common law judges, and with very little regard to the maxims of the common law. If he was sneered at for ignorance of the doctrines and prac tice of the Court, he had his revenge by openly complaining that the lawyers who practised before him were grossly ignorant of the civil law and the princples of general jurisprudence; and he has been described as often interrupting their pleadings, and bitterly animadverting on their narrow notions and limited arguments. To remedy an evil which troubled the stream of justice at the fountain-head, he, with his usual magnificence of conception, projected an instituion to be founded in London, for the systematic study of all branches of the law. He even furnished an architectural model for the building, which was considered a masterpiece, and remained long after his death as a curiosity in the palace at Greenwich. Such an institution is still a desideratum in England; for, with splendid exceptions, it must be admitted that English barristers, though very clever practitioners, are not such able jurists as are to be found in other countries where law is systematically studied as a science. On Wolsey's fall his administration of justice was strictly overhauled; but no complaint was made against him of bribery or corruption, and the charges were merely that he had examined many matters in Chancery after judgment given at common law; -that he had unduly granted injunctions; and that when his injunctions were disregarded by the Judges, he had sent for those venerable magistrates and sharply reprimanded them for their obstinacy. He is celebrated for the vigour with which he repressed perjury and chicanery in his Court, and he certainly enjoyed the reputation of having conducted himself as Chancellor with fidelity and ability, although it was not till a later age that the foundation was laid of that well-defined system of equity now established, which is so well adapted to all the wants of a wealthy and refined society, and, leaving little discretion to the Judge, disposes satisfactorily of all the varying cases within the wide scope of its jurisdiction. I am afraid I cannot properly conclude this sketch of the Life of Wolsey without mentioning that "of his own body he was ill, and gave the clergy ill example." He had a natural son, named Winter, who was promoted to be Dean of Wells, and for whom he procured a grant of "arms" from the Herald's College. The 38th article of his impeachment shows that he had for his mistress a lady of the name of Lark, by whom he had two other children there were various amours in which he was suspected of having indulged,—and his health had suffered from his dissolute life. But we must not suppose that the scandal arising from such irregularities was such as would be occasioned by them at the present day. A very different standard of morality then prevailed: churchmen debarred from marriage, were often licensed to keep concubines, and as the Popes themselves were in this respect by no means infallible, the frailties of a Cardinal were not considered any insuperable bar either to secular or spiritual preferment.* In judging him we must remember his deep contrition for his backslidings; and the memorable lesson which he taught with his dying breath, that, to ensure true comfort and happiness, a man must addict himself to the service of God, instead of being misled by the lures of pleasure and ambition. The subsequent part of Henry's reign is the best panegyric on Wolsey; for, during twenty years, he had kept free from the stain of blood or violence the Sovereign, who now, following the natural bent of his character, cut off the heads of his wives and his most virtuous ministers, and proved himself the most arbitrary tyrant that ever disgraced the throne of England.t CHAPTER XXX. LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE, LORD CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND, FROM HIS BIRTH TILL THE END OF THE REIGN OF HENRY VII. THE Great Seal having been surrendered, as we have seen, by Cardinal Wolsey, into the hands of the Dukes [SEPT. 19, 1529.] of Norfolk and Suffolk, they delivered it to Taylor, the Master of the Rolls, to carry to the King; who having himself sealed certain letters patent with it, enclosed it in a bag under his own signet and under the seals of the Master of the Rolls and Stephen Gardyner, afterwards the famous Bishop of Winchester.t Considerable difficulty arose about the appointment of a new Chancellor. Some were for restoring the Great Seal to Ex-chancellor Archbishop Warham; and Erasmus states that he refused its; but there is reason to think that a positive resolution had been * Many gibes, however, seem to have been current against the licentious conduct of the Cardinal, as we may judge from Lord Surrey's speech to him : "I'll startle you Worse than the sacring bell, when the brown wench Lay kissing in your arms, Lord Cardinal." Skelton likewise was probably only embodying in rhyme the common talk of the town when he wrote, "The goods that he thus gaddered To make windows, walles, and dores, † See Fidde's Life of Wolsey, folio, 1724. Gall's Life of Wolsey, 4to. 1812. Rot. Cl. 21 Hen. 8. m. 19. § Ep. p. 1347. before taken by Henry and his present advisers, that it should not be again intrusted to any churchman.* There was an individual designated to the office by the public voice. To give credit to the new administration, there was a strong desire to appoint him, for he was celebrated as a scholar in every part of Europe; he had long practised with applause as a lawyer; being called to Court, he had gained the highest credit there for his abilities and his manners; and he had been employed in several embassies abroad, which he had conducted with dexterity and success. The difficulty was that he had only the rank of a simple knight; and there had been no instance hitherto of conferring the Great Seal on a layman who was not of noble birth, or had not previously gained reputation by high judicial office. In conscquence, there was a struggle in favour of the selection of one of the chiefs of the Common Law Courts at Westminster. But the hope that the person first proposed was the best fitted to manage the still pending negotiation for the divorce, came powerfully in aid of his claims on the score of genius, learning, and virtue; and, on the 25th of October, in a Council held at Greenwich, the King delivered the Great Seal to Sir THOMAS MORE, and constituted him Lord Chancellor of England.† This extraordinary man, so interesting in his life and in his death, was born in the year 1480, near the end of the reign of Edward IV. He was the son of Sir John More, a Judge of the Court of King's Bench, who lived to see him Lord Chancellor. The father's descent is not known, but he was of " an honourable though not distinguished family," and he was entitled to bear arms, a privilege which showed him to be of gentle blood, and of the class which in every other country except ours is considered noble. The old Judge was famous for a facetious turn, which he transmitted to his son. There was only one of his sayings handed down to us, and this, we must hope, was meant rather as a compliment to the good qualities of his own partner for life than as a satire on the fair sex. He would compare the multitude of women which are to be chosen for wives unto a bag full of snakes, having among them a single eel: now, if a man should put his hand into this bag, he may chance to light on the cel; Lut it is a hundred to one he shall be stung by a snake." The future Chancellor sprung from that rank of life which is most favourable to mental cultivation, and which has produced the greatest number of en incnt men in England; for, while we have instances of gifted individuals overcoming the disadvantages of high birth and affluence as well as of obscurity and poverty, our Cecils and Walpoles, our Racons and Mores, have mostly had good education and breeding under a father's care, with habits of frugality, and 66 *On the 22d October the Bishop of Bayonne writes to his court, "On ne scait encore qui aura le sceau. Je croy bien que les prestres n'y toucheront plus, et que en ce parliament ils auront de terribles claimes." † Rot. Cl. 21 Hen. 8. m. 19. Camden's Remains, p. 251. the necessity for industry, energy, and perseverance to gain distinction in the world. The lawyers in those days, both judges and barristers, lived in the City, and young More first saw the light in Milk Street, Cheapside, then a fashionable quarter of the metropolis. He received the early rudiments of his education at St. Anthony's school, in Threadneedle Street, a seminary which gained great and well-deserved repute, having produced Archbishop Heath, Archbishop Whitgift, and many other eminent men. In his fifteenth year, according to the custom of which we have seen various examples, he became a page in the family of Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Chancellor under Henry VII Here, along with sons of the best families in England, he waited at table, and was instructed in all learning and exercises. His lively parts soon attracted the notice of his master, who, though turned of eighty, and filling such dignified offices, still encouraged amusement, and had the sagacity to discover the extraordinary merit, and to foretell the future celebrity of his page. "For the Cardinal often would make trial of his present wit, especially at Christmas merriments, when having plays for his recreation, this youth would suddenly step up among the players, and, never studying before upon the matter, make often a part of his own invention, which was so witty and so full of jests, that he alone made more sport than all the players besides; for which his towardliness, the Cardinal much delighted in him, and would often say of him, unto divers of the nobility who at sundry times dined with him, This child here, waiting at the table, whosoever shall live to see it, will prove a marvellous rare man.' ”* The youthful page was not behind in penetration of character, and duly appre ciated the qualities of the wary courtier, who, the model for future Talleyrands, had continued to flourish amid all the vicissitudes of the state, and having united the Red and the White Roses, still enjoyed without abatement the confidence of the founder of the House of Tudor. The historian of Richard III., drawing the character of Morton, says (no doubt from early recol· lections), "He was a man of great natural wit, very well learned, honourable in behaviour, lacking in no wise to win favour."+ But, by the kind advice of his patron, who had great care of his bringing up, and was afraid that he might not [A. D. 1496.] profit in sound learning so much as might be desired amid the distractions of the archiepiscopal palace, he was remov ed to the University of Oxford. He lodged at New Hall, but studied at Canterbury College, afterwards Christ Church. He must now have led a very different life from what he had enjoy. ed at Lambeth; for, "in his allowance, his father kept him very *More's Life, 19. Roper, 4. In his Utopia he praises him more liberally, but still with a touch of satire, as "of incomparable judgment, a memory more than credible, eloquent in speech, and, which is more to be wished in clergymen, of singular wisdom and virtue.” short, suffering him scarcely to have so much money in his own custody as would pay for the mending of his apparel; and, for his expenses, he would expect of him a particular account."* Though much pinched, and somewhat dissatisfied at the time, he often spoke of this system with much praise when he came to riper years; affirming, that he was thereby curbed from all vice, and withdrawn from gaming and naughty company.t Here More remained above two years, devoting himself to study with the utmost assiduity and enthusiasm. Erasmus, invited to England by Lord Mountjoy, who had been his pupil at Paris, was now residing at Oxford, and assisting in spreading a taste for Greek literature recently introduced there by Grocyn, Linacre, and Collet, who had studied it in Italy under Politian and Chalcondylas. More and Erasmus, resembling each other in their genius, in their taste, in their acute observation of character an} manners, in their lively sense of the ridiculous, in their constant hilarity, and in their devotion to classical lore, soon formed a close friendship which lasted through life without interruption or abatement, and which was fostered during absence by an epistolary correspondence still extant, affording to us the most striking sketches of the history and customs of the times in which they lived. At the University, while More "profited exceedingly in rhetoric, logic, and philosophy," he likewise distinguished himself very much by the composition of poems, both Latin and English. Some of these are to be found in collections of his works; and, though inferior to similar efforts in the succeeding age, they will be found interesting, not only as proofs of his extraordinary precocity, but as the exercises by which he became the earliest distinguished orator, and the earliest elegant prose-writer using the English language.‡ * More's Life of Sir T. More, 18. His great grandson, who wrote in the reign of Charles I., more than two centuries ago, in describing how his ancestor when at College escaped play and riot," adds, wherein most young men in these our lamentable days plunge themselves too timely, to the utter overthrow as well of learning as all future virtue." As a specimen I will give a few extracts from that which is considered the most successful of his poetical effusions in Latin. It proceeds on the idea, that become an old man, he sees again a lady whom he had loved when they were both very young, and who is still charming in his eyes. • Gratulatur quod eam reperit incolumem quam olim ferme puer amaverat. "Vivis adhuc, primis ô me mihi charior annis, Redderis atque oculis Elizabetha meis: Quæ mala distinuit mihi te fortuna tot annos, Tempora que teneræ numquam non invida formæ Te rapuere tibi, non rapuere mihi." He afterwards refers in touching language to their first interview, and gives a description of her charins, after the fashion of the Song of Solomon: "Jam subit illa dies que ludentem obtulit olim Inter virgineos te mihi prima choros. |