This eminent man was the son of a gentleman of good family and estate in Grantham, Lincolnshire. He was born in 1614. His father sent him to study at Eton, and thence, in 1631, he repaired to Cambridge, where he was destined to spend the most of his life. Philosophy attracted him early, in preference to science or literature, and he became a follower of Plato, so decided and enthusiastic as to gain for himself the title of 'The Platonist' _par excellence_. In 1639, he graduated M.A.; and the next year, he published the first part of 'Psychozoia; or, The Song of the Soul,' containing a Christiano-Platonical account of Man and Life. In preparing the materials of this poem, he had studied all the principal Platonists and mystical writers, and is said to have read himself almost to a shadow. And not only was his body emaciated, but his mind was so overstrung, that he imagined himself to see spiritual beings, to hear supernatural voices, and to converse, like Socrates, with a particular genius. He thought, too, that his body 'exhaled the perfume of violets!' Notwithstanding these little peculiarities, his genius and his learning, the simplicity of his character, and the innocence of his life, rendered him a general favourite; he was made a fellow of his college, and became a tutor to various persons of distinguished rank. One of these was Sir John Finch, whose sister, Lady Conway, an enthusiast herself, brought More acquainted with the famous John Baptist Van Helment, a man after whom, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, the whole of Europe wondered. He was a follower and imitator of Paracelsus, like him affected universal knowledge, aspired to revolutionise the science of medicine, and died with the reputation of one who, with great powers and acquirements, instead of becoming a great man, ended as a brilliant pretender, and was rather an 'architect of ruin' to the systems of others, than the founder of a solid fabric of his own. More admired, of course, not the quackery, but the adventurous boldness of Helment's genius, and his devotion to chemistry; which is certainly the most spiritual of all the sciences, and must, especially in its transcendental forms, have had a great charm for a Platonic thinker. Our author was entirely devoted to study, and resisted every inducement to leave what he called his 'Paradise' at Cambridge. His friends once tried to decoy him into a bishopric, and got him the length of Whitehall to kiss the king's hand on the occasion; but when he understood their purpose, he refused to go a single step further. His life was a long, learned, happy, and holy dream. He was of the most benevolent disposition; and once observed to a friend, 'that he was thought by some to have a soft head, but he thanked God he had a soft heart.' In the heat of the Rebellion, the Republicans spared More, although he had refused to take the Covenant. Campbell says of him,