MORE.
Cut off this fleece, and lie there but a month.
FAULKNER.
I’ll not lose a hair to be Lord Chancellor of Europe.
MORE.
To Newgate, then. Sirrah, great sins are bred
In all that body where there’s a foul head.
Away with him.
[Exeunt all except Randall.]
[Enter Surrey, Erasmus, and Attendants.]
SURREY.
Now, great Erasmus, you approach the presence
Of a most worthy learned gentleman:
This little isle holds not a truer friend
Unto the arts; nor doth his greatness add
A feigned flourish to his worthy parts;
He’s great in study; that’s the statist’s grace,
That gains more reverence than the outward place.
ERASMUS.
Report, my lord, hath crossed the narrow seas,
And to the several parts of Christendom,
Hath borne the fame of your Lord Chancellor:
I long to see him, whom with loving thoughts
I in my study oft have visited.
Is that Sir Thomas More?
SURREY.
It is, Erasmus:
Now shall you view the honorablest scholar,
The most religious politician,
The worthiest counsellor that tends our state.
That study is the general watch of England;
In it the prince’s safety, and the peace
That shines upon our commonwealth, are forged
By loyal industry.
ERASMUS.
I doubt him not
To be as near the life of excellence
As you proclaim him, when his meanest servants
Are of some weight: you saw, my lord, his porter
Give entertainment to us at the gate
In Latin good phrase; what’s the master, then,
When such good parts shine in his meanest men?
SURREY.
His Lordship hath some weighty business;
For, see, yet he takes no notice of us.