The only object he had in view through a long life, was the glory and aggrandisement of England. For these he toiled with indefatigable labor. Take him for all in all, his country never had a better minister of state, and yet his mind was not of the highest order. There was none of the brilliancy or originality of genius belonging to him. There was no enthusiasm which enabled him to appreciate it in others. Still Burleigh was a great man. A survey of the measures of his government, and the consummate prudence with which he conducted them, all stamp him with the impress of true greatness. The difficult questions involved in the establishment of the Protestant faith, the triumphant resistance to the untiring hostility of the then powerful court of Spain, the dexterous opposition to the Papal power exhibited in the professed support merely of liberty of conscience in France and the Netherlands; the far-reaching sagacity that liberally encouraged voyages of discovery and colonization, because it saw that England's strength was to be in her marine; all these, with many other particulars, attest that William Cecil has had few equals among statesmen. This man appreciated Sir Walter Raleigh, and was his friend: probably he was ignorant that the knight had ever been guilty of what has been termed "the vagabond-like occupation" of perpetrating poetry.

Far different from Burleigh was the proud and profligate Dudley, Earl of Leicester. The appreciation of his character that may be made from the representation of the great novelist will not be entirely erroneous. The sad story of Amy Robsart, which has been invested by Scott with so much of melancholy interest, is not all fiction. Utterly unprincipled, Leicester never scrupled at the means necessary to accomplish his end. He hated Burleigh because he could not undermine him in the confidence of Elizabeth: Burleigh repaid his hatred with contempt, but was too politic to betray it by overt acts. Leicester acted for himself primarily. When Raleigh came to court, he found him a royal favorite, possessed of immense influence and power, for a subject. And Leicester loved power not as a means of doing good for his country, but as gratifying pride and furnishing opportunities for revenge. He never scrupled to destroy, that he might build himself on the ruins of his victim. He was one of the most profound

dissemblers that ever lived. Professing devoted attachment to his queen and country, and bearing no small share in her counsels, he yet was secretly intriguing with Spain and the members of the Church of Rome, because he wished to destroy the protestant interest of Cecil. Notoriously profligate in morals and abandoned in his habits, he could again, when occasion required, lay aside his pretended sympathy with Rome, and with the deepest hypocrisy, assume the language of puritanism, and wear the mask of a most self-denying christianity. He wished the aid of Puritans to prostrate Cecil's labors in building up the Church establishment. No man was ever better fitted by nature to play off the plausibilities of insincerity. Of remarkable personal beauty, uncommon gracefulness of manner, ready address, and no deficiency of understanding, he claimed rank by his noble birth, and sustained the claim by his thorough breeding. Perfectly aware of the foibles of the queen, he plied her with a delicate flattery and a devoted gallantry, complimented her caprices as evidence of her wisdom, and, with a dexterity as cunning as it was secret, contrived, under the seeming show of homage rendered to his sovereign, to strengthen his power, by acting on the principle that Elizabeth was a woman before she was a queen. It was as a woman that she made the handsome Leicester a favorite-it was as the queen that she never allowed her confidence in Cecil to falter. Hence, both stood high in her regard, though they were utterly unlike in all things, and never loved each other.

The only individual who can be said to have shared with Leicester the particular favor of the queen was Essex. We are inclined to think that less than justice has usually been done to his character. He is ordinarily considered as one who became a favorite rather from personal beauty than from real merit, and sharing the fate of most favorites, but little sympathy has been felt in his misfortunes or his fall. Had he been less honest, he had probably escaped the scaffold at the early age of thirty-four. Essex possessed many noble traits of character, and with some it will be deemed enough to redeem his memory from reproach, that he was too proud to be the slave of a woman's whims, though that woman was a queen. He was sick of the perpetual alterna

tions from lover-like tenderness to royal rage. One day it was all the nauseating affectation of female fondness that a withered old woman of sixty-eight could lavish; and the next, perchance, some tigress-like outbreak of ferocity sentencing him to banishment. He would not, like Leicester, compromise his own dignity by eternally playing the hypocrite and offering the incense of flattery to the queen; and, as has already been stated, it was the honesty of his language, giving offence to a woman's self-love, that made her relentless and sent him to the block.

Between Essex and Raleigh there were strong bonds of sympathy. Both loved letters, both were generous, both were brave, both were fearless in speech. In the collisions of a court, it happened at times (as might be expected) that they came together in conflict; but each respected the other. When Essex had the command in an expedition that proved disastrous, Raleigh, who served under him, with a noble generosity rejoiced in his own partial success, because it would in some degree mitigate the censure which he knew awaited Essex from his royal mistress. So, too, when Essex and that arch deceiver Robert Cecil (Burleigh's son) were at variance, and the cunning of the latter was an overmatch for the rash frankness of the former, it was Raleigh who stepped in and reconciled them. It has, indeed, been supposed that Raleigh contributed to the condemnation of Essex. He was far less instrumental than Robert Cecil in the production of that event, and at the execution it was Raleigh, not Cecil, who wept at the untimely end of a noble spirit. But all the courtiers around the queen could not have saved Essex from the resentment of Elizabeth's wounded vanity. He had called her carcase crooked, and so it was, but that only sealed his fate.

These were some of the men with whom Raleigh was now to act; but these belonged to one class only. There were others whose pursuits were more in unison with some of his tastes. He was always a student; never did he go upon the sea without his books, and in the camp his library was always a part of his equipage. Even in the most active periods of his life, it was his custom to read four hours a day, and the uncommon versatility of his mind enabled him to find interest in every path over which he traveled in the wide field of letters. Skilled in mathematics,

familiar with all that in his day was known of chemistry, and adding by experiments to his stock of knowledge, deeply read in history, one of the best cosmographers of his age, an admirable navigator, and well versed in military tactics; better informed than any of his contemporaries as to the power of his country's enemies; master of several languages, conversant with natural history, and one of the sweetest of England's early poets he was a fit companion for men of letters. Nor was he without such associates. History makes little mention of them however, for the quiet pursuits of literature afford no attractive theme for the man who, under the name of historian, can find no causes operative in the progress of nations, but the tricks of statesmen and the carnage of war. Enough, however, may be gleaned (and to the student the task is pleasant labor) to let us know that in letters Raleigh held companionship with Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sydney, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Drummond of Hawthornden, Bacon, Hariot the mathematician, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Donne, and many others, whose names are consecrated in the history of English literature. At a later period of his life than that of which we are now speaking, Raleigh formed a literary club, which combined all the genius of the metropolis, and in its meetings, in the unreserved and friendly intercourse of scholars, doubtless many a scintillation of fancy sparkled, many a keen encounter of playful wit set the merry students in a roar, many a jeu d'esprit gave life to the social meeting. It is hard to curb the imagination in the thought of such a scene. We can fancy Shakespeare then simply the successful dramatist, all unconscious of the deathless renown that awaited him. He is perchance engaged in a pleasant play of wit with Ben Jonson, when suddenly the club-room in the Mermaid tavern rings with the shouts produced by some successful sally. But though it be easy to fancy the laughter, who, alas! shall fancy the wit that produced it? None; for none may venture now to find meet words for the mouth of Shakespeare.

As we shall not have occasion again to advert particularly to the literary tastes of Raleigh, it may here be mentioned, that to him we are indebted for that beautiful production of Spenser, the "Faëry Queen." Raleigh became acquainted with the poet in

Years before, poem, but had

Ireland, and an intimate friendship was the result. Spenser had prepared the first three cantos of his been induced by the criticisms of a school anxious to expel rhyme from English poetry, to lay the work aside. Of these critics, it may occasion some surprise to know that Sir Philip Sydney was one, and indeed the only one, whose name has come down to our day as associated with the history of English literature. Raleigh heard the first three cantos; he had a soul too truly attuned to real poetry not to perceive that his friend possessed "the faculty and gift divine." His commendation operated as a stimulus to the gentle spirit of Spenser. He returned with Raleigh to England, and published what he had written, dedicating it to the "Most High, Mighty and Magnificent Empress Elizabeth." Ushered into the world under such auspices, it attracted notice, and this was all it needed, for its own merits were sufficient to sustain it. The poet was then induced to complete what Raleigh's discriminating taste had shown him to be so worthily begun; and thus were our language and literature enriched with a poem, which, despite its faults, is surpassingly beautiful, and has confessedly supplied a model to one of the modern masters of English verse.

We now return to Raleigh's history. It was after his arrival from Ireland with his well-earned reputation that he first was brought into the presence of his sovereign. The well known. anecdote of the gorgeous cloak which, with such ready gallantry, he threw upon the ground to serve as a foot-cloth for the queen, is said to have been the means of his introduction to her notice and regard; and the story is probably true. Be this, however, as it may, he was immediately employed in honorable offices at court, and acquitted himself with reputation in all. His spirit, however, was too active to be content in this situation. He was not without ambition, but it had a loftier aim than that of rising to distinction by the intrigues of a court. He would carve out for himself a nobler path to renown and fortune, and he turned to America as the fit field for his efforts. The patent of his brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, originally granted but for six years, was now near expiring. Two years of it only remained, and Raleigh, acting in concert with his brother, fitted out a fleet of five