thetic to read the earnest
phrases in which he tries to wheedle out of the cold Minister permission
to set out westward once more across the ocean that he loved so much. He
offers, lest he should be looked upon as a runagate, to leave his wife
and children behind him as hostages; and the Queen and Lord Salisbury
may have the treasure he brings back, if only he may go. He pleads how
rich the land is, and how no one knows the way to it as he does. We seem
to hear the very accents of another weary King of the Sea:

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world;
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars until I die.

Such was Raleigh's purpose; but it was not that of James and of
Salisbury. On the contrary, he was kept a faster prisoner. In July 1607,
fresh regulations came into force in the Tower, by which at 5 P.M.
Raleigh and his servants had to retire to their own apartments, and Lady
Raleigh go back to her house, nor were guests any longer to be admitted
in the evening. Lady Raleigh had particularly offended Sir William Waad
by driving into the Tower in her coach. She was informed that she must
do so no more. It was probably these long quiet evenings which specially
predisposed Raleigh to literary composition. He borrowed books, mainly
of an historical character, in all directions. A letter to Sir Robert
Cotton is extant in which he desires the loan of no less than thirteen
obscure and bulky historians, and we may imagine his silent evenings
spent in poring over the precious manuscripts of the _Annals of
Tewkesbury_ and the _Chronicle of Evesham_. In this year young Walter
Raleigh, now fourteen years of age, proceeded to Oxford, and
matriculated at Corpus on October 30, 1607. His tutors were a certain
Hooker, and the brilliant young theologian, Dr. Daniel Featley,
afterwards to be famous as a controversial divine. Throughout the year
1608, Raleigh, buried in his _History_, makes no sign to us.

Early in 1609, the uncertain tenure of Sherborne, which had vexed
Raleigh so much that he declared himself ready to part with the estate
in exchange for the pleasure of never hearing of it again, once more
came definitely before the notice of the Government. A proposition had
been made to Raleigh to sell his right in it to the King, but he had
refused; he said that it belonged to his wife and child, and t