lough, when the weaver
shall hum them to the tune of his shuttle, when the traveller shall while
away with their stories the weariness of his journey." From the moment of
its publication in 1516 the New Testament of Erasmus became the topic of
the day; the Court, the Universities, every household to which the New
Learning had penetrated, read and discussed it. But, bold as its language
may have seemed, Warham not only expressed his approbation, but lent the
work--as he wrote to its author--"to bishop after bishop." The most
influential of his suffragans, Bishop Fox of Winchester, declared that the
mere version was worth ten commentaries, one of the most learned, Fisher
of Rochester, entertained Erasmus at his house.

[Sidenote: More]

Daring and full of promise as were these efforts of the New Learning in
the direction of educational and religious reform, its political and
social speculations took a far wider range in the "Utopia" of Thomas More.
Even in the household of Cardinal Morton, where he had spent his
childhood, More's precocious ability had raised the highest hopes.
"Whoever may live to see it," the grey-haired statesman used to say, "this
boy now waiting at table will turn out a marvellous man." We have seen the
spell which his wonderful learning and the sweetness of his temper threw
at Oxford over Colet and Erasmus; and young as he was, More no sooner
quitted the University than he was known throughout Europe as one of the
foremost figures in the new movement. The keen, irregular face, the grey
restless eye, the thin mobile lips, the tumbled brown hair, the careless
gait and dress, as they remain stamped on the canvas of Holbein, picture
the inner soul of the man, his vivacity, his restless, all-devouring
intellect, his keen and even reckless wit, the kindly, half-sad humour
that drew its strange veil of laughter and tears over the deep, tender
reverence of the soul within. In a higher, because in a sweeter and more
loveable form than Colet, More is the representative of the religious
tendency of the New Learning in England. The young law-student who laughed
at the superstition and asceticism of the monks of his day wore a hair
shirt next his skin, and schooled himself by penances for the cell he
desired among the Carthusians. It was characteristic of the man that among
all the gay, profligate scholars of the Italian Renascence he chose as the
object of his admiration the disciple of Savonarola, Pico di Mi