So went to bed; where eagerly his sickness
Pursu'd him still; and, three nights after this,
About the hour of eight (which he himself
Foretold should be his last), full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.

CATHERINE,

So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him!
Yet, thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him
And yet with charity;-He was a man

Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes; one, that by suggestion
Tithed all the kingdom; simony was fair play;
His own opinions were his law: I'the presence
He would stay untruths; and be ever double,
Both in his words and meaning: He was never,
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful :

His promises were then as he was, mighty;
But his performance as he now is, nothing.
Of his own body he was ill, and gave
The clergy ill example.

GRIFFITH.

Noble madam,

Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues

We write in water. May it please your highness
To hear me speak his good now?

CATHERINE.

1 were malicious else.

Yes, good Griffith

GRIFFITH.

This cardinal,

Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly

Was fashioned to much honour. Fom his cradle
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;
Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading:
Lofty, and sour, to them who lov'd him not;
But, to those men that sought him, sweet as suminer.
And though he were unsatisfied in getting
(Which were a sin), yet in bestowing, madam,
He was most princely: Ever witness for him
Those twins of learning, which he raised in you,
Ipswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him,
Unwilling to outlive the good he did it;
The other, though unfinished, yet so famous,
So excellent in art, and still so rising,
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.
His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him;
For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
And found the blessedness of being little:
And, to add greater honours to his age

Than man could give him, he died, fearing God.

CATHERINE.

After my death I wish no other herald,

No other speaker of my living actions,

To keep my honour from corruption,

But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.
Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me,
With thy religious truth and modesty,

Now in his ashes honour. Peace be with him.

202

THE

JUDGMENT OF SIR THOMAS MORE.

In the pleasant fields of Battersea, near the river side, on a spot which is now covered with houses, dwelt, three hundred and ten years ago, the blind widow, Annice Collie, and her orphan grandchild, Dorothy. These two were alone in the world, and yet they might scarcely be said to feel their loneliness; for they were all the world to each other.

Annice Collie had seen better days; for she was the daughter of a substantial yeoman, and her husband, Reuben Collie, had been a gardener in the service of good Queen Catherine, the first wife of King Henry the Eighth; and Annice had been a happy wife, a joyful mother, and a liberal housekeeper, having wherewithal to bestow on the wayfarer and stranger at their need. It was, however, the will of God that these blessings should be taken from her. The queen fell into adversity, and, being removed from her favourite palace at Greenwich, to give place to her newly exalted rival, Anne Boleyn, her faithful servants were all discharged; and, among them, Reuben Collie and his son, Arthur, were deprived of their situations in the royal gardens.

This misfortune, though heavy, appeared light, in comparison with the bitter reverses that had

befallen their royal mistress: for the means of obtaining an honest livelihood were still in the power of the industrious little family; and beyond that their ambition extended not.

Reuben Collie, who had spent his youth in the Low Countries, had acquired a very considerable knowledge of the art of horticulture, an art at that time so little practised in England, that the salads and vegetables with which the tables of the great were supplied, were all brought, at a great expense, from Holland, and were, of course, never eaten in perfection. Reuben Collie, however, whose observations on the soil and climate had convinced him that these costly exotics might be raised in England, procured seeds, of various kinds, from a friend of his in the service of the Duke of Cleves, and was so fortunate as to rear a few plants of cabbages, savoys, brocoli, lettuces, artichokes, and cucumbers, to the unspeakable surprise of all the gardeners in London and its environs; and honest Reuben narrowly escaped being arraigned as a wizard, in consequence of their envy at the success of his experiment. He had hired, on a long lease, a cottage, with a small field adjoining, at a reasonable rent, of Master Bartholomew Barker, the rich tanner of Battersea; and this he and his son, Arthur, had, with great care and toil, converted into a garden and nursery ground, for rearing fruit trees, vegetables, costly flowers, and herbs of grace: and this spot, he flattered himself, would, one day, prove a mine of wealth to himself, and his son after him. That golden season never arrived; for Arthur, who had, during a leisure

time, obtained work in a nobleman's garden at Chelsea, for the sake of bringing home a few additional groats, to assist in the maintenance of his wife, Margaret, and his little daughter, Dorothy, who lived with the old people, was unfortunately killed by the fall of an old wall, over which he was training a fig-tree.

The news of this terrible catastrophe was a deathblow to Reuben Collie. The afflicted mother and wife of Arthur struggled with their own grief to offer consolation to him; but it was in vain, for he never smiled again. He no longer took any interest in the garden, which had been before so great a source of pleasure to him: he suffered the weeds to grow up in his borders, and the brambles to take root in his bed. His flowers bloomed unheeded by him, and his fruit trees remained unpruned even his darling exotics, the very pride of his heart, and the delight of his eyes, whose progress he had, heretofore, watched with an affection that almost savoured of idolatry, were neglected; and, resisting all the efforts which his wife and daughter-inlaw could make to rouse him from this sinful state of despair, he fell into a languishing disorder, and died a few months after the calamity that had reddered him childless.

And now the two widows, Annice and Margaret Collie, had no one to work for them, or render them any comfort in their bereavement, save the little Dorothy; nevertheless, they did not abandon themselves to the fruitless indulgence of grief, as poor Reuben had done; but, the day after they