"Raleigh, the scourge of Spain! whose breast with all Then, active still, and unrestrain'd, his mind And with his prison hours enrich'd the world; So glorious, or so base, as those he prov'd, In which he conquer'd, and in which he bled."-THOMSON. ALTHOUGH Sir Walter Ralegh, "the learned Apollo and Oracle of our nation" (as his earliest biographer, Winstanley, terms him), was the author of many works upon a variety of subjects, two of them-The Fight of the Revenge (1591) and The Discovery of Guiana (1596)-written in his middle age, raised him at once into literary celebrity, and will remain famous so long as this English tongue of ours lasts. There can be, however, no doubt that the one upon which rests the larger share of his literary fame is The History of the World; an enormous volume, and yet a fragment only of the task he set himself to perform. Bearing in mind the period in which he lived, it needed the active powers of a great mind to conceive the possibility of writing such a work, and indomitable perseverance, energy, and industry (which he possessed in a marked degree) in the task of composition he had voluntarily set himself. A former editor of the Edinburgh Review (Macvey Napier) remarks of it, "So vast a project as a universal history of antiquity, undertaken in such circumstances, betokens a consciousness of intellectual power which cannot but excite admiration."* *Lord Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh (1853), 206. The object of the present paper is not to dilate upon the eminent literary merits of this History, or to describe or to analyse any portion of it, but rather to draw attention to some of the points (several of them extrinsic) connected with the history of the work itself-facts and circumstances scattered over various papers and volumes, and now brought together, probably for the first time, feeling assured that everything relating to its remarkable author is certain to prove interesting to the members of this Association. 1. Circumstances which led to the composition of the work. After all the anxieties and wearying circumstances attending his trial, death sentence, and the singular proceedings attending his reprieve, Sir Walter Ralegh was received into the Tower of London on December 16, 1603, as a state-prisoner for life. He did not break down, as many men would have done after the loss of home, fortune, and position-his chequered career and manifold experiences had probably taught him how to bear up against misfortune; and whatever shock he suffered at first, he must soon have realised the fact, that as there could be no hope of his present release, his physical life as a man of action was at an end for the time being. But though imprisoned in body, his intellectual vigour was free, and he was soon able to realise the correctness of the lines of Lovelace— "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet, take No man throughout his career showed a greater amount of adaptability to surrounding circumstances than Ralegh did, or was the possessor of more restless energy that needed occupation of some kind to expend itself upon. The biographer of another state-prisoner, Sir John Eliot (who was confined in the same prison, and died there during the succeeding reign), alludes to the variety of his "scholarship and knowledge, and of the happy power he possessed of finding relief therein from suffering and sorrow, as Raleigh in that very place had done in the earlier time."* During the earlier portion of his prison life, several disturbing causes prevented him from settling down to any occupation requiring continuous study. Of these the following is a brief enumeration: The appearance of the plague in the Tower shortly after his admission; his removal to the * J. FORSTER, Life of Eliot (1864), II. 509. Fleet prison owing to the festivities at the Tower in March, 1604 (how long he remained there is uncertain); the interruptions and annoyances to which he was subjected on the spurious charge of his connection with the Gunpowder Plot; his illness during that and the following year; and last, but by no means least, the appointment of one of his judges, Sir William Waad, as Lieutenant of the Tower, on August 16, 1605.* We possess evidence that his first pursuits were those of chemistry; distillations, analyses, and assaying ores (possibly specimens he had brought from Guiana) engaged his time and attention. Through the leniency of the Lieutenant, Sir George Harvey, who gave up his private garden to Sir Walter, he erected a small still in a disused hen-house, and there discovered a method of converting sea-water into fresh, for drinking purposes, of which he availed himself during his last voyage. These experiments he continued more or less throughout the period of his detention in the Tower. He was known to be a man of varied and extensive knowledge, to possess acute powers of observation and memory, and an intimate knowledge of men and manners in all grades of society. He had a large number of books,† and probably large MS. collections-extracts from works, and the records of his own observations and experience. Moreover, access to works beyond the Tower precincts does not appear to have been denied him. His contemporary, Sir Robert Naunton, who was by no means favourably disposed towards him, states, "He had the adjuncts of some general learning, which by diligence he enforced to a great augmentation and perfection; for he was an indefatigable reader, whether by sea or land, and none of the least observers both of men and the times."+ Aubrey affirms "he studyed most in his sea-voyages, where he carried always a trunke of bookes along with him, and had nothing to divert him."§ According to his biographer, J. Shirley, "at both sea and land he was the true pattern of industry. "That villain Waad,' as Raleigh had only too much cause to style him. . . . A wakeful spy and unscrupulous tool, one of the secret agents who had been employed by Cecil in watching Percy and Catesby, the Gunpowder Plotters." (W. H. DIXON, Her Majesty's Tower, I. (1869), 366, 367.) The records in the State-paper office show that he possessed a considerable number at the time of his death. Fragmenta Regalia, in "English Reprints," ed. by Professor ARBER (1870), 48, 49, written circa 1630. "The account of Sir Walter Raleigh is dispassionate, considering Naunton was Secretary of State at the time of his execution." (Ibid. 8.) § Letters, &c., of Eminent Men (1813), II. 513. ... He slept but five hours; four he spent in reading and mastering the best authors, two in a select conversation and an inquisitive discourse, the rest in business." These authorities are sufficient testimony of his studious habits, and of his obtaining and accumulating knowledge from all sources when he was a free agent, to be employed at a subsequent period to such good purpose during the days of his imprisonment. Excepting in the case of one or two of his works, we are unaware as to the dates of many written by him in the Tower; but we can readily imagine that some of the shorter ones belong to the earlier years, 1604-1606, his literary labours being varied by additions to his MS. collections and his laboratory work. During the year 1606, several persons of influence, including the queen, made strenuous efforts to procure his release, but all proved unavailing. In July, 1607, a new code of regulations, much more stringent in character, was issued by the Tower Lieutenant, Sir W. Waad, whereby the liberty which Ralegh had previously enjoyed became much more restricted, and his wife and friends were debarred from visiting him after 5 p.m. 2. Time occupied in writing it. The severe regulations just mentioned, affecting as they did his position and comfort, must have proved a kind of turning-point in his literary career, and forced on his mind the conviction that the hopes of his release were seriously diminished. This, combined with the circumstance that the proportion of his solitary hours had been materially increased, would be sufficient reason to believe that he then formed his determination to commence some great work, in which he could embody his accumulated stores of information and experience, and so relieve the tedium and irksomeness of his confinement. But about this time another cause came into operation to influence the form and character of the work he had set himself to write, and this requires a few explanatory remarks. We Prince Henry, the eldest son of James I., was a little over nine years of age (he was born on February 19th, 1594) when his father succeeded to the English crown. possess no positive information as to the date or period when he first became acquainted with Ralegh; but bearing in Inind the warm interest and endeavours of the queen to procure the release of the latter in the year 1606, it is * Life of Sir W. Raleigh (1677), 16. * not unreasonable to suppose that the first interview the prince had with the Tower prisoner took place in that year.' Opinions differ as to the period when the great intimacy between the two first commenced. Mr. Gosse is of opinion it "belongs rather to the years 1610 to 1612," but I am disposed to date it much earlier. Certain it is that once it began, it continued without intermission to the death of the prince in 1612. To the great regard Ralegh entertained for the prince we owe the composition of the History of the World. We have the positive testimony of the author himself to this fact, who at the same time states the warm interest the prince took in its progress. The following is the passage containing it, quoted from the concluding portion of the preface to the work: "It was for the service of that inestimable prince Henry, the successive hope, and one of the greatest of the Christian world, that I undertook this work. It pleased him to peruse some part thereof, and to pardon what was amiss."‡ We are informed he was working at the History in the following year. § If this be the fact, and we have no reason to doubt its probability, it enables us to fix the proximate date of its commencement at or soon after Waad's new prison rules in July, 1607. At that date the prince was in his fourteenth year, and it may be fairly urged that he was too young to form an intimacy with an elderly man like Ralegh. A perusal of the Life of the Prince, by T. Birch (1760), however, shows him to have been a boy of a very enquiring mind, intellectual, clear-headed, and far in advance of his years. || Can it be a matter of wonderment that he was speedily drawn to the captive who could tell him all the wonders of sea and land, and who in turn "undertook," for his instruction and guidance, the com "It must have been about this time, or a little later, that Queen Anne brought her unfortunate eldest son Henry to visit Raleigh at the Tower." (E. Gosse, Life of Raleigh (1886), 169.) † Ibid. 169; but he conjectures that "Raleigh first began seriously to collect and arrange materials" for the History in 1607. (Ibid. 176.) From the edition of 1614. The portion in italics is not so shown in the work itself. §"Throughout the year 1608 Raleigh, buried in his History, makes no sign to us."-E. Gosse, Op. cit. 171. We have evidence of this a year and a half later, when Ben Jonson's Masque of Queens was published, with an ample commentary, at "the request of Prince Henry, who was curious to learn the authorities from which the author had derived his incantations," &c. (Memoirs of Ben Jonson, by W. GIFFORD, in Works (1875), I. lxxxvi.) Vide also anecdotes of the prince when a child in I. Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, II. (1859), 186-194. |