at court. Persons of good condition were consequently eager to place their sons in the families of the great, as the surest road to fortune. In this station, it was not accounted degrading to submit even to menial offices; while the greatest barons of the realm were proud to officiate as stewards, cup-bearers, carvers to the monarch, a youth of good family could wait at table, or carry the train of a man of high condition, without any loss of dignity." More. soon attracted particular notice among the cardinal's retinue, and was pointed out by him to the nobility who frequented his house, as a boy of extraordinary promise. "This child here waiting at table," he would say, "whosoever shall live to see it, will prove a marvellous man.” Listening daily to the conversation, and observing the conduct of such a personage, More naturally acquired more extensive views of men and things than any other course of education could, in that backward age, have supplied. At the age of seventeen, More was sent by his patron to Oxford, where a better taste in literature had lately been introduced, and he had there the advantage of attending the lectures on Greek and Latin. More subsequently became lord high chancellor, though he ultimately fell a victim to his conscientious refusal to sanction the wicked license of his sovereign Henry VIII. More wrote several learned works, and was not only a zealous cultivator, but a liberal patron of * Life of More, by Macdiarmid.

literature. He was twice married, his first wife being carefully instructed in literature, in music, in whatever seemed necessary to improve or adorn her mind; thus, she became a woman in whose society More might have spent the remainder of his days with delight. In the intervals of business, the education of his children formed his greatest pleasure. But it was in the accomplishments of his daughters that More found the most gratifying reward of his cares. His opinions respecting female education differed very widely from what the comparative rudeness of the age might have led us to expect. By nothing he justly thought is female virtue so much endangered as by idleness, and the necessity of amusement; nor against these is there any safeguard so effectual as an attachment to literature. Some security is indeed afforded by a diligent application to various sorts of female employments; yet these, while they employ the hands, give only partial occupation to the mind. But well chosen books at once engage the thoughts, refine the taste, strengthen the understanding, and confirm the morals. Female virtue, informed by the knowledge which they impart, is placed on the most secure foundations, while all the milder affections of the heart, partaking in the improvement of the taste and fancy, are refined and matured. More was no convert to the notion, that the possession of knowledge renders women less pliant; nothing, in his opinion, was so untractable as ignorance. Although to manage with

skill the feeding and clothing of a family be an essential portion in the duties of a wife and a mother; yet to secure the affections of a husband, he judged it no less indispensable to possess the qualities of an intelligent and agreeable companion. Nor ought a husband, if he regards his own happiness, to turn aside from repairing the usual defects of female education. Never can he hope to be so truly beloved, esteemed, and respected, as when his wife confides in him, as her friend, and looks up to him as her instructor. Such were the opinions, with regard to female education, which More maintained in discourse, and supported by practice. His daughters, rendered proficients in music, and other elegant accomplishments proper for their sex, were also instructed in Latin, in which language they read, wrote, and conversed with the facility and correctness of their father. The results of this assiduous attention soon became conspicuous, and the school of More, as it was termed, attracted general admiration. In the meantime their stepmother, a notable economist, by distributing tasks, of which she required a punctual performance, took care that they should not remain unacquainted with female works, and with the internal management of a family. For all these purposes, which together appear so far beyond the ordinary industry of women, their time was found amply sufficient, because no part of it was wasted in idleness or trifling amusements.

More's family lived in a house which he had

built at Chelsea, on a large scale, but with more attention to comfort than splendour. It was surrounded with gardens extending to the Thames, and in adorning these, a work which he himself superintended, he found incessant employment for that train of servants, whom the custom of the age obliged persons of his rank to maintain. His collection of rare birds, quadrupeds, and other natural curiosities, afforded him another source of constant occupation. If any of his servants discovered a taste for reading, or an ear for music, he allowed them to cultivate their favourite pursuit. To preclude all improper conversation before children and servants at table, a domestic was accustomed to read aloud certain passages, so selected as to amuse at the time, and to afford matter for much entertaining conversation*.

*More, after saying that he devotes nearly the whole of the day abroad to others, and the remainder to his family at home, says: "I have for myself, that is for literature, no time at all. For, when I return home, I must needs converse with my wife, trifle with my children, talk with my servants. All these I account matters of business, since they cannot be avoided, unless a man should choose to be a stranger in his own family. It is, besides, as indispensable to our happiness, as to our duty, to render ourselves, by every means in our power, agreeable to those whom either nature, or chance, or choice, have rendered the companions of our lives."The breaking up of More's establishment at Chelsea is circumstantially related. Upon his resigning the office of Lord Chancellor, he found that his yearly income would not exceed one hundred pounds, while the payment of his debts almost exhausted his money and valuable effects. His son-in-law informs us that after this,

Margaret Roper, the first-born of More's children, was as celebrated for her learning as beloved for her tender affection to her father in his hour of suffering. Erasmus called her the ornament of Britain, and the flower of the learned matrons of England, at a time when education consisted only of the revived study of ancient learning. She composed a beautiful account of her father's martyrdom.

The amiable character of Sir Thomas More has, in some degree, led us from our main subject, though most of his history that we have selected, is connected with the learning of the time in which he lived: at all events, the school' of More is too important to be lightly passed over, especially as he is described by historians as the first Englishman who signalised himself the whole of More's property, in gold and silver, (paper obligations were not then known,) did not, with the exception of his gold chain, the appendage of his rank, exceed the value of one hundred pounds. More dismissed his whole train of retainers and state servants; but with that affectionate concern which overlooked no one around him, he procured for them all, suitable appointments in families of distinction. He gave his great barge to Sir Thomas Audley, his successor in the chancellorship, with whom he placed his eight watermen; and his fool, or jester, the distinguishing appendage of high rank in those days, he presented to the Lord Mayor of London, and his successors in office.-Erasmus, speaking of More's charitable disposition, says: 66 You might call him the benefactor of all the needy." In the neighbourhood of his residence at Chelsea, he erected a house for aged people, who were maintained at his expense; and it was the province of his favourite daughter, Margaret, to superintend this establishment, and see all the wants of its feeble inmates duly relieved.