Sir Thomas More, who died upon
a point of religion, and is respected as a martyr by that side for which
he suffered." What was pious philosophy in this extraordinary man, might
seem frenzy in any one who does not resemble him as well in the
cheerfulness of his temper as in the sanctity of his life and manners.

Oh, that some such man as he were to sit upon our woolsack now; what
would the world think, if when the mighty oracle commanded the next
cause to come on, the reply should be, "_Please your good lordship,
there is no other!_" Well might the smart epigrammatist write:

When MORE some time had chancellor been,
No MORE suits did remain;
The same shall never MORE be seen,
Till MORE be there again!

We mused over the history of his time until we slept, and dreamed: and
first in our dream we saw a fair meadow, and it was sprinkled over with
white daisies, and a bull was feeding therein; and as we looked upon him
he grew fatter and fatter, and roared in the wantonness of power and
strength, so that the earth trembled; and he plucked the branches off
the trees, and trampled on the ancient inclosures of the meadow, and as
he stormed, and bellowed, and destroyed, the daisies became human heads,
and the creature flung them about, and warmed his hoofs in the hot blood
that flowed from them and we grew sick and sorry at heart, and thought,
is there no one to slay the destroyer? And when we looked again, the
Eighth Harry was alone in the meadow; and, while many heads were lying
upon the grass, some kept perpetually bowing before him, while others
sung his praises as wise, just, and merciful. Then we heard a trumpet
ringing its scarlet music through the air, and we stood in the old
tilt-yard at Whitehall, and the pompous Wolsey, the bloated king, the
still living Holbein, the picturesque Surrey, the Aragonian Catharine,
the gentle Jane, the butterfly Anne Bullen, the coarse-seeming but
wise-thinking Ann of Cleves the precise Catherine Howard, and the stout
hearted Catherine Parr, passed us so closely by, that we could have
touched their garments; then a bowing troop of court gallants came on;
others whose names and actions you may read of in history; and then the
hero of our thoughts, Sir Thomas More--well dressed, for it was a time
of pageants--was talking somewhat apart to his pale-faced friend
Erasmus, while "Son Roper," as the chancellor loved to call his
son-in-law, stood watchfully and respectfully