At selling of a horse, and that's the most.
Methinks the little wit I had is lost
Since I saw you; for wit is like a rest

Held up at tennis, which men do the best,

With the best gamesters: what things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid; heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,

As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,

And had resolved to live a fool the rest

Of his dull life: then when there had been thrown
Wit able enough to justify the town

For three days past; wit that might warrant be
For the whole city to talk foolishly

Till that were cancell'd; and when that was gone,
We left an air behind us, which alone

Was able to make the two next companies

Right witty; though but downright fools were wise. When I remember this,

8

I needs must cry

I see my days of ballading grow nigh;

I can already riddle, and can sing

Catches, sell bargains, and I fear shall bring
Myself to speak the hardest words I find
Over as oft as any with one wind,

That takes no medicines, but thought of thee
Makes me remember all these things to be
The wit of our young men, fellows that show
No

part of good, yet utter all they know, Who, like trees of the garden, have growing souls. Only strong Destiny, which all controls,

I hope hath left a better fate in store

For me, thy friend, than to live ever poor.
Banish'd unto this home: Fate once again

Bring me to thee, who canst make smooth and plain
The way of knowledge for me; and then I,
Who have no good but in thy company,

Protest it will my greatest comfort be,

To acknowledge all I have to flow from thee,
Ben; when these scenes are perfect, we'll taste wine;
I'll drink thy muse's health, thou shalt quaff mine.

ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER.

Mortality, behold and fear,
What a charge of flesh is here!
Think how many royal bones
Sleep within these heap of stones:
Here they lie, had realms and lands,

Who now want strength to stir their hands
Where, from their pulpits seal'd with dust,
They preach-in greatness is no trust.
Here's an acre sown indeed

With the richest, royal'st seed,

That the earth did e'er suck in
Since the first man died for sin :

Here the bones of birth have cried,
Though gods they were, as men they died:

Here are wands, ignoble things,

Dropp'd from the ruin'd sides of kings.

Here's a world of pomp and state

Buried in dust, once dead by fate.

AN EPITAPH.

Here she lies, whose spotless fame
Invites a stone to learn her name:

The rigid Spartan that denied
An epitaph to all that died,

Unless for war, in charity

Would here vouchsafe an elegy.
She died a wife, but yet her mind,
Beyond virginity refined,

From lawless fire remain'd as free
As now from heat her ashes be:
Keep well this pawn, thou marble chest;
Till it be call'd for, let it rest;

For while this jewel here is set,

The

grave

is like a cabinet.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

THE verses attributed to this illustrious man are few, and the authenticity of some of them is doubtful. No one, however, who has studied his career, or read his 'History of the World,' can deny him the title of a great poet.

We cannot be expected, in a work of the present kind, to enlarge on a career so well known as that of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was born in 1552, at Hayes Farm, in Devonshire, and descended from an old family there. He went early to Oxford, but finding its pursuits too tame for his active and enterprising spirit, he left it, and became a soldier at seventeen. For six years he fought on the Protestant side in France, besides serving a campaign in the Netherlands. In 1579, he went a voyage, which proved disastrous, to Newfoundland, in company with his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert. There can be no doubt that this early apprenticeship to war and navigation was of material service to the future explorer and historian. In 1580, he fought in Ireland against the Earl of Desmond, who had raised a rebellion there, and on one occasion is said to have defended a ford of Shannon against a whole band of wild Irish rebels, till the stream ran purple with their blood and his own. With the Lord-Deputy, Lord Grey de Wilton, he got into a dispute, and to settle it came over to England. Here high

favour awaited him. His handsome appearance, his graceful address, his ready wit and chivalric courtesy, dashed with a fine poetic enthusiasm, (see them admirably pictured in 'Kenilworth,') combined to exalt him in the estimation of Queen Elizabeth. On one occasion he flung his rich plush cloak over a miry part of the way, that she might pass on unsoiled. By this delicate piece of enacted flattery he 'spoiled a cloak and made a fortune.' The Queen sent him, along with some other courtiers, to attend the Duke of Anjou, who had in vain solicited her hand, back to the Netherlands. In 1584, he fitted two ships, and sent them out for the discovery and settlement of those parts of North America not already appropriated by Christian states, and the next year there followed a fleet of seven ships under the command of Sir Richard Grenville, Raleigh's kinsman. The attempt to colonise America at that time failed, but two important things were transplanted through means of the expedition from Virginia to Britain, namely, tobacco and the potato,-the former of which has ever since been offered up in smoky sacrifice to Raleigh's memory throughout the whole world, and the latter of which has become the most valuable of all our vegetable esculents. Raleigh first planted the potato in Ireland, a country of which it has long been the principal food. A ludicrous story is told about this. It is said that he had invited a number of his neighbours to an entertainment, in which the new root was to form a prominent part, but when the feast began Raleigh found, to his horror, that the servants had boiled the plums, a most unsavoury mess, and immediately, we suppose, 'tabulæ solvuntur risu.' In 154 the Queen had knighted him, and shortly after she granted him certain lucrative monopolies, and an estate in Ireland, in addition to one he had possessed for some years. In 1588, he was of material service as one of Her Majesty's Council of War, formed to resist the Spanish Armada, and as one of the volunteers who joined the English fleet with ships of their own. Next year he accompanied a number of his countrymen in an expedition, which had it in view to restore Don Antonio to the throne of Portugal, of which the Spaniards had deprived him. On his return he lost caste considerably, both with the Queen and country, by taking bribes, and otherwise abusing the

influence he had acquired at Court. Yet, about this time, his active mind was projecting what he called an Office of Address,'—a plan for facilitating the designs of literary and scientific men, promoting intercourse between them, gaining, in short, all those objects which are now secured by our literary associations and philosophical societies. Raleigh was eminently a man before his age, but, alas! his age was too far behind him.

While visiting Ireland, after his expedition to Portugal, he contracted an intimacy with Spenser. (See our 'Life of Spenser,' vol. ii.) In 1592, he commanded a large naval expedition, destined to attack Panama and intercept the Spanish Plate-fleet, but was recalled by the Queen, not, however, till he had seized on an important prize, and, in common parlance, had 'feathered his nest.' On his return he excited Her Majesty's wrath, by an intrigue with Elizabeth Throgmorton, one of the maids of honour, and, although Raleigh afterwards married her, the Queen imprisoned both the offending parties for some months in the Tower. Spenser is believed to allude to this in the 4th Book of his great poem. (See vol. iii. of our edition, p. 88.) Even after he was released from the Tower, Raleigh had to leave the Court in disgrace; instead, however, of wasting time in vain regrets, he undertook, at his own expense, an expedition against Guiana, where he captured the city of San Joseph, and which he occupied in the Queen's name. After his return he published an account of his expedition, more distinguished by glowing eloquence than by rigid regard to truth. In 1596, having in some measure regained the Queen's favour, he was appointed to a command in the expedition against Cadiz, under the Earl of Essex. In this, as well as in the expedition against the Spanish Plate-fleet the next year, he won laurels, but was unfortunate enough to excite the jealousy of his Commander-in-Chief. When the favourite got into trouble, Raleigh eagerly joined in the hunt, wrote a letter to Cecil urging him to the destruction of Essex, and witnessed his execution from a window in the Armoury. This is undoubtedly a deep blot on the escutcheon of our hero.

Cecil had been glad of Raleigh's aid in ruining Essex, but he bore him no good-will otherwise, and is said to have poisoned