'words sufficient to express thy viperous treason;' Raleigh could not avoid the retort, I think you want words indeed, for you have spoken one thing half a dozen times.' He also interrupted Raleigh so often, that even Cecil, at last relented; it is his last discourse, give him, leave him, Mr. Attorney ;' and afterwards, be not so impatient good Mr. Attorney, give 'him leave to speak.' Here, (says the reporter,) Mr. Attorney sat down in a chafe and would speak no more 'till the 'Commissioners urged and eutreated him.' The trial is a vivid picture of the manners of that age. The accused, at this time was, perhaps, the greatest man in England, the last of those great men equally distinguished for wisdom and conduct, who gave character to the age of Elizabeth; a man of a comprehensive genius, of daring spirit and of splendid accomplishments. His fame as a great navigator, an enterprizing discoverer, and a successful commander by sea and land resounded over Europe. He was adorned with the unfading glories of the Spanish defeat and the greener laurels of Cadiz and Fayal. He was not dismayed by his hazardouş situation; nor disconcorted by the new arena in which he was to contend for a life, which had been so often ventured in the battles of his country; in a technical court of justice without counsel, he defended himself against a capital charge with a temper, a skill, a spirit, which alarmned his opponents, and converted the audience from foes to friends.

The prosecutor was the greatest lawyer and one of the greatest patriots of his day; at the head of a profession, which, by the wise institutions of his country, rivals that of arms, in the honours to which it leads, and the wealth which it insures; then enjoying a professional fame which, though not so ripe as that which has since identified his name with that Common Law which will endure as long as the English and their descendants in every quarter of the globe, shall reverence freedom; was yet sufficiently mature to have been allied with humanity and courtesy; and from whom might have been expected some of the sympathies of kindred genius, towards "a great man fallen :" yet what are the epithets which Coke applies to Raleigh: "notorious traitor," "vile and execrable traitor," "Spanish heart and English face," "viper," "vile viper," "damnable atheist ;" and what eagerness does he discover, that the accused may not escape him: taking every advantage, misconstruing and perverting the law, offering all kinds of evidence, and exaggerating the weakest; and discovering the utmost impatience at anything like a successful defence or any approach to a conelusive argument, on the part of the accused. The gross epithets

are an evidence of a coarse and unpolished age; but the management of the prosecution proves not only a devotedness to power which, it is to be feared, will display itself whenever a victim is to be sacrificed to please a king or gratify the people; but an ignorance of and inattention to the very elements of freedom in the administration of criminal justice. However plain many of these principles appear now to us, they have been of very slow growth, and can only be preserved by the most inflexible adherence to them under all possible circumstances. They must become the inveterate habit of the courts. The escape of the guilty, in obedience to the general rules of criminal evidence, should never be the subject of peevish complaint against the laws or their administrators. If they sometimes, nay often screen the guilty, it should never be forgotten that they are the only safeguard of the innocent.

The sentence against Raleigh was not executed, but he was confined to the tower. By the earnest solicitations of his lady, a part of his personal estate was remitted to him by the crown, for the payment of his debts and the maintenance of his family. The King also granted him his forfeited life estate in Shelburne, which in the former reign he had entailed upon his son. Lady Raleigh was also permitted to reside with him in the tower. These alleviations of his calamity had begun to reconcile him to it, when the rapacious favourite of the king, Carr, afterwards Earl of Somerset, having discovered a flaw in Raleigh's settlement, induced the King to have it set aside at law, and to make him a grant of the estate. Thus, for "want of a word," (as Raleigh says) his family were beggared, and he deprived of an adequate maintenance. No importunity of Raleigh, who addressed a moving letter to the worthless minion, could induce him to relinquish his grasp. Raleigh bad a miúd of too much hardihood for despondency; and he sought relief from his distresses in the resources of his genius and the pursuit of science and letters. These recommended him to the Queen and to Prince Henry. The Queen he relieved of a fever by a preparation which his knowledge of chemistry enabled him to make; which "great cordial" (as he has styled it) was afterwards administered to the Prince, but came too late. It was, as he has informed us, for the instruction of this prince, a youth of rare promise, that he applied himself to the writing of his History of the World. He had obtained the Prince's confidence ; had been consulted by him on some affairs of state, and wrote for him many valuable tracts. The Prince was pleased to say of Raleigh, "that no king but his father, would keep such a bird in a cage.

Prince Henry procured from the King, who compensated his favourite, for the loss, a grant of Raleigh's estate, intending to restore it to him, but his sudden death defeated his benevolent design, and the King returned it to Carr, but not without first paying to Raleigh one-third of its value. During his long confinement, he wrote upon various subjects; but his great work was the ripe fruit of his imprisonment, for which he would never have found leisure but for that calamity. His literary fame is owing to his luckless fate. Had he continued a statesman and courtier, he never could have devoted himself to that laborious undertaking. How much of the fame of great men has arisen from the depth of affliction and disgrace! The philosophical writings of Cicero and of Bacon, and the histories of Raleigh and Clarendon, we owe as much to their misfortunes as their genius. The History of the World was published just before the meeting of Parliament in 1644. It has passed through eleven editions, besides being abridged, and is still read not only for instruction but delight. In the early part of the work, he dives into the depths of theology, treats of the unknown and unknowable, and wanders deeply in the mazes of rabbinical learning. He has devoted a chapter of fifteen sections to the place of paradise, and another of four, to its two chief trees. Though he does not adopt the opinion of those who place paradise under the equinoctial line, he repels the objection of Thomas Aquinas, of "its distemperate heat;" for recollecting, probably, the climate of his beloved Guiana, he says—‘Now we find that these hottest ' regions of the world, seated under the equinoctial line, or near 'it, are so refreshed with a daily gale of easterly wind (which 'the Spaniards call the Brize) that doth evermore blow strong'est in the heat of the day, as the downright beams of the sun cannot so much master it, that there is any inconvenience or 'distemperate heat found thereby; next, the nights are so cold, 'fresh and equal, by reason of the entire interposition of the 'earth, (as for those places which I myself have seen near the ' line and under it) I know no other part of the world of equal or 'better temper. And the greatest part of those regions have so many goodly rivers, fountains and little brooks, abundance of high cedars and other stately trees casting shade, so many sorts ' of delicate fruits ever bearing, and at all times beautified with 'blossom and fruit, both green and ripe, as it may of all other 'parts, be best compared to the Paradise of Eden: the boughs ' and branches are never unclothed and left naked, their sap creepeth not under ground into the root, fearing the injury of 'the frost, nor doth Pomona at any time despise her withered

'husband Vertumnus in his winter-quarters and old age.'*

6

He

does not admit that the tree of knowledge was the Ficus Indica. For this Indian fig-tree is not so rare a plant as Becanus con'ceiveth, who, because he found it no where else, would needs 'draw the garden of Paradise to the tree, and set it by the river 'Acesiues. But many parts of the world have them; and I myself have seen twenty thousand of them in one valley, not 'far from Pana in America. They grow in moist grounds, and ' in this manner: After they are first shot up some twenty or 'thirty foot in length, they spread a very large top, having no 'bough or twig in the trunk or stem; for from the utmost ends ' of the head branches, there issueth out a gummy juice, which hangeth downward like a cord or sinew, and within a few months 'reacheth the ground, which it no sooner toucheth, but it taketh 'root, and then being filled both from the top boughs and from his own proper roots, this cord maketh itself a tree exceeding hastily From the utmost boughs of these young trees, there 'fall again the like cords, which in one year and less (in that 'world of a perpetual spring) become also trees of the bigness ' of the nether part of a lance, and as straight as art or nature 'can make anything, casting such a shade and making such a 'kind of grove as no other tree in the world can do. Now one ' of these trees, considered with all his young ones, may, indeed, 'shroud four hundred or four thousand horsemen if they please, 'for they cover whole vallies of ground where these trees grow near the sea-bank, as they do by thousands, in the inner part of "Trinidad. The cords which fall down over the banks into the sea, shooting always downwards to find root under water, are in those seas of the Indies where oysters breed, entangled in 'their beds, so as by pulling up one of these cords out of the 'sea, I have seen five hundred oysters hanging in a heap there'on; whereof the report came that oysters grew on trees in 'India.'t

6

These lively digressions, however out of place in a regular history, in which he relates from his personal observation, constitute the charm of the work; they give it a freshness and originality, and bring into lively contrast ancient and modern story, and thus reflect their mutual lights. But it is not only in these obscurer parts of history in which imagination has so much scope, and where the poets and rabbins are the best authority, that Sir Walter excels. He appears to have mastered the authentic parts of the Grecian and Roman history, and is not a mere compiler from ancient annals, but brings his good

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History of the World, b. i. c. 3. § 8.

t Ibid. b. i. c. 4. § 2.

sense and experience to our aid in his reflections on the characters of men, the manners of nations, and the causes and consequences of events.

One would not have expected from Raleigh what he says of courage, in speaking of Alexander the Great. For his per'son it is very apparent that he was as vahant as any man, a 'disposition, taken by itself, not much to be admired; for I am 'confident that he had ten thousand men in his army as daring 'as himself. Surely, if adventurous natures were to be com'mended simply, we should confound that virtue with the hardi'ness of thieves, ruffians and mastiff dogs. For certainly it is 'noways praiseworthy but in doing good things and in the performance of those lawful enterprizes in which we are employed for the service of our kings and cominonweals.'

It is, perhaps, among the most learned books in the English language, there being scarcely anything relating to human nature, upon which he has not touched. Though he has been called a free-thinker, and was once charged by his enemies with atheism, he appears to have been familiar with the sacred scriptures. As a specimen of his skill as a commentator, a passage may be referred to on a much controverted subject of late.

'I find not in scripture (says he) any warrant to oppress men 'with bondage, unless the lawfulness thereof be sufficiently in'timated, where it is said that a man shall not be punished for 'the death of a servant whom he hath slain by correction, if the 'servant live a day or two, because he is his money, (Exod. 21. 2) or else by captivity of the Midianitish girls, (Num. 31.9) which were made bond slaves, and the sanctuary had a part of them for the Lord's tribute. Doubtless, the custom hath been very ancient; for Noah (Gen. 9. 25) laid this curse upon Canaan, 'that he should be a servant of servants, and Abraham had of 'Pharaoh, among other gifts, men servants and maid servants, (Gen. 12. 16) which were none other than slaves. The Christian religion is said to have abrogated this old kind of servility, but surely they are deceived that think so. St. Paul desired the liberty of Onesimus, whom he had won unto Christ; yet wrote he for this unto Philemon by way of request, craving it as a benefit, not urging it as a duty. Agreeable hereto, is the 'direction which the same St. Paul giveth unto servants. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called; art thou called, being a servant,* care not for it, but if thou mayst be made free, chuse it rather. (1 Cor. 7. 20. 21.) In

* AOTAOX a slave.-See Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon.