Conclusion.
He concludes this, the last chapter of the book, with a personal appeal to Prince Charles. ‘Christ founded a bloodless empire. He wished it always to be bloodless. He delighted to call himself the “Prince of Peace.” May He grant likewise that by your good offices and by your wisdom there may be a cessation at last from the maddest of wars. The remembrance of past evils will commend peace to our acceptance, and the calamities of former times redouble the honour of the benefits conferred by you!’
This was the ‘Institutio Principis Christiani’ of Erasmus; a work written, as I have said, while More was writing his ‘Utopia,’ but printed in August 1516, at Louvain, while Erasmus was in England, and while the manuscript of the ‘Utopia’ was lying unpublished, waiting for the completion of More’s Introduction.
V. MORE COMPLETES HIS ‘UTOPIA’—THE INTRODUCTORY BOOK (1516).
More’s Introduction was still unwritten, and the ‘Utopia’ thus in an unfinished state, when Erasmus arrived in England in the autumn of 1516. Erasmus seems on this occasion to have spent more time with Fisher at Rochester than with More in London; but he at least paid the latter a short visit on his way to Rochester,[602] and repeated it before leaving England. The latter visit seems also to have been more than a flying one, for we find him writing to Ammonius, that he might possibly stay a few days longer in England, were he not ‘afraid of making himself a stale guest to More’s wife.’[603] Encouraged as More doubtless was by Erasmus, and spurred on by the knowledge that the ‘Institutio Principis Christiani’ was already in the press, he still does not seem to have been able to find time to complete his manuscript before Erasmus left England. Probably, however, it was arranged between them that it should be completed and printed with as little delay as possible at the same press and in the same type and form as Erasmus’s work.
‘Utopia’ sent to the press.
The manuscript was accordingly sent after Erasmus in October,[604] and by him and Peter Giles at once placed in the hands of Thierry Martins for publication at Louvain.[605]
This long delay in the completion of the ‘Utopia’ had been caused by a concurrence of circumstances. More had been closely occupied by public matters, in addition to his judicial duties in the city, and a large private practice at the bar—a combination of pressing engagements likely to leave him but little leisure for literary purposes. Even when the daily routine of public labours was completed, there were domestic duties which it was not in his nature to neglect. He was passionately fond of his home, and ‘reckoned the enjoyment of his family a necessary part of the business of the man who does not wish to be a stranger in his own house.’[606]
Nor did the ‘Utopia’ itself suffer from the delay in its publication. Instead of losing its freshness it gained in interest and point; for, as it happened, the introductory book was written under circumstances which gave it a peculiar value which it could not otherwise have had.
On More’s return to England from his foreign mission, he had been obliged to throw himself again into the vortex of public business. The singular discretion and ability displayed by him in the conduct of the delicate negotiations entrusted to his charge on this and another occasion, had induced Henry VIII. to try to attach him to his court.