about as captain of the guard in the Queen’s progresses and masques and pageants, with sword-belt studded with diamonds and rubies, or at tournaments, in armour of solid silver, and a gallant train with orange-tawny feathers, provoking Essex to bring in a far larger train in the same colours, and swallow up Raleigh’s pomp in his own, so achieving that famous ‘feather triumph’ by which he gains little but bad blood and a good jest. For Essex is no better tilter than he is general; and having ‘run very ill’ in his orange-tawny, comes next day in green, and runs still worse, and yet is seen to be the same cavalier; whereon a spectator shrewdly observes that he changed his colours ‘that it may be reported that there was one in green who ran worse than he in orange-tawny.’ But enough of these toys, while God’s handwriting is upon the wall above all heads. Raleigh knows that the handwriting is there. The spirit which drove him forth to Virginia and Guiana is fallen asleep: but he longs for Sherborne and quiet country life, and escapes thither during Essex’s imprisonment, taking Cecil’s son with him, and writes as only he can write about the shepherd’s peaceful joys, contrasted with ‘courts’ and ‘masques’ and ‘proud towers’— ‘Here are no false entrapping baits Too hasty for too hasty fates, Unless it be The fond credulity Of silly fish, that worlding who still look Upon the bait, but never on the hook; Nor envy, unless among The birds, for prize of their sweet song. ‘Go! let the diving negro seek For pearls hid in some forlorn creek, We all pearls scorn, Save what the dewy morn Congeals upon some little spire of grass, Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass And gold ne’er here appears Save what the yellow Ceres bears.’ Tragic enough are the after scenes of Raleigh’s life: but most tragic of all are these scenes of vain-glory, in which he sees the better part, and yet chooses the worse, and pours out his self-discontent in song which proves the fount of delicacy and beauty which lies pure and bright beneath the gaudy artificial crust. What might not this man have been! And he knows that too. The stately rooms of Durham House pall on him, and he delights to hide up in his little study among his books and his chemical experiments, and smoke his silver pipe, and look out on the clear Thames and the green Surrey hills, and dream about Guiana and the Tropics; or to sit in the society of antiquaries with Selden and Cotton, Camden and Stow; or in his own Mermaid Club, with Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Beaumont, and at last with Shakspeare’s self to hear and utter ‘Words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one from whom they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest.’