silver bosom of the Thames, and exulted in its voyage from the crowded and plague-stricken city, while its occupants inhaled with rapture the evening breeze which greeted them on their approach to the Royal Palace of Greenwich. All who possessed dwellings by the banks of the lordly river opened the casements to suffer the pure air to enter, or, if debarred from venturing on the water, took pleasure from surveying the gay parties, who, urged by wind or oars, swiftly shot past. Yet one seemed to have little pleasure in the sight, or scant desire to look on the fair scene before her. The casements of windows, looking on the flowing stream, were open, it is true, and a burst of sunlight lighted up a room of noble dimension, furnished with splendid profuseness. Mirrors and pictures hung from the walls, while couches, tables, and cornices, richly gilt, seemed blazing in the glare. The sole tenant of this luxurious chamber was in the prime of life, her features regular, and of a cast betokening true nobility-her figure had lost the roundness of youth, and assumed a matronly dignity, but each attitude betokened grace, and the internal consciousness of elevation which is inseparably connected with superior station. She stirred not from the couch, but having turned over the leaves of a large manuscript folio, exclaimed aloud, in a voice betokening pleasure and emotion, "Here it is, I have got it at last!" And unconsciously she continued to read aloud the following lines:

Abused mortals! did you know

Where joy, heart's-ease, and comfort grow,

You'd scorn proud towers,

And seek them in these bowers;

Where winds sometimes our woods perhaps may shake,
But blustering care could never tempest make,
Nor murmurs e'er come nigh us,

Saving of fountains that glide by us.

Here's no fantastic masque, nor drama,
But of our kids that frisk and prance:
Nor wars are seen,

Unless upon the green

Two harmless lambs are butting one another,
Which done, both bleating run, each to his mother;
And wounds are never found,

Save what the ploughshare gives the ground.

Here are no false entrapping baits,
To hasten to too hasty fates;
Unless it be

The fond credulity

Of silly fish, which, worldling-like, still look
Upon the bait, but never on the hook :
Nor envy, unless among

The birds, for prize of their sweet song.

Go! let the diving negro seek

For gems bid in some forlorn creek:
We all pearls scorn,

Save what the dewy morn
Congeals upon each little spire of grass,
Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass;

And gold ne'er here appears,

Save what the yellow corn bears.

Blest silent groves! Oh may ye be
For ever mirth's best nursery!
May pure contents

For ever pitch their tents

Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains,
And peace still slumber by these purling fountains,

Which may we every year

"Find when we come a-fishing here," chimed in a tuneful, manly voice, as a gentleman of a very dignified presence and costly attire strode into the apartment. His figure was rather slender, about six feet in height, with a singularly prepossessing countenance-dignity and sweetness spoke in each lineament. In accordance with the fashion of the times, his dress was splendid, and became him well-a white satin vest, close sleeved to the wrist, and he wore over the body a brown doublet, embroidered with flowers, intermingled with pearls of price-trunk hose, also white, fitting tight, displayed the perfect symmetry of his limbs. In his hat, which he held in his hand, was a black feather, with a large ruby and pearl drop, in place of a button.

"Well rhymed, Sir Walter," said the lady, pressing his hand in hers; "how knew ye the verse?

"There's a saying among the Irish kernes, lady mine, 'What the fairy writes he can read.'"'

"What, Walter, are the verses thine?" asked the lady in a tone of surprise.

"Of a suretie, why dost thou wonder, sweetheart?"

"I crave your pardon, but you, my Walter, who could feel to write thus -oh! how can you bear to leave the pure, peaceful delights, here so sweetly pictured, and encounter the very evils you recount?

Oh why Fly to courts?""

"By my faith, sweet love, I cannot answer you. It were as bootless to ask the moth already singed by the flame, why he hoverest round the candleit is my fate."

"Whilst I read the lines," said the lady, "I pictured Sherborne. You were so happy there, doubtless there you composed them." (He bowed

assent.)

"They were happy days for me, Walter, when you read as I worked, and gardening occupied the time now sacrificed on the altar of ambition."

"And such days we shall again enjoy, and God grant," replied her husband. "He knows the times I pass with you and our loved one at Sherborne, are such as my soul yearns for-but for thy sake, sweet one, I must endure the stormy scenes of life, to keep ye in that state which my position demands."

66

Gladly would I yield state to the meanest, to share your presence the more," answered the lady.

The knight pressed the fond heart to his. "And now, dearest," he said, "haste thee ere twilight falls; I have ordered the barge, and here it is," as the splashing of oars in the tide announced the boat at the steps. "Thou hast not gone forth this day, and I have been long in the laboratory-we shall breast the waves, and the musicians shall raise thy spirits, I fear me sunken from confinement since the plague set in."

The lady vanished, and shortly returned to go aboard. She had on a dark hood, hanging sleeve gown, tufted on the arms, and under it a closebodied gown of white satin, flowered with black, with close sleeves down to her wrist; a large chain of pearls round her neck, while her headgear was studded with costly jewels. She returned not alone however. A fine flaxen-haired boy, in a close-fitting doublet, walked by her side. "My father," said the child, clasping his parent's knees. Sir Walter took him up in his arms, kissed him, and they descended to their barge.

As they passed a balcony filled with orange trees in full blossom-then first introduced into England by Sir Walter-the child gratified him much by holding out his hand, and calling out with boyish glee, "Papa's flowers, Papa's flowers."

"He appreciates his father's renown," said the lady, delighted, giving one to the boy, who held its perfume to his father. They now launched on the bosom of the river, and impelled by right sturdy rowers, in rich livery, left the city behind.

The last boat they passed that night was occupied by a venerable man, and whether intentionally or otherwise, he remained in the wake of the barge of the knight, urging his paddles with infinite skill. A proficient himself in all manly sports, especially aquatic, Sir Walter beheld with pleasure the adroitness with which the ancient mariner availed himself of the light boat he was in, to make short cuts over the banks, but scantily covered with water, and keep pace with his stately vessel, obliged to wind with the sinuosities of the channel. At length it struck the knight, that the old man's anxiety to keep pace with him arose from other motives than essaying his skill as a boatman; so, under pretence of enjoying the setting sun, he desired his boat's crew to slacken their speed. The old man promptly availed himself of the remission, for gliding so covertly under the awning, where Sir Walter sat, as to escape notice of his lady, who was looking the other way, he whispered, "You are accused of treason. Sir Walter Raleigh, beware!"

A vessel outward bound at this moment obliged the bargemen to pull out of her course, and when she passed, the small boat and its occupant had disappeared. Sir Walter rubbed his eyes, and looked, but nothing was seen but the ship that had just passed; and no boat was visible on the surface of the water. Flags of all nations waved from the masts lining the quays, and, as if under the influence of a dream, Sir Walter returned to his study.

Alone, in the solitude of his chamber, the active, well-stored mind of Raleigh grasped the public affairs of the time, and they were such as to inspire him with confidence. Elizabeth had lately died, and the crown of England was never transmitted from father to son with greater tranquillity, than it passed from the family of Tudor to that of Stuart.* The Queen herself had named her successor. On the 23rd March, the day before she died, some members of the council deemed fit to introduce the subject, notwithstanding her great aversion to having it spoken of, and the very mention recalled the fiery spirit of the expiring Queen. " I told you that my seat had been the seat of Kings; and I will have no rascal to succeed me! Trouble me no more. He who comes after me must be a King. I will have none but our cousin of Scotland."+ James lost not a moment in taking possession of his new dominions; and the cordial reception he met with during his magnificent progress was extremely grateful to his affectionate, though suspicious temper. Desirous of evincing his gratitude, he lavished titles and distinctions with a profusion strangely contrasting with the frugality of his renowned predecessor. He is reported to have conferred knighthood on no less than two hundred and thirty-seven persons in six weeks, and titles became so common as to be hardly any mark of distinction. A humorous pasquinade was affixed to St. Paul's, in which the advertiser promised "to teach an art very necessary to assist the memory, in retaining the names of the new nobility." What meaneth this strange warning?" Raleigh muttered, "and wherefore should I fear. True, alas! death hath robbed me of my gracious mistress-my best friend,- and already I mark the difference 'twixt the old and new Sovereign. My foreign adventures are coldly looked on, nay, but yesterday, my noble proposition, so easy, and certain of speedy accomplishment-that England should divide with Spain the rich provinces of the New World, countries abounding in gold, and rich in fertilities-was scouted as a delusion. The mastery we gained over Spain, instead of being now turned unto our account, opportunitie neglected. And the bulwarks of Britain, our gallant navies, when I called the King's attention thereunto, and pointed out the rigid necessitie of keeping the fleet in commission, and redie for sea."- Sir Walter,' quoth he, these crotchets may bide— an ye bring me a scheme to put the goud and siller in the exchequer, man, an rin na risks of men and shipping, I'll hearken to ye.' The poor lout; and then he is so learned, forsooth, doles out syllogisms at the council, and reasons by rule. Poetry, too, by the Royal 'Prentice-faugh! there's not a 'prentice in all 'Cheap that would own the trash. But Treason! betray ! what idle conceits may have stirred such speech? Mayhap the morn will unfold."

Between two such men little sympathy could exist; there was nothing common or congenial in their natures, and, as may be gathered from the words which escaped Sir Walter Raleigh, he despised the King's acquirements. Indeed the literature of James was rather for shew than use. He talked in a vain pedantic strain, which the ignorant mistook for the concentrated essence of wisdom, while the well-informed heard nothing but the lucubrations of a conceited scholar. As he could not, we may presume Raleigh frequently did not, conceal his contempt for the superficial learning of the King. His erudition was vast but profound. Much of his information the result of actual and accurate observation. His phi

losophy was not gleaned from the brains of others, but tested by the application of his experience. Brought up amidst the din of arms-the tumult of the camp, and, above all, a participator quorum pars magna of all the triumphs attained by Britain on the seas, Raleigh had to deal with a man timid to a degree, to whose mind peace was essential as life, and jealous of anything that tended to disturb his quiet, or rouse his inactivity. It had doubtless been better had Raleigh exerted himself to accommodate himself to the temper of his new Sovereign; but he was so used to find his plans countenanced-his views entertained—and his opinions acted on by his late Queen, that we cannot wonder if his upright spirit could not stoop to win Court favour at the expense of integrity.

James, from the first, disliked Raleigh. He felt himself inferior in literary attainments, in poetry, and of these the king was vain. It is the attribute of little minds to dislike whoso possesses qualities superior to their own, whereon they pride themselves; and there was one with the King ready and willing to blow the coals that would blast Sir Walter. Though Cecil, son of the famous Lord Burleigh, had disguised his hostility, during the life of Elizabeth, to one he feared as a rival, no sooner had he been assured of her successor's power and influence in protecting him, than he began to weave the meshes of a web he hoped would take this noble stag in its toils. And first he modified and altered his own pliant principles, to conform with the feeble and inert character of James; and to the surprise of all, in a few days, he played his cards so well, that, "who in such dearness and privacy with the King as Sir Robert Cecil, as if he had been his faithful servant many years before."* By these means he was continued in his office of principal secretary of state, equivalent to that of prime minister, whilst Raleigh was regarded with coldness and suspicion.

There was an open glade in the pleasure-gardens of Windsor Castle; it commanded a glorious view of the tiara of proud towers, and the wide forests around. Art vied with nature in adornment, and the long vista formed of green high hedges, trimly cut, were roofed with trellis-work through which the musk-rose, honeysuckle, and sweet-briar, had woven a thick and blooming canopy. A marble fountain cast the crystal waters high in air, and, as the sun shone on the scene, each drop seemed transmuted into a gorgeous gem,topaz, or sapphire, or green emerald. Orange trees, a present from Sir Walter Raleigh to the King, suffused delicious perfume around, and he who brought them from afar was conversing with looks full of sore disgust, yet bitter scorn, cast upon a deformed, meanlooking man, whose features denoted craft, dissimulation, a cold immoveable heart, and wily spirit.

By your looks and words," replied the deformed, to Raleigh's remarks, " you might persuade others of thine innocence, but there are some -and why shouldst I not avow it, by me for one, you are suspected of treason, Sir Walter."

"I doubt not thy good purpose, Mr. Secretary," retorted the other, with an air of disdain; "but happily thy suspicions are no proofs."

"Well should it be for thee, Raleigh, if I gave credence unto my suspicions, without the proofs thou vainly tauntest me with lacking. God

* Weldon, Court and Character of King James, pp. 10, 11.