We may quote again, for Prince, on Sir Walter's distinction, is
instructive at this moment:--
"For this and other beneficial expeditions and designs, her Majesty was
pleased to confer on him the honour of Knighthood; which in her reign
was more esteemed; the Queen keeping the temple of honour close shut,
and never open'd but to vertue and desert."
Well may democracy call for the destruction of that temple when
contemplating those that are permitted entrance to-day.
Then vanished Elizabeth, and a coward king took her place.
"Fourteen years Sir Walter spent in the Tower, of whom Prince Henry
would say that no King but his father would keep such a bird in a cage."
But freedom followed, and the scholar turned into the soldier again.
Ultimately Spain had her way with her scourge and terror. James
ministered to her revenge, and Ralegh perished; "the only man left
alive, of note, that had helped to beat the Spaniards in the year 1588."
The favour of the axe was his last, and being asked which way he would
dispose himself upon the block, he answered, "So the heart be right, it
is no matter which way the head lieth."
"Authors," adds old Prince, "are perplexed under what topick to place
him, whether of statesman, seaman, soldier, chymist, or chronologer; for
in all these he did excel. He could make everything he read or heard his
own, and his own he would easily improve to the greatest advantage. He
seemed to be born to that only which he went about, so dextrous was he
in all his undertakings, in Court, camp, by sea, by land, with sword,
with pen. And no wonder, for he slept but five hours; four he spent in
reading and mastering the best authors; two in a select conversation and
an inquisitive discourse; the rest in business."
We may say of him that not only did he write _The History of the World_,
but helped to make it; we may hold of all Devon's mighty sons, this man
the mightiest. Fair works have been inspired by his existence, but one
ever regrets that Gibbon, who designed a life of Ralegh, was called to
relinquish the idea before the immensity of his greater theme.
In the western meadow without the boundary of Hayes Barton there lies a
great pool, where a cup has been hollowed to hold the brook. Here, under
oak trees, one may sit, mark a clean reflection of the farmhouse upon
the water, and regard the window of the birth chamber opening on the
western gable of the homestead. Thence the august infant's eyes first
drew light, his lungs, the air. He has told us that dear to memory was
that snug nook, and many times, while he wandered the world and wrote
his name upon the golden scroll, we may guess that the hero turned his
thought to these happy valleys and, in the mind, mirrored this haunt of
peace.