Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/446

Rh in 1572, bestowed on More the honour of public veneration in the English College at Rome. On 9 Dec. 1886 he was beatified by Pope Leo XIII. Various relics of More are religiously preserved at Stonyhurst College. They include his hat, silver seal, George, gold cross, and other articles. His hair shirt is said to be the property of the Augustinian canonesses of Abbot's Leigh, near Newton Abbot; and a cup once used by him is stated to belong to Monsignor Eyston of East Hendred, Berkshire. A statue was placed in 1889 over a doorway of a corner house in Carey Street, Chancery Lane, by George Arnold, esq., of Milton Hall, Gravesend, and a passage leading from Carey Street to New Square was christened More's Passage at the same time.

With his stern devotion to principle, his overmastering religious fervour, and his invincible courage, More combined an imperturbable cheerfulness which enabled him to detect a humorous element in the most unpromising situations. According to his friend Erasmus (Epist. 447, to Ulrich von Hutten, 1519), he was a second Democritus, always full of gaiety, excelling in witty repartees, and conversing with ease with men in every rank of life. The chronicler Hall complains that he could never make the most ordinary communication without importing ‘some mocke’ into it, and condemns as ‘absurd’ his ‘idle jests’ on the scaffold. Cresacre More says that his witty sayings and merry jests would fill a volume. His indulgences were few. He drank little wine; neither expensive food nor dress attracted him, and he wore his gown so loosely on his shoulders as to give him at times an appearance of deformity. The careless habit was, according to Ascham, imitated by a foolish admirer (Scholemaster, ed. Mayor, p. 180). He disliked all ceremony or ostentatious luxury in private life (cf. Supplication of Souls), and abhorred games of tennis, dice, or cards. At Chelsea he lived in a homely patriarchal fashion (ib. p. 426), ‘surrounded by his numerous family, including his wife, his son and his son's wife, his three daughters and their husbands, with eleven grandchildren.’ There also resided with him a learned young kinswoman, Margaret Giggs, who married John Clements [q. v.]; and before he was chancellor he delighted in the society of his fool, Henry Pates or Pattenson, who, when he retired from office, obtained a place in the lord mayor's household. John Harris, his secretary, he also highly valued. ‘There is not,’ Erasmus asserted, ‘any man living so affectionate to his children as he, and he loveth his old wife as if she were a girl of fifteen.’ Very charitable to his poor neighbours and a kindly master to his servants, he was a charming host to congenial friends. Much of his leisure was devoted to the education of his household. ‘Plato's academy was revived again; only whereas in the academy the discussions turned upon geometry and the power of number, the house at Chelsea is a veritable school of the Christian religion. In it is none, man or woman, but readeth or studieth the liberal arts. Yet is their chief care of piety. There is never any seen idle. The head of the house governs it, not by lofty carriage and frequent rebukes, but by gentleness and amiable manners. Every member is busy in his place, performing his duty with alacrity, nor is sober mirth wanting.’ Elsewhere Erasmus relates that Livy was the chief author recommended by More to his children to read (Epist. 605).

More was fond of animals, even of foxes, weasels, and monkeys, and had an aviary at Chelsea. A chained monkey is represented as playing at the side of his wife in Holbein's authentic picture of the family; he gave his friend Budæus two valuable dogs, apparently greyhounds, and wrote Latin epigrams on a cat playing with a mouse, and a spider and a fly.

More built his house at Chelsea at the north end of what is now Beaufort Row. A spacious garden and orchard, to which he devoted much attention, were attached, and at some distance from the dwelling he set up ‘The New Building,’ which contained a chapel, library, and gallery, to be used ‘for devotion, study, or retirement.’ The property seems to have been granted by Henry VIII to Sir William Paulet on 4 April 1537 (Pat.Rot.28Hen.VIII), and was known as ‘The Great More House.’ It was successively the residence of John Paulet, second marquis of Winchester; of Margaret, baroness Dacres; of Henry, earl of Lincoln; of Sir Arthur Gorges; of Lionel, earl of Middlesex, in 1629; of the Duke of Buckingham; of William Plummer, a citizen of London; and of the Earl of Bristol, from whose heirs it ultimately passed to the Duke of Beaufort. The latter rechristened it Beaufort House. It was sold to Sir Hans Sloane in 1738, and pulled down in 1740 (, Environs). A print by L. Knyff, dated 1699, is reproduced in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1829, i. 497, and in Faulkner's ‘Chelsea.’ Some fragments of walls and windows at the south end of the Moravian burial-ground are said to be parts of the original building (Gent. Mag. 1833, ii. 482). More's house has been at times wrongly identified with Danvers House, built by Sir