The author, for the convenience of setting forth his ideal of a perfect commonwealth, in a plainer and bolder manner than the jealousy of the government and the church would allow, feigns the existence of an island, Utopia, in a remote quarter of the globe, unknown to the people of Europe, and recently discovered by the celebrated navigator, Vespucci. Raphael Hylleloday, a philosopher, who accompanied Vespucci in his voyages, through curiosity, to examine the condition of the new-found nations, having become intimately versed in the history and manners of the Utopians, conveys a lengthened and minute account of the same to his friend More, at that time employed in the ‘king’s embassat’ in Flanders. Upon this hypothesis, the philosophical romance is founded; and under the form of historical narrative, the author unfolds his views of the manners, customs, pursuits, government and religion, which would obtain among a perfectly happy people. He condemns with severity, and ridicules with sharpness, the policy, both temporal and spiritual, which was pursued by the governments of Europe, and the whole system of social relations, which prevailed among the people. He exposes with equal fearlessness, the folly and wickedness of royal tyranny, prelatical intolerance, and private avarice. He pictures in earnest simplicity, the advantages of equality of rank, temperance in living, freedom of opinion, and general education; and much more than anticipates in theory, all the advances which have actually been made, in more than three centuries. In order to feel the full admiration, which the perusal of the ‘Utopia’ should legitimately excite, the reader must constantly bear in mind, the period at which the author wrote. Many positions, which to us appear obvious and common place,--because we have been familiar with them, as undoubted truisms, from our childhood--evinced in our author surpassing vigor of thought, and boldness of purpose, joined with a sagacity almost prophetic. The extent to which he pushed his liberality in religion, in an age distinguished for its bloody bigotry, may be learned from the following extract. (p. 159.)