Edited by ANDREW LANG. Price 2s. 6d. each. ALREADY PUBLISHED: CHARLES DARWIN. By Grant Allen . MARLBOROUGH. By George Saintsbury . SHAFTESBURY (the First Earl). By H. D. Traill . ADMIRAL BLAKE. By David Hannay . IN PREPARATION: London: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. ADMIRAL BLAKE. By David Hannay . IN PREPARATION: London: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO....

Edited by ANDREW LANG...

CLARK LECTURER IN ENGLISH LITERATURE AT TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1886 All rights reserved PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON...

The existing Lives of Raleigh are very numerous. To this day the most interesting of these, as a literary production, is that published in 1736 by William Oldys, afterwards Norroy King at Arms. This book was a marvel of research, as well as of biographical skill, at the time of its appearance, but can no longer compete with later lives as an authority. By a curious chance, two writers who were each ignorant of the other simultaneously collected information regarding Raleigh, and produced two lab

Walter Raleigh was born, so Camden and an anonymous astrologer combine to assure us, in 1552. The place was Hayes Barton, a farmstead in the parish of East Budleigh, in Devonshire, then belonging to his father; it passed out of the family, and in 1584 Sir Walter attempted to buy it back. 'For the natural disposition I have to the place, being born in that house, I had rather seat myself there than anywhere else,' he wrote to a Mr. Richard Duke, the then possessor, who refused to sell it. Genealo

Raleigh had not completed his thirtieth year when he became a recognised courtier. We have seen that he had passed, four years before, within the precincts of the Court, but we do not know whether the Queen had noticed him or not. In the summer of 1581 he had written thus to Leicester from Lismore:— I may not forget continually to put your Honour in mind of my affection unto your Lordship, having to the world both professed and protested the same. Your Honour, having no use of such poor follower

For one year after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Raleigh resisted with success, or overlooked with equanimity, the determined attacks which Essex made upon his position at Court. He was busy with great schemes in all quarters of the kingdom, engaged in Devonshire, in Ireland, in Virginia, in the north-western seas, and to his virile activity the jealousy of Essex must have seemed like the buzzing of a persistent gnat. The insect could sting, however, and in the early part of December 1588, R

The vast tract in the north-east of the southern continent of America which is now divided between Venezuela and three European powers, was known in the sixteenth century by the name of Guiana. Of this district the three territories now styled English, Dutch, and French Guiana respectively form but an insignificant coast-line, actually lying outside the vague eastern limit of the traditional empire of Guiana. As early as 1539 a brother of the great Pizarro had returned to Peru with a legend of a

The defeat of the Spanish Armada had inflicted a wound upon the prestige of Spain which was terrible but by no means beyond remedy. In the eight years which had elapsed since 1588, Spain had been gradually recovering her forces, and endangering the political existence of Protestant Europe more and more. Again and again the irresolution of Elizabeth had been called upon to complete the work of repression, to crush the snake that had been scotched, to strike a blow in Spanish waters from which Spa

A slight anecdote, which is connected with the month of January 1598, must not be omitted here. It gives us an impression of the personal habits of Raleigh at this stage of his career. It was the custom of the Queen to go to bed early, and one winter's evening the Earl of Southampton, Raleigh, and a man named Parker were playing the game of primero in the Presence Chamber, after her Majesty had retired. They laughed and talked rather loudly, upon which Ambrose Willoughby, the Esquire of the Body

Raleigh was in the west when the Queen died, and he had no opportunity of making the rush for the north which emptied London of its nobility in the beginning of April. King James had reached Burghley before Raleigh, in company with his old comrade Sir Robert Crosse, met him on his southward journey. It was necessary that he should ask the new monarch for a continuation of his appointments in Devon and Cornwall; his posts at Court he had probably made up his mind to lose. One of the blank forms w

It is no longer possible for us to follow the personal life of Raleigh as we have hitherto been doing, step by step. In the deep monotony of confinement, twelve years passed over him without leaving any marks of months or days upon his chronicle of patience. A hopeless prisoner ceases to take any interest in the passage of time, and Raleigh's few letters from the Tower are almost all of them undated. His comfort had its vicissitudes; he was now tormented, now indulged. A whisper from the outer w

Raleigh had been released from the Tower expressly on the understanding that he should make direct preparations for a voyage to Guiana. The object of this voyage was to enrich King James with the produce of a mine close to the banks of the Orinoco. In the reign of Elizabeth, Raleigh had stoutly contended that the natives of Guiana had ceded all sovereignty in that country to England in 1595, and that English colonists therefore had no one's leave to ask there. But times had changed, and he now n

Gondomar had not been idle during Raleigh's absence, but so long as Winwood was alive he had not been able to attack the absent Admiral with much success. As soon as Bailey brought him the news of the supposed attack on Lanzarote, he communicated with his Government, and urged that an embargo should be laid on the goods of the English merchant colony at Seville. This angry despatch, the result of a vain attempt to reach James, is dated October 22; and on October 27 the sudden death of Winwood re

General: corrections to punctuation have not been individually documented General: references to page iii changed to page v Page 19: life-time standardised to lifetime Page 28: "'a delicate sweet smell' far out in ocean" as in original Pages 148, 238: Discrepancy in the spelling of Renzi/Rienzi as in original Page 160: Gray's standardised to Grey's in "could not hear, Grey's lips" Page 226: "Madre de Dio" standardised to "Madre de Dios" Beddingfield Park standardised to Bedingfield Park Page 228