books affectionately, like a child."

Sir Thomas More, whose ghost communicates with Robert Southey, was
born in 1478, and at the age of fifty-seven was beheaded for
fidelity to conscience, on the 6th of July, 1535. He was, like
Southey, a man of purest character, and in 1516, when his age was
thirty-eight, there was published at Louvain his "Utopia," which
sketched wittily an ideal commonwealth that was based on practical
and earnest thought upon what constitutes a state, and in what
direction to look for amendment of ills. More also withdrew from
his most advanced post of opinion. When he wrote "Utopia" he
advocated absolute freedom of opinion in matters of religion; in
after years he believed it necessary to enforce conformity. King
Henry VIII., stiff in his own opinions, had always believed that;
and because More would not say that he was of one mind with him in
the matter of the divorce of Katherine he sent him to the scaffold.

H. M.



COLLOQUY I.--THE INTRODUCTION.



"Posso aver certezza, e non paura,
Che raccontando quel che m' e accaduto,
Il ver diro, ne mi sara creduto."
"Orlando Innamorato," c. 5. st. 53.