an imaginary
commonwealth, in which everybody was good and everybody happy. Purely
fanciful as is his Utopia, and impossible of realization as he knew it to
be while men are what they are, and not what they ought to be, it is
manifestly a satire on that age, for his republic shunned English errors,
and practised social virtues which were not the rule in England.

Although More wrote against Luther, and opposed Henry's Church
innovations, we are struck with his Utopian claim for great freedom of
inquiry on all subjects, even religion; and the bold assertion that no man
should be punished for his religion, because "a man cannot make himself
believe anything he pleases," as Henry's six bloody articles so fearfully
asserted he must. The Utopia was written in Latin, but soon translated
into English. We use the adjective _utopian_ as meaning wildly fanciful
and impossible: its true meaning is of high excellence, to be striven
for--in a word, human perfection.

OTHER WORKS.--More also wrote, in most excellent English prose, a history
of the princes, Edward V. and his brother Richard of York, who were
murdered in the Tower; and a history of their murderer and uncle, Richard
III. This Richard--and we need not doubt his accuracy of statement, for he
was born five years before Richard fell at Bosworth--is the short,
deformed youth, with his left shoulder higher than the right; crafty,
stony-hearted, and cruel, so strikingly presented by Shakspeare, who takes
More as his authority. "Not letting (sparing) to kiss whom he thought to
kill ... friend and foe was indifferent where his advantage grew; he
spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose. He slew, with his
own hands, King Henry VI., being a prisoner in the Tower."

With the honorable name of More we leave this unproductive period, in
which there was no great growth of any kind, but which was the
planting-time, when seeds were sown that were soon to germinate and bloom
and astonish the world. The times remind us of the dark saying in the
Bible, "Out of the eater came forth meat; out of the strong came
sweetness."

The art of printing had so increased the number of books, that public
libraries began to be collected, and, what is better, to be used. The
universities enlarged their borders, new colleges were added to Cambridge
and Oxford; new foundations laid. The note of preparation betokened a
great advent; the scene was fully prepared, and the actors would not be