He became himself the head of a little _Alexandrian_ establishment. His house was a home for men of learning. He employed men in literary and scientific researches on his account, whose business it was to report to him their results. He had salaried scholars at his table, to impart to him their acquisitions, Antiquities, History, Poetry, Chemistry, Mathematics, scientific research of all kinds, came under his active and persevering patronage. Returning from one of his visits to Ireland, whither he had gone on this occasion to inspect a _seignorie_ which his 'sovereign goddess' had then lately conferred upon him, he makes his re-appearance at court with that so obscure personage, the poet of the 'Faery Queene,' under his wing;--that same gentleman, as the court is informed, whose bucolics had already attracted so much attention in that brilliant circle. By a happy coincidence, Raleigh, it seems, had discovered this Author in the obscurity of his clerkship in Ireland, and had determined to make use of his own influence at court to push his brother poet's fortunes there; but his efforts to benefit this poor bard _personally_, do not appear to have been attended at any time with much success. The mysterious literary partnership between these two, however, which dates apparently from an earlier period, continues to bring forth fruit of the most successful kind; and the 'Faery Queene' is not the only product of it. All kinds of books began now to be dedicated to this new and so munificent patron of arts and letters. His biographers collect his public history, not from political records only, but from the eulogies of these manifold dedications. _Ladonnier_, the artist, publishes his Sketches of the New World through his aid. Hooker dedicates his History of Ireland to him; Hakluyt, his Voyages to Florida. A work 'On _Friendship_' is dedicated to him; another 'On Music,' in which art he had found leisure, it seems, to make himself a proficient; and as to the poetic tributes to him,--some of them at least are familiar to us already. In that gay court, where Raleigh and his haughty rivals were then playing their deep games,--where there was no room for Spenser's muse, and the worth of his 'Old Song' was grudgingly reckoned,--the 'rustling in silks' is long since over, but the courtier's place in the pageant of the 'Faery Queene' remains, and grows clearer with the lapse of ages. That time, against which he built so perseveringly, and fortified himself on so many sides, will not be able to diminish there 'one dowle that's in his plume.' [He was also a patron of Plays and Players in this stage of his career, and entertained private parties at his house with very _recherché_ performances of that kind sometimes.]