he presided assumed a jurisdiction independent of that of the State of Illinois. The documents of the State were deemed illegal unless countersigned by the Prophet, and a law was passed to punish any stranger using disrespectful language towards him. In 1844 he was put forward by the Saints as a candidate for the presidency of the United States, and according to custom, therefore, published his views of the government and policy of the times. This he would appear to have done rather to please his fanatical adherents, than from any hope of success entertained by himself, for he had previously written both Mr. Calhorne and Mr. Clay to know what would be their rule of action towards the Mor

soon produced a change in the aspect of affairs. Finding themselves so numerous around the village, they determined first to make it a town and then a city. In the course of a year and a half, they erected about 2,000 houses, besides schools and other public buildings. "Nauvoo," or "the Beautiful," a name from the “Book of Mormon,” was that by which they called it. Afterwards it was designated "the Holy City." Situated on a beautiful sweep of the river, amidst rich woodlands, and beneath a bold and a prominent hill, it became one of the loveliest spots in the whole region. Smith was active in directing the improvements. In December, 1840, they received a city charter with extensive privileges; and in the February follow-mons, if elected. However, he was by ing, charters were received for the Nauvoo Legion, a well-disciplined militia; and for the University also, for art, and science, and manufactures, and all that could elevate a people were to be taught within its precincts. The same month, or thereabouts, Smith had a revelation of great length, calling upon all the Saints to erect a temple, and detailing the mode of procedure for raising the funds and governing the church. On the 6th of April, 1841, a ceremony, conducted in truly imposing style, announced that the foundation-stone was laid. Joseph, who was mayor of the town, as well as president and prophet, was also General of the Legion. This he reviewed before the stone was deposited; afterwards an oration was delivered and a hymn was sung. The site selected was good, commanding magnificent views in every direction; and the building when finished was of a polished white limestone, hard like marble. It was surmounted by a pyramidal tower, and the internal decorations were very costly. The Mormons who, two years and a half before, had been banished from Missouri, expended nearly a million of dollars upon it.

This was the golden time of Joseph's life. His talents were fully occupied in devising fresh schemes to promote the welfare of his people. They marked him as a man of superior stamp. But if he seemed now less grasping, it was only because he had obtained the object of his ambition. His selfishness was gratified. He was the monarch of Nauvoo-its ruler, supreme and absote in both spiritual and temporal minion. The corporation over which

no means satisfied with their answers, and sent to each a lengthy and clever epistle, strongly condemnatory of their conduct. But his prosperity was of comparatively short duration, for it was of a nature to generate its own destruction. His power excited envy within, and the arrogance of the sect, flourishing despite all resistance, increased hatred without. The first decisive blow which he felt came in the shape of an arrest. While visiting with his family away from the city he was seized by treachery, to be brought for trial before the Missouri courts, on the charge of having injured the property of certain people in Jackson county. He was detained by his ruffianly guards for several weeks, and then released on a writ of habeas corpus. He in turn commenced an action against them for false imprisonment and using unnecessary violence; but though the case was proved, the damages obtained were only forty dollars, while his legal expenses had been more than three thousand five hundred. Shortly after he was vindictively accused of having sought the assassination of the ex-Governor of Missouri. He fled, and for some time avoided capture; but was ultimately again arrested, tried, and triumphantly acquitted. More serious dangers now lowered at home. He was sued before the Municipal Court of Nauvoo by one Higbee, for defamation and slander. Higbee laid his damages at five thousand dollars, but, the_aldermen being all Mormons, he had little chance of gaining them. Whatever might be the justice of his cause, Smith was discharged from arrest, and Higbee declared not entitled to his costs. Foiled

6.

One of the gang on the outside raised him up and leaned him against a well -four others advanced with loaded muskets; and the infuriated crowd exulted over the bleeding corpse of the Mormon Prophet.

In person Joseph Smith was of commanding appearance, tall and well proportioned. His talents were debased by the meanness of his purposes. They were elicited and improved by the circumstances of his life. No impartial man can deny that they were of no common order. The skill with which he carried out his imposture and eluded The detection from the masses- - his eloquence, rude but powerful his letters, clever and sarcastic the manifold character and boldness of his designs

here, the disaffected accused him of immorality and vice, tried to palm on him the spiritual wife" doctrine of Rigdon, and, by every means in their power, to undermine his influence. They went so far as to establish a newspaper within the city with this express design. Their We pursue the story no farther. The calumnies were bitter in the extreme; destruction of Nauvoo the migration but their mode of action was too daring of the sect across the Rocky Mountain to pass unnoticed. Joseph summoned to the Salt Lake Valley-its present a council to consider the publication, prosperity and future prospects, are and it was unanimously declared a subjects unconnected with its founder's public nuisance, while the city marshal history. was ordered "to abate it forthwith." A large body of his adherents rushed to the office, razed it to the ground, and made a bonfire of the papers and furniture. The owners fled to the neighbouring town of Carthage, where they obtained a warrant against Smith and others involved in the transaction. The constable who served it was marched out of Nauvoo with contempt. county authorities called out the militia to support their officer in the discharge of his duty. The Mormons fortified their city, determined not to surrender their chief. The whole of Illinois seemed to divide itself into two camps, and the Governor hastened in the emergency to take the field in person. In his proclamation he stated that nothing but the entire destruction of the city of Nauvoo would satisfy the people and the troops if once hostilities commenced, and besought the two Smiths-Hyrum and Joseph, both implicated-to surrender peaceably, giving his word that they should be protected. They complied. A guard was set over the gaol to preserve them from violence; but it began to be rumoured amongst the mob that the go-to the comforts of peace and plenty; he vernor wished their escape. About six bowed in feigned submission to the o'clock on the evening of the 27th of truth, appealed to prevailing notions, June, 1844, there was a noise around the and then misled by vaunting promises. prison, confused and boisterous. Two He was an impostor-a successful imhundred men with blackened faces and postor, with 100,000 followers scattered eyes flashing with anger rushed upon through the world at the time of his the guard, beat them down and gained death. That he was a religious enthuthe room where the Prophet and his siast we cannot grant his deeds were friends were confined. They fired-inconsistent with such a character. Hyrum fell. Joseph was shot as he tried to leap from the window, and also fell, exclaiming, “O Lord, my God!"

his courage in enterprise his perseverance despite great obstacles his conception and partial execution of the temple of Nauvoo these and other things mark him as a man of more than ordinary calibre. We do not claim for him the praise of intellectual greatness, much less of moral consistency. Enthusiastic he might have been; but his enthusiasm was based on fraud, and gloried in fraud. He was not a Mahomet; but a man of his age. He caught much of its spirit. He held out promises of freedom, of independence; he pointed to the rewards of industry,

One principle, dominant in some form or other, actuated him through life, and that was— selfishness.

240

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

one of discovery and projected colonization, proved unfortunate; but it was so far useful as to familiarise young Raleigh with a sea-faring life, and probably had no inconsiderable influence in leading him to undertake those later expeditions by which he was afterwards rendered famous.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S is a name battles of the period. Subsequently he which Englishmen have always reserved for a short time in the Nethergarded with peculiar interest and lands; and then, returning home, acveneration. His courtly qualities, his companied his half-brother, Sir Humreputation as a founder of colonies, his phrey Gilbert, on a voyage to Newenterprising disposition, and the tyran-foundland. The expedition, which was nical and unjust sentence which brought his life and activity to a close, have combined, as it were, to canonise his character in the memory of the nation. Filling various functions of public life, naval, military, and civil, he had the fortune to be illustrious in all, and to gain for himself in addition a literary renown, which has placed him in asso- After his return to England, he went ciation with the loftiest minds of his to Ireland to assist in suppressing the generation. The more than ordinary rebellion raised there, in 1580, by the interest accorded to his story is evinced Earl of Desmond. On this occasion he by the multitude of his biographers; commanded a company of royal troops, most of whom have aimed, in different and at once became distinguished both ways, to do him honour, and whose for valour and his surpassing skill in researches, upon the whole, have sup- effecting those sudden and rapid moveplied all or most of the materials re-ments and surprises which were required for a fair appreciation of his quired by the nature of the service. His personal powers and characteristics, as exploits were so conspicuous as to be well as of his varied services and pro-particularly recited by the historians of jects. the period. The country continuing in His father was a gentleman of ancient a turbulent condition, he remained in lineage, but small fortune, settled in this employment for several years; Devonshire; in which county, at a place solely, it is said, for the purpose of recalled Hayes Farm, in the parish of commending himself to the notice of the Budley, Walter himself was born in the Court at home. He seems to have been year 1552. He was the second son of a patronised by the Queen's favourite, the third marriage, his father being then ap-Earl of Leicester, to whom he once parently considerably advanced in life. writes, that, were it not for his hopes From his earliest youth, it is said, he was that way, he would disdain the present characterised by great intellectual acute-service as much as he would to" keep ness, and likewise by a restless and ad-sheep." It must be remembered that this venturous spirit. There is no account contest was marked throughout by the of the way in which his early education was conducted; but it is recorded that he passed two or three years as a commoner of Oriel College, Oxford, and was distinguished as "a worthy proficient in oratory and philosophy."

On quitting the university-which he did on the earliest opportunity that was presented for his engaging in active life he became a soldier; being one of a company of a hundred gentlemen volunteers, which Queen Elizabeth had authorised to be formed for aiding the Huguenots in their memorable struggle for religious liberty. In this capacity he served in France for five years, and was engaged in some of the most noted

most ruthless and revolting cruelty; and one of Raleigh's biographers, Mr. Tytler, would fain have us believe that the gallant young soldier was disgusted with it on this account. The crowning atrocity, perhaps, was the massacre of some hundreds of Spaniards, who had fought in aid of the rebels, and surrendered at discretion; and it is extremely mortifying to learn that Raleigh was one of the officers to whom the execution of this outrageous deed was intrusted. To be sure, he was under military command, and had necessarily to undertake the work that might be given him; still, it casts a stain upon that chivalrous and noble character

which has always been the "ideal" of Sir Walter, and tends rather to diminish him in our accustomed admiration.

pality of the Earls of Desmond, whose rebellions he had assisted to suppress, and also a lucrative patent for licensing the vendors of wine throughout the kingdom.

Not long after the commencement of Raleigh's successes at court, Sir Hum phrey Gilbert resolved to try his fortunes a second time in a colonizing expedition to America; and his prosperous halfbrother, who was now in a situation to furnish useful aid, came forward handsomely in support of his views. In a letter written from court, in May, 1583, it is stated that "Mr. Raleigh, the new favourite, had made an adventure of £2,000 in a ship and furniture thereof," to form part of the fleet collected by

Some differences at length arising between Raleigh and the Lord Deputy, they, on their return to England, brought up the matter for discussion at the council,board, in the presence of her Majesty; Sir Walter maintaining his cause, whatever it was, "with consummate ability as well as grace," and thereby, to use the words of Sir Robert Naunton, gaining "the Queen's ear in a trice." This was one of the most important and decisive moments of Raleigh's life. His future fortunes were owing chiefly to the feelings with which he was thenceforth regarded by his sovereign. It is well known that personal recommendations Gilbert. Raleigh himself remained at went a long way with Elizabeth; and for these he was not less remarkable than for those intellectual accomplishments that so instantly gained her ear. The romantic incident, related by Fuller, as to the immediate cause of Raleigh's introduction to the Queen and to her favour, is familiar to all readers of history; how the gallant and handsome gentleman, being one of her Majesty's train, when she suddenly came to a miry part of the road, and hesitated to proceed, pulled off his rich plush cloak, and, spreading it before her feet, enabled her to pass on unsoiled—a mark of attention which so delighted the Queen that, as it was facetiously observed, it gained for him thereafter many a handsome suit. The incident is so pretty, and harmonizes so well with the characters of both, that one would not willingly question its reality; and, indeed, there seems no reason either to doubt about the fact, or of its having produced sentiments highly favourable to Raleigh; yet, as respects his rapid progress in Elizabeth's esteem, it is more properly to be ascribed to the opportunity afforded for the display of his commanding talents in the discussion in the council chamber re- The fate of his kinsman, however, ferred to by Naunton. To whatever had no effect in diverting Raleigh's cause, or combination of causes, his thoughts from those colonial undergood fortune was really owing, the ef- takings to which the former fell a victim. fects were alike speedy and decided; for Availing himself of the Queen's favour, within two or three years from the period he solicited and obtained a patent, inwhen he was first noticed at court, he vesting him with full power to approwas knighted, made a captain of the priate, plant, and govern any territory guard, seneschal of the county of Corn- he might acquire in the unoccupied parts wall, and lord warden of the Stan- of North America. This patent was neries; these honours being further- granted in 1584. His first step for more enhanced by the substantial grant carrying it into effect was to fit out a of 12,000 acres of the forfeited princi- expedition of observation and inquir

court to prosecute his own particular objects, but the Queen sent, through the new favourite's hands, a golden anchor to Sir Humphrey, to be worn at his breast by way of ornament; her only contribution to an expedition designed to transplant the arts and industry of England to the waste regions of the newly-discovered Continent. The ship, built and named by Raleigh, called after his name, joined Sir Humphrey at Plymouth, whence he sailed in June, 1583; but a few days after sailing, she left him, and returned to port; the sickness of her crew, it was said, obliging her to do so. Gilbert does not appear to have credited the necessity of the separation, and wrote, after his arrival at Newfoundland, to Sir George Peckham in these terms:-"I departed from Plymouth on the 11th of June with five sail, and on the 13th, the bark Raleigh ran from me in fair and clear weather, having a large wind. I pray you solicit my brother to make an example of them to all knaves." This expedition was also unsuccessful, and its brave leader perished in a storm by which he was overtaken on his return.

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