And, amid all the thronging shadows which people Chelsea’s shore, there walks no more vivid personality than his, as it moves before us through all his characteristic career; from the day he was taken from his school in Threadneedle Street, and made page-boy to Cardinal Morten, who said of him, seeing already his promise of wit and of worth: “This child here, waiting at table, whosoever shall live to see it, will prove a marvellous man;” then to Oxford on his scanty allowance; thence to New Inn and to Lincoln’s Inn, studying law by his father’s desire, albeit longing himself for the pulpit; then law-reader of Furnivall’s Inn, whence he was called to the bar at the age of twenty-one, and so going to live “religiously yet without vow” in the Charter-House; lecturing in St. Lawrence, Old Jewry, on Augustine’s “City of God,” listened to by “all the chief learned of London”; patiently practising his profession, taking “no fee of Widow, Orphane, or poor person”; becoming famous, near and far, for his capacity, learning, integrity; and thus elected to the House of Commons when only twenty-three, and soon made Speaker; rapidly rising to the highest place in the realm, that of Lord High Chancellor; and then, as he passed daily to his seat on the woolsack, stopping always before his aged father, who sat, as judge of the court of the King’s Bench, in William Rufus’s Hall at Westminster, and “reverently kneeling down in the sight of all, ask his blessing.” In the gallery of Old Masters at Brussels, I found lately, after long searching, a diminutive dark canvas set in a black frame, with a small gilt column on each side; its tiny tablet bears the inscription: “Holbein le jeune, 1497–1543. Thomas Morus.” This most attractive painting shows a table on which lies a small dog, peering at his master who sits behind; in More’s right hand, one finger between the leaves, he holds a book; his left hand grips his dark gown at the neck; a flat cap is on his head; a short curling beard, steadfast honest eyes, a plain, resolute, shrewd, strong face:—this is the man “in his habit as he lived” in the later years of his good life.