English travellers who recounted marvels, which our real acquaintance with the country and its inhabitants, together with our increased knowledge of the laws and productions of nature, now teach us at once to despise, would have induced a less sanguine person to have credited the great wealth which was said to belong to the Incas of Guiana, and to have desired to verify the wonders which all who travelled seemed to vie in relating.

The spirit of adventure was the epidemic of the times; Raleigh but shared in the general thirst for discovery. While we see the first men in the kingdom fitting out ships year after year, and lavishing money in defiance of repeated disasters, it is not surprising that Raleigh's mind should be captivated by a scheme so well suited to a bold and enterprising temper. The eventual success of the Virginian colony entitles him to applause, for discernment and perseverance, and his interest in the still agitated question of a NorthWest passage, is evinced by his association with the firm who sent out Captain Davis, and by his name given to land discovered by that celebrated navigator.

It is indeed captivating to read the voyages undertaken at this period by the gentlemen of England; and cold and phlegmatic must be the man who does not admire the spirit and valour displayed in these romantic expeditions. The patient endurance of sickness and want of provisions, which frequently attended their small and crowded vessels; the courage, both active and enduring, and the inflexible perseverance which they displayed, excite our keenest interest and highest admiration. Gentlemen of birth and fortune exposed themselves to privations, hardships, and sufferings which now rarely attend the most disastrous voyages, and exhibited a gallantry that almost makes

us long to have partaken in their dangers. There are few shipwrecks which leave so deep an impression upon our minds as that of Raleigh's half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who, after a voyage attended with great perils and sufferings, succeeded in his object of taking possession of Newfoundland, in queen Elizabeth's name, and was lost on his return home. He is described, in the violence of the storm, as calm and cheerful, encouraging his men with these words,

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Courage, my lads, we are as near heaven at sea as on land." These striking words display a greatness of mind, and an exalted courage, that yield us a gratification which would more than repay those most impatient to the log journals of all voyages, for wading through the whole of Hakluyt.

The author of Waverley has brought Raleigh's early success at court into increased notice, but his talents as a statesman are not in general equally considered. The brilliancy of his courage and the two-fold renown he acquired at sea and on land eclipse, in ordinary history, the merits he possessed in the council. But Elizabeth, who, although she was subject to all the weakness of excessive vanity, was most clear-sighted with regard to the true interests of her kingdom, so frequently sought his advice, and adopted his views of policy, as to excite the jealousy of her other counsellors. His political tracts (some of which had the honour of being published by

* The following is the curious and interesting manner in which the circumstance is related :

"In the afternoone the frigat was neare cast away, oppressed by waves, yet at that time recovered, and giving forth signs of joy. The Generall, sitting abaft with a booke in his hand, cried unto us in the hinde so oft as wee did approach within hearing, 'Wee are as neere to heaven by sea as by land,' reiterating the same speech well beseeming a souldier resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testify he was."—Report of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage, by Edward Haies.—Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 143.

Milton,) are marked by sound judgment and comprehensiveness of thought; and to his opinions upon the conduct to be pursued towards Spain, as much as to the mischief he did her, may be attributed the fear and hatred which dictated the unrelenting persecution of that court, for whose satisfaction he was at last devoted to an ignominious death.

As a soldier, a seaman, a statesman, or a scholar, few can surpass Sir Walter Raleigh, while scarcely any example can be brought of a man uniting this assemblage of characters in similar perfection. His life presents equal varieties. Raised from a private station to the highest favour at the court of an arbitrary queen, we see him fluctuating in her regard, at one period a favourite courtier, skilfully flattering the vanity of his mistress, a successful commander with honours and rewards liberally bestowed, at another, driven from court by the successful efforts of his rivals, and a prisoner in the Tower from his own indiscretions. We see him displaying the most striking valour in every scene where danger may be met; in France, in the Netherlands, in Ireland, in Spain, in Portugal.-He is the discoverer of new regions-the planter of colonies-the scourge of all the enemies of his country. From this height of glory we behold him the victim of a king, whose favourite he was too great a man ever to become ;-unjustly condemned, he passes twelve years in confinement,-and the ornament of a court, the commander of fleets and armies, the man whose life from its commencement had been one scene of constant activity, shines forth a philosopher and a scholar, employing energies of mind and labour of compilation in a history of the world, which would have been sufficient to have gained fame for one whose whole time had been passed in the ease and with

the advantages of academic retirement-were indeed such institutions calculated to produce the grasp of mind which is displayed in Raleigh's composition.

In the midst of his most active youth he had limited his portion of sleep to five hours, in order constantly to have some time to apply to study: and he now brought a mind rich with the stores of previous acquisition, to the pursuits which cheered his prison, and have added to his well-earned fame the additional reputation of a profound scholar and an original thinker.

The peaceful occupations of chemistry and of composition were enlivened by continual recurrence to his favourite schemes of discovery, and of working the mines of Guiana. He constantly attempted intercourse with America, and on recovering his liberty he received a commission from James to prosecute the favourite object of his life. His failure is well known :-the loss of his eldest son-the calamities of his voyage, and his lamentable end-the courage and resolution with which he endured all these misfortunes, and the tranquil heroism of his death-exhibit varieties of circumstance, and energy of character, which render his story one of the most instructive and romantic which history presents.

We have been led into these remarks by lately meeting with the poems of this extraordinary man. The reprint was, we believe, limited to a small number of copies, and is edited by Sir Egerton Brydges, with an enthusiasm for their author which is, we confess, very congenial with our own feelings. Raleigh's fame as a poet does not stand so high as perhaps our partiality persuades us it ought to do indeed he is not much known as a poet at all. But when we reflect on the number and variety of his writings that poetry was but the recreation of an idle hour-the hasty productions of one, to look on whose actions we are surprised he should have found

leisure to write at all, and to consider whose works, we should conclude to have passed his whole life in meditative retirement and deep study, we are surprised at the real poetical merit which appears through the whole of these compositions. Raleigh's mind was alive to all the charms of fancy:-his patronage of Spenser arose from congeniality of temper, and had his life been passed in other circumstances, he might, perhaps, have rivalled that most gifted of our poets. As it is, these poems, though possessing much actual beauty, may be chiefly valuable from the insight they afford us into his mind and feelings. The deep impression of the passions, the powerful energy, and the worldly experience, of their author give them an interest which does not often attend more finished compositions. The quaintness of the age, and the conceits so much in favour with Queen Elizabeth, disfigure many of his conceptions, but it is curious to follow the author of philosophical treatises in the light sportings of fancy, and to witness his skilful flattery of the tastes of his mistress-whom he never scrupled to incense in the grossest manner, although he would not condescend to use any of the arts so frequently practised to gain favour with the people.

The mind of Raleigh was stored with riches of moral wisdom-perhaps acquired from his various disappointments, as his conduct shews him to have been bold and little scrupulous, his passions strong, and his temper warm and aspiring-and these poems are full of the plaintive moral cast which we may suppose to have belonged to his moments of reflection. "The Farewell," the best known of Raleigh's poems, beginning" Go, soul, the body's guest," is full of the strongest expressions of the vanity and deceit of all advantages of situation-of the emptiness of the greatest professions ;-and is written in the noblest strain of indignant morality. A less known