Three Early Modern Utopias: Thomas More: Utopia / Francis Bacon: New Atlantis / Henry Neville: The Isle of Pines

by Thomas More

  Thus Sir, have I given you a brief, but true relation of our voyage. Which I was the more willing to do, to prevent false copies which might be spread of this nature. As for the Island of Pines itself, which caused me to write this relation, I suppose it is a thing so strange as will hardly be credited by some. Although perhaps knowing persons, especially considering our last age being so full of discoveries, that this place should lie dormant for so long a space of time, others I know, such Nullifidians as will believe nothing but what they see, applying that proverb unto us, ‘That Travellers may lie by authority’.* But Sir, in writing to you, I question not but to give credence, you knowing my disposition so hateful to divulge falsities. I shall request you to impart this my relation to Mr W.W. and Mr P.L., remembering me very kindly unto them, not forgetting my old acquaintance, Mr J.P. and Mr J.B. No more at present, but only my best respects to you and your second self, I rest,

  Yours in the best of friendship,

  Henry Cornelius Van Sloetten.

  July 22, 1668.

  Postscript.

  One thing concerning the Isle of Pines, I had almost quite forgot. We had with us an Irish man named Dermot Conelly who had formerly been in England, and had learned there to play on the bagpipes, which he carried to Sea with him. Yet so un-Englished he was, that he had quite forgotten your language, but still retained his art of bagpipe-playing, in which he took extraordinary delight. Being one day on land in the Isle of Pines, he played on them, but to see the admiration of those naked people concerning them, would have stricken you into admiration. Long time it was before we could persuade them that it was not a living creature, although they were permitted to touch and feel it. And yet are the people very intelligible, retaining a great part of the ingenuity and gallantry of the English nation, though they have not that happy means to express themselves. In this respect we may account them fortunate, in that possessing little, they enjoy all things, as being contented with what they have, wanting those allurements to mischief which our European Countries are enriched with. I shall not dilate any further. No question but time will make this Island known better to the world; all that I shall ever say of it is that it is a place enriched with nature’s abundance, deficient in nothing conducible to the sustentation of man’s life, which were it manured by agriculture and gardening, as other of our European countries are, no question but it would equal, if not exceed many which now pass for praiseworthy.

  FINIS

  EXPLANATORY NOTES

  UTOPIA

  the request of a friend . . . himself alone: the friend was one George Tadlowe, of whom nothing is known. See Robinson’s dedication to William Cecil (printed in the Appendix of Ancillary Materials) which was included in the first edition of Robinson’s translation but dropped in the second.

  more haste than good speed: Robinson is playing on the old meaning of ‘good speed’ = success, and implying that his haste led him to overlook errors.

  the Latin proverb . . . whelps: from Erasmus’s collection of classical proverbs Adagia (1500): Canis festinans caecos ponit catulos (quoting Aristotle and Galen).

  this notable saying of Terence . . . corrigas: see the Roman comic dramatist Terence’s Adelphoe, or The Brothers, ll. 739–41. The meaning of the lines is accurately explained by Robinson.

  More . . . sendeth greeting: Peter Giles (also spelt ‘Gilles’) was a pupil and friend of Erasmus, born in Antwerp in 1586, and appointed Chief Secretary of the town in 1510. Erasmus introduced him to More in 1515. This letter originally appeared in the first edition of Utopia.

  Raphael: Raphael Hythloday, who reports to More his visit to Utopia.

  Truth . . . plainness: some of the marginal notes in this edition appear to have been written by Robinson. Others were translated from notes that appeared in the Latin editions of the text. Peter Giles claims credit for some of these in his letter to Busleyden (see below); elsewhere, however, they are attributed to Erasmus.

  John Clement, my boy: Clement was a page in More’s household and later married More’s adopted daughter. He was a student of Colet at St Paul’s School. In 1519 he became Reader at Oxford, and later in life was a well-known physician.

  Hythloday: ‘Hythloday’ is from the Greek huthlos (‘nonsense’, ‘trifles’) and daio (‘distribute’, ‘kindle’), thus ‘peddlar of trifles’, ‘kindler of nonsense’. Raphael was one of God’s archangels. R. M. Adams suggests that a ‘trilingual pun could make the whole name mean “God heals [Heb. Raphael] through the nonsense [Gk. huthlos] of God [Lat. dei]”’. There has been some recent disagreement over the meaning of Hythloday’s name, however. Halpern (1991: see Select Bibliography) suggests that ‘nonsense’ is an inaccurate translation of huthlos, and proposes instead that pleasurable, non-philosophical speech rather than falseness is what Hythloday peddles.

  late famous vicar of Croydon in Surrey: possibly Rowland Phillips, Canon of St Paul’s and Warden of Merton College Oxford. He was vicar of Croydon in 1497. As the marginal note makes clear, it is uncertain whether or not More was describing a real person here.

  danger of gunshot: the proverb appears in Erasmus’s Adagia.

  Raphael Hythloday: see note to p. 6 above.

  Henry the eighth . . . king of Castile: the future Charles V, who became Prince of Castile in 1516, and Holy Roman Emperor in 1519. The controversy to which More refers here concerns the wool trade: the English had prohibited the export of wool to the Netherlands after Charles’s Dutch dominions had imposed strict import duties on English wool.

  ambassador into Flanders . . . Master of the Rolls: the prohibition of wool sales to the Netherlands had adversely affected the English wool trade. A delegation, of which More was a part, was sent to Flanders to negotiate in 1515: More wrote Book Two of the Utopia while serving on this delegation (Book One was written after his return to England). Cuthbert Tunstall was also a member of the delegation to Flanders; greatly respected by More for his learning, he was appointed Master of the Rolls (Clerk of the Chancery Court) in 1516.

  as the proverb saith: sayings similar to this appear in Erasmus’s Adagia.

  the Margrave . . . profoundly learned: the Margrave was the chief magistrate, or mayor; Bruges was an important port for the English wool trade. George Temsice, also a native of Bruges, and sometimes known as George (or Georges) de Themsecke (or Theimsecke), was, as More says, Provost, or Chief Magistrate, of Cassel.

  but in reasoning . . . few fellows: whose debating skills were second to none, partly by virtue of his native intelligence, partly thanks to his extensive experience.

  Peter Giles: see note to p. 4 above.

  Our Lady’s Church: the Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame.

  stricken in age: of advanced years.

  not as the mariner Palinurus . . . Plato: Palinurus was the pilot of Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid; Ulysses the hero of Homer’s Odyssey. Plato was reported to have travelled widely in his search for knowledge. More seems to be drawing a distinction here between those who travel for money or glory and those who travel in pursuit of higher virtues; he may also expect his readers to remember that Palinurus lost his way in a storm, landing the ship on the island of Celaeno and her Harpies (see below), and later dropped asleep at the helm, fell overboard, and was murdered by the inhabitants of the island he washed up upon (Virgil, Aeneid, iii. 202, v. 832, and vi. 340).

  saving a few of Seneca’s and Cicero’s doings: Seneca was a Stoic; Cicero had Stoic sympathies.

  for he is a Portugall born: the Portuguese were amongst the most tireless of early modern European explorers, reaching Cape Bojador in 1434, Gambia in 1446, the Congo in 1484, and India in 1498. They discovered, and for many years dominated, the Cape route to India and South East Asia.

  Amerigo Vespucci . . . in every man’s hands: born in 1451, Vespucci made four voyages between 1497 and 1504, the last two for the King of Portugal. He claimed to have discovered America (named after him) and published two accounts of his voyages (New World and Quatuor Americi Vesputii N
avigationes, or The Four Voyages of Amerigo Vespucci) in the early years of the sixteenth century.

  the twenty-four . . . the country of Gulike: Robinson has misunderstood More’s Latin text here. More is referring to Vespucci’s account of having left twenty-four men behind, in a fort: Robinson misunderstood the Latin for ‘fort’ as denoting the name of a town (Julich).

  for his mind’s sake: because he desired it.

  these sayings: the first saying derives from Lucan (Pharsalia, vii. 819); the second from Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, i., xliii. 104.

  Taprobane: an ancient name for Sri Lanka.

  Calicut: a port in Southern India on the Malabar coast, which under the navigation of an Indian pilot was the first Indian port visited by Vasco de Gama in May 1498.

  nothing less than looked for: completely unexpectedly.

  the lodestone . . . unknown: magnets began to be extensively used in shipping from the fifteenth century.

  as for monsters . . . incredible monsters: More alludes here to the reports of monsters that littered early modern travel narratives, which he compares with classical monsters (known to be purely mythical). Scylla was the monster (described by Homer as six-headed, by Virgil as having a woman’s torso, a wolverine’s belly, and a dolphin’s tail) who lay in wait on one of the two rocks between Italy and Sicily (see Homer’s Odyssey, xii; Virgil’s Aeneid, iii. 426). Celaeno was a Harpy, a birdlike creature with the head of a woman (see Virgil’s Aeneid, iii. 212). The Lestrygonians were cannibalistic giants who destroyed eleven of Odysseus’ ships together with their crews (Odyssey, x).

  in bondage to . . . at your pleasure: the distinction in the Latin is between servias (slave) and inservias (in service to); the Latin text has a sentence, omitted by Robinson, which draws attention to the pun. More himself hesitated over entering the service of the king.

  my mind . . . clean against: completely counter to my principles and nature.

  So both the raven . . . fairest: again a proverb which appears in Erasmus’s Adagia.

  Trip takers: those who trip up other men’s arguments.

  the insurrection . . . suppressed and ended: in 1497, after one tax too many, the Cornish rebelled, being brutally defeated at Blackheath. According to Hall’s Chronicle the rebels lost more than 2,000 men in the battle.

  John Morton, Archbishop . . . I will say: Morton was a statesman under Henry VI and Edward IV and was created Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor by Henry VII. More served as a page in Morton’s household between 1490 and 1492, and was encouraged by Morton to go to Oxford. Hythloday’s admiration for Morton was not shared by a good deal of the English population, who hated him for devising a number of ingenious taxes. According to Bacon, the best-known of these was ‘Morton’s fork’, which taxed those who spent on the grounds that they were rich, and those who did not spend on the grounds that they must have saved up money.

  In the which . . . took great delectation: he took great delight in ready wit and bold spirit, since these were his own virtues too, just so long as those virtues were not accompanied with insolence.

  that strait and rigorous . . . upon one gallows: The Latin text states that sometimes twenty would be hanged on one gallows. But the severity with which the death penalty was applied in England was notorious: according to Holinshed’s Chronicle, for example, 7,200 thieves were hanged during the reign of Henry VIII alone.

  simple theft: theft alone (i.e. not accompanied by actual or threatened violence).

  Blackheath field . . . the wars in France: Blackheath field was the site of the bloody 1497 defeat of the Cornish rebels (see note to p. 17 above). Henry VII’s wars with Charles VIII were terminated at the Treaty of Étaples in 1492. Henry VIII’s troops also suffered heavy casualties in wars with France in 1512–13.

  their tenants . . . raising their rents: ‘poll and shave’, i.e. exploit to the limit. Exploitative landlords purchased or leased property solely in order to raise the rents of sitting tenants, who had no protection under the law against such abuses.

  idle and loitering serving men: such servants constituted the last vestiges of private armies retained by feudal noblemen, which had been broken up by Henry VII.

  Yet France . . . much sorer plague: the French army was made up principally of mercenaries.

  of Sallust: by the Roman historian Sallust, in Catiline’s War, xvi. 3.

  the examples of the Romans . . . manifestly declare: all these lost control of their armies, either because those armies were made up of slave labour, or because they employed, or fought against, mercenaries.

  of their own armies . . . a readiness: by their own standing armies (which, being mercenaries or slaves, were ready to turn on them).

  French soldiers . . . unpractised soldiers: England had achieved several large victories over the French, the most recent of which was Agincourt (1415).

  picked and chosen men: handpicked, the very best.

  your sheep . . . very men themselves: in pursuit of the considerable profits to be had from the wool trade, landowners were turning arable land into pasture for sheep, and enclosing large tracts of land previously held in common. In so doing they deprived commoners of their livelihoods, since they no longer had anywhere to graze their livestock, and since their skills in arable farming were no longer a means to employment when arable land was turned into pasture. (The Latin refers to this last consequence in a sentence which Robinson does not translate.) As a result, the peasantry was increasingly fragmented and atomized, forced from subsistence into destitution, from the land into the towns, and eventually, from being basically self-supporting smallholders into a mass of wage labourers.

  certain abbots, holy men no doubt: the Church was frequently accused of enclosing common land; Cistercian monks, for instance, had practised sheep-farming on a large scale in the Pennines since the twelfth century.

  cormorant: used figuratively to describe someone who was rapacious and insatiably greedy.

  very little worth . . . the sale: which would be worth almost nothing even if its owners were able to sell it in the best possible market.

  And yet . . . vagabonds: such ‘vagabonds’ came from a variety of sources. Some were disappropriated peasants, others ex-retainers from dismantled private armies. By the time Robinson produced his translation of the Utopia, the unemployed population had been swelled by Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, since no provision was found for the considerable number of servants employed by the monks.

  no man . . . young store: no one to devote himself to the breeding of young stock.

  bred . . . brought up: bred more quickly than they are sold. This is the present state of affairs; Hythloday is anticipating what will happen when exploitative landlords turn their attentions to places so far untouched.

  unlawful games: both Henry VII and Henry VIII passed various laws attempting to limit pastimes such as these.

  engross and forestall: to monopolize commodities and hoard goods.

  advance . . . felons: flatter yourselves that you do justice on your criminals.

  Hold your peace, quoth the Cardinal: according to the marginalia in some early editions, Cardinal Morton did habitually curtail the garrulous.

  what violence . . . to the mischief: what punishment (other than the death penalty) could prevent robbery from people who (are so base as to) believe that a reduction in the penalty is an invitation to the crime?

  And if any man . . . be lawful . . .: if anyone should think that God’s prohibition of killing only operates when it is not in conflict with killing sanctioned by the state . . .

  after what sort: to what degree.

  Moses law . . . clemency and mercy: for Mosaic, or Old Testament, law (as opposed to New Testament law with which More contrasts Mosaic law), see Exodus 19–24.