"the invasion of the Palatinate,-the King's son-in-law an exile," Austria dominant on the Continent, the Protestant religion trodden under foot, the wavering and cowardly policy of James, matter of contempt and ridicule to all the nations of Europe: these were the scenes without; while within the Tower, Raleigh was engaged in those literary and scientific labors, which, not less than his personal adventures, have rendered his name immortal. The death of Cecil, and the fall of Somerset, who had possessed himself of Raleigh's estates, seemed to open the way for his release. He now addressed a petition to the King, in which he proposed a plan for the settlement of Guiana, and the working of a gold mine which he had discovered there, and upon the payment of a heavy bribe to Buckingham, he was set at liberty. James was willing to grant to the solicitations of that corrupt favorite what he would never yield to a sense of justice. Raleigh had intended, indeed, to purchase of the venal court a formal pardon. He was dissuaded from doing so however, by the Attorney General, Lord Bacon, who is said to have told him "the knee timbers of your voyage is money spare your purse in this particular, for, on my life, you have sufficient pardon; the King having under his broad seal inade you Admiral of your fleet, and given you power of martial law over your officers and soldiers." Raleigh, having been attacked with paralysis during his imprisonment, was little able to endure the exposure and privations of a long voyage. Severe sickness prevented him upon his arrival in Guiana, from taking the lead in person. But he found, to his utter astonishment, that the Spaniards had been made acquainted beforehand with the minutest particulars of his plans,-and were prepared to receive him as an enemy. They attacked the party which landed, and though repulsed, his eldest son was slain in the encounter. The officer, on whom the command now devolved, finding every path to the mine blocked up, and dispirited by the loss of so many men, and the death of young Raleigh, retreated to the ships. Prostrated by disease, almost broken-hearted with disappointment, overwhelmed by the death of his brave son and the treacherous betrayal of his Šovereign, Raleigh was compelled to return to England. He had no sooner landed, than he was arrested and imprisoned. James had pretended a deep interest in the expedition of Raleigh, and, for the purpose of more fully considering his plans, had obtained from him a minute written description of every particular. He had given these very papers to the Spanish Ambassador, to be forwarded to Madrid, and, having thus insured Raleigh's defeat, he received. that illustrious man on his return only by a proclamation of charges against him which he knew to be false, and a fresh imprisonment. He directed his minion, Buckingham, to inform the Spanish Court that he had Raleigh in his power, and waited only to know the will of Philip, whether he should be put to death in England, or sent to Spain for execution. The will of Philip was soon made known. The death of a man, who more than any other had contributed to exalt the glory of England, and humble the pride of Spain, was to

be secured at once, and if possible, in that country which he had done so much to render illustrious.

But it was difficult to find a decent pretext for taking away the life of Raleigh. To discover something which migh: be perverted to this end, James placed spies about him in the Tower, to insinuate themselves into his confidence, and watch him "with eyes sharpened by malignity,"-acted himself as the principal inquisitor,confined his faithful and affectionate wife a prisoner to her own house, encouraged her to correspond with her unfortunate husband,-meanly intercepted her letters and Raleigh's replies, and yet, after all, could find no ground of accusation. But the court of Spain must be conciliated, "Baby Charles" must wed the Spanish Infanta, and to make way for the nuptials, Raleigh must die. The "orders" of the Spanish court were, that the punishment shall be exemplary and immediate. They were received on the 15th October, and on the 29th this great man was condemned to be executed on the iniquitous sentence of fifteen years before. "It was in vain that he urged his plea of an implied pardon. In vain he produced the King's commission, under which he had acted as a subject alive in the eyes of the law." Never, even in that most shameless time, was the majesty of public justice more shamelessly abused. The predetermined sentence was pronounced. To Raleigh death had no terrors. He had made it the subject of familiar contemplation. His firm belief in a divine revelation,-in the mercy of God to a penitent soul which rested on its Savior, threw over this last scene the light of cheerfulness and hope. He requested a little time for the arrangement of his affairs, but even this was denied him by the heartless King. He was informed that execution must take place the next morning. Having taken leave of his wife, he drew up a brief justification of his conduct, and then taking his Bible, wrote upon a blank leaf these lines:

"Even such is time, that takes on trust

Our life, our joys, our all we have,

And pays us but with age and dust:
Who in the dark and silent grave,

Where we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust."

A little before nine o'clock, Friday, Oct. 29, 1618, he was taken from prison to the place of execution. He ascended the scaffold with calmness, and saluted those who stood near, with the same graceful courtesy for which he had been ever distinguished.Though weak from long sickness, he addressed the multitude, defending himself with calm and yet with convincing eloquence from the charges of his enemies. He concluded, by saying: "I entreat that you all will join with me in prayer, to that Great God of Heaven whom I have grievously offended, that He will, of his Almighty goodness, extend to me forgiveness; being a man full of vanity, and one who has lived a sinful life. I have been a soldier, a sailor, a courtier, all of them courses of wickedness and vice, but I

trust He will not only cast away my sins from me, but will receive me into everlasting life." Having spent sometime in prayer, he rose and, clasping his hands, said "now I am going to God." He desired to see the axe, which, upon being brought to him, he took, and, as he passed his finger lightly over the edge, said, "It is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases." He then walked to a corner of the scaffold, and kneeling down, requested the people to pray with and for him. After a season of silent devotion, he took off part of his apparel and laid his head upon the block. Being requested to turn his face to the East, he said "It mattered little how the head lay, provided the heart was right."— After two or three minutes, during which, as appeared from the motion of his lips, he was occupied in prayer, he gave the signal, and his head was severed from his body. Such," at the age of sixty-six, "were the last moments, and such the final close of this great man's life.

Raleigh was one of those great minds which leave an impression upon the age in which they live. His personal history is intimately associated with the history of England, during the reign of Elizabeth; the triumph of the Protestant religion, the humiliation of Spain, the independence of Holland,-discovery in America, and the rise of that great naval and commercial prosperity which made England mistress of the seas. Compared with most of the distinguished men of his time,-the Cecils, the Howards, the Buckinghams, the Somersets, he appears immeasurably their superior. He had faults,-but there was nothing mean in himnothing small. He had not the exquisite intellect of Bacon, but in all that constitutes true nobleness of personal character, he far surpassed that illustrious contemporary. If Raleigh was ambitious, an ambition ever restless and sometimes ruinous, it was a feeling which arose out of love for his country and a zeal for her preëminence and glory. It was not, like Bacon's, a narrow and cringing spirit, for which he was ready to stain his integrity and to barter his independence. If Raleigh loved wealth, it was with no sordid affection, but with a disposition to expend it freely in acts glorious to the nation. He did not, like Bacon, prostitute the majesty of justice, by taking bribes upon the bench, that he might squander the ill-gotten gains upon his own person. If Raleigh was willing to flatter the vanity of Elizabeth, he did not lend himself, like Bacon, to pander to the worst passions of perhaps the basest monarch that ever disgraced the English throne. There is a striking contrast between Raleigh, on the one hand, exerting all his influence to save from death the unhappy clergyman Udall,-becoming so importunate for his pardon that Elizabeth asks him "when will you cease to be a beggar," and he replying, "when your majesty shall cease to be a benefactress," and Bacon, on the other, urging forward the condemnation of the aged Peacham, putting him to the rack, and striving to extort treason from his screams. If Raleigh was the enemy of Essex, and labored to secure his ruin,

he did not, like Bacon, after having received unmeasured kindness from that unhappy_nobleman, "first volunteer his professional talents to shed the Earl's blood, and then exert his literary talents to blacken the Earl's reputation."

Whatever may have been the religious sentiments of Raleigh in early life, his long imprisonment, and his many misfortunes seem to have been the means of leading him to repose, with unwavering confidence in the hopes and promises of the Gospel. The pious and eloquent Bishop Hall, beautifully alludes to the effects of affliction upon his mind, by saying, "It is observed, that shining wood when kept within doors loses its light: it is otherwise with this, and many other active wits, which had never shined so much if not for closeness."

As a soldier, the fame of Raleigh may well rest upon the conquest of Fayal, and the capture of Cadiz. As a Poet, Spenser even has highly praised his sweet and nectar sprinkled verse," likening the harmony of its numbers to the "melody of the summer's nightingale." As a Historian, he has bequeathed to posterity an extraordinary monument of his genius and learning, in the "History of the World." As a statesman, his views of national policy were far in advance of his time, and he is said to have spoken on all subjects, with a ready and convincing eloquence. A prominent member of parliament, at the very beginning of that struggle, which in the next age shook England to its centre, threw off on another continent her best and bravest spirits, and hurried her King to the scaffold, Raleigh, with a far reaching wisdom, defended the freedom of domestic industry, sought to relieve the people from the oppressive burdens of taxation, and gave his voice for the repeal of all monopolies, even when it was cutting off the great source of his wealth.

But the name of Walter Raleigh, has higher claims than these, on the patriotic recollections of every American. Though himself unsuccessful in his attempts, to establish a colony on these shores, to "him is due the honor of first projecting, and of keeping up by his unwearied efforts, at an enormous personal expenditure, the idea of permanent English settlements in America. His name therefore, is most intimately connected with the origin of these independent States, and must be held in grateful reverence by every student of American history.

It is given to some great minds, by an almost prophetic power, to anticipate the future. Says the last will of Lord Bacon "my naine and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own country after some time is passed over." Perhaps, amid the gloom of imprisonment, and the anticipations of his own dastardly, judicial murder, there might have gleamed upon the eye of Raleigh some such vision of a coming time, and another land, in which his name and his memory should be vindicated. Perhaps, in those midnight hours, if we may suppose aught earthly to mingle with the moments which he spent with his Bible and his God; as he felt

himself upstayed by the everlasting arm,-he too looked beyond the dark season in which Tyranny should triumph over Right, to discover the brightness of the future, and the glory of the new Continent which he had almost given to the English race."Though his family was" to be "reduced to beggury, and he himself to die upon the scaffold," he might have seen through the vista of years, the very Bible, with whose sacred truths he then held communion, discovered by an American citizen, and together with the last lines traced by his hand, stored among the priceless treasures which genius and taste have gathered as memorials of the noble and the good. He might have seen a great and sovereign state in this empire republic, taking up his honored name, and "reviving in its own capital, the CITY of RALEIGH. Thus, to use the words of a distinguished American historian, "expressing its confidence in the integrity, and a grateful respect for the memory of the extraordinary man, who united in himself as many kinds of glory as were ever combined in a single individual."

THE OLD HOMESTEAD.

Down in a quiet, sun-lit valley

Stands my low-roofed cottage home;

Rushing thoughts around it rally,

Thither wafted while I roam.

There in summer, as of olden

Waves the green topp'd maple tree;

There, in autumn sere and golden,
Shadows flit across the lea.

Still the streamlet cleaves the meadow,
Bordered by the mantling vine,
Where, beneath the tall oak's shadow,
Then I threw the hempen line.

Thoughtless childhood! happy childhood!
I would journey back to thee;
Roam again the "tangled wild-wood,"
Sport beneath the maple tree.

There no busy Sorrows fashion
Phantoms in the path of youth,

Nor pale Care nor purple Passion

Taint the bloom of Love and Truth.