Page:The Life of Sir Thomas More (William Roper, ed by Samuel Singer).djvu/102

 forsaking it, said; that like as it was no small comfort unto him that so wise and learned men so well accepted his simple doings, for which he never intended to receive reward but at-the hands of God only, to whom alone was the thank thereof chiefly to be ascribed: so gave he most humble thanks unto their honours all for their so bountiful and friendly consideration. When they, for all their importunate pressing upon him (that fewe would have wente he could have refused) could by no means make him to take it, then besought they him to be content yet that they might bestow it on his wife and children. Not so, my lords, quoth he, I had liever see it cast into the Thames than either I or any of mine should have thereof the worth of a penny. For though your offer, my lords, be indeed very friendly and honourable, yet set 1 so much by my pleasure, and so little by my profit, that IT would not, in good faith have lost the rest of so many a night's sleep as was spent upon the same, for much more than your liberal offer. And yet wish would I for all that, upon condition that all heresies were suppressed, that all my books were burned, and my labour utterly lost. Thus departing were they: fain to restore unto every man his own again.

This Lord Chancellor, albeit he was to God and the world well known to be of notable virtue, though not so of every man considered, yet, for