94 THE BIBLE OF THE REFORMATION

academy ; but I do the house injury by comparing it to
that, where there were only disputations of numbers, and
geometrical figures, and moral virtues. I should rather
call his house a School or University of Christian Keligion,
for there is none therein but readeth or studieth the
liberal sciences ; their special care is piety and virtue ;
there is no quarrelling or intemperate words heard ; none
seen idle ; which household discipline that worthy gentle-
man doth not govern by proud and haughty words, but
with all kind and courteous favour. Everybody per-
formeth his duty, yet there is always alacrity ; neither is
sober mirth anything wanting."

But what Shakespeare says of another, may be applied
both to More and his royal master :

" For sweetest things turn sourest by tlieir deeds ;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."

No doubt he became alarmed and indignant at some of
the excesses of the Eeformation party, which, however,
were almost to be expected. He never thought that his
Utopia would furnish texts for excited agitators on
village greens or in the public houses of German towns,
and was horrified at the Peasants' War.*

One cannot but mourn deeply over such a man, how-
ever, and see in him the natural effect of mediajval
Popery. Christopher Anderson says : " Utopia was the
blossom of his youth, but there had been little congenial
moisture within him, and so it dropped off. His tedious
controversial writings were the fruit of his mature age,
and they remain, to any who ever look at them, the sad-
dest memorial of his falling into the yellow leaf."

Foxe says that he was called to the works of a layman, and
" if he had kept himself within his own shop, and applied
the faculty whereunto he was called, and had not over-
reached himself to prove masteries in such matters wherein
he had little skill, less experience, and which pertained not
to his profession, he had deserved not only much more com-
mendation, but also a longer life." He goes much further

* Cambridge History of Literature.
