He was put to the free-school in London called St. Anthony’s, under the care of the famous Nicholas Holt, and when he had with great rapidity acquired a knowledge of his grammar rules, he was placed by his father’s interest under the great Cardinal Merton, archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord High Chancellor, whose gravity and learning, generosity and tenderness, allured all men to love and honour him.  To him More dedicated his Utopia, which of all his works is unexceptionably the most masterly and finished.  The Cardinal finding himself too much incumbered with business, and hurried with state affairs to superintend his education, placed him in Canterbury College in Oxford, whereby his assiduous application to books, his extraordinary temperance and vivacity of wit, he acquired the first character among the students, and then gave proofs of a genius that would one day make a great blaze in the world.  When he was but eighteen years old such was the force of his understanding, he wrote many epigrams which were highly esteemed by men of eminence, as well abroad as at home.  Beatus Rhenanus in his epistle to Bilibalus Pitchemerus, passes great encomiums upon them, as also Leodgarius a Quercu, public reader of humanity at Paris.  One Brixius a German, who envied the reputation of this young epigramatist, wrote a book against these epigrams, under the title of Antimorus, which had no other effect than drawing Erasmus into the field, who celebrated and honoured More; whose high patronage was the greatest compliment the most ambitious writer could expect, so that the friendship of Erasmus was cheaply purchased by the malevolence of a thousand such critics as Brixius.  About the same time of life he translated for his exercise one of Lucian’s orations out of Greek into Latin, which he calls his First Fruits of the Greek Tongue; and adds another oration of his own to answer that of Lucian; for as he had defended him who had slain a tyrant, he opposed against it another with such forcible arguments, that it seems not to be inferior to Lucian’s, either in invention or eloquence:  When he was about twenty years old, finding his appetites and passions very predominant.  He struggled with all the heroism of a christian against their influence, and inflicted severe whippings and austere mortifications upon himself every friday and on high fasting days, left his sensuality would grow too insolent, and at last subdue his reason.  But notwithstanding all his efforts, finding his lusts ready to endanger his soul, he wisely determined to marry, a remedy much more natural than personal inflictions; and as a pattern of life, he proposed the example of a singular lay-man, John Picas Earl of Mirandula, who was a man famous for chastity, virtue, and learning.  He translated this nobleman’s life, as also many of his letters, and his twelve receipts of good life, which are extant in the beginning of his English works.  For this end he also wrote a treatise of the four last things, which he did not quite finish, being called to other studies.