d whom he
contemplated. Yet the active life of Rawleigh is not more remarkable
than his contemplative one. He may well rank among the founders of our
literature; for composing on a subject exciting little interest, his
fine genius has sealed his unfinished volume with immortality. For
magnificence of eloquence, and massiveness of thought, we must still
dwell on his pages.[67] Such was the man who was the adored patron of
Spenser; whom Ben Jonson, proud of calling other favourites "his sons,"
honoured by the title of "his father;" and who left political
instructions which Milton deigned to edit.

But how has it happened that, of so elevated a character, Gibbon has
pronounced that it was "ambiguous," while it is described by Hume as "a
great but ill-regulated mind!"

There was a peculiarity in the character of this eminent man; he
practised the cunning of an _adventurer_--a cunning most humiliating in
the narrative! The great difficulty to overcome in this discovery is,
how to account for a sage and a hero acting folly and cowardice, and
attempting to obtain by circuitous deception what it may be supposed so
magnanimous a spirit would only deign to possess himself of by direct
and open methods.

Since the present article was written, a letter, hitherto unpublished,
appears in the recent edition of Shakspeare which curiously and minutely
records one of those artifices of the kind which I am about to narrate
at length. When, under Elizabeth, Rawleigh was once in confinement, it
appears that seeing the queen passing by, he was suddenly seized with a
strange resolution of combating with the governor and his people,
declaring that the mere _sight_ of the queen had made him desperate, as
a confined lover would feel at the sight of his mistress. The letter
gives a minute narrative of Sir Walter's astonishing conduct, and
carefully repeats the warm romantic style in which he talked of his
royal mistress, and his formal resolution to die rather than exist out
of her presence.[68] This extravagant scene, with all its cunning, has
been most elaborately penned by the ingenious letter-writer, with a hint
to the person whom he addresses, to suffer it to meet the eye of their
royal mistress, who could not fail of admiring our new "Orlando
Furioso," and soon after released this tender prisoner! To me it is
evident that the whole scene was got up and concerted for the occasion,
and was the invention of Rawleigh himself; the romantic in