ur manner of life passed among us--your holy
conversation--your wholesome counsels--your examples of virtue, of which
there is hope that they do not only persevere with you, but that they
are, by God's grace, much more increased."

After the endurance of fifteen months' imprisonment, he was arraigned,
tried, and found guilty of denying the king's supremacy.

Alack! is there no painter of English history bold enough to immortalize
himself by painting this trial? Sir Thomas More was beheaded on Tower
Hill, in the bright sunshine of the month of July, on its fifth day,
1535, the king remitting the disgusting quartering of the quivering
flesh, because of his "high office." When told of the king's "mercy,"
"Now, God forbid," he said, "the king should use anymore such to any of
my friends; and God bless all my posterity from such pardons."

One man of all the crowd who wept at his death, reproached him with a
decision he had given in Chancery. More, nothing discomposed, replied,
that if it were still to do, he would give the same decision. This
happened twelve months before. And, while the last scene was enacting on
Tower-Hill, the king, who had walked in this very garden with his arm
round the neck, which, by his command, the ax had severed, was playing
at Tables in Whitehall, Queen Anne Bullen looking on; and when told that
Sir Thomas More was dead, casting his eyes upon the pretty fool that had
glittered in his pageants, he said, "Thou art the cause of this man's
death." The COWARD! to seek to turn upon a thing so weak as that, the
heavy sin which clung to his own soul!

[Illustration: TOMB.]

Some say the body lies in Chelsea Church, beneath the tomb we have
sketched--the epitaph having been written by himself before he
anticipated the manner of his death.[3] It is too long to insert; but
the lines at the conclusion are very like the man. The epitaph and
poetry are in Latin: we give the translation:

"For Alice and for Thomas More's remains
Prepared, this tomb Johanna's form contains
One, married young; with mutual ardor blest,
A boy and three fair girls our joy confest.
The other (no small praise) of these appear'd
As fond as if by her own pangs endeared.
One lived with me, one lives in such sweet strife,
Slight preference could I give to either wife.
Oh! had it met Heaven's sanction and decree,
One hallowed bond might have united three;
Yet still be ours one grave, on