to choose for themselves themes of such revolting
monstrosity.

_Sir Thomas More_.--Poets--

_Montesinos_.--

"Tanti Rome non ha preti, o dottori
_Bologna_."

_Sir Thomas More_.--Critics--

_Montesinos_.--More numerous yet; for this is a corps in which many who
are destined for better things engage, till they are ashamed of the
service; and a much greater number who endeavour to distinguish
themselves in higher walks of literature, and fail, take shelter in it;
as they cannot attain reputation themselves they endeavour to prevent
others from being more successful, and find in the gratification of envy
some recompense for disappointed vanity.

_Sir Thomas More_.--Philosophers--

_Montesinos_.--True and false; the philosophers and the philosophists;
some of the former so full, that it would require, as the rabbis say of a
certain pedigree in the Book of Chronicles, four hundred camel loads of
commentaries to expound the difficulties in their text; others so empty,
that nothing can approximate so nearly to the notion of an infinitesimal
quantity as their meaning.

_Sir Thomas More_.--With this multiplication of books, which in its
proportionate increase marvellously exceeds that of your growing
population, are you a wiser, a more intellectual, or more imaginative
people than when, as in my days, the man of learning, while he sat at his
desk, had his whole library within arm's-length?

_Montesinos_.--If we are not wiser, it must be because the means of
knowledge, which are now both abundant and accessible, are either
neglected or misused.

The sciences are not here to be considered: in these our progress has
been so great, that seeing the moral and religious improvement of the
nation has in no degree kept pace with it, you have reasonably questioned
whether we have not advanced in certain branches, farther and faster than
is conducive to, or perhaps consistent with, the general good. But there
can be no question that great advancement has been made in many
departments of literature conducive to innocent recreation (which would
be alone no trifling good, even were it not, as it is, itself conducive
to health both of body and of mind), to sound knowledge, and to moral and
political improvement. There are now few portions of the habitable earth
which have not been explored, and with a zeal and perseverance which had
slept from the first age of maritime discovery till it was revived under
George III. in c