design to establish Catholicism, and receive aid Be that purpose from the King of Spain. But the cesire was to ruin him, and there was little wrple as to the means employed. Not only tail been deprived of his office of Captain of the Guard, but of the profitable licensing monop's he had enjoyed; and now it seemed that thig stort of his death would satisfy his eneWith the mass of the nation Raleigh had tever been popular. His aristocratic, somewhat amgaat bearing offended them, and the lower 18s were unable to comprehend his political tries, his scholarship, or his enlarged views on the questions of the time. That he had been Long the first of Court favourites was perhaps te reason why the mob should feel a pleasure has downfall; but it was also thought that he had been an enemy to Essex, who was very palar. On his way to Winchester, the coach in which he rode was followed by a yelling mob, whe threw missiles (tobacco-pipes among others) at the vehicle.

CONVICTION AND SENTENCE.

The trial lasted from eight in the morning till eleven at night. Lord Chief Justice Popham, a Je notorious for his private vice and venality, preded; and that great lawyer, but unscruusman, Sir Edward Coke, the AttorneyGral, conducted the prosecution with coarse radictiveness. Cobham, a weak and timid man, fanced apparently by a hope of saving himif made a confession implicating Raleigh, but afterwards fully and solemnly retracted his accution. Sir Walter admitted that Cobham had, the part of the Spanish ambassador, offered a sain of money or a pension, if he would this endeavours to promote a peace between

two crowns; but he wrote a letter to the Lis of the Council, emphatically denying that was aware of any connexion of this offer with a reasonable design.

Michael Hicks, writing to the Earl of Shrewstary, maye," Raleigh, at the trial, carried himself ⚫perate in all his answers, and answered so y and readily to all objections, as it wrought admiration in his hearers for his good parts, ty towards his person. His answers were raced with arguments out of divinity, kazany, civil law, and common law." Coke

just enough to refer to the Bye Plot, in espect of which no imputation whatever rested a Raleigh; but, said Coke, "It will be seen at all these treasons, though they consist of ral parts, closed in together, like Samson's which were joined in their tails, though

coarseness.

their heads were separated." He proceeded to abuse Raleigh as "the most notorious traitor ever called to the bar," a "damnable atheist," a spider of hell," and used other epithets of equal Raleigh demanded that Cobham, whose so-called confession was relied on against him, should be produced and confronted with him, and that other witnesses, if any, should be produced; but Popham told him that he was being tried by common law, according to which one witness was sufficient, and that the accusation of confidants, or the confession of others, was full proof. Sir Walter protested against the ruling; but Coke vehemently endeavoured to silence him, and violently said, "I will have the last word for the king!" "Nay," answered Raleigh, with spirit, "I will have the last word for my life." Even Cecil felt that Coke was going too far, and told him he was too harsh. In his reply to the charges, Sir Walter spoke of Cobham as 66 a poor, silly, base, dishonourable soul;" and for himself, he said, "I was not so bare of sense but that I saw that, if ever the State was strong and able to defend itself, it was now." To Elizabeth he referred, with a fine, courtly, and epigrammatic turn of words, as “a' lady whom Time surprised," and of James he spoke as "an active king, a lawful successor to the Crown." "I am not," he said, "such a madman as to make myself, in this time, a Robin Hood, a Wat Tyler, or a Jack Cade."

The jury reluctantly returned a verdict of guilty; and on being asked why judgment should not be recorded, Raleigh replied that he was innocent, that he submitted himself to the king's mercy, and recommended to his Majesty's compassion his wife and son of tender years. In a vituperative speech, in which the accusation of being an atheist was repeated, and the accused was promised "an eternity of hell torments." Popham proceeded to pass the terrible sentence of death by mutilation and disembowelling, the then doom of traitors. Raleigh requested the Earl of Suffolk, the Earl of Devonshire, and Lord Cecil (who, although one of his greatest opponents, was not of a sanguinary disposition, and might be supposed to have some respect for the abilities and character of the illustrious prisoner) to intercede with the king, that his death might be honourable, and not ignominious. Raleigh then followed the sheriff out of Court, "with admirable erection," says Sir Thomas Overbury, who was present, "but yet in such a sort as became a man condemned."

In the gallery of the Court sat the lady whose name had been so frequently mentioned in con

nection with the "plot," Lady Arabella Stuart; and when sentence had been passed, the Earl of Nottingham, formerly Lord Howard of Effingham, who accompanied her, stood up and said, "the lady, then present, protested on her salvation that she never dealt in any of these things."

Intelligence of the result of the trial was brought to the King by Roger Ashton, and one of the Scotch hangers-on of the Court. One of them affirmed that never any man spoke so well in times past, nor would do so in the world to come, as Raleigh had spoken on his trial; and the other said, that when he first saw Sir Walter he was so led with the common hatred, that he would have gone a hundred miles to see him hanged, but ere he parted he would have gone a thousand miles to save his life. "In one word," he added, "never was a man so hated and so popular in so short a time."

The general public shared the revulsion of feeling, and Sir Walter, a few days earlier disliked, became a popular hero. The King, shrink. ing perhaps from permitting the sentence to be carried out, and satisfied with the confiscation of the estate and the Virginia patent, decided to spare the life of Raleigh, and not only his, but the lives of the other accused; but could not deny himself the pleasure of a little preliminary cruelty. He sent the Bishop of Winchester to prepare Raleigh for execution, and the scaffold was erected at Winchester; Cobham, Lord Grey, and others were led out as if to the block, and Raleigh was brought out to witness their execution, with the full assurance that his own death would follow. Then the sheriff announced that his Majesty had been graciously pleased "in his princely clemency to spare their lives."

Raleigh had prepared himself for death with the resolution and resignation of a great mind. He wrote to his wife, "God is my witness that it was for you and yours that I sued for life; but it is true that I disdained myself for begging it; for know, dear wife, that your son is the son of a true man, and one who, in his own respect. despiseth death and all his misshapen and ugly forms. May the everlasting and omnipotent God, who is goodness itself, keep thee and thine, have mercy on me, and teach me to forgive my persecutors, and send us to meet in His glorious kingdom." Such was the language of thedamnable atheist" of Coke and Popham.

IN THE TOWED.

He was taken to the Tower, and then followed another instance of the meanness of the King. Several years before, Raleigh had executed a

conveyance of his Sherborne estate to his son; but the sharp eyes of the infamous and greedy Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, discovered a technical flaw in the deed. He exercised a powerful and mysterious influence over James, possessing, it was believed, the key to some secret the disclosure of which the King dreaded; and he asked that the estate might be given to him. Lady Raleigh threw herself at the King's feet, and implored that she and her children should not be reduced to poverty, in addition to being deprived of the companionship and support of her dear husband. James could only mutter, "I mun hae it for Carr;" and Lady Raleigh quitted the ignoble presence a broken-hearted woman.

In the Tower Raleigh appears to have been allowed considerable freedom and the use of books. He had for fellow-prisoners, with whom communication was permitted, Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland, who had been an earnest promoter of science and learning; Hoskins, the scholar, wit, and critic; and Daniel, friend and literary corrector of Ben Jonson; and among his visitors were Harriot, the mathematician, whom he had sent to Virginia, and Dr. Burkett, a great Greek and Hebrew scholar and commentator.

Anne of Denmark, queen of James, was a staunch friend, of Raleigh; and her son, the accomplished and amiable Henry, Prince of Wales, whose premature death at the age of eighteen caused general sorrow, was one of his most ardent admirers. It is supposed that it was with a view to his instruction that Raleigh began to write the famous " History of the World." The Queen, we are told, "regarded him with pity and interest, and he owed most of his indulgence to her intercession, through which, though a prisoner in the Tower circle, he retained not only his actual property, but the income of £200 per annum as governor of Jersey."

When Prince Henry was dying, in 1612, a general impression was entertained that he was the victim of foul play, and suspicion even pointed at the King. Raleigh, among other means of amusement in the Tower, had erected a small laboratory, where he experimented in chemistry and pharmacy. He had supplied the Queen with an effective remedy for ague, and she, believing in his skill, asked him to send something which might benefit the Prince. He sent a preparation, with the assurance that "it would cure all maladies excepting poison." The Prince took it, and rallied wonderfully for a short time, but again sank, and on the 5th of November,

1612, breathed his last. The failure of the medy, and Raleigh's words, convinced the Queen that her dear son had indeed been poiwed. Nearly a hundred years afterwards, Filam the Third was kept alive for several bay by the administration of what the newspers of the day described as "Sir Walter Raleigh's cordial," which was a strong spirituous compound.

The intercession of the Queen, her brother the King of Denmark, and the Prince of Wales, had been unavailing to obtain the release of Raleigh. Juzes has himself left it on record that he wheld a pardon in order more readily to hold Raleigh in subjection. The captive was not so immersed in literary and chemical labours as forget the supposed riches of Guiana; and in ill, when he had been eight years imprisoned,

made an offer to the King, which seems bare been conditionally accepted, that a ship commanded by Captain Keymis should be deached to Guiana; and if Keymis should al to bring back half a ton at least of "that slate gold ore, whereof I have given a sample,"

Raleigh) would bear all the expenses of the pation; but, if that quantity were brought home, he should have a pardon and his liberty." Why this extraordinary proposition was not

ied into effect is unknown. Raleigh had trived in some manner to maintain a comication with Guiana, and even to have some the natives of the place brought to this utatry,

SECOND EXPEDITION TO GUIANA.

After he had been thirteen years in the Tower - was released, but without a formal pardon; and he was permitted to arrange for a new expedition. He informed the Government that he tended to open a gold mine; but in the coma given him the place is not mentioned, fear of the Spaniards preparing an oppo

He afterwards complained that the Terament communicated his intentions to yaz, and so thwarted him. It cannot be subted that buccaneering adventures were also rately a part of his scheme; for neither Raleigh or any other of the maritime adventurers of those 37% uw any harm in such exploits.

In the following year, 1617, a fleet of thirteen Tels was collected, Raleigh's own ship, the Gratiny, having been built under his special di

The expedition reached the coast of ata in the middle of November; but, being Raleigh did not himself ascend the He sent Captain Keymis, with two

hundred and fifty men. After a month, they reached St. Thomas, a small Spanish town, which they captured after a sharp fight, in which Raleigh's son and the Spanish governor were killed. Keymis could not discover the gold mine, and returned to Trinidad, where Raleigh awaited him. The unfortunate captain was received with reproaches, which had such an effect on him that he committed suicide.

EXECUTION.

Raleigh returned to Plymouth in July, 1618, and found that a royal proclamation had been issued, no doubt at the instance of the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar; and he was placed under arrest. He was subjected to most inquisitorial proceedings, and even his private letters to his wife were intercepted and read. James was then desirous to please Spain, for there was a negotiation pending for the marriage of Prince Charles with the Infanta; and Raleigh was to be sacrificed. The Government was complaisant enough to revive the old sentence, and on the 29th of October, 1618, the memorable Englishman, unquestionably the foremost man in achievement of that great age, was beheaded in Palace Yard, Westminster, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.

He encountered death with a cheerful dignity of deportment. On the scaffold he made a long speech, concluding by saying, "I entreat you all to join with me in prayer that the great God of heaven, whom I have grievously offended-being a man full of all vanity, having been a seafaring man, a soldier, and a courtier, and in the temptations of the least of these there is enough to overthrow a great mind and a good man-that God, I say, would forgive me, and cast away my sins from me, and that He would receive me into everlasting life. I die in the faith professed by the Church of England, and I hope to be saved, and to have my sins washed away by the precious blood of our Saviour Christ. So I take my leave of you all, making my peace with God." The executioner asked forgiveness. Raleigh freely gave it, and then asked to feel the axe. "It is," he said, "a sharp and fair medicine, and can cure all diseases." He knelt and prayed, and then gave the signal by extending his hands. The executioner was unnerved, and struck feebly. "Strike sharper," said Raleigh, and the blow followed, and the head fell to the ground. It was shown to the people, and "a general shudder followed."

His body-the head was long preserved in the family-was buried in St. Margaret's Church,

Westminster, where. in 1815, a tablet was erected with this inscription: "Within the chancel of this church was interred the body of the great Sir Walter Raleigh, on the day he was beheaded in Old Palace Yard, Westminster, October 29, 1618. Reader, should you reflect on his errors, remember his many virtues, and that he was mortal."

A memorial window is now in course of erection in the church, and Americans have contributed largely to the fund.

LITERARY PRODUCTIONS.

Had not Raleigh achieved fame as a maritime adventurer and soldier, he would still occupy a conspicuous place in England's Pantheon. His "History of the World" extends from the creation of man, as recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, to the end of the second Macedonian war. The five books, written with great force, elegance, and sustained dignity, exhibit a vast amount of rare scholarship and curious speculations and designations. He projected a second and a third part, but, he writes in the Introduction," Besides many other discouragements persuading my silence, it has pleased God to take that glorious Prince [Henry, Prince of Wales] out of the world, to whom were devoted. O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hast dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet."

Aubrey, however, gives a reason for the nonappearance of the final portion of the work, which may partly explain the phrase, "many other discouragements." He says in a manuscript preserved in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford,

His books sold very slowly at first, and the bookseller (Walter Bane) complained of it, and told him he should be a loser by it, which put Sir Walter into a passion, and he said that since the world did not understand it, they should not have the second part, which he took and threw into the fire, and burnt before his face." The "History" was published in 1614, while the author was a prisoner in the Tower.

Oliver Cromwell wrote to his son Richard, "Recreate yourself with Sir Walter Raleigh's "History;" it is a body of history, and will add

much more to your understanding than fragments of stones." The elder Disraeli says, "He who seeks for power of intellect and grandeur of soul must study profoundly Raleigh's History of the World.'"

Only a few poems and the account of the first Voyage to Guiana were printed in the author's lifetime. Of the works published after his death, and bearing his name, some few are of doubtful authenticity; but we may accept with confidence, as genuine productions and remarkable evidences of the scope and versatility of Raleigh's talents, the following list of tracts and larger works:

"

Political." Maxims of State ”– The Cabinet Council "—"The Prorogation of Parliament”“On a Match between Lady Elizabeth and the Prince of Piedmont "-" On a Marriage between Prince Henry and a Daughter of Saxony "-" A Discourse touching a War with Spain Observations on the Navy and Sea Service On the Seat of Government "-" Spanish Alarm." Practical and Economical.-"A Discourse on the character of Ships' Anchors, Compasses, etc." -"Observations touching Trade and Commerce' -"Cause of the Magnificence and Opulence of Cities"-"The Art of War at Sea" (lost).

Moral and Miscellaneous." A Discourse on War in General"-" The Sceptic"-" Instructions to his Son and Posterity -"A Treatise on the Soul"-" Poems."

Dugald Stewart refers with admiration to some of Raleigh's metaphysical speculations, and to the coincidence of thought with the soundest logical conclusions of the eighteenth century." To Milton is due the publication of the Maxims of State" and "Cabinet Council."

His poetry was graceful and elegant, tinged with the affectation of the day; but less so than the verses of many of his contemporaries.

We conclude with the magnificent eulogium by Edmund Burke: "Sir Walter Raleigh, the most extraordinary genius of his own, or perhaps any other time; a penetrating statesman, an accomplished courtier, a deep scholar, a fine writer, a fine soldier, and one of the ablest seamen in the world. The vast genius that pierced so far, and ran through so many things, was of a fiery and eccentric kind, which led him into daring expeditions and uncommon projects, which, not being understood by a timid Prince, and envied and hated by the rivals he had in so many ways of life, ruined him at last."

G.R.E.