 'I speak not but from a good zeal, which I ought to have; for holy men have had a good zeal, as it is said, "The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up ;" and we sing in our church that those who mocked Elisha as he went up to the house of God felt the effects of his zeal; which that mocker, that rogue, that scoundrel will perhaps feel!"60 You do this, perhaps,

nious: for he selected his maledictory language out of Scripture, only taking care, of course, to twist it to suit his own purposes; which is a quite orthodox practice.

60 This is a stroke quite á la Rabelais; and might very well have proceeded from "friar John" when excited to wrath in his cups. It would seem that the spirit of the Reformation had, at this time, some influence over the mind of More, whether its doctrines ever made any impression on him or not; for no Roman Catholic, with a Roman Catholic's feelings, could thus hold up to contempt and ridicule one of the pope's principal instruments. Boccaccio never enjoyed more heartily a philippic against the clergy or the monks than did Sir Thomas More, who yet formed, in the opinion of Swift, one of that sextumvirate to which all the ages of the world cannot add a seventh. And what were those six illustrious names? Were they kings, or prelates-or monks, or friars-or doctors of divinity?—Oh, no! Sir Thomas More was the only Christian among them. They were Junius, and Marcus Brutus, Socrates, Epaminondas, Cato of Utica, and More. I could name a seventh,-great and

with a great intention,' said the cardinal; but, in my opinion, it were wiser in you, not to say better for you, not to engage in so ridiculous a contest with a fool,' 'No, my lord!' answered he,' that

were not wisely done; for Solomon, the wisest of

men, said, answer a fool according to his folly;" which I now do, and show him the ditch into which he will fall, if he is not aware of it : for, if the many mockers of Elisha, who was but one bald man, felt the effect of his zeal, what will become of one mocker of so many friars, among whom there are so many bald men? We have likewise a bull, by which all that jeer us are excommunicated.' 61 When the cardinal saw that there was no end of this matter, he made a sign to the fool to withdraw, and turned the discourse another way. And, soon after, he rose from the table, and, dismissing us, he went to hear causes.

Thus, Mr. More, I have run out into a tedious story, of the length of which I had been ashamed, if, as you earnestly begged it of me, I had not ob

illustrious as any of the six, save one : our countryman, too, covered with glory, and to be covered with still greater, as the ،، Defence of the People of England" comes more actively forward, to take its place beside the "Paradise Lost." MILTON is that seventh name; a name which even Socrates need not frown to see placed on a level with his own. But see "Gulliver's Travels," Part III. c. vii.

61 I trust the reader will acknowledge the dramatic truth to nature of this whole scene. It was not Sir Thomas's design to write a novel; but he felt exceedingly disposed to verge in that direction; and I wish, as things go, that he had indulged his vein.

served you to hearken to it, as if you had no mind to lose any part of it: I might have contracted it, but I resolved to give it you at large, that you might observe how those that had despised what I had proposed no sooner perceived that the cardinal did not dislike it, but they presently approved of it, and fawned so on him, and flattered him to such a degree, that they in good earnest applauded those things that he only liked in jest. And from hence you may gather how little courtiers would value either me or my counsels."62

To this I answered, "you have done me a great kindness in this relation: for as everything has been related by you, both wisely and pleasantly, so you have made me imagine that I was in my own country, and grown young again, by recalling that good cardinal into my thoughts in whose family I was bred from my childhood: and, though you are upon other accounts very dear to me, yet you are the dearer because you honour his memory so much. But, after all this, I cannot change my opinion; for I still think that, if you could over

62 The writer never loses sight of the courtiers, whom no author of eminence, in any age or country, has spared. Our fashionable novelists, indeed, appear to have undertaken their defence, by way of exhibiting their ingenuity, and in the hope that some one will say of them what Milton says of Belial, that their ." tongue

Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear

The better reason."

They are, no doubt, mighty antagonists; and More, Clarendon, Warburton, Milton, Bacon, Hobbes, and so on, will have much ado to maintain their ground. But jacta est alea.

come that aversion which you have to the courts of princes, you might do a great deal of good to mankind, by the advice that you would give. And this is the chief design that every good man ought to propose to himself in living: for, whereas your friend Plato thinks that then nations will be happy when either philosophers become kings, or kings become philosophers,63 no wonder if we are so far from that happiness, if philosophers will not think it fit for them to assist kings with their councils."

"They are not so base-minded," said he, " but that they would willingly do it. Many of them have already done it by their books, if these that are in power would hearken to their advices. But Plato judged right that, except kings themselves became philosophers, it could never be brought about that they who from their childhood are corrupted with false notions should fall in entirely with the councils of philosophers,-which he himself found to be true in the person of Dionysius.64

"Do not you think that if I were about any king, and were proposing good laws to him, and endeavouring to root out of him all the cursed seeds of evil that I found in him, I should either be turned out of his court, or, at least, be laughed at for my

63 See his treatise De Rep. V. §. 18. t. I. p. 389. VI. §. 18. t. II. p. 56. Edit. Stallbaum, where the learned editor quotes the defence of this celebrated paradox by Morgernstern. De Rep. Plat. 203-213. And a criticism on it by Muretus, Opp. t. I. p. 66. edit. Runkh.

65 Who, because the philosopher desired to relieve him of his ignorance, sold him for a slave! Diog. Laert. III. §. 14. p. 74. edit Ménage.