Shakespeare no doubt borrowed from this sketch some of the traits with which he depicted the ambitious monarch. On the other hand, Horace Walpole, in his "Historic Doubts," will have it that this history was written "from a most corrupted source."
More now began to concentrate his energies for a work of more universal interest. He became more abstemious than ever in his food and sleep; he snatched as many hours as possible from his official pursuits, in order to cultivate literature. The result of this labor was the famous "Utopia," composed in 1516. In a letter to Peter Giles or AEgidius, he describes the manner in which that work was written: "After having been engaged in pleading or hearing causes, either as judge or arbiter, there is left me but scant opportunity for literature. I return home; I must talk with my wife, amuse my children, confer of household affairs with my dependents. It is necessary to do all this unless you are to be a stranger in your own house. ... When therefore can I write? Neither have I mentioned the time necessary for sleep or food." ... In fact he used at that time to rise at two o'clock in the morning, writing till seven. Under these difficulties he effected his purpose—he completed a work which won him a European reputation.
Poets and philosophical dreamers react in their speculations against the barrenness or terror of reality; and the more striking is this background, the more impressive is the effect of the whole. More's book had an appropriate practical contrast in the political circumstances of the time. There were rumors of great wars; the Moslem emperor was threatening Christendom. This fact, perhaps, not less than the intrinsic merit of the book, explains the brilliant success of the "Utopia." Every educated man read it. Morus [sic] was greatly delighted, and candidly gave expression to his feelings. He was, he averred, more pleased with Tunstall's appreciation than if he had received an Attic talent. Sometimes he fancied that his Utopians were about to elect him their king for ever. In reality, he was highly praised by AEgidius, Jovius, Busleyden, Paludanus, and others. The new republic, these friendly critics averred, transcended the polity of ancient Athens or Rome. A way had been shown toward the attainment of true happiness. The book was a masterpiece of erudition, philosophy, knowledge of the world. All this approbation was the more acceptable to More, that he had been somewhat diffident concerning the reception of his work. In a letter to Peter AEgidius, or Giles, of Antwerp, he had indulged in that superciliousness toward the multitude which is the besetting temptation of solitary thinkers. He complained of the discordances of criticism, the small qualification of many for the exercise of lettered appreciation:
"The tastes of men are very different; some are of so morose a temper, so sour a disposition, and make, such absurd judgments of things, that men of cheerful and lively tempers, who indulge their genius, seem much more happy than those who waste their time and strength in order to publishing a book; which, though of itself it might be useful or pleasant, yet instead of being well received, will be sure to be either laughed at or censured. Many know nothing of learning, others despise it; a man that is accustomed to a coarse and harsh style thinks everything is rough that is not barbarous. Our trifling pretenders to learning think all is slight that is not dress'd up in words that are worn out of use; some love only old things, and many like nothing but what is their own. Some are so sour that they can allow no jests, and others so dull that they can endure nothing that is sharp; while some are as much afraid of anything gay and lively, as a man with a mad dog is of water; others are so light and unsettled, that their thoughts change as quick as they do their postures. Some, again, when they meet in taverns, take upon them, among their cups, to pass censures very freely on all writers, and with a supercilious liberty to condemn everything they do not like; in which they have an advantage, like that of a bald man, who can catch hold of another by the hair, while the other cannot return the like upon him. They are safe, as it were, from gunshot, since there is nothing in them solid enough to be taken hold of; others are so unthankful, that even when they are well pleased with a book, yet they think they owe nothing to the author."
Although More did meet with some of these ignorant or malevolent critics, he must have been gratified at finding himself exalted into a modern Plato. Nor was the praise he received partial or exaggerated. He had expressed the leading idea of the time. Casting a general glance over the social field, he had applied the newly arisen spirit of research and criticism to the survey of society. Judging the actual, he had also evolved the ideal, which the humanitarians of the age had more dimly viewed. Being a man of genius, he had expressed a certain order of thought—concisely, but not the less comprehensively—for all ages; and modern Positivists, Owenists, Fourierists, and many other ists, might, from a study of the "Utopia," gather another illustration of the great truth that there is nothing new under the sun.
The plan of the work is as follows: More supposes himself in Flanders, in the capacity of ambassador to Charles the Fifth, and in the company of "that incomparable man, Cuthbert Tonstal, whom the king, with such universal applause, lately made master of the roles." At Antwerp, they become acquainted with Peter Giles, or AEgidius, "a man of great honor and of good rank in his town, though less than he deserves;" and they make another acquaintance in this wise: "One day, as I was returning home from mass at St. Mary's, which is the chief church, and the most frequented of any in Antwerp, I saw him (Petrus AEgidius, or Giles) by accident, talking with a stranger, who seemed past the flower of his age; his face was tanned, he had a long beard, and his cloak was hanging carelessly about him; so that by his looks and habits I concluded he was a seaman." This ancient mariner, however, turns out to have travelled as an observer and philosopher as well as a naval man; his name is Raphael Hythloday. He is a Portuguese, who has travelled with Americus Vespucius. It is in conversation with the stranger that More becomes acquainted with the history and manners of the Utopians. In the first part of the book, Raphael censures the polity of ordinary countries; he complains that "most princes apply themselves more to affairs of war than to the useful arts of peace; they are generally set more on acquiring new kingdoms, right or wrong, than on governing well those they possess." Such opinions had a peculiar pungency at a time when Selim was threatening to root out the Christian name from Europe. Raphael criticises those in power, and their conservative spirit; he betrays an implacable hostility toward those who "cover themselves obstinately with this excuse, of reverence to past times;" he had, he said, met with them chiefly in England, where he happened to be when the rebellion in the west was suppressed, "with a great slaughter of the poor people that were engaged in it." When relating his sojourn in England, Raphael also indulges in the eulogy of that reverend prelate, John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury—in whose house More had been brought up— "A man, Peter, (for Mr. More knows well what he was,) who was not less venerable for his wisdom and virtues, for the high character he bore: he was of a middle stature, not broke with age: his looks begot reverence rather than fear; his conversation was easy, but serious and grave; he sometimes took pleasure to try the force of those that came as suitors to him upon business, by speaking sharply though decently to them, and by that he discovered their spirit and presence of mind, with which he was much delighted, when it did not grow up to impudence, as bearing a great resemblance to his own temper, and he looked on such persons as the fittest men for affairs. He spoke both gracefully and weightily; he was eminently skilled in the law; had a vast understanding, and a prodigious memory; and those excellent talents with which nature had furnished him were improved by study and experience. When I was in England, the king depended much on his councils, and the government seemed to be chiefly supported by him; for from his youth he had been all along practised in affairs; and, having passed through many traverses of fortune, he had with great cost acquired a vast stock of wisdom; which is not soon lost, when it is purchased so dear." More's talent for keen observation and portraiture is also evinced in the delightful sketch of the lawyer whom Raphael observes at Archbishop Morton's. This gentleman "took occasion to run out in a high commendation of the severe execution of justice upon thieves, who, as he said, were then hanged so fast that there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet; and upon that he said he could not wonder enough how it came to pass that, since so few escaped, there were yet so many thieves left who were still robbing in all places." Raphael, who in that nineteenth century which takes upon itself to realize almost all the visions of dreamers, would have been a zealous advocate for the abolition of capital punishment, objects that "this way of punishing thieves was neither just in itself, nor good for the public; for as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his life; no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find out no other way of livelihood. Not only you in England, but a great part of the world, imitate some ill masters that are readier to chastise their scholars than to teach them." Here is included the modern fallacy about reforming criminals, which has been so much insisted on, as if that reformation was so easy a task, as if so many probabilities were not against it, as if it was not better for poor criminals to be sent to a better world, than to be left open in this life to almost irresistible temptations. However, that form of sentiment called humanitarianism—which would spare the wicked and lost, while the honest and useful are left to slow tortures, as in the case of merchant sailors—that humanitarianism is continually displayed by this Raphael, in a completeness and energy beyond which no later speculations have attained. The lawyer maintains about the thieves that "there are many handicrafts, and there is husbandry, by which they may make a shift to live, unless they have a greater mind to follow ill courses;" and Raphael's rejoinder discloses a state of things which was not very well calculated to make the army popular: "That will not serve your turn, for many lose their limbs in civil or foreign wars, as lately in the Cornish rebellion, and some time ago in your wars with France, who, being thus mutilated in the service of their king and country, can no more follow their old trades, and are too old to learn new ones. He owns, however, that wars do not occur every day. The following opinion of his may be advantageously recommended to the careful study of enlightened and disinterested democrats, who, by the magical power of their thought, can amplify it, transmogrify it, intensify it for the benefit of their country's flesh and blood: "There is a great number of noblemen among you, that are themselves as idle as drones; that subsist on other men's labors, on the labor of their tenants, whom, to raise their revenues, they pare to the quick." Applying this to his theory of thieves, Hythlodoeus says that these noblemen keep a great number of servants who, on their master's death, are turned out of doors and betake themselves to larceny. The lawyer, in nowise disconcerted, answers that these tatterdemalions, constitute a capital recruiting-ground for the army. Raphael retorts that a converse metamorphosis of efficient soldiers into able robbers is liable to take place. He also inveighs against France for keeping up a ruinous military establishment: "But this bad custom, so common among you, of keeping many servants, is not peculiar to this nation. In France there is yet a more pestiferous sort of people; for the whole country is full of soldiers, still kept up in time of peace, if such a state of a nation can be called peace; and these are kept in pay upon the same account that you plead for those idle retainers about noblemen, this being a maxim of those pretended statesmen, that it is necessary for the public safety to have a good body of veteran soldiers ever in readiness. They think raw men are not to be depended upon, and they sometimes seek occasions for making war, that they may train up their soldiers in the art of cutting throats; or, as Sallust observed, for keeping their hands in use, that they may not grow dull by too long an intermission. But France has learned to its cost how dangerous it is to feed such beasts. The fate of the Romans, Carthaginians, and Syrians, and many other nations and cities, which were both overturned and quite ruined by those standing armies, should make others wiser." And Hythloday in his enthusiasm adds a stinging taunt, the truth of which, however, subsequent agitations and rebellions have not confirmed: "Every day's experience shows that the mechanics in the towns or the clowns in the country are not afraid of fighting with those idle gentlemen." He further attributes the great number of thieves to the increase of pasture, "by which your sheep, which are naturally mild and easily kept in order, may be said now to devour men and unpeople not only villages, but towns;" land was enclosed, tenants turned away, and Hythlodoeus points out a cattle plague among the results of this state of things, adding somewhat fiercely: "To us it might have seemed more just had it fell on the owners themselves." He does not seem to perceive that by this enclosure the land is saved from that exhaustion which must ultimately reduce Europe to a barren state, and thus annihilate civilization; but humanitarianism was never remarkable for excess of foresight. The lawyer is about to reply in a speech divided into four points, but the humane archbishop interferes, and "eases him of the trouble of answering;" unfortunately, however, or perhaps from a relish for humor, he allows Raphael to indulge in a long speech on the reasons against putting thieves to death. Hythloday recommends a punishment which no sensible thief would prefer to death, namely, that the criminal should be made to work all his life in quarries or mines. But as this was the ancient Roman method, it is not perfect enough for the ingenious Raphael, who would much prefer a scheme according to which the thieves are let loose in the daytime, engaged in working for the public; and, although liable to be whipped for idleness, these debonair convicts punctually return to prison every evening, and answer to their names before being locked up for the night. The reformer adds somewhat naively, "the only danger to be feared from them is their conspiring against the government." The unfortunate lawyer, rather taken aback at the idea of London being full of convicts with cropped ears and a peculiar dress, playing the part of commissionaires or otherwise making themselves generally useful to Londoners, says that he fears this could not take place without the whole nation being endangered; the sensible cardinal avoids this slight exaggeration, and answers with quiet irony that it is not easy to form a judgment with respect to the success of this scheme, since it is a method that has never yet been tried. If, in this exquisite scene, which evinces such dramatic genius, there is any trace of a lyrical element, this is most likely to be found in the cardinal's verdict, who is confessedly the most honored and reverend personage, and withal one with a real prototype. There is no reason to suppose that Morus was a Hythloday; of course, reflecting the thoughts of his age, he had entertained similar ideas; but instead of petrifying them in his mind, he vaporized them, dramatized them, as it were, in the character of Hythloday, contemplated their embodiment or type in an objective, extraneous form, and thus remained, as to his inner self, impartial and moderate.
Now, however, the Pantagruelistic element tends to predominate, and More will expend some humor in satirizing friars, those bétes noires of educated men in the sixteenth century. A jester who is standing by gives it as his opinion that mendicants should become monks and nuns. A friar says that even that transformation would not save the kingdom from beggars; the jester calls the friars vagabonds; the friar falls into a passion and overwhelms the fool with epithets. Notwithstanding a scriptural reminder from the jester, "in patience possess ye your souls," the friar wrests the words of Scripture to the purposes of his anger. The cardinal courteously exhorts him to govern his passions; "but," answers the friar, "holy men have had a good zeal—as it is said; the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." "You do this perhaps with a good intention," replies the cardinal; "but in my opinion, it were wiser in you, and perhaps better for you, not to engage in so ridiculous a contest with a fool." The friar retorts that "Solomon, the wisest of men, said to answer a fool according to his folly," and asserts that "if the many mockers of Elisha, who was but one bald man, felt the effect of his zeal, what will become of one mocker of so many friars, among whom there are so many bald men? We have likewise a bull, by which all that jeer at us are excommunicated." Seeing the matter is not likely soon to end, the archbishop sends the jester away and changes the subject.