During the alarm consequent upon the Gunpowder Plot, Raleigh was examined by the Council, probably in the Lieutenant’s, now the King’s House, but naturally nothing could be found to implicate him with the conspiracy, and the King had to bide his time before he could bring his great subject to the block. In 1610, for some unknown reason, Sir Walter was kept a close prisoner in his tower for three months, and Lady Raleigh was taken from him. In Disraeli’s “Amenities of Literature” is the following interesting description of those friends of Sir Walter who shared his pursuits and studies in the Tower:— “A circumstance as remarkable as the work itself” (“History of the World”) “occurred in the author’s long imprisonment. By one of the strange coincidences in human affairs, it happened that in the Tower Raleigh was surrounded by the highest literary and scientific circle in the nation. Henry, the ninth Earl of Northumberland, on the suspicion of having favoured his relation Piercy, the Gunpowder Plot conspirator, was cast into this State prison, and confined during many years. This Earl delighted in what Anthony Wood describes as ‘the obscure parts of learning.’ He was a magnificent Mecaenas, and not only pensioned scientific men, but daily assembled them at his table, and in these intellectual communions, participating in their pursuits, he passed his life. His learned society was designated as ‘the Atlantis of the Northumberland world’! But that world had other inhabitants, antiquaries and astrologers, chemists and naturalists. There was seen Thomas Allen, another Roger Bacon, ‘terrible and tho’ vulgar,’ famed for his ‘Bibliotheca Alleniana,’ a rich collection of manuscripts, most of which have been preserved in the Bodleian; the name of Allen survives in the ardent commemorations of Camden, of Spelman, and of Selden. He was accompanied by his friend Doctor Dee, but whether Dee ever tried their patience or their wonder by his ‘Diary of Conferences with Spirits’ we find no record, and by the astronomical Torporley, a disciple of Lucretius, for his philosophy consisted of stones; several of his manuscripts remain in Sion College. The muster-roll is too long to run over. In this galaxy of the learned the brightest star was Thomas Hariot, who merited the distinction of being ‘the Universal Philosopher’; his inventions in algebra Descarte, when in England, silently adopted, but which Dr Wallis afterwards indignantly reclaimed; his skill in interpreting the text of Homer excited the grateful admiration of Chalman when occupied by his version. Bishop Corbet has described ‘Deep Hariot’s mine In which there is no dross.’