Sir Walter Raleigh and His Times | Page 6

liberty; and he died with the
old God's battle-cry upon his lips, when it awoke no response from the
hearts of a coward, profligate, and unbelieving generation. This is the
background, the keynote of the man's whole life. If we lose the
recollection of it, and content ourselves by slurring it over in the last
pages of his biography with some half-sneer about his putting, like the
rest of Elizabeth's old admirals, 'the Spaniard, the Pope, and the Devil'
in the same category, then we shall understand very little about Raleigh;

though, of course, we shall save ourselves the trouble of pronouncing
as to whether the Spaniard and the Pope were really in the same
category as the devil; or, indeed, which might be equally puzzling to a
good many historians of the last century and a half, whether there be
any devil at all.
The books which I have chosen to head this review are all of them
more or less good, with one exception, and that is Bishop Goodman's
Memoirs, on which much stress has been lately laid, as throwing light
on various passages of Raleigh, Essex, Cecil, and James's lives. Having
read it carefully, I must say plainly, that I think the book an altogether
foolish, pedantic, and untrustworthy book, without any power of insight
or gleam of reason; without even the care to be self-consistent; having
but one object, the whitewashing of James, and of every noble lord
whom the bishop has ever known: but in whitewashing each, the poor
old flunkey so bespatters all the rest of his pets, that when the work is
done, the whole party look, if possible, rather dirtier than before. And
so I leave Bishop Goodman.
Mr. Fraser Tytler's book is well known; and it is on the whole a good
one; because he really loves and admires the man of whom he writes:
but he is sometimes careless as to authorities, and too often makes the
wish father to the thought. Moreover, he has the usual sentiment about
Mary Queen of Scots, and the usual scandal about Elizabeth, which is
simply anathema; and which prevents his really seeing the time in
which Raleigh lived, and the element in which he moved. This sort of
talk is happily dying out just now; but no one can approach the history
of the Elizabethan age (perhaps of any age) without finding that truth is
all but buried under mountains of dirt and chaff--an Augaean stable,
which, perhaps, will never be swept clean. Yet I have seen, with great
delight, several attempts toward removal of the said superstratum of
dirt and chaff from the Elizabethan histories, in several articles, all
evidently from the same pen (and that one, more perfectly master of
English prose than any man living), in the 'Westminster Review' and
'Fraser's Magazine.' {2}
Sir Robert Schomburgk's edition of the Guiana Voyage contains an
excellent Life of Raleigh, perhaps the best yet written; of which I only
complain, when it gives in to the stock-charges against Raleigh, as it
were at second-hand, and just because they are stock-charges, and

when, too, the illustrious editor (unable to conceal his admiration of a
discoverer in many points so like himself) takes all through an
apologetic tone of 'Please don't laugh at me. I daresay it is very foolish;
but I can't help loving the man.'
Mr. Napier's little book is a reprint of two 'Edinburgh Review' articles
on Bacon and Raleigh. The first, a learned statement of facts in answer
to some unwisdom of a 'Quarterly' reviewer (possibly an Oxford
Aristotelian; for 'we think we do know that sweet Roman hand'). It is
clear, accurate, convincing, complete. There is no more to be said about
the matter, save that facts are stubborn things.
The article on Raleigh is very valuable; first, because Mr. Napier has
had access to many documents unknown to former biographers; and
next, because he clears Raleigh completely from the old imputation of
deceit about the Guiana mine, as well as of other minor charges. With
his general opinion of Raleigh's last and fatal Guiana voyage, I have the
misfortune to differ from him toto coelo, on the strength of the very
documents which he quotes. But Mr. Napier is always careful, always
temperate, and always just, except where he, as I think, does not enter
into the feelings of the man whom he is analysing. Let readers buy the
book (it will tell them a hundred things they do not know) and be judge
between Mr. Napier and me.
In the meanwhile, one cannot help watching with a smile how good old
Time's scrubbing-brush, which clears away paint and whitewash from
church pillars, does the same by such characters as Raleigh's. After
each fresh examination, some fresh count in the hundred-headed