Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/448

Rh  it came through the Roper family. It differs in some details notably, the introduction of John Harris, More's secretary—from the Basle sketch. A somewhat similar family group, painted by Rowland Lockey [q. v.] in 1593, included many later descendants; it formerly belonged to the Lenthall family of Burford Priory, was sold after 1829, and is now at Cockthorpe Park, Ducklington, near Witney, the property of Mrs. Strickland. It has been engraved by Lodge. A third copy, resembling that at Nostell, belongs to C. J. Eyston, esq., of East Hendred, Berkshire, and was at one time at Barnborough, the seat of the chancellor's son, John More, and his descendants.

Quintin Matsys, the painter of Antwerp, was also known to More. At More's desire he painted a portrait of Ægidius, who bears in his hand a letter from More, in which the latter's handwriting is exactly reproduced. More described this picture in both prose and verse (, Epist. 287, 384, 1615, 1631, 1634). It is at Longford Castle; a portrait of Erasmus, probably painted on the same panel, has been detached from it, and has disappeared. Engravings of More appear in the 1573 edition of the ‘Dialogue of Comfort,’ and in Stapleton's ‘Tres Thomæ’ (1588). One by Anton Wierx is reproduced in Holland's ‘Herωologia;’ another, attributed to P. Galle, resembles that in Boissard's ‘Bibliotheca’ (1597-1628). Elstracke and Marshall, in More's ‘Epigrams’ (1638) and Houbraken in Birch's ‘Heads’ (1741) have also engraved portraits after Holbein.

More was an omnivorous reader. All the chief classical authors were at his command. Plato, Lucian, and the Greek anthology specially appealed to him; and of Latin writers he most frequently quoted Plautus, Terence, Horace, and Seneca. St. Augustine's works were often in his hands, and he had studied deeply the canon law and the ‘Magister Sententiarum;’ but it is doubtful if he were well versed in either scholastic or patristic literature. Of the works of contemporaries he laughed over Sebastian Brandt's ‘Narrenschiff’ (epigram in Brixium), and had derived the fullest satisfaction from the writings of such champions of the new learning as Pico della Mirandola and his friends Erasmus and Budseus. Erasmus's Latin version of the New Testament he studied with unalloyed admiration. His own contributions to literature, apart from the ‘Utopia,’ are of greater historic than æsthetic value. His best English poem, ‘A Pageant of Life,’ written to illustrate some tapestry in his father's house, is serious in thought and forcible in expression, but is not informed by genuine poetic genius. His Latin verse and prose are scholarly and fluent, and, although in the epigrams a coarse jest often does duty for point, they embody much shrewd satire on the follies and vices of mankind. His English prose in his controversial tracts is simple and direct: he delights in well-contested argument thrown into the form of a dialogue, and he is fertile in unexpected illustration and witty anecdote. He quotes his opponent's views with great verbal accuracy, but repeatedly descends to personal abuse, which appears childish to the modern reader. His devotional works, although often rising to passages of fervid eloquence, are mainly noticeable for their sincerity and inordinate length. For two centuries More was regarded in catholic Europe as one of the glories of English literature. In 1663 Cominges, the French ambassador at Charles Il's court, when invited by his master to enumerate eminent English authors, recognised only three as worthy of mention, More and two others Bacon and Buchanan (, French Ambassador, p. 205).

More's ‘Utopia’—his greatest literary effort—was written in Latin, and, unlike his controversial tracts, which he wrote in English, was addressed to the learned world. It is in two books—the second composed while on his first embassy to the Low Countries in 1515, the first after his return to London in 1516. In the first book More relates that while at Antwerp he had been introduced by Erasmus's friend, Peter Giles, to a Portuguese mariner, Raphael Hythlodaye, who had made several voyages with Amerigo Vespucci to the New World. The man, who is a wholly fictitious personage, informs More that on the last voyage he was, at his own wish, left behind near Cape Frio, and had thence made his way to the island of Utopia, where he found in operation an ideal constitution. The word ‘Utopia’ is formed from ού and τόπος, and is rendered in More's and most of his friends' Latin correspondence by ‘Nusquama,’ i.e. nowhere, while Budæus playfully paraphrases it as ‘Udepotia,’ from ούδέποτε, and Sir Walter Scott translated it by ‘Kennaquhair.’ The supposition that it is derived from εύ τόπος—‘a place of felicity’ has nothing to support it (cf. Notes and Queries, 7th ser. v. 101, 229, 371). To More's question whether Raphael had visited England, he replies that he had spent some time there, and reports at length a conversation which he had with Cardinal Morton respecting its social defects. He found, he declares, the labouring classes in the direst poverty, owing to the severity of the criminal law, the substitution of pasture for arable