I long for the day when the husbandman shall sing portions of them to himself as he follows the plough, when the weaver shall hum them to the tune of his shuttle, when the traveller shall while away with their stories the weariness of his journey." From the moment of its publication in 1516 the New Testament of Erasmus became the topic of the day; the Court, the Universities, every household to which the New Learning had penetrated, read and discussed it.

But, bold as its language may have seemed, Warham not only expressed his approbation, but lent the work--as he wrote to its author--"to bishop after bishop." The most influential of his suffragans, Bishop Fox of Winchester, declared that the mere version was worth ten commentaries, one of the most learned, Fisher of Rochester, entertained Erasmus at his house.
[Sidenote: More] Daring and full of promise as were these efforts of the New Learning in the direction of educational and religious reform, its political and social speculations took a far wider range in the "Utopia" of Thomas More.
Even in the household of Cardinal Morton, where he had spent his childhood, More's precocious ability had raised the highest hopes.
"Whoever may live to see it," the grey-haired statesman used to say, "this boy now waiting at table will turn out a marvellous man." We have seen the spell which his wonderful learning and the sweetness of his temper threw at Oxford over Colet and Erasmus; and young as he was, More no sooner quitted the University than he was known throughout Europe as one of the foremost figures in the new movement.

The keen, irregular face, the grey restless eye, the thin mobile lips, the tumbled brown hair, the careless gait and dress, as they remain stamped on the canvas of Holbein, picture the inner soul of the man, his vivacity, his restless, all-devouring intellect, his keen and even reckless wit, the kindly, half-sad humour that drew its strange veil of laughter and tears over the deep, tender reverence of the soul within.

In a higher, because in a sweeter and more loveable form than Colet, More is the representative of the religious tendency of the New Learning in England.

The young law-student who laughed at the superstition and asceticism of the monks of his day wore a hair shirt next his skin, and schooled himself by penances for the cell he desired among the Carthusians.