Page:The Life of Sir Thomas More (William Roper, ed by Samuel Singer).djvu/28

 Erasmus, tho' a very great admirer of Sir Thomas, and one who loved him so well as to seem to himself to have died with him, yet observes of him that his aspect was somewhat ludicrous and tending to the smile, and more apposite to pleasantry and jesting than either to gravity or dignity. This he imputes to Sir Thomas's being from a child, so delighted with jesting that he seem'd to be even born for it. But then he adds that he never degenerated into scurrility, and that he did not love an ill-natured jest, that put another to pain. Sir Thomas himself observes that it was reckoned a blemish in his writings against the Protestants, that he mix'd with the most serious matters fancies and sports and merry tales. But in this he thought himself justified by the authority of the Roman poet Horace, who, Sir Thomas observes, sayeth, A man maye sometime saye ful soth in a gameridentem dicere verum quis vetat?

The same great man tells us that Sir Thomas seem'd to be rather superstitious than irreligious: tho' else where he observes of him that he was the farthest possible from all superstition. But how far from being exact this latter judgment of him is, let the following history of his life be an evidence.