repair into that Our realm, delivered to some such as he shall
depute to be his lieutenant there.

He is to be captain in Ireland, but not just yet, not till a too tender
Queen can spare him. We find that he was paid his 'reckoning' for six
months after the issue of this warrant, but there is no evidence that he
was spared at any time during 1582 to relieve his Irish deputy. He was
now, in fact, installed as first favourite in the still susceptible
heart of the Virgin Star of the North.

This, then, is a favourable opportunity for pausing to consider what
manner of man it was who had so suddenly passed into the intimate favour
of the Queen. Naunton has described Raleigh with the precision of one
who is superior to the weakness of depreciating the exterior qualities
of his enemy: 'having a good presence, in a handsome and well-compacted
person; a strong natural wit, and a better judgment; with a bold and
plausible tongue, whereby he could set out his parts to the best
advantage.' His face had neither the ethereal beauty of Sidney's nor the
intellectual delicacy of Spenser's; it was cast in a rougher mould than
theirs. The forehead, it is acknowledged, was too high for the
proportion of the features, and for this reason, perhaps, is usually
hidden in the portraits by a hat. We must think of Raleigh at this time
as a tall, somewhat bony man, about six feet high, with dark hair and a
high colour, a facial expression of great brightness and alertness,
personable from the virile force of his figure, and illustrating these
attractions by a splendid taste in dress. His clothes were at all times
noticeably gorgeous; and to the end of his life he was commonly
bedizened with precious stones to his very shoes. When he was arrested
in 1603 he was carrying 4,000_l._ in jewels on his bosom, and when he
was finally captured on August 10, 1618, his pockets were found full of
the diamonds and jacinths which he had hastily removed from various
parts of his person. His letters display his solicitous love of jewels,
velvets, and embroidered damasks. Mr. Jeaffreson has lately found among
the Middlesex MSS. that as early as April 26, 1584, a gentleman named
Hugh Pew stole at Westminster and carried off Walter Raleigh's pearl
hat-band and another jewelled article of attire, valued together in
money of that time at 113_l._ The owner, with characteristic
promptitude, shut the thief up in Newgate, and made him disgorge. To
complete our pi