name; but the master reporting a contagious distemper to have broken out in two days after putting to sea, she returned into harbour.

Nothing dispirited, Raleigh, in conjunction with Sir Richard Grenville, Mr. William Sanderson, and others, projected an expedition to the eastern coast of North America, and he found the means of procuring for himself and heirs all such lands as he should discover. In the first voyage an attempt was made to settle on that part of the coast to which Raleigh, who did not himself proceed, gave the name of Virginia, in honour of the Virgin Queen. Four other voyages were made with numbers of settlers, but colonization at this time not being understood, and no consideration and kind treatment of the natives being observed, all attempts failed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; yet these simple people were stated to be affable, kind, and good-natured. Sir Walter went once with a single ship, but did not land; he found employment better suited to his genius at home.

The rebellion in Ireland was a theatre on which Raleigh felt he could act a distinguished part, encouraged by the command of a company which had been conferred on him. He performed under Ormond and Lord Grey very eminent services in the suppression of the rebels and the defeat of the Spaniards who had been introduced into Ireland. This aspiring soldier, active and persevering in detecting and reducing the seditious designs of the rebel leaders,

soon gained the confidence of the government, and was employed in various situations of great responsibility; so that, on the return of Ormond to England, the government of Munster was committed to the charge of Raleigh, and he also held the chief command in the city of Cork. On the suppression of the rebellion he returned to England, " with a reputation for valour and experience well known to those whom he had served, but which was lost at court amidst the dazzling brilliancy of superior rank

An incident, however, is said to have occurred which brought him to the immediate and favourable notice of Queen Elizabeth:-"Captain Raleigh," says Fuller, "coming out of Ireland to the English court in good habit (his cloaths being then a considerable part of his estate), found the Queen walking where, meeting with a plashy place, she seemed to scruple going thereon. Presently Raleigh cast and spread his new plush cloak on the ground, whereon the Queen trode gently, rewarding him afterwards with many suits, for his so free and seasonable tender of so fair a foot-cloath. Thus an advantageous admission into the first notice of a prince is more than half a degree to preferment."†

This anecdote, which has become a matter of tradition, and though generally believed, rests perhaps on no better authority than that of the facetious Fraser Tytler. † Fuller's Worthies.

Fuller; but the compliment is quite as likely to have been paid by this Worthy' to Queen Elizabeth, as that, in imitation of it, when the old gentlemen of Southampton recently paid a similar compliment to Queen Victoria.

But Fuller does not thus leave his 'Worthy.' He further says that "Raleigh, thus admitted to the court, found some hopes of the Queen's favours reflecting on him, and this made him write on a glass window, obvious to the Queen's eye-' Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.' Her Majesty, either espying or having been shown it, did underwrite"If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.""* His biographer adds, that the incident of the cloak almost proves itself to be true, by evincing Raleigh's knowledge of the character of Elizabeth. "Her predilection for handsome men, and her love of splendid apparel, were well known; while, in his sacrifice of the gorgeous cloak, and the air of devoted admiration, which none knew better how to assume, he displayed that mixture of generous feeling and high-flown gallantry, not unlikely indeed to meet the ridicule of the graver sort, yet fitted to surprise and delight the princess to whom it was addressed."†

The account given by the Virginian adventurers of a country so full of amenity and beauty, the softness and fragrance of the air, and the innocence of † Tytler's Life.

*Fuller's Worthies.

the natives, together with the name by which Raleigh had christened it, so highly delighted the Queen, that she very soon conferred on him the honour of knighthood; and nearly at the same period Sir Walter received a fresh mark of favour, in the grant of a patent to license the vending of wines throughout the kingdom. It may be a matter of doubt, whether the colonial project that failed had as much to do in the grant of these favours, as the Irish services and the cloak.

It has frequently been said that Sir Walter Raleigh's adventures to Virginia first brought the use of tobacco into England. "There is a wellknown tradition," says Mr. Tytler, "that Sir Walter first began to smoke it privately in his study, and the servant coming in with his tankard of ale and nutmeg, as he was intent upon his book, seeing the smoke issuing from his mouth, threw all the liquor in his face by way of extinguishing the fire; and, running down stairs, alarmed the family with piercing cries that his master, before they could get up, would be burnt to ashes."* But there is another tobacco story taken from the Life of Raleigh' by Oldys, which may or may not be true, for he was an universal collector of all kinds of anecdotes. It is this :

"On one occasion it is said that Raleigh, conversing with his royal Mistress upon the singular * Tytler.

properties of this new and extraordinary herb, assured her that he had so well experienced the nature of it, that he could tell the exact weight of the smoke in any quantity consumed. The Queen, suspecting he was playing the traveller, laid a wager that he could not do so. Upon this Raleigh selected the quantity agreed on, and having thoroughly smoked it, set himself to weighing the ashes; then demonstrating to the Queen the difference between the weight of the ashes and of the tobacco consumed, Her Majesty could not deny that this must be the weight of what was evaporated in smoke. Upon this Elizabeth, paying down the money, remarked-' that she had heard of many labourers in the fire who had turned their gold into smoke; but that Raleigh was certainly the first who had turned his smoke into gold.'"

This kind of intercourse, which was not displeasing to Elizabeth, created a jealousy among the courtiers, and the more so when they saw unusual favours bestowed upon him-as the appointment of Seneschal of the Duchies of Cornwall and Exeter, and Lord Warden of the Stannaries; such was the effect produced mainly, as yet, by his various accomplishments and fascinating conversation. That he was in possession of the royal ear, appears by a postscript of a letter about this time from Raleigh to Lord Leicester, the latter having received some rebuke from Elizabeth. He says, "The Queen is