from
The Unfortunate Traveller
by Thomas Nashe


[On Erasmus and Sir Thomas More]

**     towards Venice we progrest, and tooke Roterdam in our waie, that was cleane out of our waie: there we met with aged learnings chiefe ornament, that abundant and superingenious clarke, Erasmus, as also with merrie Sir Thomas Moore, our Countriman, who was come purposelie ouer a little before vs, to visite the said graue father Erasmus: what talke, what conference wee had then, it were here superfluous to rehearse, but this I can assure you, Erasmus in all his speeches seemed so much to mislike the indiscretion of Princes in preferring of parasites and fooles, that he decreed with himselfe to swim with the stream, and write a booke forthwith in commendation of follie. Quick witted Sir Thomas Moore traueld in a cleane contrarie prouince, for he seeing most common-wealths corrupted by ill custome, & that principalities were nothing but great piracies, which, gotten by violence and murther, were maintained by priuate undermining and bloudshed, that in the cheefest flourishing kingdomes there was no equall or well deuided weale one with an other, but a manifest conspiracie of rich men against poore men, procuring their owne vnlawfull commodities vnder the name and interest of the common-wealth: hee concluded with himselfe to lay downe a perfect plot of a common-wealth or gouernment, which he would intitle his Vtopia.