Throughout his life he won the belief of men of letters and refinement in his poetic power. Their admiration has never failed him in the centuries which have followed. He has not been as fortunate in gaining and keeping the ear of the reading public. For that a poet has not only to be born, but to be made. Ralegh had a poet's gifts. He had music in his soul. He chose to think for himself. He possessed the art of the grand style. The twenty-first book of the _Cynthia_ errs in being overcharged with thought. It abounds in noble imagery. There is pathos as well as dignity. Its author, had he lived in the nineteenth century, in default of new worlds to explore, or Armadas to fight, might have written an _In Memoriam_. In previous English poetry no such dirge is to be found as his Epitaph on Sir Philip Sidney. A couple of stanzas will indicate its solemn music:-- There didst thou vanquish shame and tedious age, Grief, sorrow, sickness, and base fortune's might; Thy rising day saw never woeful night, But passed with praise from off this worldly stage. What hath he lost that such great grace hath won? Young years for endless years, and hope unsure Of fortune's gifts for wealth that still shall dure: O happy race, with so great praises run! He had as light a touch. He understood how to play with a conceit till it glances and dances and dazzles, as in his, for probably it is his, _Grace of Wit, of Tongue, of Face_, and in _Fain would I, but I dare not_. Praed was not happier in elaborate trifling than he in his _Cards and Dice_. Prior might have envied him _The Silent Lover_. His _Nymph's Reply to the Passionate Shepherd_, if it be his, as Izaak Walton without suspicion assumes, and, if it did not compel comparison with Marlowe's more exquisite melody, would assure his place among the poets of the age. He was able to barb a fierce sarcasm with courtly grace. How his fancy could swoop down and strike, and pierce as it flashed, may be felt in each ringing stanza of _The Lie_-- Say to the Court, it glows And shines like rotten wood; Say to the Church, it shows What's good, and doth no good: If Church and Court reply, Then give them both the lie. His fancy could inspire in his _Pilgrimage_ one of the loftiest appeals in all literature to Heaven from the pedantry of human justice or injustice. He could match Cowley in metaphysical verse, as in _A Poesy to prove Affection is not Love_. But the Court spoilt him for a national poet, as it spoilt Cowley; as it might, if it had been more generous, have spoilt Dryden. He desired to be read between the lines by a class which loved to think its own separate thoughts, and express its own separate feelings in its own diction, sometimes in its own jargon. He hunted for epigrams, and too often sparkled rather than burned. He was afraid not to be witty, to wrangle, as he himself has said, In tickle points of niceness.