orridors, with their numerous alcoves, might have been utilized as
a series of dungeons, the fittest of all possible receptacles for
prisoners of state. Dethroned monarchs and fallen statesmen would not
have needed to remonstrate against a domicil so spacious, so deeply
secluded from the world's scorn, and so admirably in accordance with
their thenceforward sunless fortunes. An alcove here might have suited
Sir Walter Raleigh better than that darksome hiding-place communicating
with the great chamber in the Tower, pacing from end to end of which he
meditated upon his "History of the World." His track would here have
been straight and narrow, indeed, and would therefore have lacked
somewhat of the freedom that his intellect demanded; and yet the
length to which his footsteps might have travelled forth and retraced
themselves would partly have harmonized his physical movement with the
grand curves and planetary returns of his thought, through cycles of
majestic periods. Having it in his mind to compose the world's history,
methinks he could have asked no better retirement than such a cloister
as this, insulated from all the seductions of mankind and womankind,
deep beneath their mysteries and motives, down into the heart of things,
full of personal reminiscences in order to the comprehensive measurement
and verification of historic records, seeing into the secrets of human
nature,--secrets that daylight never yet revealed to mortal,--but
detecting their whole scope and purport with the infallible eyes of
unbroken solitude and night. And then the shades of the old mighty men
might have risen from their still profounder abodes and joined him in
the dim corridor, treading beside him with an antique stateliness of
mien, telling him in melancholy tones, grand, but always melancholy, of
the greater ideas and purposes that were so poorly embodied in their
most renowned performances. As Raleigh was a navigator, Noah would have
explained to him the peculiarities of construction that made the ark so
seaworthy; as Raleigh was a statesman, Moses would have discussed with
him the principles of laws and government; as Raleigh was a soldier,
Caesar and Hannibal would have held debate in his presence, with this
martial student for their umpire; as Raleigh was a poet, David, or
whatever most illustrious bard he might call up, would have touched his
harp, and made manifest all the true significance of the past by means
of song and the subtil