ways in one document. Gascoigne, like Raleigh, knew Lord Grey of Wilton, and most men about town, too, and had been a soldier abroad, like Raleigh, probably with him. It seems to have been the fashion for young idlers to lodge among the Templars; indeed, toward the end of the century, they had to be cleared out, as crowding the wigs and gowns too much, and perhaps proving noisy neighbours, as Raleigh may have done. To this period may be referred, probably, his justice done on Mr. Charles Chester, (Ben Jonson's Carlo Buffone,) "a perpetual talker, and made a noise like a drum in a room; so one time, at a tavern, Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth, his upper and nether beard, with hard wax." For there is a great laugh in Raleigh's heart, a genial contempt of asses; and one that will make him enemies hereafter; perhaps shorten his days.

One hears of him next, (but only by report,) in the Netherlands, under Norris, where the nucleus of the English army (especially of its musquetry) was training. For Don John of Austria intends not only to crush the liberties and creed of the Flemings, but afterwards to marry the Queen of Scots, and conquer England; and Elizabeth, unwillingly and slowly, for she cannot stomach rebels, has sent men and money to The States, to stop Don John in time; which the valiant English and Scotch do on Lammas-day 1578, and that in a fashion till then unseen in war. For coming up late and panting, and “being more sensible of a little heat of the sun, than of any cold fear of death," they throw off their armour and clothes, and, in their shirts, (not over-clean, one fears,) give Don John's rashness such a rebuff, that two months more see that wild meteor, with lost hopes and tarnished fame, die down and vanish below the stormy horizon. In these days, probably, it is that he knew Colonel Bingham, a soldier of fortune, of a "fancy high and wild, too desultory and over-voluble," who had, among his hundred-and-one schemes, one for the plantation of America; as poor Sir Thomas Stukely (whom Raleigh must have known well,) uncle of the traitor Lewis, had for the peopling of Florida.

Raleigh returns: Ten years has he been learning his soldier's trade in silence. He will take a lesson in seamanship next. The Court may come in time; for, by now, the poor squire's younger son must have discovered-perhaps even too fullythat he is not as other men are; that he can speak, and watch, and dare, and endure, as none around him can do. However, here are "good adventures toward," as the Morte d'Arthur would say; and he will off with his half-brother Humphrey Gilbert, to carry out his patent for planting Meta Incognita,-" The Unknown Goal," as Queen Elizabeth has named it,-which will

prove to be too truly and fatally unknown. In a latitude south of England, and with an Italian summer, who can guess that the winter will out-freeze Russia itself? The merchant-seaman, like the statesman, had yet many a thing to learn. Instead of smiling at our forefathers' ignorance, let us honour the men who bought knowledge for us their children at the price of lives nobler than our own.

So Raleigh goes on his voyage with Humphrey Gilbert, to carry out the patent for discovering and planting in "Meta Incognita;" but the voyage prospers not. A "smart brush with the Spaniards" sends them home again, with the loss of Morgan, their best captain, and "a tall ship," and Meta Incognita is forgotten for a while but not the Spaniards. Who are these who forbid all English, by virtue of the Pope's bull, to cross the Atlantic? That must be settled hereafter; and Raleigh, ever busy, is off to Ireland, to command a company in that “ common-weal, or rather common-woe," as he calls it in a letter to Leicester. Two years and more pass here; and all the records of him which remain are of a man, valiant, daring, and yet prudent beyond his fellows. He hates his work; and is not on too good terms with stern and sour, but brave and faithful Lord Grey: but Lord Grey is Leicester's friend, and Raleigh works patiently under him, like a sensible man, because he is Leicester's friend. modern gentleman of note (we forget who, and do not care to recollect) says, that Raleigh's "prudence never bore any proportion to his genius." The next biographer we open accuses him of being too calculating, cunning, time-serving; and so forth. Perhaps both are true. The man's was a character very likely to fall alternately into either sin,-doubtless, did so a hundred times. Perhaps both are false. The man's character was, on occasion, certain to rise above both faults. We have evidence that he did so his whole life long.

Some

But

He is bored with Ireland at last nothing goes right there, (when has it?) nothing is to be done there. That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. He comes to London, and to Court. how? By spreading his cloak over a muddy place for Queen Elizabeth to step on? It is a pretty story; very likely to be a true one but biographers have slurred a few facts in their hurry to carry out their theory of "favourites," and to prove that Elizabeth took up Raleigh on the same grounds that the silliest boarding-school miss might have done. Not that we deny the cloak story, if true, to be a very pretty story; perhaps it justifies, taken alone, Elizabeth's fondness for him. There may have been self-interest in it; we are bound, as 66 men of the world,"

to impute the dirtiest motive that we can find: but how many self-interested men do we know, who would have had quickness and daring to do such a thing? Men who are thinking about themselves are not generally either so quick-witted, or so inclined to throw away a good cloak, when by much scraping and saving they have got one. We never met a cunning, selfish, ambitious man who would have done such a thing. The reader may but even if he has, we must ask him, for Queen Elizabeth's sake, to consider that this young Quixote is the close relation of two of the finest public men then living, Champernoun and Carew. That he is a friend of Sidney; a pet of Leicester; that he has left behind him at Oxford, and brought with him from Ireland, the reputation of being a rara avis, a new star in the firmament; that he has been a soldier in her Majesty's service (and in one in which she has a peculiar private interest) for twelve years; that he has held her commission as one of the triumvirate for governing Munster, and been the commander of the garrison at Cork; and that it is possible that she may have heard something of him before he threw his cloak under her feet, especially as there has been some controversy (which we have in vain tried to fathom) between him and Lord Grey about that terrible Smerwick slaughter; of the result of which we know little, but that Raleigh, being called in question about it in London, made such good play with his tongue, that his reputation as an orator and a man of talent was fixed once and for ever.

66

Within the twelve months he is sent on some secret diplomatic mission about the Anjou marriage; he is in fact now installed in his place as a favourite." And why not? If a man is found to be wise and witty, ready and useful, able to do whatsoever he is put to, why is a sovereign, who has eyes to see the man's worth, and courage to use it, to be accused of I know not what, because the said man happens to be good-looking? Of all generations, this, one would think, ought to be the last to cry out against "favouritism" in government: but we will draw no odious comparisons, because readers can draw them but too easily for themselves.

Now comes the turning-point of Raleigh's life. What does he intend to be? Soldier, statesman, scholar, or sea-adventurer? He takes the most natural, yet not the wisest course. He will try and be all four at once. He has intellect for it; by worldly wisdom he may have money for it also. Even now he has contrived (no one can tell whence) to build a good bark of two hundred tons, and send her out with Humphrey Gilbert on his second and fatal voyage. Luckily for Raleigh she deserts and comes home, while not yet out of the Channel, or she had surely

gone the way of the rest of Gilbert's squadron. Raleigh, of course, loses money by the failure, as well as the hopes which he had grounded on his brother's Transatlantic viceroyalty. And a bitter pang it must have been to him, to find himself bereft of that pure and heroic counsellor, just at his entering into life. But with the same elasticity which sent him to the grave, he is busy within six months in a fresh expedition. If Meta Incognita be not worth planting, there must be, so Raleigh thinks, a vast extent of coast between it and Florida, which is more genial in climate, perhaps more rich in produce; and he sends Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow to look for the same, and not in vain.

On these Virginian discoveries we shall say but little. Those who wish to enjoy them should read them in all their naïve freshness in the originals; they will subscribe to S. T. Coleridge's dictum, that no one now-a-days can write travels as well as the old worthies could, who figure in Hakluyt and Purchas. But we return to the question, What does this man intend to

be?

A discoverer and colonist; a vindicator of some part at least of America from Spanish claims? We fear not altogether, else he would have gone himself to Virginia, at least the second voyage, instead of sending others. But here, it seems to us, is the fatal, and yet pardonable mistake, which haunts the man throughout. He tries to be too many men at once. Fatal: because, though he leaves his trace on more things than (perhaps) did ever one man before or since, he, strictly speaking, conquers nothing, brings nothing to a consummation. Virginia, Guiana, the History of the World, his own career as a statesman -as king, (for he might have been king had he chosen,) all are left unfinished. And yet most pardonable; for if a man feels that he can do many different things, how hard to teach himself that he must not do them all! How hard to say to himself, "I must cut off the right hand, and pluck out the right eye." I must be less than myself, in order really to be any thing. I must concentrate my powers on one subject, and that perhaps by no means the most seemingly noble or useful, still less the most pleasant, and forego so many branches of activity in which I might be so distinguished, so useful." This is a hard lesson. Raleigh took just sixty-six years learning it, and had to carry the result of his experience to the other side of the dark river, for there was no time left to use it on this side. Some readers may have learnt the lesson already. If so, happy and blessed are they. But let them not, therefore, exalt themselves above Walter Raleigh; for that lesson is (of course) soonest learnt by the man who can excel in few things, later by him who can

excel in many, and latest of all by him who, like Raleigh, can excel in all.

Space prevents us from going into details about the earlier court-days of Raleigh. He rises rapidly, as we have seen. He has an estate given him in Ireland, near his friend Spenser, where he tries to do well and wisely, colonizing, tilling, and planting it; but, like his Virginia expeditions, principally at second hand. For he has swallowed (there is no denying it) the painted bait. He will discover, he will colonize, he will do all manner of beautiful things, at second hand : but he himself will be a courtier. It is very tempting. Who would not, at the age of thirty, have wished to have been one of that chosen band of geniuses and heroes whom Elizabeth had gathered round her? Who would not, at the age of thirty, have given his pound of flesh to be captain of her guard, and to go with her whithersoever she went? It is not merely the intense gratification to carnal vanity (which, if any man denies or scoffs at, we always mark him down as especially guilty) which is to be considered; but the real, actual honour, in the mind of one who looked on Elizabeth as the most precious and glorious being which the earth had seen for centuries. To be appreciated by her; to be loved by her; to serve her; to guard her; what could man desire more on earth?

Beside, he becomes a member of Parliament now, and Lord Warden of the Stannaries; business which of course keeps him in England: business which he performs (as he does all things) wisely and well. Such a generation as this ought really to respect Raleigh a little more, if it be only for his excellence in their own especial sphere-that of business. Raleigh is a thorough man of business. He can "toil terribly," and what is more, toil to the purpose. In all the everyday affairs of life, he remains without a blot; a diligent, methodical, prudent man, who, though he plays for great stakes, ventures and loses his whole fortune again and again, yet never seems to omit the "doing the duty which lies nearest him; never gets into mean money scrapes; never neglects tenants or duty; never gives way for one instant to "the eccentricities of genius."

If he had done so, be sure that we should have heard of it. For no man can become what he has become without making many an enemy; and he has his enemies already. On which statement naturally occurs the question-why? An important question too; because several of his later biographers seem to have running in their minds some such train of thought as this— Raleigh must have been a bad fellow, or he would not have had so many enemies; and because he was a bad fellow, there is an