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<h3>MARGARET ROPER.</h3> [DIED 1544.] BALLARD. <ANTIMG src="images/it.jpg" alt="T" width-obs="78" height-obs="72" class="floatl" />HE learned, ingenious, and virtuous daughter of the famous Sir Thomas More, who intended his daughters to be such invaluable wives as he has described: "May you meet with a wife who is not always stupidly silent, nor always prattling nonsense; may she be learned, if possible, or at least capable of being made so. A woman thus accomplished will be always drawing sentences and maxims of virtue out of the best maxims of antiquity. She will be herself in all changes of fortune, neither blown up in prosperity, nor broken with adversity. You will find in her an ever-cheerful, good-humoured friend, and an agreeable companion for life. She will infuse knowledge into your children with their milk, and, from their infancy, train them up to wisdom. Whatever company you may be engaged in, you will long to be at home, and retire with delight from the society of men into the bosom of one who is so dear, so knowing, and so amiable. If she touches her lute, or sings to it any of her own compositions, her voice will soothe you in your solitudes, and sound more sweetly in your ear than that of the nightingale. You will spend with pleasure whole days and nights in her conversation, and be ever finding out new beauties in her discourse. She will keep your mind in perpetual serenity, restrain its mirth from being dissolute, and prevent its melancholy from being painful." As Margaret had, in the early part of her life, by an unwearied application and industry, made herself well acquainted with the learned languages, so she seems afterwards to have been as eagerly bent on the prosecution of the studies of philosophy, astronomy, physic, and the Holy Scriptures, the two last of which were recommended by her father as the employments of the remaining part of her life; so that one might imagine from hence that the chief of her learned and most admired compositions were wrote at that time when her thoughts were free from all uneasiness and perplexities of temporal affairs. But soon after this the scene was changed, when her principal delights and enjoyments seemed to have their period in the untimely loss of her invaluable father. Upon the oath of supremacy being tendered to Sir Thomas, and his refusal to take it, he was sent to the Tower, to the inexpressible affliction of Margaret [Mrs Roper], who, by her incessant entreaties, at last got leave to pay him a visit there, where she made use of all the arguments, reason, and eloquence she was mistress of, to have brought him to a compliance with the oath; but all proved ineffectual, his conscience being dearer to him than all worldly considerations whatsoever, even that of his favourite daughter's peace and happiness. I shall add, from Dr Knight's "Life of Erasmus," that "after sentence was passed upon Sir Thomas, as he was going back to the Tower, she rushed through the guards and crowds of the people, and came pressing towards him. At such a sight, as courageous as he was, he could hardly bear up under the surprise his passionate affection for her raised in him; for she fell upon his neck, and held him fast in the most endearing embraces, but could not speak one word to him; great griefs having that stupifying quality of making the most eloquent dumb. The guards, though justly reputed an unrelenting crew, were much moved at this sight, and were, therefore, more willing to give Sir Thomas leave to speak to her, which he did in these few words: 'My dear Margaret, hear with patience, nor do not any longer grieve for me. It is the will of God, and therefore must be submitted to.' And he then gave her a parting kiss. But after she was withdrawn ten or a dozen feet off, she comes running to him again, and falls upon his neck; but grief again stopped her mouth. Her father looked wistfully upon her, but said nothing, the tears trickling down his cheeks—a language too well understood by his distressed daughter, though he bore all this without the least change of countenance. But just when he was to take his final leave of her, he begged her prayers to God for him, and took his farewell of her. The officers and soldiers, as rocky as they were, melted at this sight; and no wonder, when even the very beasts are under the power of natural affections, and often show them." "Good God," adds the same elegant writer, "what a shocking trial must this be to the poor man! How could he be attacked in a more tender part?" After Sir Thomas was beheaded, she took care for the burial of his body, and afterwards bought his head, when it was to have been thrown into the river. She likewise felt the fury of the king's displeasure upon her father's score, being herself confined to prison; but after a short confinement, and after they had in vain endeavoured to terrify her with menaces she was released, and sent to her husband. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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