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thought much of this visionary; but if so, why agitate such questions and unsettle the minds of men to no purpose? Their author might indeed be disposed to shut his eyes when he pulled the trigger, but it is pretty clear that he aimed his piece at the church. But when that work was published, More little thought what he should live to witness, or that a Luther was nigh, even at the door, five years later, and probably Utopia would never have seen the light; for the chancellor was one of the first to take alarm at the progress of the Lutheran heresy, and to prophesy no smooth things concerning it.1 He wrote against it, attacking Luther, Tindall, and Frith, with great acrimony, and opposing his Supplication of the Souls in Purgatory," to a very popular pamphlet by one Fish, published at that time, entitled "The Supplication of Beggars," in which the latter complained that they were robbed of their rightful property in the people's alms by the friars; and that whereas the Pope had it in his power to release souls from purgatory for nothing, he would only do it for money; nay, that when he might extinguish it altogether, by a general gaol-delivery of the spirits in prison, he still persisted in tolerating its continuance.2 A memorable instance it is of the force of religious prejudice, that Sir T. More, placid and gentle as was his natural temper, and averse as he had once shown himself to persecution for matters of opinion, should, nevertheless, have hardened his heart against the reformers, and

1 See Life of Sir T. More, Eccl. Biog. ii. 1C9. 112. 2 Fox's Acts and Monuments, ii. 283.

APPREHENSIONS OF MORE.

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been more than consenting to the death of Bilney and of Bainham. In this last case, indeed, he seems to have known no touch of pity; for in the hope of making his victim discover his books and impeach his acquaintance who were members of the Temple, he whipped him at a tree in his garden at Chelsea, called the "tree of troth," and afterwards stood by when he was racked in the Tower. This is a sad falling off from the tolerant principles of his youth; but meanwhile many feverish years had passed over the head of Sir Thomas More, and inspired him with a dread of those who were given to change-the crisis which he had helped in a degree to call up, had come at the call, and the magician stood aghast at the potency of his own spell. We are unfair judges of the sentiments and conduct of men who lived upon the verge of the Reformation. We are born when order has arisen out of confusion, and a pure faith come forth from the refiner's fire; but it must be confessed, that before the event it was impossible to calculate its probable consequences. This only was certain, that in number they must be very many, in magnitude very great; and well might a wise and thoughtful man, who stood upon the edge of that heaving sea of troubles, contemplate the scene before him with an eye of anxiety, of jealousy, and of fear for the issue. Indeed the Reformation was, as one might expect, the cause of the young; a circumstance of which Sir Thomas More does not fail to take advantage, when, in his controversy with Frith on the corporal presence, he always contemptuously speaks

1 Fox, ii. 275-297. Burnet's Hist. Reform. i. 169, 164.

of him as "this young man.”1

And in a curious

interlude, entitled "Lusty Juventus," written on the side of the Reformation, we read (loquitur Diabolus 2)

"The old people would beleve stil in my lawes,

But the yonger sort lead them a contrary way;
They wyll not beleve, they playnly say,

In old traditions as made by men,

But they wyll 'leve as the Scripture teacheth them." There was too much of hazard in it, and the sacrifice of too many early associations, principles, and prejudices, for grey hairs. Time, however, that gentle innovator, settled these differences. At the period when the papal power was put down in England, nearly twenty years had elapsed since Luther first took up his parable against papal abuses. In this interval, a generation of aged defenders of the ancient faith had been gathered to their fathers, and had given place to such as had grown up under the influence of a better star. The press had been active, of which the wonderful influence was first made known upon this great question. The pure doctrines and heroic deeds of the German reformers circulated throughout England. Luther was in every mouth - ballads sung of him. His writings, together with those of Huss, of Zuingle, and of many anonymous authors whom the times evoked, were clandestinely dispersed. Tracts, with popular titles, such as "A Booke of the Olde God and New; "The burying of the Masse ;' A, B, C, against the Clergy," made their appeals

1 Fox, Acts and Mon. ii. 306.

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2 Percy, Reliques of Ancient Poetry, ii. 285., and Warton's Hist of English Poetry, iii. 201.

EFFECTS OF PRINTING.

109

to the people. The confessions of some of the more eminent Lollards, and expositions of particular chapters of Scripture, which were thought to militate the most strongly against the errors of Rome, were industriously scattered abroad. Above all, Tindall's translation of the New Testament was now in the hands of many; for the price, as compared with that of Wickliffe's a century before, was just forty-fold less1; and by means of it, the multitude were enabled to compare what the Gospel actually was, with what Rome had made it by traditions.2 The art of printing in this age of the revival of the Gospel, answered in some measure to the miraculous gift of tongues in the age of its first publication. It was soon perceived, that if the pope did not put an end to the press, the press would put an end to the pope. Awkward attempts were made to defeat its labours. It was a new principle introduced into the social system, which in its application, after the experience of three centuries, is found to involve many difficulties, and with which, at that time of day, neither its friends nor its foes knew how to deal. Tonstall, bishop of London, a man of a very different spirit from his brutal successor Bonner, bought up all the copies of Tindall's Translation, and burnt them at Paul's Cross 3; a humane but useless measure; for it soon appeared, that unless he could buy up ink, paper, and types, he was only making himself Tindall's best customer. Accordingly, a new edition speedily issued from the Antwerp press, in which former errors were corrected; and though one 1 Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog. i. 286. 2 Fox, ii. 363. 3 Ibid. ii. 286.

golden branch had been torn away, another, not of the same but of a better metal, succeeded it. The importation of these foreign wares was strictly forbidden; but there was a demand for them in the country, and they were smuggled notwithstanding. Proclamations were uttered against the possessors of all heretical writings, but they were set at nought. Spies were encouraged; the husband tempted to betray the wife, the parent the child, and a man's foes became literally those of his own household.2 Nay, more, by a refinement in cruelty, the strongest instincts of nature were outraged, and a daughter was compelled to fire the fagots with her own hands, by which her father was to be burned.3 But measures like these were only calculated to defeat the object which they were intended to promote.

Strong public feeling, when matured in its growth and righteous in its principle, cannot be effectually suppressed-check it, and it rages impatiently; whilst, if its fair course be not hindered, it may only make sweet music.

1 Fox, ii. 286. 2 Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog. i. 292. 3 Fox, pp. 749. 1240.