XXXIV. It would affect me much, if, because I proceed to take off the
mufflings and coverings of vice, the world should think me one of those
suspicious geniuses, who will not give any person credit for acting
from good motives, and who am always endeavouring to put sinister
interpretations on the causes of other peoples conduct. Those who
are intimate with me, well know, that my spirit is not diseased with
that truly malignant malady; and some have remarked in me a contrary
defect, to wit, that of too benevolent and charitable a criticism on
the behaviour of other men. Perhaps the experience of the deceits and
impositions that have been put upon me, from my easiness in crediting
the appearances of virtue, have made these few reflections more
obvious to me; which nevertheless, shall always rest with me in mere
theory; for I am persuaded that in the practice, my natural genius,
and disposition would ever prevail over them, as also my remembrance,
that in the moral, it is better to err through compassion, than to
do right from motives of spite and envy. I would wish to conduct my
pen so delicately, that it should wound hypocrisy, without offending
charity; and I would expose the artifices of hypocrites in such a way,
as should not alarm or disturb the quiet of the innocent and simple.
XXXV. I will also acknowledge, that as time has helped me to discover
in some people many vices, which I could not have believed; it has
also assisted me to discern many virtues in others, which I had no
conception of. Thus the judgment of a good-intentioned man being poised
in equilibrio between reason and experience, it is easy to imagine,
that his genius and disposition will incline the balance to the
charitable side.
XXXVI. I have taken notice of a thing which is a little remarkable,
and that is, that great virtues are less perceptible than small ones.
This is derived from the exercise of them not being so frequent, and
the value of them, not being generally understood. The going regularly
to church, exterior modest deportment, taciturnity and fasting, are
virtues, which strike the eyes of every one, because they are daily
practised, and every body knows them. There are other virtues, that
are more substantial, and which spring from more noble roots, that the
vulgar are unacquainted with, because they are carried about by those
who are masters of them, like ladies who go abroad _incog._ without
the ostentatious parade and show of equipage. There are men (would to
God there were more of them!) who with an open carriage, and the free
correspondence and intercourse of an ordinary life, and who do not seem
the least sensible or affected with mysterious niceties, that nourish
within their breasts, a robust virtue and solid piety, impenetrable
to the most furious batteries of the three enemies of the soul. Let
Sir Thomas More, that just, wise, and prudent Englishman, whom I have
always regarded with profound respect, and a tenderness approaching to
devotion; I say let this man serve as an example to all men, and stand
as a pattern to future ages, of all the virtues and excellencies I have
been describing.
XXXVII. If we view the exterior part of the life of Sir Thomas More,
we only see an able politician, simple in his manners, engaged in a
department of the state, and attentive to the affairs of the king
and kingdom, always suffering himself to be wafted by the gale of
fortune, without soliciting honours, and without refusing to accept
of them; in private life, open, courteous, gentle, cheerful, and
even fond of a convivial song, frequently partaking in the halls of
mirth, of the jovial relaxations of the mind, and in the circulation
of wit and pleasantry; always innocent, but never shewing the least
symptom of austerity. His application in literature was directed,
indifferently and alternately, to the study of sacred and profane
learning, and he made great advances in both the one and the other.
His great application to, and proficiency in the living languages of
Europe, represent him as a genius desirous of accommodating himself to
the world at large. His works, except such as he composed in prison
during the last year of his life, seemed more to savour of politics
than religion. I speak of the subject of them, not of the motive with
which he wrote them. In his description of Utopia, which was truly
ingenious, delicate, and entertaining, he lets his pen run so much on
the interests of the state, as makes it seem as if he was indifferent
about the concerns of religion.
XXXVIII. Who, in this image or description of Sir Thomas More, would
recognize that glorious martyr of Christ, and that generous hero,
whose constancy to the obligations of his religion could not be
bent or warped, neither by the threats or promises of Henry VIII.
nor a hard imprisonment of fourteen months, nor the persuasions and
intreaties of his wife, nor by the sad prospect of seeing his family
and children reduced to misery and beggary, nor by the privation of
all human comfort, in taking from him all his books, nor finally by
the terrors of a scaffold placed before his eyes? So certain is it,
that the qualities of great souls are not to be discovered, but by the
touch-stone of great occasions and hard trials, and may be compared to
large flints, which only manifest their smooth or shining surfaces by
the execution of hard blows.
XXXIX. Sir Thomas More was the same while he was a prisoner of state,
as when he was High Chancellor of England; the same in adverse, as in
prosperous fortune; the same ill treated, as in high favour; the same
in the prison, as seated at the head of the Court of Chancery; but
adversity, manifested and made visible his whole heart, of which the
greatest and best part had before lain hid. This great man, used to
give to his own virtues an air of humanity and condescension, which in
the eyes of the vulgar abated their splendour; but in proportion as it
obscured the lustre of them to their view, it augmented it in the sight
of all men of discernment and penetration. It once happened when he
was High Chancellor, that a gentleman, who had a suit depending before
him, made him a present of two silver bottles: it was inconsistent
with his dignity or integrity to accept the present; and how did Sir
Thomas conduct himself? Did he fall into a passion against the suitor
for having offered an affront to his reputation? Did he punish the
criminal audacity of the man, for attempting to corrupt and make venal
the functions of his duty? Did he manifest before his domestics any
disinterested delicacy, or appear scandalized at the temptation? No; he
did none of all this, because nothing of this sort was correspondent
to the nobleness or generous turn of his mind. He received the bottles
with a good grace, and immediately gave orders to one of his servants
to fill them with the best wine he had in his cellar, and carry
them back to the gentleman, together with this courteous message,
_That it gave him great pleasure to have an opportunity of obliging
him, and that any sort of wine he had in his house was much at his
service_. Expressing, by this prudent seeming insensibility or want
of apprehension, that he supposed that was the purpose for which the
gentleman sent the bottles. In this manner, he joined integrity to
gentleness of reproof, and correction with courteous behaviour; and by
so much the less parade he made of his own purity, by so much the more
was the confusion of the gentleman diminished.
XL. It is clear, that the heroic constancy with which he supported his
adherence to his religion, was not the effect of a strained violence
on his nature, but proceeded from innate virtue, which acts in all
things, and on all occasions, according to the habitual dispositions
of the mind; for always, to the very crisis of his suffering, he
preserved the native cheerfulness of his disposition. He did not
appear less festive, nor less tranquil in chains, than he had before
appeared in the banquet room. During the time of his trial he was
all composure, and when it was drawing near a conclusion, and those
iniquitous judges, who had already sacrificed their consciences to the
will of their sovereign, were on the point, to please and flatter him,
of delivering that innocent man, as a victim to his resentment, the
barber came to shave him, and just as he was going to begin his work,
Sir Thomas recollected himself, and said _Hold, as the King and I at
present are contending to whom this head belongs, in case it should
be adjudged to him, it would be wrong for me to rob him of the beard,
so you must desist_. Being about to ascend the scaffold, and finding
himself feeble, he begged one who was near to aid him in getting up
the ladder, saying to him at the same time, _Assist me to get up, for
be assured I shan’t trouble you to help me down again_. O eminent
virtue! O spirit truly sublime, who mounted the scaffold with the same
festive cheerfulness, that he would sit down to a banquet! Let men of
little minds and narrow souls contemplate this example, and learn to
know, that true virtue does not consist in the observance of forms and
scrupulous niceties.