Page:The Life of Sir Thomas More (William Roper, ed by Samuel Singer).djvu/62

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THE LIFE OF

votion and prayer in the Charterhouse of London, religiously living there without vow about four Years, until he resorted to the house of one Maister Colte a gentleman of Essex, that had oft invited him thither, having three daughters whose honest conversation and virtuous education provoked him there specially to set his affection. And albeit his mind most served him to the second daughter, for that he thought her the fairest and best favoured, yet when he considered that it would be both great grief and some shame also to the eldest to see her younger sister preferred before her in marriage, he then, of a certain pity, framed his fancy toward her, and soon after [1]married her, never the more discontinuing his study of the law at Lincoln's Inn, but applying still the same until he was called to the Bench, and had [2]read there twice, which is as often as any Judge of the law doth ordinarily read.

Before which time he had placed himself and his wife at Bucklersbury in London, where he

  1. Maluit maritus esse castus, quam Sacerdos impurus.
    Virginem duxit admodum puellam, claro genere natam, rudem adhuc utpote ruri inter parentes ac sorores semper habitam, quo magis illi liceret illam ad suos mores fingere. Hanc et literis instruendam curavit, et omni Musices genere doctam reddidit.—Erasmi Epist.
  2. ————if I were againe to read in Lincolnes-Inne, and there were in hand with a statute that touched Treason. —More's English Works, p. 963. col. 2.