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recommended him to the notice of the powerful Wolsey, and in a very brief space he was made a member of the Privy Council, received distinguished legal preferment, and was at last advanced to the dignity of Lord Chancellor, being the first layman on whom that important office was conferred. But his conscientious adherence to the old faith, and his honest opposition to Henry's proposed marriage, lost him the royal favour, and the ferocious monarch, who never forgave any who dared to oppose his will, brought More to the block, July 6, 1535. He was one of the most eminent characters of the reign of Henry VIII., alike for virtue, talents, and learning; and his amiable disposition and unhappy fate have secured for him the esteem of all succeeding ages. His works were principally controversial; but he also wrote a History of England during the reigns of Edward V. and Richard III., and his "History of Utopia," a political work, intended to suggest improvements on the government of England by a narrative of the laws and customs of an imaginary country, so governed as to secure universal happiness. It was written in Latin, but has been often translated. The following extracts are from a revised edition of Bishop Burnet's translation :

1. DESCRIPTION OF UTOPIA.— ("HISTORY OF UTOPIA," BOOK II.)

The island of Utopia is in the middle two hundred miles broad, and holds almost the same breadth over a great part of it; but it grows narrower towards both ends. Its figure is not unlike a crescent between its horns, the sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads itself into a great bay, which is environed with land to the compass of about five hundred miles, and is well secured from winds. In this bay there is no great current; the whole coast is, as it were, one continued harbour, which gives all that live in the island great convenience for mutual commerce; but the entrance into the bay, occasioned by rocks on the one hand, and shallows on the other, is very dangerous. In the middle of it there is one single rock, which appears above water, and may therefore easily be avoided, and on the top of it there is a tower in which a garrison is kept; the other rocks lie under water, and are very dangerous. The channel is known only to the natives, so that if any stranger should enter into the bay without one of their pilots, he would run great danger of shipwreck. For even they themselves could not pass it safe, if some marks that are on the coast did not direct their way; and if these should but be a little shifted, any fleet that might come against them, how great soever it were, would be certainly lost. On the other side of the island, there are likewise many harbours; and the coast is so fortified, both by nature and art, that a small number of men can hinder the descent of a great army. But they report (and there remain good marks of it to make it credible) that this was no island at first, but a part of the continent. Utopus, that conquered it (whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was its first name), brought the rude and uncivilized inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness, that they now far excell all the

rest of mankind; having soon subdued them, he designed to serarate them from the continent, and to bring the sea quite round them. To accomplish this, he ordered a deep channel to be dug fifteen miles long; and that the natives might not think he treated them like slaves, he not only forced the inhabitants, but also his own soldiers, to labour in carrying it on. As he set a vast number of men to work, beyond all men's expectations he brought it to a speedy conclusion; and his neighbours, who at first laughed at the folly of the undertaking, no sooner saw it brought to perfection, than they were struck with admiration and terror.

There are fifty-four cities in the island, all large and well-built, the manners, customs, and laws of which are the same; and they are all contrived as near in the same manner as the ground on which they stand will allow. The nearest lie at least twenty-four miles distance from one another, and the more remote are not so far distant but that a man can go on foot in one day from it to that which lies next it. Every city sends three of their wisest senators once a-year to Amaurot, to consult about the common concerns; for that is the chief town of the island, and being situated near the centre of it, it is the most convenient place for their assemblies. The jurisdiction of every city extends at least twenty miles; and where the towns lie wider they have much more ground. No_town_desires to enlarge its bounds; for the people consider themselves rather as tenants than landlords. They have built over all the country farmhouses for husbandmen, which are well contrived, and are furnished with all things necessary for country labour. Inhabitants are sent by turns from the cities to dwell in them; no country family has fewer than forty men and women in it, besides two slaves. There is a master and a mistress set over every family; and over thirty families there is a magistrate. Every year twenty of this family come back to the town, after they have stayed two years in the country; and in their room there are other twenty sent from the town, that they may learn country work from those that have been already one year in the country, as they must teach those that come to them next from the town. By this means such as dwell in those country farms are never ignorant of agriculture, and so commit no errors, which might otherwise be fatal, and bring them under a scarcity of corn. But though there is every year such a shifting of the husbandmen, to prevent any man being forced against his will to follow that hard course of life too long, yet many among them take such pleasure in it that they desire leave to continue in it many years. These husbandmen till the ground, breed cattle, hew wood, and convey it to the towns, either by land or water, as is most convenient. They breed an infinite multitude of chickens in a very curious manner; for the hens do not sit and hatch them, but vast numbers of eggs are laid in a gentle and equal heat, in order to be hatched; and they are no sooner out of the shell, and able to stir about, but they seem to consider those that feed them as their mothers, and follow them as other chickens do the hen that hatched

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them. They breed very few horses, but those they have are full of mettle, and are kept only for exercising their youth in the art of sitting and riding them; for they do not put them to any work, either of plowing or carriage, in which they employ oxen: because, though their horses are stronger, yet they find oxen can hold out longer; and as they are not subject to so many diseases, so they are kept upon a less charge, and with less trouble; and even when they are so worn out that they are no more fit for labour, they are good meat at last. They sow no corn, but that which is to be their bread; for they drink either wine, cyder, or perry, and often water, now and then boiled with honey or liquorice, with which they abound; and though they know exactly how much corn will serve every town, and all that tract of country which belongs to it, yet they sow much more, and breed more cattle than are necessary for their consumption; giving that overplus, of which they make no use, to their neighbours. When they want anything in the country which it does not produce, they fetch that from the town, without carrying anything in exchange for it; and the magistrates of the town take care to see it given them; for they meet generally in the town once a-month, upon a festival day. When the time of harvest comes, the magistrates in the country send to those in the towns, letting them know how many hands they shall need for reaping the harvest; and the number they call for being sent to them, they commonly despatch it all in one day.

2. OCCUPATIONS OF THE UTOPIANS.-("UTOPIA," BOOK II.)

The chief, and almost the only, business of the Syphogrants1 is to take care that no man may live idle, but that every one may follow his trade diligently; yet they do not wear themselves out with perpetual toil from morning to night, as if they were beasts of burden, which, as it is indeed a heavy slavery, so it is everywhere the common course of life amongst all mechanics except the Utopians; but they, dividing the day and night into twenty-four hours, appoint six of these for work, three of which are before dinner and three after; they then sup, and at eight o'clock, counting from noon, go to bed and sleep eight hours. The rest of their time, besides that taken up in work, eating, and sleeping, is left to every man's discretion; yet they are not to abuse that interval to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise according to their various inclinations, which is for the most part reading. It is ordinary to have public lectures every morning before day-break, at which none are obliged to appear, but those who are marked out for literature; yet a great many, both men and women of all ranks, go to hear lectures of one sort or other, according to their inclinations. But if others, that are not made for contemplation, choose rather to employ themselves at that time in their trades, as many

1 The name of a magistrate in Utopia; there were two hundred Syphogrants in each town, presiding each over thirty families.

of them do, they are not hindered, but are rather commended as men that take care to serve their country. After supper they spend an hour in some diversion, in summer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls where they eat, when they entertain each other either with musick or discourse. They do not so much as know dice, or any such foolish and mischievous games. They have, however, two sorts of games not unlike our chess; the one is between several numbers, in which one number, as it were, consumes another; the other resembles a battle between the virtues and the vices, in which the enmity in the vices among themselves, and their agreement against virtue, is not unpleasantly represented; together with the special oppositions between the particular virtues and vices; as also the methods by which vice either openly assaults or secretly undermines virtue, and virtue on the other hand resists it. But the time appointed for labour is to be narrowly examined, otherwise you may imagine, that since there are only six hours appointed for work, they may fall under a scarcity of necessary provisions. But it is so far from being true that this time is not sufficient for supplying them with plenty of all things, either necessary or convenient, that it is rather too much; and this you will easily apprehend if you consider how great a part of all other nations is quite idle. First, women generally do little, who are the half of mankind, and if some few women are diligent, their husbands are idle; then consider the great company of idle priests, and of those that are called religious men; add to these all rich men, chiefly those that have estates in land, who are called noblemen and gentlemen, together with their families, made up of idle persons that are kept more for show than use; add, further, all those strong and lusty beggars that go about pretending some disease in excuse for their begging; and upon the whole account you will find that the number of those by whose labours mankind is supplied is much less than you perhaps imagine; then consider how few of those that work are employed in labours that are of real service, for we, who measure all things by money, give rise to many trades that are both vain and superfluous, and serve only to support riot and luxury.

Thus from the great numbers among the Utopians that are neither suffered to be idle nor to be employed in any fruitless labour, you may easily make the estimate how much may be done in those few hours in which they are obliged to labour. But besides all that has been already said, it is to be considered that the needful arts among them are managed with less labour than anywhere else. The building or the repairing of houses among us employ many hands, because often a thriftless heir suffers a house that his father built to fall into decay, so that his successor must, at a great cost, repair that which he might have kept up with a small charge. It frequently happens, too, that the same house which one person built at a vast expense is neglected by another, who thinks he has a more delicate sense of the beauties of architecture, and, suffering it to fall to ruin, he builds another at no less charge. But among the Uto

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pians all things are so regulated that men very seldom build upon a new piece of ground; and are not only very quick in repairing their houses, but show their foresight in preventing their decay, so that their buildings are preserved very long with but little labour; and thus the builders, to whom that care belongs, are often without employment, except the hewing of timber and the squaring of stones, that the materials may be in readiness for raising a building very suddenly, when there is any occasion for it. As to their clothes, observe how little work is spent in them. While they are at labour they are clothed with leather and skins, cast carelessly about them, which will last seven years; and when they appear in public they put on an upper garment which hides the other; and these are all of one colour, which is the natural colour of the wool. As they need less woollen cloth than is used anywhere else, so that which they make use of is much less costly. They use linen cloth more, but that is prepared with less labour, and they value cloth only by the whiteness of the linen, or the cleanness of the wool, without much regard to the fineness of the thread. While in other places, four or five upper garments of woollen cloth of different colours, and as many vests of silk, will scarce serve one man, and while those that are nicer think ten too few, every man there is content with one, which very often serves him two years. Nor is there anything that can tempt a man to desire more, for if he had them he would neither be the warmer, nor would he make one jot the better appearance for it. Thus, since they are all employed in some useful labour, and since they content themselves with fewer things, it falls out that there is a great abundance of all things among them; so that it frequently happens, that for want of other work, vast numbers are sent out to mend the highways. But when no public undertaking is to be performed, the hours of working are lessened. The magistrates never engage the people in unnecessary labour; since the chief end of the constitution is to regulate labour by the necessities of the public, and to allow all the people as much time as is necessary for the improvement of their minds, in which they think the happiness of life consists.

3. GENERAL VIEW OF THE HAPPINESS OF THE UTOPIANS.—

("UTOPIA," BOOK II.)

Thus have I described to you, as particularly as I could, the constitution of that commonwealth, which I do not only think the best in the world, but indeed the only commonwealth that truly deserves that name. In all other places it is visible, that while people talk of a commonwealth, every man only seeks his own wealth; but there, where no man has any property, all men zealously pursue the good of the public. And, indeed, it is no wonder to see men act so differently; for in other commonwealths every man knows, that unless he provides for himself, how flourishing soever the commonwealth may be, he must die of hunger; so that he sees the necessity of