The Utopia was written in Latin, but soon translated
into English. We use the adjective _utopian_ as meaning wildly fanciful
and impossible: its true meaning is of high excellence, to be striven
for--in a word, human perfection.
OTHER WORKS.--More also wrote, in most excellent English prose, a history
of the princes, Edward V. and his brother Richard of York, who were
murdered in the Tower; and a history of their murderer and uncle, Richard
III. This Richard--and we need not doubt his accuracy of statement, for he
was born five years before Richard fell at Bosworth--is the short,
deformed youth, with his left shoulder higher than the right; crafty,
stony-hearted, and cruel, so strikingly presented by Shakspeare, who takes
More as his authority. "Not letting (sparing) to kiss whom he thought to
kill ... friend and foe was indifferent where his advantage grew; he
spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose. He slew, with his
own hands, King Henry VI., being a prisoner in the Tower."
With the honorable name of More we leave this unproductive period, in
which there was no great growth of any kind, but which was the
planting-time, when seeds were sown that were soon to germinate and bloom
and astonish the world.
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