Sir Walter Raleigh was one that, it seems, Fortune had picked out of
purpose, of whom to make an example and to use as her tennis-ball,
thereby to show what she could do, for she tossed him up of nothing, and
to and fro to greatness, and from thence down to little more than to that
wherein she found him, a bare gentleman; and not that he was less, for he
was well descended, and of good alliance, but poor in his beginnings: and
for my Lord Oxford’s jests of him for the jacks and upstarts, we all know
it savoured more of emulation, and his honour than of truth; and it is a
certain note of the times, that the Queen, in her choice, never took in
her favour a mere viewed man, or a mechanic, as Comines observes of Lewis
XI., who did serve himself with persons of unknown parents, such as were
Oliver, the barber, whom he created Earl of Dunoyes, and made him _ex
secretis consiliis_, and alone in his favour and familiarity.
His approaches to the University and Inns of Court were the grounds of
his improvement, but they were rather extrusions than sieges, or settings
down, for he stayed not long in a place; and, being the youngest brother,
and the house diminished in his patrimony, he foresaw his destiny, that
he was first to roll through want and disability, to subsist otherwise
before he came to a repose, and as the stone doth by long lying gather
moss. He was the first that exposed himself in the land-service of
Ireland, a militia which did not then yield him food and raiment, for it
was ever very poor; nor dared he to stay long there, though shortly after
he came thither again, under the command of the Lord Grey, but with his
own colours flying in the field, having, in the interim, cast a mere
chance, both in the Low Countries and in the voyage to sea; and, if ever
man drew virtue out of necessity, it was he, and therewith was he the
great example of industry; and though he might then have taken that of
the merchant to himself,
“Per mare, per terras, currit mercator ad Indos.”
He might also have said, and truly, with the philosopher, “_Omnia mea
mecum porto_,” for it was a long time before he could brag of more than
he carried at his back; and when he got on the winning side, it was his
commendation that he took pains for it, and underwent many various
adventures for his after-perfection, and before he came into the public
note of the world; and thence may appear how he came up _per ardua_:—
“Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum.”
Not pulled up by chance, nor by any great admittance; I will only
describe his natural parts, and these of his own acquiring.
He had, in the outward man, a good presence, in a handsome and
well-compacted person; a strong natural wit, and a better judgment, with
a bold and plausible tongue, whereby he could set out his parts to the
best advantage; and these he had by the adjuncts of some general
learning, which by diligence he enforced to a great augmentation and
perfection, for he was an indefatigable reader, by sea and land, and one
of the best observers, both of men and of the times; and I am somewhat
confident that among the second causes of his growth there was variance
between him and my Lord General Grey, in his second descent into Ireland,
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; and then we are not to doubt how such a man would comply to
progression; and whether or no my Lord of Leicester had then cast a good
word for him to the Queen, which would have done him no harm, 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 election, and loved to hear his reasons to
her demands: and the truth is, she took him for a kind of oracle, which
nettled them all; yea, those that he relied on began to take this his
sudden favour for an alarm and to be sensible of their own supplantation,
and to project his, which made him shortly after sing—
“Fortune, my foe, why dost thou frown?”
So that, finding his favour declining, and falling into a recess, he
undertook a new peregrination, to leave that _terra infirma_ {165} of the
court for that of the waves, and by declining himself, and by absence to
expel his and the passion of his enemies; which, in court, was a strange
device of recovery, but that he then knew there was some ill office done
him; yet he durst not attempt to mend it, otherwise than by going aside
thereby to teach envy a new way of forgetfulness, and not so much as
think of him. Howsoever, he had it always in mind never to forget
himself; and his device took so well that, in his return, he came in as
rams do, by going backward with the greater strength, and so continued to
the last, great in her favour, and captain of her guard: where I must
leave him, but with this observation, though he gained much at the court,
he took it not out of the Exchequer, or merely out of the Queen’s purse,
but by his wit, and by the help of the prerogative; for the Queen was
never profuse in delivering out of her treasure, but paid most and many
of her servants, part in money, and the rest with grace; which, as the
case stood, was then taken for good payment, leaving the arrears of
recompense due for their merit, to her great successor, {166a} who paid
them all with advantage. {166b}