with what reckless zeal More combated the new opponents, with what feeble arguments he satisfied his perspicuous mind. No one who has not read the 'Supplication of Souls' can estimate More's strength and his weakness. No one can even fairly judge how far the native gentleness of his character, that exquisitely Christian disposition, which showed itself with all its tenderness in his domestic relations, and gave to his ordinary life, still more to his death, such irresistible attraction, was proof against that sterner bigotry in defence of their faith, which hardens even the meekest natures, deadens the most sensitive ears to the cries of suffering, makes pitilessness, even cruelty, a sacred duty. We leave to Mr. Froude and to his opponents the difficult, to us unproven, questions of the persecutions, the tortures, which More is accused as having more than sanctioned.* But the general tone, and too many passages in these works, as we must sadly admit in those of Erasmus, show that both had been driven to tamper at least with the milder and more Christian theoretic principles of their youth; both branded heresy as the worst of offences, worse than murder, worse than parricide; and left the unavoidable inference to be drawn as to the justice, righteousness, even duty of suppressing such perilous opinions by any means whatever. Mourn over but refuse not merciful judgment even to the merciless; obscure not the invaluable services of Erasmus to the cause of intellectual light and of Christian knowledge; obscure not the inimitable virtues, the martyr death, of More for conscience sake, the life put off even with playfulness, we say not resignation, and in full, we doubt not justifiable hope of the robes of a glorified Saint.

Only a few words more, after this last fatal blow, may close the life of Erasmus. He had already, on the legal establishment of the Reformation at Basil, not altogether without contention which had been overawed by the firmness of the Senate, taken up his residence at Friburg in the Brisgau, in the territories of Ferdinand of Austria. Before the death of More he had returned to Basil. After More's execution he lived for nearly a year; his books were his

It would be unpardonable to omit the testimony of Erasmus, but we must give the whole on this point. Porro, quod jactant de carceribus an verum sit nescio. Illud constat, virum naturâ mitissimum nulli fuisse molestum qui monitus voluerit a sectarum contagio resipiscere. An illi postulant ut summus tanti regni judex nullos habeat carceres. Odit ille seditiosa dogmata quibus nunc misere concutitur orbis. Hoc ille non dissimulat, nec cupit esse clam sic addictus pietati, ut si in alterutram partem aliquantulum inclinet momentum, superstitioni quam impietati vicinior esse videatur. Illud tamen eximiæ cujusdam clementiæ satis magnum est argumentum quod sub illo Cancellario, nullus ob improbata dogmata capitis pœnam dedit, quum in utraque Germania, Galliâque tam multi sunt affecti supplicio.-Epist. 526, additamenta. All the letter should be read.

† A.D. 1529. See Epist. 1048.

only

only true and inseparable friends, and in his books he found his consolation. To the last his unwearied industry pursued the labour of love. He was employed as editor of Origen when he was summoned to his account, we trust to his reward. So passed away a man with many faults, many weaknesses, with much vanity, with a want of independence of character, faults surely venial, considering the circumstances of his birth, his loneliness in the world, his want of natural friends, and even of country, and his physical infirmities; but a man who, in the great period of dawning intellect, stood forth the foremost: who in the scholar never forgot the Christian-he was strongly opposed to the new Paganism, which in Italy accompanied the revival of classical studies*whose avowed object it was to associate the cultivation of letters with a simpler Christianity, a Christianity of life as of doctrine; who in influence at least was the greatest of the 'Reformers before the Reformation.'

ART. II.-Annals, Anecdotes, and Legends: a Chronicle of Life Assurance. By John Francis, Author of 'The History of the Bank of England,' &c. London, 1853.

AMONGST the various indications of social progress which

see around us-the fruits of capital, credit, peace, and order-there are none more surprising to all who know their history than Assurance Societies. Next to clubs and ginpalaces, they have contributed the largest number of handsome buildings to the improvement of the metropolis. Next to railroads and the electric telegraph, they do most honour to science and enterprise; whilst far beyond those of any other invention or institution are their capabilities for correcting improvidence, for inculcating self-restraint, for warding off those slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' to which all of us-not excepting the best and wisest are inevitably exposed.

Obvious as are their advantages, their origin is modern; and for nearly a century after the necessity for them was generally admitted, their increase was slow. There were only six or seven offices in the United Kingdom in 1800. There are now nearly 200; yet the principle on which they are based is only half developed and very imperfectly understood, as may be proved to demonstra

* Unus adhuc scrupulus habet animum meum, ne sub obtentu priscæ literaturæ renascentis caput erigere conetur Paganismus; ut sunt inter Christianos, qui titulo pene duntaxat Christum agnoscunt, cæterum intus Gentilitatem spirant. From an early Letter (207), but he maintained the same jealousy to the end.

tion by the unseemly eagerness with which they are competing for custom, and by the embarrassing uncertainty through which so many would-be customers are lost. If the average duration or value of life could be calculated with precision, puffing directors would be regarded as adventurers or quacks. If the soundness and fairness of the schemes or systems adopted by the leading companies were beyond dispute, thousands who now hold aloof would hasten to take out policies. Where then is the hitch, check, or error? Who is in fault? Are the required tables not forthcoming? Are the registries imperfect? Are the statistical inquirers at a standstill for want of reliable materials; or are the actuaries deficient in skill? These questions will be best answered by a sketch of the rise, progress, and present state of life assurance; which, with the aid of the book before us, we do not despair of making both interesting and instructive.

Mr. Francis's 'Chronicle' is equally remarkable for industry and discrimination. Considering the pains he must have taken in his search for authorities, and the number of curious books he must have consulted, he has been laudably sparing of his extracts; and his predilection for the marvellous in narrative seldom leads him astray from the main and grave subject of his work. Whilst others have been filling volumes with what they are pleased to term the Romance of the Aristocracy, he has been assiduously employed on the Romance of the Money Market; and, on a careful comparison, we incline to think that the spirit of adventure has been as daringly displayed on the Exchange as in the tiltyard: nor could the novelist who wished to produce something especially strong in the exciting line, do better than found his plot on one of the complicated frauds or startling crimes which form an essential part of the commercial history of England. Indeed, one eminent master of the art of prose fiction has already set the example by reproducing James Weathercock, alias Thomas Griffith Wainwright, as the Gabriel Varney of 'Lucretia.'

Arguing from analogy, we should infer that one species of assurance would naturally suggest another; and that the practice of granting annuities for life or a term of years would speedily lead to that of insuring lives for a premium. But, in point of fact, marine insurances were the subject of statutes or ordinances some centuries before it occurred to any class of speculators that the contingency of sudden death might be provided against so far, at least, as pecuniary considerations were concerned by the same description of guarantee or indemnity as the wreck or capture of a ship; and long after the purchase of annuities had grown into a well-understood and ordinary method

of

of extortion amongst money-lenders, the most inventive and daring of them did not venture to speculate more directly on the chances of human existence, though compelled to form some estimate of these, however vague, for the purposes of their traffic. Their profits were probably large enough to render accurate calculations needless. Thus the famous annuity-monger of the sixteenth century-'the great Audley,' as he was called-frankly told one of his clients, We moneyed people must balance accounts: if you don't pay me my annuity, you cheat me; if you do, I cheat you.' He said his deeds were his children, which throve by sleeping; and, when asked the value of an office he had purchased in the Court of Wards, replied: "Some thousands to any one who wishes to get to heaven immediately; twice as much to him who does not mind being in purgatory; and nobody knows what to him who will adventure to go to hell.'

The closest approximation to life assurance of which we find any trace in the middle ages, was the practice in vogue at one period amongst crusaders and other travellers to the Holy Land. It was not every handsome youth that could calculate on being liberated, like Lord Bateman, by the only daughter of a Soldan, and the safer plan was obviously to deduct from the expenses of his outfit enough to secure the payment of his ransom in case of his being taken prisoner, an obligation for which some Jew or another was always ready to contract.

Mr. Francis attributes the reluctance of capitalists to engage in life assurance to the uncertainty which hung over human life in troublous times, when the population was periodically decimated by civil war, plague, or famine; and that such causes were in full operation till near the end of the seventeenth century, is undeniable. But the apparent anomaly may be sufficiently accounted for by the absence of trustworthy data for estimating the average duration of life. We may infer their paucity and imperfection from the difficulty which Lord Macaulay encountered in his attempt to compute and classify the population of England at the accession of James II.*

Parish Registers date from 1536, when they were established by Thomas Cromwell. But the entries were irregularly made; and it was not until after the plague of 1593, which carried off more than 30,000 inhabitants of London, that proper attention was paid to the Bills of Mortality, in the hope of quieting public apprehension, by checking exaggerated accounts of the effects of the visitation. The practice of publishing the Bills weekly, with

* See the commencement of the celebrated third chapter of his History. + See Haydn's Dictionary of Dates. But according to Graunt, the London Bills of Mortality began in 1592.

the

the respective causes of death, began in 1603, and they were commonly examined as matters of curiosity, or were consulted by the heads of families anxious to ascertain the healthiness of the City before repairing to it or selecting it as a place of abode. Thus Lord Salisbury, writing to Prince Henry, the son of James I., says, 'Be wary of Londoners, for there died here 123 last week.' But the first who thought of systematising the results, or of turning them to practical or scientific uses, appears to have been John Graunt, Citizen of London,' who, in 1662, published the fruits of long meditation and sedulous inquiry into the subject, under the title of Natural and Political Observations mentioned in a Following Index and made upon the Bills of Mortality.' He was born and bred within the sound of Bowbells, with no advantages of education beyond such as were then common to his class, who entertained the wildest notions flattering to Cockney self-importance. They estimated the population of London, as we estimate that of Canton or Pekin, by millions, and believed it to have increased two millions in twenty-six years. It is no wonder, therefore, that he indulged in a few speculations which may now excite a smile, and so much the higher honour is due to him for having penetrated such a cloud of vulgar error, to arrive at or indicate truths of incalculable utility to mankind. A careful analysis of the London Bills of Mortality, and a comparison of them with those of two or three country parishes, led him to the following conclusions :

'That seven per cent. died of age; that some diseases and casualties keep a constant proportion, whereas some others are very irregular ; that not above one in four thousand are starved; that not one in two thousand are murthered in London; that not one in fifteen hundred dies lunatick; that the stone (1662) decreases; that the scurvy increases; that the gout stands at a stay.'

This table is obviously inaccurate, for it would make out that only 6 in the 100 arrive at the age of 56, only 3 at 66, only 1 at 76, and none at 86; and in another place he lays down that 7

out