SIR THOMAS MORE
Page: 53

For credit of the place, that my estate were better.

LIEUTENANT.
It's very strange.

MORE.
It will be found as true.
I think, sir, that with most part of my coin
I have purchased as strange commodities
As ever you heard tell of in your life.

LIEUTENANT.
Commodities, my lord!
Might I (without offence) enquire of them?

MORE.
Croutches, Master Lieutenant, and bare cloaks;
For halting soldiers and poor needy scholars
Have had my gettings in the Chancery:
To think but what a cheat the crown shall have
By my attainder! I prithee, if thou beest a gentleman,
Get but a copy of my inventory.
That part of poet that was given me
Made me a very unthrift;
For this is the disease attends us all,
Poets were never thrifty, never shall.

[Enter Lady More mourning, Daughters, Master Roper.]

LIEUTENANT.
Oh, noble More!--
My lord, your wife, your son-in-law, and daughters.

MORE.
Son Roper, welcome;--welcome, wife, and girls.
Why do you weep? because I live at ease?
Did you not see, when I was Chancellor,
I was so clogged with suitors every hour,
I could not sleep, nor dine, nor sup in quiet?
Here's none of this; here I can sit and talk
With my honest keeper half a day together,
Laugh and be merry: why, then, should you weep?

ROPER.
These tears, my lord, for this your long restraint
Hope had dried up, with comfort that we yet,
Although imprisoned, might have had your life.

MORE.
To live in prison, what a life were that!
The king (I thank him) loves me more then so.
Tomorrow I shall be at liberty
To go even whether I can,
After I have dispatched my business.

LADY MORE.
Ah, husband, husband, yet submit yourself!
Have care of your poor wife and children.

MORE.
Wife, so I have; and I do leave you all
To his protection hath the power to keep you
Safer than I can,--
The father of the widow and the orphans.

ROPER.
The world, my lord, hath ever held you wise;
And 't shall be no distaste unto your wisdom,
To yield to the opinion of the state.

MORE.
I have deceived myself, I must acknowledge;
And, as you say, son Roper, to confess the same,