y, would assure his place among the poets of the
age. He was able to barb a fierce sarcasm with courtly grace. How his
fancy could swoop down and strike, and pierce as it flashed, may be felt
in each ringing stanza of _The Lie_--

Say to the Court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the Church, it shows
What's good, and doth no good:
If Church and Court reply,
Then give them both the lie.

His fancy could inspire in his _Pilgrimage_ one of the loftiest appeals
in all literature to Heaven from the pedantry of human justice or
injustice. He could match Cowley in metaphysical verse, as in _A Poesy
to prove Affection is not Love_. But the Court spoilt him for a national
poet, as it spoilt Cowley; as it might, if it had been more generous,
have spoilt Dryden. He desired to be read between the lines by a class
which loved to think its own separate thoughts, and express its own
separate feelings in its own diction, sometimes in its own jargon. He
hunted for epigrams, and too often sparkled rather than burned. He was
afraid not to be witty, to wrangle, as he himself has said,

In tickle points of niceness.

[Sidenote: _Disputed Authorship._]

Often he refined instead of soaring. In place of sympathising he was
ever striving to concentrate men's regards on himself. Egotism is not
inconsistent with the heat of inspiration, when it is unconscious, when
the poet sings because he must, and bares his own heart. Ralegh rarely
loses command of himself. He is perpetually seen registering the effects
his flights produce. Apparently he had no ambition for popular renown as
a poet. He did not print his verses. He cannot be said to have claimed
any of them but the _Farewell to the Court_. His authorship of some, now
admitted to be by him, has been confidently questioned. A critic so
judicious as Hallam, for reasons which he does not hint, and a student
as laborious as Isaac D'Israeli, have doubted his title to _The Lie_,
otherwise described as _The Soul's Errand_, which seems to demonstrate
his authorship by its scornful and cynical haughtiness embodied in a
wave of magnificent rhythm. Verses, instinct with his peculiar wit, like
_The Silent Lover_, have been given away to Lord Pembroke, Sir Robert
Ayton, and others. Its famous stanza--

Silence in love bewrays more woe
Than words, though ne'er so witty;
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
Deserveth double pity!

was i