ay home from Holland;
two reached 10, one 8, one 6. None of the remainder ten lived for one
year.

[31] Biblia Latina, 1529, c. 2.

Of public morals in the special sense of the term this is not the
place to speak in detail. But it may suitably be stated that
sixteenth-century standards in these matters were not so high as those
of the present day. 'If gold ruste, what shal iren do?' The highest
ecclesiastical authorities were unable to check a nominally celibate
priesthood from maintaining women-housekeepers who bore them families
of children and were in many cases decent and respectable wives to
them in all but name; indeed in Friesland the laity for obvious
reasons insisted upon this violation of clerical vows. A letter from
Zwingli, the Reformer, written in 1518 when he was parish priest of
Glarus, gives an astonishing view of his own practice. Under such
circumstances we need not wonder that the standards of the laity were
low. The highest record that I have met with is that of a Flemish
nobleman, who in addition to a large family including a Bishop of
Cambray and an Abbot of St. Omer, is said to have been also the
father of 36 bastards. Thomas More as a young man was not blameless.
But it is surprising to find that Erasmus in writing an appreciation
of More in 1519, when he was already a judge of the King's Bench,
stated the fact in quite explicit, though graceful, language; and
further, that More took no exception to the statement, which was
repeated in edition after edition. We can hardly imagine such a
passage being inserted in a modern biography of a public character,
even if it were written after his death. Just about the same time More
published among his epigrams some light-hearted Latin poems--doubtless
written in his youth--such as no public man with any regard for his
character would care to put his name to to-day.

There is another matter to which some allusion must be made, the
grossness of the age, though here again detail is scarcely possible.
The conditions of life in the sixteenth century made it difficult to
draw a veil over the less pleasant side of human existence. The houses
were filthy; the streets so disgusting that on days when there was no
wind to disperse the mephitic vapours, prudent people kept their
windows shut. Dead bodies and lacerated limbs must have been frequent
sights. Under these circumstances we need not be surprised that men
spoke more plainly to one another and even t