iards, was compelled to return home-his golden dreams dissolved, and his prophetic soul forewarning him of the doom that awaited him on his native shores. In July 1618, he landed at Plymouth; whence,' says Howell, in his 'Familiar Letters,' 'he thought to make an escape, and some say he tampered with his body by physic to make him look sickly, that he might be the more pitied, and permitted to lie in his own house.' James was at this time seeking the hand of the Infanta for his son Charles, and was naturally disposed to side with the Spanish He was, besides, stirred up by the Spanish ambassador, Count Gondomar, who sent to desire an audience with His Majesty, and said, that he had only one word to say to him. "The King wondered what could be delivered in one word, whereupon, when he came before him, he said only, "Pirates! pirates! pirates!" and so departed.' cause. Raleigh consequently was arrested and sent back to his old lodgings in the Tower. He was not tried, as might have been expected, for the new offence of waging war against a power then at amity with England, but James, with consuminate meanness and cruelty, determined to revive his former sentence. He was brought before the King's Bench, where his old enemy, Sir Edward Coke, now sat as Chief Justice, and officially condemned him to death. His language, however, was considerably modified to the prisoner. He said, 'I know you have been valiant and wise, and I doubt not but you retain both these virtues, for now you shall have occasion to use them. Your faith hath heretofore been questioned, but I am resolved you are a good Christian; for your book, which is an admirable work, doth testify as much. I would give you counsel, but I know you can apply unto yourself far better than I can give you. Yet will I (with the good neighbour in the Gospel, who, finding one in the way wounded and distressed, poured oil into his wounds and refreshed him) give unto you the oil of comfort, though, in respect that I am a minister of the law, mixed with vinegar.' Such was Coke's comfort to the brave and gifted man who stood untrembling before his bar. On the 26th of October 1618, the day after his condemnation, Raleigh was beheaded. He met his fate with dignity and com posure. Having addressed the multitude in vindication of his conduct, he took up the axe, and said to the sheriff, 'This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases.' He told the executioner that he would give the signal by lifting up his hand, and then,' he said, 'fear not, but strike home.' He next laid himself down, but was asked by the executioner to alter the position of the head. 'So the heart be right,' he replied, 'it is no matter which way the head lies.' The headsman became uncertain and tremulous when the signal was given, whereupon Raleigh exclaimed, 'Why dost thou not strike? Strike, man!' and by two blows that gallant, witty, and richlystored head was severed from the body. He was in his sixtyfifth year. He had the night before composed the following verse: Even such is Time, that takes on trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have, Thus perished Sir Walter Raleigh. There has been ever one opinion as to the breadth and brilliance of his genius. His powers were almost universal in their range. He commented. on Scripture with the ingenuity of a Talmudist, and wrote love verses (see the lines in Campbell's 'Specimens,' entitled 'Dulcina') with the animus and graceful levity of a Thomas Moore. He was deep at once in 'all the learning of the Egyptians,' and in that of the Greeks and Romans. In his large mind lay dreams of golden lands, which even Australia has not yet fully verified, alongside of maxims of the most practical wisdom. He was learned in all that had been; well-informed as to all that was; and speculative and hopeful as to all that might be and was yet to be. Disgust at the scholastic methods, blended with the adventurous character of his mind, and perhaps also with some looseness of moral principle, led him at one time to the brink of universal scepticism; but disappointment, sorrow, and the solitude of the Tower, made him a sadder and wiser man, and he returned to the verities of the Christian religion. The stains on his character seem to have arisen chiefly from his position. He was, like some greater and some smaller men. of eminence, undoubtedly, to a certain extent, a brilliant adventurer-a class to whom justice is seldom done, and against whom every calumny is believed. He was a novus homo, in an age of more than common aristocratic pretence; sprung, indeed, from an ancient family, but possessing nothing himself, save his cloak, his sword, his tact, and his genius. We all know how, in later times, such spirits, kindred in many points to Raleigh, in some superior, and in others inferior-as Burke, Sheridan, and Canning-were used, less for their errors of temper or of life, than because they had gained immense influence, not by birth or favour, but by the force of extraordinary talent and no less remarkable address. Raleigh, however, was undoubtedly imprudent in a high degree. He had once or twice outraged common morality; his enemies were constantly accusing him of gasconading and of 'pride.' His success at first was too early and too easy, and hence a reverse might have been anticipated as certain and as remarkable as his rise had been. His fall ultimately is understood to have been precipitated by the base complicity of James with the Spaniards, who were informed by the King of Raleigh's motions in America, and prepared to counteract them, as well as by the loud-sounding invectives and legal lies of the unscrupulous instruments of his tyrannical power. With all his faults and follies, (of 'crimes,' it has been justly said, Raleigh can hardly be accused,) he stood high in that crowd of giants who illustrated the reign of the Amazonian Queen. What an age it was! Bacon, with still brighter powers, and far darker and meaner faults than Raleigh, was sitting on the woolsack in body, while his spirit was presiding over the half-born philosophies of the future, and beholding the cold rod of Induction blossom in an after-day into the Aaronic flowers and fruits of a magnificent science; Cecil was nodding out wisdom or transcendental craft in the Cabinet; Sir Philip Sidney was carrying the spirit of 'Arcadia' into the field of battle; Spenser was dreaming his one beautiful lifelong Dream; and Shakspeare was holding up his calm mirror to the heart of man and the universe of nature; while, on the prow of the British vessel, carrying on those lofty spirits and enterprises, there appeared a daring mariner, the Poet and Shepherd of the Ocean,' with bright eye, sanguine countenance, step treading the deck like a throne, and look contemplating the sunset, as if it were the dawning, and the Evening, as if it were the Morning Star. It was the hopeful and the brilliant Raleigh, who, while he opened up to Europe the New World, was the historian of the Old.' Alas that this illustrious Marinere' was doomed to a life so troubled and a death so dreadful, and that the glory of one of England's prodigies is for ever bound up with the disgrace of one of England's and Scotland's princes! THE COUNTRY'S RECREATIONS. 1 Heart-tearing cares and quiv'ring fears, Fly to fond worldling's sports; Where strain'd sardonic smiles are glozing still, And sorrows only real be. 2 Fly from our country pastimes, fly, Come, serene looks, Clear as the crystal brooks, Or the pure azured heaven, that smiles to see Peace and a secure mind, Which all men seek, we only find. 3 Abused mortals, did you know Where joy, heart's ease, and comforts grow, And seek them in these bowers; Where winds perhaps our woods may sometimes shake, Saving of fountains that glide by us. 4 Blest silent groves! oh, may ye be For ever mirth's best nursery! May pure contents, For ever pitch their tents Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these And peace still slumber by these purling fountains, Find when we come a-fishing here. THE SILENT LOVER. 1 Passions are liken'd best to floods and streams, The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb; So when affection yields discourse, it seems 2 3 The bottom is but shallow whence they come; They that are rich in words must needs discover They are but poor in that which makes a lover. Wrong not, sweet mistress of my heart, The merit of true passion, With thinking that he feels no smart That sues for no compassion. approve Since if my plaints were not t' |