APPENDIX.

A. Raleigh's Account of Guiana defended-B. Club at the Mermaid— C. Raleigh's alleged Attempt to stab himself-D. Hume's Errors in his Account of Raleigh-E. Cecil's Enmity to Raleigh-F. Raleigh's Plot -Its Origin and Secret History-G. Errors of Mr D'Israeli-H. Raleigh and the French Agent-Extracts from the Manuscripts in the State-paper Office-I. Raleigh in the Tower-His Unpublished Manuscripts-Hampden-K. Inventory of Raleigh's Jewels and Trinkets, from State-paper Office-L. Portrait of Raleigh.

A.-Page 134–145.

Raleigh's Account of Guiana defended.

HUME has attacked Raleigh's Account of Guiana in a manner which evinces clearly that, with his constitutional indolence, he had scarcely dipped into it. He accuses him of having published an account of the country, on his return from his expedition up the Orinoco, "full of the grossest and most palpable lies that were ever attempted to be imposed on the credulity of mankind." For this sentence he quotes the respectable authority of Camden; but in turning to that writer (Life and Reign of Elizabeth, in Kennet, vol. ii. p. 584), the reader will be surprised to find how completely the historian has mistaken, or, through carelessness, perverted his meaning. The passage in Camden, relative to Raleigh's account of Guiana, is this:-"He that would know more of this expedition may consult an ingenious book of his relating to it; wherein he gives a most accurate description of the countries, as if he had been born and bred there; and concludes that Guiana must needs be a wealthy country, not only from the beautiful marcasites found there, but from the writings of the Spaniards, and upon the credit and report of the barbarians; of whom yet he could but have little knowledge; but, indeed, chiefly from the sanguine complexion of his own hopes and desires. He likewise relates some things which appear fabulous enough, viz. of the Amazons, and a certain nation of people whose shoulders are so high that their face is placed in their breast; a secret which poets and travellers had never before discovered."

The reader will at once perceive the difference between the careful and candid observations of Camden,-in which he certainly reflects upon the two sanguine and credulous temperament of Raleigh,—and the sweeping and coarse accusation of Hume, who ascribes to him a premeditated plan of imposition and falsehood. Within the limits of a short note, it is impossible to analyze Raleigh's account of Guiana; but any one who will peruse it with common attention, will be satisfied of the extreme injustice and the unfounded aspersions now alluded to. Raleigh takes the utmost pains to state what he saw with his own eyes, what he was told by the Spaniards or by the natives of the country, and what he inferred of the great riches of Guiana from their accounts compared with his own observations. The truth seems to have been, that Hume, glancing over this "Account of the Discovery of Guiana" with the same indolent rapidity which has elsewhere led him into material errors, found stories of the Amazons, of a nation called Ewai pona, whose heads appear not above their shoulders, and who are reported to have their eyes placed there; of a cacique, who he was informed had had buried with him a chair of gold most curiously wrought, and of the wonderful city of Manoa, and its astonishing riches and extent; and finding all this, which is related by Raleigh from the Spanish historians and the narratives of the natives, he was little careful to examine farther, and at once threw aside the book as a tissue of lies and imposture. It is extraordinary that this historian, who is often so acute, and so fair in weighing the conduct and appreciating the motives of other men, should appear to see every thing regarding Raleigh through a false and distorting medium,—that he should not have asked himself the question, What possible object could this able man have gained by losing his fortune, his health, and latterly his life, in attempting the discovery and conquest of Guiana, had he not believed in the picture which he has drawn of it, and the riches which it would bring to himself and to his country? But upon this subject the reader is referred to the observations already made in the text, pp. 132, 134, and to another article of this Appendix, D.

B.-Page 173.

Club at the Mermaid.

IN Gifford's Life of Jonson, pp. 65, 66, is this passage," Sir Walter Raleigh, previously to his unfortunate engagement with the wretched Cobham and others, had instituted a meeting of

beaux esprits at the Mermaid, a celebrated tavern in Friday Street. Of this club, which combined more talent and genius perhaps than ever met together, before or since, our author [Jonson] was a member; and here for many years he regularly repaired with Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and many others, whose names, even at this distant period, call up a mingled feeling of reverence and respect. Here, in the full flow and confidence of friendship, the lively and interesting wit-combats' took place between Shakspeare and our author; and hither, in probable allusion to them, Beaumont fondly lets his thoughts wander, in his letter to Jonson from the country,

"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 whom they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest.”

In a tract, by Thomas Middleton, quoted by Mr Collier in his History of English Dramatic Poetry, and entitled the Ant and the Nightingale, we have this description of a court-gallant of those days (1604), in which we find that the Horn, the Mitre, and the Mermaid, were the principal taverns in vogue:

"His eating must be in some famous tavern, the Horn, the Mitre, or the Mermaid; and then, after dinner, he must venture beyond sea, that is, in a choice pair of noblemen's oars to the Bank-side, where he must sit out the breaking up of a comedy, or the first act of a tragedy."

Mr Collier, in a note on this passage, informs us, that Mr Thorpe, the enterprising bookseller of Bedford Street, is in possession of a manuscript full of songs and poems, in the handwriting of a person of the name of Richard Jackson, all copied prior to the year 1631, and including many unpublished pieces, by a variety of celebrated poets. One of the most curious is a song in five seven-line stanzas, which is thus headed, "Shakespeare's Rime, which he made at the Mytre in Fleete Streete." It begins,

"From the rich Lavinian shore;"

and a few of the lines were published by Playford, and set as a catch. Another shorter piece is called, in the margin,

"Shakespeare's Rime.

"Give me a cup of rich Canary wine,

Which was the Mitre's (drinks), and now is mine,
Of which had Horace and Anacreon tasted,

Their lives, as well as lines, 'till now had lasted."

"I have little doubt," adds Mr Collier, "that the lines are genuine, as well as many other songs and poems attributed to Ben Jonson, Sir W. Raleigh, H. Constable, Dr Donne, J. Sylvester, and others." If, however, the rest of the poems are not more genuine than these lines attributed to Shakspeare, it says little for them,-for the lines are Jonson's, which Mr Collier will discover, if he turns to his Works, vol. viii. p. 213, with this difference, that Ben writes "Mermaid," for which Mr Thorpe's MS. substitutes "Mitre."

"But that which most doth take my Muse and me,
Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine,

Which is the Mermaid's now-but shall be mine:
Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted,

Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted."

C.-Page 229.

Raleigh's alleged Attempt to stab Himself.

HAD Raleigh really attempted to kill himself in the Tower, it seems to me impossible that Coke, who, at the trial, travelled out of his way to load him with every species of vituperation, and even exaggerated and invented subjects of attack, should have passed over altogether a topic which might have afforded him, not only a point of censure, but a presumption of guilt. A strong corroboration of this view is to be found in Wilson's Notes in the State-paper Office, where this person repeatedly relates the conversations and arguments which he had with Raleigh upon the subject of Roman deaths, and yet makes not the slightest allusion to his attempt to stab himself in the Tower. But whilst, from such omissions by Coke and Wilson, there is a presumption against the truth of the story, in the strong sense in which it has been represented by Cecil, and taken up by Cayley and Mrs Thomson, the direct evidence in Cecil's letter to Sir Thomas Parry (Cayley, vol. ii. p. 9), in his Diary, preserved in the Hatfield Collection, and in the letter of the lieutenant of the Tower, given in Mrs Thomson's Appendix (p. 488), is too decided to allow us to doubt that Raleigh in a moment of passionate irritation had inflicted on himself a slight wound. The whole matter is obscure, and it is unfortunate that we have no account of it, except from the secretary, who, to use the words of an impartial and honest judge, Sir John Harrington, "bore no love to Raleigh."+-This note was

* Mrs Thomson's Life, p. 234.

In a letter from Sir Toby Matthews' Collection, published

written previous to the publication of a late interesting book, Bishop Goodman's Memoirs of his own Time. Its learned editor, Mr Brewer, has enriched the Appendix with many original letters, amongst which we find an affecting letter addressed by Raleigh to his wife, immediately after he had given himself the wound in the Tower.

D.-Page 250-294.

Hume's Errors in his Account of Raleigh.

THERE are few men whose character has been more misrepresented than Sir Walter Raleigh; and this too both in his own time and by some modern writers. That he should have been exposed to calumny during his life is by no means surprising. A man who like him mingled in the politics of the long and eventful reign of Elizabeth; who held high offices and was opposed by powerful rivals for the favour of his sovereign, must have been fortunate indeed had he escaped misconstruction. The attacks upon his memory by more modern writers are as easily accounted for. They have arisen out of the haste and superficiality with which a great portion of the modern history of England has been written. Had those writers who have spoken with such decision against him first investigated his life with due care and impartiality; had they studied his actions or consulted his works, they would have been convinced of their misapprehension; but it is rare to meet with any one who will take the trouble to arrive at the truth upon points which require research; and yet without this, what is all history and biography but a mass of elegant error?

Hume, as his authority is the highest, is entitled to the first place amongst the modern detractors of Raleigh. The besetting sin of this delightful historian was indolence, and in the instance before us it has conducted him into an extraordinary tissue of blunders. He has unhesitatingly pronounced Raleigh guilty of the treason laid to his charge in 1603; and yet it will scarcely be believed, that so slightly has he examined the subject, that he confounds two things which were perfectly distinct, namely, the plot of Brooke, Markham, Grey, and the priests, called the "Bye" or Surprising Treason, with the alleged conspiracy of Cobham and Raleigh, called the "Main." For the first, the "Bye," Raleigh was not tried. Had Hume read Coke's speeches, or Cecil's letters, or Markham's confesby Mr Jardine (Crim. Trials, p. 464), the writer refers to "the guilty blow he gave himself in the Tower."