_That Hall_; Westminster, where More was tried: _That other place_; Tower Hill. _The vision of her girlhood_; More taught his own children, and was like a child with them. He 'would take grave scholars and statesmen into the garden to see his girls' rabbit-hutches. . . . _I have given you kisses enough_, he wrote to his little ones, _but stripes hardly ever_': (Green, B. V: ch. ii). _The wonders_; See first note to _Grocyn at Oxford_. _In his large embrace_; More may be said to have represented the highest aim and effort of the 'new learning' in England. He is the flower of our Renaissance in genius, wisdom, and beauty of nature. 'When ever,' says Erasmus in a famous passage, 'did Nature mould a character more gentle, endearing, and happy, than Thomas More's?' AT FOUNTAINS 1539-1862 Blest hour, as on green happy slopes I lie, Gray walls around and high, While long-ranged arches lessen on the view, And one high gracious curve Of shaftless window frames the limpid blue. --God's altar erst, where wind-set rowan now Waves its green-finger'd bough, And the brown tiny creeper mounts the bole With curious eye alert, And beak that tries each insect-haunted hole, And lives her gentle life from nest to nest, And dies undispossess'd: Whilst all the air is quick with noise of birds Where once the chant went up; Now musical with a song more sweet than words. Sky-roof'd and bare and deep in dewy sod, Still 'tis the house of God! Beauty by desolation unsubdued:-- And all the past is here, Thronging with thought this holy solitude. I see the taper-stars, the altars gay; And those who crouch and pray; The white-robed crowd in close monastic stole, Who hither fled the world To find the world again within the soul. Yet here the pang of Love's defeat, the pride Of life unsatisfied, Might win repose or anodyne; here the weak, Armour'd against themselves, Exchange true guiding for obedience meek. Through day, through night, here, in the fragrant air, Their hours are struck by prayer; Freed from the bonds of freedom, the distress Of choice, on life's storm-sea They gaze unharm'd, and know their happiness. Till o'er this rock of refuge, deem'd secure, --This palace of the poor, Ascetic luxury, wealth too frankly shown,-- The royal robber swept His lustful eye, and seized the prey his own. --Ah, calm of Nature! Now thou hold'st again Thy sweet and silent reign! And, as our feverish years their orbit roll, This pure and cloister'd peace In its old healing virtue bathes the soul. 1539 is the year when the greater monasteries, amongst which Fountains in Yorkshire held a prominent place, were confiscated and ruined by Henry VIII. _The tiny creeper_; Certhia Familiaris; the smallest of our birds after the wren. It belongs to a class nearly related to the woodpecker. _White-robed_; The colour of the Cistercian order, to which Fountains belonged. SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY 1553-4