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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51327	Utopia written in Latin by Sir Thomas More, Chancellor of England ; translated into English.; Utopia. English	More, Thomas, Sir, Saint, 1478-1535.; Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1684 (1684)	Wing M2691; ESTC R7176	83,905	208

UTOPIA Written in Latin by Sir THOMAS MORE CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND Translated into English LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXIV THE PREFACE THere is no way of writing so proper for the refining and polishing a Language as the translating of Books into it if he that undertakes it has a competent skill of the one Tongue and is a Master of the other When a Man writes his own Thoughts the heat of his Fancy and the quickness of his Mind carry him so much after the Notions themselves that for the most part he is too warm to judg of the aptness of Words and the justness of Figures so that he either neglects these too much or overdoes them But when a Man translates he has none of these Heats about him and therefore the French took no ill Method when they intended to reform and beautify their Language in setting their best Writers on Work to translate the Greek and Latin Authors into it There is so little praise got by Translations that a Man cannot be engaged to it out of Vanity for it has past for a sign of a slow Mind that can amuse it self with so mean an Entertainment but we begin to grow wiser and tho ordinary Translators must succeed ill in the esteem of the World yet some have appeared of late that will I hope bring that way of writing in credit The English Language has wrought it self out both of the fulsome Pedantry under which it laboured long ago and the trifling way of dark and unintelligible Wit that came after that and out of the course extravagance of Canting that succeeded this but as one Extream commonly produces another so we were beginning to fly into a sublime pitch of a strong but false Rhetorick which had much corrupted not only the Stage but even the Pulpit two places that tho they ought not to be named together much less to resemble one another yet it cannot be denied but the Rule and Measure of Speech is generally taken from them but that florid strain is almost quite worn out and is become now as ridiculous as it was once admired So that without either the Expence or Labour that the French have undergone our Language has like a rich Wine wrought out its Tartar and is i●…insensibly brought to a Purity that could not have been compassed without much labour had it not been for the great advantage that we have of a Prince who is so great a Judg that his single approbation or dislike has almost as great an Authority over our Language as his Prerogative gives him over our Coin We are now so much refined that how defective soever our Imaginations or Reasonings may be yet our Language has fewer Faults and is more natural and proper than it was ever at any time before When one compares the best Writers of the last Age with these that excel in this the difference is very discernable even the great Sir Francis Bacon that was the first that writ our Language correctly as he is still our best Author yet in some places has Figures so strong that they could not pass now before a severe Judg. I will not provoke the present Masters of the Stage by preferring the Authors of the last Age to them for tho they all acknowledg that they come far short of B. Iohnson Beamont and Fletcher yet I believe they are better pleased to say this themselves than to have it observed by others Their Language is now certainly properer and more natural than it was formerly chiefly since the correction that was given by the Rehearsal and it is to be hoped that the Essay on Poetry which may be well matched with the best Pieces of its kind that even Augustus's Age produced will have a more powerful Operation if clear sense joined with home but gentle Reproofs can work more on our Writers than that unmerciful exposing of them has done I have now much leisure and want diversion so I have bestowed some of my hours upon Translations in which I have proposed no ill Patterns to my self but the Reader will be best able to judg whether I have copied skilfully after such Originals This small Volume which I now publish being writ by one of the greatest Men that this Island has produced seemed to me to contain so many fine and well-digested Notions that I thought it might be no unkind nor ill entertainment to the Nation to put a Book in their Hands to which they have so good a Title and which has a very common fate upon it to be more known and admired all the World over than here at Home It was once translated into English not long after it was written and I was once apt to think it might have been done by Sir Thomas More himself for as it is in the English of his Age and not unlike his Stile so the Translator has taken a liberty that seems too great for any but the Author himself who is Master of his own Book and so may leave out or alter his Original as he pleases which is more than a Translator ought to do I am sure it is more than I have presumed to do It was writ in the Year 1516 as appears by the Date of the Letter of Peter Giles's in which he says That it was sent him but a few days before from the Author and that bears date the first of November that Year but I cannot imagine how he comes to be called Sheriff of London in the Title of the Book for in all our printed Catalogues of Sheriffs his Name is not to be found I do not think my self concerned in the Matter of his Book no more than any other Translator is in his Author nor do I think More himself went in heartily to that which is the chief Basis of his Utopia the taking away of all Property and the levelling the World but that he only intended to set many Notions in his Reader 's way and that he might not seem too much in earnest he went so far out of all Roads to do it the less suspected the earnestness with which he recommends the precaution used in Marriages among the Utopians makes one think that he had a misfortune in his own choice and that therefore he was so cautious on that Head for the strictness of his Life covers him from severe Censures His setting out so barbarous a practice as the hiring of Assassinates to take off Enemies is so wild and so immoral both that it does not admit of any thing to soften or excuse it much less to justify it and the advising Men in some Cases to put an end to their Lives notwithstanding all the Caution with which he guards it is a piece of rough and fierce Philosophy The tenderest part of the whole Work was the representation he gives of Henry the Seventh's Court and his Discourses upon it towards the end of the first Book

in which his Disguise is so thin that the Matter would not have been much plainer if he had named him But when he ventured to write so freely of the Father in the Son's Reign and to give such an Idea of Government under the haughtiest Prince and the most impatient of uneasy Restraints that ever reigned in England who yet was so far from being displeased with him for it that as he made him long his particular Friend so he employed him in all his Affairs afterwards and raised him to be L. Chancellor I thought I might venture to put it in more Modern English for as the Translators of Plutarch's Hero's or of Tullies Offices are not concerned either in the Maxims or in the Actions that they relate so I who only tell in the best English I can what Sir Thomas More writ in very Elegant Latin must leave his Thoughts and Notions to the Reader 's censure and do think my self liable for nothing but the fidelity of the Translation and the correctness of the English and for that I can only say that I have writ as carefully and as well as I can THE Author's Epistle TO PETER GILES I Am almost ashamed my dearest Peter Giles to send you this Book of the Utopian Common-Wealth after almost a Years delay whereas no doubt you look'd for it within six Weeks for as you know I had no occasion for using my Invention or for taking pains to put things into any method because I had nothing to do but to repeat exactly those things that I heard Raphael relate in your presence so neither was there any occasion given for a studied Eloquence since as he delivered things to us of the sudden and in a careless Stile so he being as you know a greater Master of the Greek than of the Latin the plainer my words are they will resemble his simplicity the more and will be by consequence the nearer to the Truth and that is all that I think lies on me and it is indeed the only thing in which I thought my self concerned I confess I had very little left on me in this Matter for otherwise the inventing and ordering of such a Scheme would have put a Man of an ordinary pitch either of Capacity or of Learning to some pains and have cost him some time but if it had been necessary that this Relation should have been made not only truly but eloquently it could never have been performed by me even after all the pains and time that I could have bestowed upon it My part in it was so very small that it could not give me much trouble all that belonged to me being only to give a true and full account of the things that I had heard but although this required so very little of my time yet even that little was long denied me by my other Affairs which press much upon me for while in pleading and hearing and in judging or composing of Causes in waiting on some Men upon Business and on others out of Respect the greatest part of the Day is spent on other Mens Affairs the remainder of it must be given to my Family at home So that I can reserve no part of it to my self that is to my Study I must talk with my Wife and chat with my Children and I have somewhat to say to my Servants for all these things I reckon as a part of Business except a Man will resolve to be a Stranger at Home and with whomsoever either Nature Chance or Choice has engaged a Man in any Commerce he must endeavour to make himself as acceptable to these about him as he possibly can using still such a temper in it that he may not spoil them by an excessive gentleness so that his Servants may not become his Masters In such things as I have named to you do Days Months and Years slip away what is then left for Writing and yet I have said nothing of that time that must go for Sleep or for Meat in which many do waste almost as much of their time as in Sleep which consumes very near the half of our Life and indeed all the time which I can gain to my self is that which I steal from my Sleep and my Meals and because that is not much I have made but a slow progress yet because it is somewhat I have at last got to an end of my Utopia which I now send to you and expect that after you have read it you will let me know if you can put me in mind of any thing that has escaped me for tho I would think my self very happy if I had but as much Invention and Learning as I know I have Memory which makes me generally depend much upon it yet I do not relie so entirely on it as to think I can forget nothing My Servant John Clement has started some things that shake me You know he was present with us as I think he ought to be at every Conversation that may be of use to him for I promise my self great Matters from the progress he has so early made in the Greek and Roman Learning As far as my Memory serves me the Bridg over Anider at Amaurot was 500 paces broad according to Raphael's account but John assures me he spoke only of 300 paces therefore I pray you recollect what you can remember of this for if you agree with him I will believe that I have been mistaken but if you remember nothing of it I will not alter what I have written because it is according to the best of my remembrance for as I will take care that there may be nothing falsly set down so if there is any thing doubtful tho I may perhaps tell a lie yet I am sure I will not make one for I would rather pass for a good Man than for a wise Man but it will be easy to correct this Mistake if you can either meet with Raphael himself or know how to write to him I have another Difficulty that presses me more and makes your writing to him the more necessary I know not whom I ought to blame for it whether Raphael you or my self for as we did not think of asking it so neither did he of telling us in what part of the new-found World Utopia is situated this was such an omission that I would gladly redeem it at any rate I am ashamed that after I have told so many things concerning this Island I cannot let my Readers know in what Sea it lies There are some among us that have a mighty desire to go thither and in particular one pious Divine is very earnest on it not so much out of a vain curiosity of seeing unknown Countries as that he may advance our Religion which is so happily begun to be planted there and that he may do this regularly he intends to procure a Mission from the Pope and to be sent thither as their Bishop In such a case as