His lordship answered, “They laughed to see that when jacks went up, heads went down." Sir Robert Naunton, who was Secretary of State at the time of Ralegh's death, relates the same story, in his "Fragmenta Regalia," observing upon Lord Oxford's jest, 66 we all know it savours more of emulation and his humour, than of truth; it being a certain note of the times, that the Queen, in her choice, never took into her favour a mere new man, or a mechanic."

The ignorance of Ralegh's origin, and consequent scorn of his person, indicated in the "witty jest" of my Lord of Oxford (now only remembered as the kinsman and contemporary of Sir Francis and Sir Horace Vere), was probably shared by a majority of the court. But Elizabeth, doubtless, had taken pains to ascertain the antecedents of the remarkable man she was about to exalt; she had already knighted his three uterine brothers, and she had satisfied herself that the blood flowing in Ralegh's veins might be traced to as remote and as noble a source as that of some of the titled wits who traduced him. That "fair pedigree," which the Queen had been solicitous to unfold, our readers will probably desire to see.

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Whilst Sir Walter was yet-not smarting under, but-smiling disdainfully at the envy and detraction that surrounded him, John Hooker,* an eminent antiquary, and related to Ralegh, in a dedication to the knight of his translation and continuation of the "Chronicles of Ireland," tells him that the family of Ralegh-s times written Rale and Ralega in ancient deeds—were settled in Devonshire, and in possession of the seat of Smalridge, before the Norman Conquest, and that one of the family built a chapel there, in gratitude for his deliverance on St. Leonard's day from the Gauls, by whom he had been taken prisoner; and that he hung up therein, as a monument, his target. (The records of this foundation are said to have been given by a priest of Axminster to Sir Walter, as their most rightful owner.) So much for the antiquity of the family; but Hooker avouches that his kinsman and friend was allied to the Courtenays, Earls of Devon, and other illustrious houses, nay, that he can trace the stream of consan

* He was uncle of the illustrious Richard Hooker, author of the "Ecclesiastical Polity," who is commonly styled by divines and others learned in divinity, "the judicious Hooker."

guinity up to the Kings of England; for he says, "that one of his ancestors in the directest line, Sir John de Ralegh, of Fardel (another seat of their ancient inheritance, in the parish of Cornwood, eight miles east of Plymouth), espoused the daughter of Sir Richard d'Amerei, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Gilbert Earl of Gloucester, by Joan d'Acres, daughter of King Edward I., which Gilbert was descended of Robert Earl of Gloucester, son of King Henry I. So he goes up to the Conqueror, adding further, "that in like manner he may be derived by his mother out of the same house."

However pleasing it may have been to that excellent antiquary and worthy man, John Hooker, to set before the eyes of the youngest son of a poor esquire the antiquity and noble and royal alliances of his family, we are persuaded that the object of this blazonry prized it no higher (that being not much) than as it silenced and tended to put to shame his traducers on the score of birth. He has himself told us in his "History of the World," how, and to what extent, such claims to distinction are to be valued.

"If nobility," he says, "be virtus et antiquæ divitiæ, 'virtue and ancient riches,' then to exceed in all these things which are extra hominem, as riches, power, glory, and the like, do no otherwise define nobility than the word animal alone doth define a reasonable man. Or, if honour, according to L. Vives, be a witness of virtue and well-doing, and nobility, after Plutarch, the continuance of virtue in a race or lineage; then are those in whom virtue is extinguished but like unto painted and printed papers, which ignorant men worship instead of Christ, our lady, and other saints: men in whom there remain but the dregs and vices of ancient virtue; flowers and herbs which by change of soil and want of manuring are turned to weeds. For, what is found praiseworthy in those waters which had their beginning out of pure fountains, if in all the rest of their course they run foul, filthy, and defiled? For as all things consist of matter and form, so doth Charron, in his chapter of nobility, call the race and lineage but the matter of nobility; the form (which gives life and perfect being) he maketh to be virtue and quality, profitable to the commonweal. For he is truly, and entirely noble, who maketh a singular profession of public virtue, serving his prince and country,

and being descended of parents and ancestors that have done the like. And although that nobility, which the same author calleth personal (the same which ourselves acquire by our virtue and welldeservings), cannot be balanced by that which is both natural by descent and also personal; yet, if virtue be wanting to the natural, then is the personal and acquired nobility by many degrees to be preferred. For, saith Charron, this honour, to wit, by descent, may light upon such a one as is in his own nature a true villain. There is also a third nobility, which he calleth nobility in parchment, bought with silver or favour; and these be, indeed, but honours of affection which kings, with the change of their fancies, wish they knew well how to wipe off again. But, surely, if we had as much sense of our degenerating in worthiness as we have of vanity in deriving ourselves of such and such parents, we should rather know such nobility (without virtue) to be shame and dishonour than nobleness and glory, to vaunt thereof.

And howsoever the customs of the world have made it good that honours be cast by birth upon unworthy issues, yet Solomon (as wise as any king) reprehendeth the same in his fellow princes. 'There is an evil,' saith he, 'that I have seen under the sun, as an error that proceedeth from the face of him that ruleth: folly is set in great excellency.” ”

Sir Walter Ralegh was born in the year 1552 (that being the sixth year of the reign of Edward VI.*), at Hayes, a farm belonging to his father in the parish of Budely, in that part of Devonshire which borders eastward upon the sea, and near where the Otter disembogues itself into the British Channel. He was the fourth son of Walter Ralegh, Esq., of Fardel, by his third wife Catharine, daughter of Sir Philip Champernon, of Modbury, and relict of

* Portents and prodigies, or reports of them, were rife in the reigns of Elizabeth and her successor. In the supplement to G. Le Neve's collection of Nativities, we are told that 1552 was "a year remarkable in our chronicles; first, for that strange shoal of the largest sea-fishes, which, quitting their native waters for fresh and untasted streams, wandered up the Thames so high till the river no longer retained any brackishness; and, secondly, for that it is thought to have been somewhat stained in our annals with the blood of the noble Seymour, Duke of Somerset; events surprisingly analogous, both to the life of that adventurous voyager, Sir Walter Ralegh, whose delight was in the hazardous discovery of unfrequented coasts, and also to his unfortunate death." This is ingenuity grown desperate.

Otho Gilbert, of Compton, in Devon, Esq.* Where he received the rudiments of his education has not been handed down to us; but it is stated that in 1568, or thereabouts, he became a commoner of Oriel College, Oxford, and—so Fuller avers-of Christchurch

RALEGH'S SEAL AND

AUTOGRAPH.

likewise. But this can hardly be, unless he had been entered of both colleges at the same time; neither can I believe but that he was transplanted to the University before 1568; for all his biographers give him three years at Oxford, and in 1569 he was in France.

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At Oriel he is said to have distinguished himself. He "proved the ornament of the junior fry," and was worthily esteemed a proficient in oratory and philosophy. "It has been represented to me," says Oldys, as a matter of no small honour to Sir Walter Ralegh, that a casual expression of his, in his immature and greenest years, should prefer itself to the commemoration of that great philosopher (Bacon) in his sagest and most advanced age. But as he had observed on the nature of things, that great objects may be discerned through a little crevice, so he knew with respect to the nature of man, that a great discovery of genius may be made through a small and sudden repartee; and hence might he be moved to remember, "that while Ralegh was a scholar at Oxford, there was a cowardly fellow who happened to be a very good archer; but having been grossly abused by another, he bemoaned himself to Ralegh, and asked his advice what he should do to repair the wrong that had been offered him? Ralegh answered, 'Why, challenge him—at a match of shooting.”†

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* This lady had three sons by her first marriage, all eminent in the days of Elizabeth, Sir John, Sir Humphrey, and Sir Adrian Gilbert. Of the second I shall presently have occasion more particularly to speak. From Sir Humphrey I have good reason to believe the late most gallant general, Sir Walter Ralegh Gilbert, was descended.

† Mrs. Thomson, whose life of Ralegh is written with much earnestness and ability, says that "though Sir Walter left Oxford without a degree, yet

It is stated by Anthony Wood,* that on leaving the University Ralegh became a member of the Middle Temple, where he studied municipal law. But that he was not there at this time we shall presently show, and that he never was a student of law after he became a member of that society, we have Sir Walter's own words for denying. At his arraignment in 1603, in reply to the Attorney-General, he lays a heavy imprecation upon himself, "if ever he read a word of law or statutes before he was a prisoner in the Tower." We are distinctly told by Hooker, "that after Ralegh had laid a good ground to build his actions on at the University, he travelled into France," and the correctness of this assertion cannot be questioned.

France being embroiled in civil wars, Queen Elizabeth sympathised with the persecuted Protestants of that country, and permitted Henry Champernon, a near kinsman of Ralegh, to embark with a select troop of a hundred gentlemen volunteers, well mounted and accoutred, for France, who bore in their standard this motto: Finem det mihi virtus-"Let valour decide the cause." Amongst these were several who afterwards became of note, the most celebrated being Ralegh, then a lad of seventeen. This was in 1569, one year only after he is said to have been entered of Oriel.

On their arrival, this chosen troop were very honourably received by the Queen of Navarre and the princes; but what especial services they performed, although Ralegh remained in France more than six years, no writer, English or French, has left us any account. But the spectacle of war on a grand scale could not have passed before eyes so observant and sagacious as Ralegh's, without making a deep impression upon his vigorous and acquisitive mind. Himself an actor in the scene, it was here that he acquired that experience in the art of war which is displayed with

he acquired a higher honour in obtaining the good opinion of Bacon, who there foretold his future eminence," quoting Oldys as her authority. Mrs. Thomson has fallen into this error by mistaking the sense in which Oldys uses the word "remember," which, as he employs it, means "mention." Bacon was but seven years of age when Ralegh left Oxford; and Trinity College, Cambridge, would not willingly resign the honour of having sent forth the illustrious philosopher.