such honours as alarmed the jealousy of her favourite, Leicester.

In the mean time, as early as 1579, he had commenced his adventures, with a view to colonize America-surveyed the territory now called Virginia, in 1584, and fitted out successive fleets in support of the infant colony. In the destruction of the Spanish armada, as well as in the expedition to Portugal, in behalf of Don Antonio, he had his full share of action and glory; and though recalled, in 1592, from the appointment of general of the expedition against Panama, he must have made a princely fortune by the success of his fleet, which sailed upon that occasion, and returned with the richest prize that had ever been brought to England. The queen was about this period so indignant with him, for an amour which he had with one of her maids of honour, that, though he married the lady (she was the daughter of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton), her majesty committed him, with his fair partner, to the tower. The queen forgave him, however, at last, and rewarded his services with a grant of the manor of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, where he built a magnificent seat. Raleigh's mind was not one that was destined to travel in the wheel-ruts of common prejudice. It was rumoured that he had carried the freedom of his philosophical speculation to an heretical height, on many subjects; and his acceptance of the church lands of Sherborne, already mentioned, probably supplied additional motives to the clergy to swell the outcry against his principles. He was accused (by the jesuits) of atheism-a charge which his own writings sufficiently refute. Whatever were his opinions, the public saved him the trouble of explaining them; and the queen, taking it for granted that they must be bad, gave him an open, and, no doubt, edifying reprimand. To console himself under these circumstances, he projected

the conquest of Guiana, sailed thither in 1595, and, having captured the city of San Joseph, returned and published an account of his voyage. In the following year he acted gallantly under the Earl of Essex, at Cadiz, as well as in what was called the "Island Voyage."* On the latter occasion he failed of complete success only through the jealousy of the favourite.

His letter to Cecil, in which he exhorted that statesman to the destruction of Essex, forms but too sad and notorious a blot in our hero's memory; yet even that offence will not reconcile us to behold the successor of Elizabeth robbing Raleigh of his estate, to bestow it on the minion Carr; and on the grounds of a plot, in which his participation was never proved, condemning to fifteen years of imprisonment the man who had enlarged the empire of his country, and the boundaries of human knowledge. James could estimate the wise, but shrunk from cordiality with the brave. He released Raleigh, from avaricious hopes about the mine of Guiana, and when disappointed in that object, sacrificed him to motives still baser than avarice. On the 29th of October, 1618, Raleigh perished on a scaffold, in Old Palace-yard, by a sentence originally iniquitous, and which his commission to Guiana had virtually revoked.

* A voyage that was aimed principally at the Spanish Plate Aleets.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

THE SILENT LOVER.

PASSIONS are liken'd best to floods and streams,
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;
So when affection yields discourse, it seems
The bottom is but shallow whence they come;
They that are rich in words must needs discover
They are but poor in that which makes a lover.

Wrong not, sweet mistress of my heart,
The merit of true passion,

With thinking that he feels no smart

That sues for no compassion.

Since if my plaints were not t' approve

The conquest of thy beauty,

It comes not from defect of love,
But fear t' exceed my duty.

For not knowing that I sue to serve

A saint of such perfection,

As all desire, but none deserve
A place in her affection,

I rather chuse to want relief
Than venture the revealing;
Where glory recommends the grief,
Despair disdains the healing.

Silence in love betrays more woe
Than words, tho' ne'er so witty;
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity.

Then wrong not, dearest to my heart,
My love for secret passion;

He smarteth most who hides his smart,
And sues for no compassion.

A NYMPH'S DISDAIN OF LOVE.

HEY down a down, did Dian sing,
Amongst her virgins sitting,

Than love there is no vainer thing,

For maidens most unfitting:

And so think I, with a down down derry.

When women knew no woe,

But liv'd themselves to please,

Men's feigning guiles they did not know,

The ground of their disease.

Unborn was false Suspect;

No thought of Jealousy;

From wanton toys and fond affect

The virgin's life was free :

Hey down adown, did Dian sing, &c.