On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
The same spirit of literary innovation which has led Mr . Turner to exalt the character of Henry VIII ., has induced him to depreciate that of Sir Thomas More in almost an equal proportion . The large measure of praise which , in modern times at least , has been dealt out to that justly celebrated person , appears to have excited the spleen of our historian , * who thus delivers himself upon the subject :
" His ( Wolsey ' s ) spirit descended to his successor in the highest legal dignity of England , Sir Thomas More , who presents to us in his character the revolting compound of being as coarse in his controversial writings , and as sanguinary in his bigotry , as he was jocular in his humour and moral in bis life . The first theological cruelties which preceded the rupture with the Pope are therefore not personally imputable to Henry . They were the works of his merry and unfeeling Chancellor , and of the old hierarchy , and of those
who afterwards acted on its elder plans and principles before the new statute had been enacted to disarm their unsparing animosity . More ' s conduct to Bilney , burnt at Norwich ; to Bayfield , whom the flames under his co-operation consumed in Smithfield ; to JPetit , whom he imprisoned till the worthy citizen died of his dungeon sufferings ; to Tewkesbury , the honest leatherseller , who was taken from More ' s own house , without the King ' s writ , to the stake ; to Barnham , the Gloucestershire gentleman and Temple student ,
whom he whipped in his own garden , and had racked in the Tower , to extort accusations of others , and whom he had finally brought to his house at Chelsea and chained there to a post for two nights , and at last burnt ; to the learned Oxford youth , John Frith , whom , not contented with opposing by his pen , he persecuted till he became another victim of the names ; and even to the man Silver , whom he liberated not from humanity or reason , but
for his witty repartee : these lamentable , and in the eye of reason and of true and enlightened religion , inexcusable barbarities , were achievements of this too highly extolled man , which gave to such atrocities the impressive sanction of his high character and popularity , and therefore must have operated like an education of his Sovereign ' s mind to similar cruelties , when his passions became strongly excited and his worldly interests endangered . "—Vol . II . p . 363 .
Now , if Mr . Turner had established the guilt of More in these instances , we should freely have admitted that his animadversions were not misplaced . As it is not , however , altogether just to consign the memory of a celebrated man to infamy , without very sufficient evidence , we looked anxiously for the authorities upon which Mr . Turner has founded these grievous charges . We discovered the following reference to them in a note :
" These instances are enumerated by Strype , in his Eccl . Mem . Vol . I . pp . 310—316 , from contemporary authorities ; and are also noticed byBurnet , Kef . Vol . I . pp . 163—170 ; and see Mr . Southey ' s Book of the Church , VoL II . p . 18 . " Not being before aware of the existence of any contemporary authorities by which the guilty participation of Sir Thomas More in these atrocities was established , we turned with some curiosity to the pages of Strype , but without deriving the satisfaction which we anticipated , that learned writer g iving no reference whatever to any contemporary authority . Upon a further inquiry we discovered , what we had before suspected , that the only
trii- | i _ i .. ¦_¦ '' m' ¦ ""* ^* ¦ » . ' - . "i— *¦¦ — ~~ n > rrinW' »— » ' . ... ' ¦ j . i-i - i M __ , n * Even Buruet terms Mare " the glory of his age , " and " a true Christian philosopher . " Hist , of the Be / . VoL III . p . 172 , Fot . edit . And Dr . Aikin , whose temperate judgment seldom permitted him to be unduly eulogistic , has said , that << the qualities of M ore ' s mind were so happily blended and tempered , that he wanted little of being a perfect character , " Gen , Biog . art . More ,
Untitled Article
432 Review . —English Reformation *
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1827, page 432, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1797/page/40/
-