ably in the famous battle of Rimenant, in which the English, "being more sensible of a little heat of the sun than any cold fears of death," threw off their armour and clothes, and gained a victory in their shirts. He soon returned to England, and in 1579 joined the first and unsuccessful voyage of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. This was the first in that long series of maritime adventures in which he afterward became so justly renowned.

Raleigh was now twenty-seven years of age. He had seen much and varied service, and had diligently profited by his experience and observation. Only five of the twenty-four hours, we are told, were devoted to sleep, four were regularly employed in study, and in his land and sea expeditions he voluntarily shared the labours, hardships, and hazards of the common soldier and sailor.* Abilities like his, thus trained, could not long remain in obscurity or unemployed.

Ireland was now ripe for insurrection. The Catholic population were oppressed, their chiefs excluded from office for their religion; the pope had claimed it as belonging to the Holy See, and scattered his emissaries all over it to excite the faithful to revolt; and

* [Cayley's Life of Raleigh, i., 17.—H.]

Philip of Spain stood ready with men and money to encourage the discontented and aid the insurgent. Lord Grey was sent over, August, 1580, as deputy, with orders to make quick and thorough work, and Raleigh served under him as captain of a troop of horse. The chronicles of the times make honourable mention of his services. His duties were difficult, often painful, and eminently perilous; to capture a rebellious or suspected chieftain, to hunt outlaws, to disperse the hourly gatherings of half-naked but exasperated peasants, to burn, to pillage, to kill. He was in the country of an enemy who knew every pass, beset every road, and would have shot him down as they would a deer. Every day called for caution, skill, and desperate courage. His escapes were often marvellous, and his success not less so. When Smerwick was taken, the garrison were all put to the sword in cold blood, and Raleigh, as one of the captains having the ward of that day, was obliged to superintend the butchery. In the spring of 1581 he was temporarily in the commission for the government of Munster, and about the same time became a friend of Edmund Spenser, then residing at Kilcolman. But even this sympathy of poetic genius could

not relieve the weariness of a service which had become odious to him. "I have spent some time here," he wrote to the Earl of Leicester in August, 1581, "under the deputy, in such poor place and charge as, were it not for that I knew him to be as if yours, I would disdain it as much as to keep sheep." Not long after, probably, he was allowed to return from what he calls "this commonwealth, or, rather, common-wo.

The letter which we have quoted above proves some passages of regard between Raleigh and the noble Earl of Leicester. The favour of that powerful nobleman may have aided his early reception at court, though the report of his late services, was enough to commend him to the notice of Elizabeth. His own abilities were more to him than any patronage. He is said to have owed his introduction to a singular and romantic incident. Fuller* relates that "this Captain Raleigh, coming out of Ireland to the English court in good habit (his clothes being then a considerable part of his estate), found the queen walking, till, meeting with a plashy place, she seemed to scruple going thereon. Presently Raleigh cast and spread his new plush cloak

* [Fuller's Worthies of England, Devon., i. 419.-H.]

on the ground, whereon the queen trod gently, rewarding him afterward with many suits for his so free and seasonable a tender of so fair a footcloth." This story is gravely told, and is in keeping with the temper and character of the parties. Certainly she soon admitted him to her court, and employed him in several honorary offices. He was one of the gentlemen appointed to attend Simier, the agent of the Duke of Anjou, to France; and when the negotiations for the queen's marriage with Anjou were broken off in 1582, he was selected, with Leicester, Sidney, and others, to form the duke's escort to Antwerp. He there enjoyed the honour of a personal acquaintance with the Prince of Orange, and brought a special message from him to the queen on his return. These affairs required no great ability or skill, yet a graceful habit and a pleasing address might make much of them. He received clearer tokens of royal favour in consequence of the trial before the Privy Council of a disagreement between him and Lord Grey, the late deputy of Ireand, of which Sir Robert Naunton* gives this account: "I am somewhat confident that among the second causes of his growth

* [Fragmenta Regalia, 109.-H.]

was the variance between him and my Lordgeneral Grey, which drew them both over to the council-table, there to plead their own causes; where what advantage he had in the case in controversy I know not, but he had much the better in the manner of telling his tale, insomuch as the queen and the lords took no slight mark of the man and his parts, for from thence he came to be known, and to have access to the lords; . . . whether or not my Lord of Leicester had then cast in a good word for him to the queen, I do not determine; but true it is, he had gotten the queen's ear in a trice, and she began to be taken with his elocution, and loved to hear his reasons to her demands. And the truth is, she took him for a kind of oracle." The queen was doubtless pleased with his ready wit, and perhaps wished to abate the hopes of some other aspirants for her favour. Naunton adds, "Those that he relied on began to be sensible of their own supplantation, and to project his."]

He was half-brother, by the mother's side, to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and was at the expense of fitting out one of the ships of his squadron. Notwithstanding the unhappy fate of his brother, he persisted in his design of