He was as fond of their pets and their games as his children themselves, and would take grave scholars and statesmen into the garden to see his girls' rabbit-hutches or to watch the gambols of their favourite monkey.

"I have given you kisses enough," he wrote to his little ones in merry verse when far away on political business, "but stripes hardly ever." [Sidenote: The Utopia] The accession of Henry the Eighth drew More back into the political current.

It was at his house that Erasmus penned the "Praise of Folly," and the work, in its Latin title, "Moriae Encomium," embodied in playful fun his love of the extravagant humour of More.

He was already in Henry's favour; he was soon called to the royal court and used in the king's service.

But More "tried as hard to keep out of court," says his descendant, "as most men try to get into it." When the charm of his conversation gave so much pleasure to the young sovereign "that he could not once in a month get leave to go home to his wife or children, whose company he much desired,...