Duchess. Not a whit:

What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut
With diamonds? or to be smothered

With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearles ?
I know death has ten thousand several doores

For men to take their exits and 'tis found

They goe on such strange geometrical hinges,

You may open them both wayes: (any way for heaven sake,
So I were out of your whispering.) Tell my brothers,
That I perceive death (now I am well awake,)

Best gift is, they can give, or I can take;

I would fain put off my last woman's fault,
I'll not be tedious to ye.-

Executioners We are ready.

Duchess. Dispose my breath how please you, but my body Bestow upon my women, will

you ?

The executioners perform their office, and Ferdinand enters eagerly inquiring, "Is she dead?"

dered infants and their dead parent.

Bosala. Fix your eyes here.

Ferdinand. Constantly.

Bosala. Do you not weep?

Bosala shows him the mur

Other sins only speake; murther shrekes out;
The element of water moistens the earth,

But bloud flies upwards, and bedews the heavens.

Ferdinand. Cover her face: mine eyes dazzell :—she dy'd young.

This beautiful expression is the commencement of the remorse which scatters his senses. His succeeding reflections are fine; he gradually falls from remorse into horror and madness, which is heightened by the sudden reflection that they were twins. Even the fiend Bosala is touched, too late, with pity. After Ferdinand has retired, the Duchess opens her eyes, and pronounces the name of Antonio. Bosala informs her that he is alive, and had procured the favour of the Pope. The cheering news fails to enliven his victim, who utters a petition for mercy, and expires. The deaths of the brothers, Antonio and Bosala, follow in rapid succession. The concluding scene is written with great spirit, but we have not room for so long an

insertion.

We have given but an imperfect account of this play, and have been obliged to exclude many noble passages; but our readers will perceive that it is the production of no mean genius.

VOL. III.

ART. IV. Remains of Sir WALTER RALEGH. London, 1675 24to. pp. 334.

THE name of Sir Walter Ralegh awakens a double interest. His is one of the most original and chivalrous characters of English story; and his life is essentially connected with the history of our country.

In one of the late publications of Sir Walter Scott, Ralegh's youthful appearance is thus strikingly presented to his readers: Tressillian was ushered by one of the Earl's attendants, while another went to inform Sussex of his arrival; he found only two gentle. men in waiting. There was a remarkable contrast betwixt their dress, appearance, and manners. The attire of the elder gentleman, a per-, son as it seemed of quality, and in the prime of life, was very plain and soldier-like, his stature low, and his features of that kind which express sound common sense, without a grain of vivacity or imagination. The younger, who seemed about twenty, or upwards, was clad in the gayest habit used by persons of quality at the period, wearing a crimson velvet cloak richly ornamented with lace and embroidery, with a bonnet of the same, encircled with a gold chain turned three times round it, and secured by a medal. His hair was adjusted very nearly like that of some fine gentlemen of our own time, that is, it was combed upwards, and made to stand as it were on end, and in his ears he wore a pair of silver ear-rings, having each a pearl of considerable size. The countenance of this youth, besides being regularly handsome and accompanied by a fine person, was animated and striking in a degree that seemed to speak at once the firmness of a decided, and the fire of an enterprising character, the power of reflection, and the promptitude of determination.

Both these gentlemen reclined nearly in the same posture on benches near each other; but each seeming engaged in his own meditations, looked straight upon the wall which was opposite to them, without speaking to his companion. The looks of the elder were of that sort, which convinced the beholder, that, in looking on the wall, he saw no more than the side of an old hall hung round with cloaks, antlers, bucklers, old pieces of armour, partizans, and the similar articles which were usually the furniture of such a place. The look of the younger gallant had in it something imaginative, he was sunk in reverie, and it seemed as if the empty space of air betwixt him and the wall, were the stage of a theatre on which his fancy was mustering his own dramatis personæ, and treating him with sights far different from those which his awakened and earthly vision could have offered.'

We do not remember a happier introduction to any of the brilliant characters drawn by the author of Waverly than the preceding. How often have we seen similar indications of distinctive mind beaming in the light of the human countenance -how often have we perceived, at a glance, the different employment of the inmost soul in two beings silent and motionless;

in the look of one, the vacant patience of inactive service, or of deferred expectation, in that of another not a thought of the present scene, but a sort of ardent looking for the distant, the future, and the splendid-sending forth rays of that intelligence, sensibility, and energy, which distinguish the power from the passiveness, the loftiness from the lowliness, the climbing from the creeping, of human nature.

It will not be uninteresting to recal the authentic history of the individual whose life has so finely embellished the pages of romance; and to learn the influence produced by his character upon his own and succeeding times, and the effect of the prevailing sentiments of his age upon his destiny.

Walter Raleigh, as the name is commonly written, affixed to his letters the signature Ralegh: he was born at Hayes, in Devonshire, in 1562, and was educated in all the learning and accomplishments cultivated by the English in the sixteenth century. His peculiar disposition, however, inclined him rather to active than to meditative life, and he entered early into the profession of arms. The continent was esteemed the proper school for martial discipline by the English, and they accounted foreign service the best preparation by which a young and gallant Englishman could be fitted to defend his native land.

Soon after he left the University, Ralegh went to France, and engaged for the Protestant cause in the religious wars which then distracted that kingdom; here he happily escaped the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew's day, and served afterwards in the Netherlands, till 1575, when he returned to England. In 1578, his half-brother, Humphry Gilbert, projected a voyage of discovery to America, and the ardent mind of Ralegh eagerly caught at the scheme; he joined the expedition, but it proved unprosperous, and he was forced to return to England with no other advantage than some experience in the sea-service.

Pope Gregory VIII. and the Spaniards, about this time, not only instigated the Irish to rebellion against the dominion of Britain, but furnished money and men to aid the cause of revolt. The desperate conflicts between the party which resisted, and that which defended the authority of England, form a bloody page in the history of those times; but the skill and bravery of Ralegh probably contributed to shorten the dreadful strife-for we find that his military services in Ireland, during this period, in behalf of English supremacy, procured for him the grant of an estate in Ireland, and the appointment of governor of Cork.

In 1582, Ralegh planned a second enterprise to America, which, like the first, proved unsuccessful: but he was not a man to be daunted with difficulties, or disheartened by disappointments. He stood high in favour with his sovereign, and with men in power. His valour, his wit, and his various accomplish

ments, gave him that ascendancy in the hearts of men, which commands not only their affections, but procures their most efficient influence in behalf of their object. The plausibility of Ralegh's undertakings easily procured for him the aid of money, and he had no difficulty in obtaining an extensive patent which secured to him all the immunities, at that time included in the factitious right of discovery. In 1584, he fitted out a number of ships under the command of Captains Amadas and Barlow, who prosecuted a very successful voyage to America, and after their return, he sent out another fleet of seven ships under the command of Sir Richard Greenville.* Ralegh's patent was afterwards transferred to a company.

Ralegh was a distinguished favourite with his royal mistress, Queen Elizabeth; the act of gallantry that protected the soles of her majesty's feet, which has been recorded by the novelist in Kenilworth, is borrowed from genuine documents; and it used to be familiarly remarked by his contemporaries-"The loss of a cloak has gained Ralegh many a suit of clothes." Among other favours, Queen Elizabeth bestowed the honour of knighthood upon Ralegh, and soon after, she granted him a valuable estate, and appointed him licencer to the retailers of wine, throughout the kingdom. In 1587, his private fortune was also augmented by a Spanish prize, of 50,000l. which was brought in by his Virginia fleet. This accumulation of honours and emoluments drew upon Ralegh the jealousy of the Earl of Leicester, who endeavoured to withdraw the royal favour from him to the Earl of Essex; but it does not appear that the partiality of the queen for Essex ever excluded Sir Walter Ralegh from her esteem. The enthusiasm with which he regarded her, or which in his character as courtier he affected to feel for her, as well as the adulatory style of the times, is curiously displayed in the following letter.

'SIR,

July, 1592.

I pray be a mean to her Majesty for the signing of the bills for the Guard coats, which are to be made now for the Progress, and which the Clerk of the Cheque hath importuned me to write for.

To the adventurers under the auspices of Ralegh, Europe is indebted for two very remarkable products of the vegetable world, tobacco and the potato; the benefits of the former are certainly questionable, but the latter is among the most palatable and nutritive articles of sustenance. Potatoes were first cultivated in Europe by Ralegh, upon his Irish estate. The fact is remarkable, that tobacco was extensively used in England, and on the continent, only a few years after its introduction; while a whole century elapsed before that excellent aliment, the potato, was as generally known and consumed. Thus it is shown that civilized and savage men are not altogether unlike; for the islanders of the South Sea have already learned the pernicious art of distillation, though they have never adopted the salutary practices of European agriculture and cookery.

My heart was never broken till this day, that I hear the Queen goes away so far off, whom I have followed so many years with so great love and desire, in so many journeys, and am now left behind in a dark prison alone; while she was nigher at hand, that I might hear of her once in two or three days, my sorrows were the less; but even now my heart is cast into the depth of all misery! I that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks, like a nymph; sometimes sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometimes singing like an angel, sometimes playing like Orpheus. Behold the sorrow of this world! once amiss hath bereaved me of all! O glory that only shineth in misfortune, what is become of thy assurance? All wounds have scars but that of fantasie; all affections their relenting, but that of womankind. Who is the judge of friendship but adversity? or when is grace witnessed but in offences? There were no divinity but by reason of compassion; for revenges are brutish and mortal; all those times past, the loves, the sighs, the sorrows, the desires, can they not weigh down one frail misfortune? Cannot one drop of gall be hidden in so great heaps of sweetness? I may then conclude-spes et fortuna, valete. She is gone in whom I trusted, and of me has not one thought of mercy, nor any respect of that that was! Do with me now, therefore, what you list, I am more weary of life than they are desirous I should perish, which if it had been for her, as it is by her, I had been happily born. Your's, not worthy any name or title, W. R.'

• To Sir Robert Cecil,

Knight of her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council.'

It should be remembered, that in the preceding letter, the expression, left behind in a dark prison alone, was far from being literally true: When he was, at a subsequent period, truly immured in prison walls, the sweet and salutary uses of adversity corrected his estimate of sovereigns, and all the glories which ambition sighs for.

On one occasion, in 1597, Ralegh was appointed second in command under Essex, and, on account of the delay of Essex, he assumed the authority, in a manner which excited some censure; but the queen could not have been highly offended, as she soon after invited Ralegh to accompany her in a tour through the principal cities of the kingdom. Ralegh was never regardless of the services due to his country and his benefactress.

In 1595, he went in person to the West Indies and South America, and was active in introducing to his countrymen at home the productions of those prolific regions. In 1597, he led a successful expedition against Cadiz, and when the Spanish Armada was so famously defeated, he had no small share in the achievement. Previous to this event, Ralegh had been appointed lieutenant-general of Cornwall, and his discipline had prepared the militia of that exposed coast to defend it: he was, also, among those individuals who volunteered money, ships,