Part 17 (1/2)

[Sidenote: _Political Disquisitions._]

Physical science did not occupy all his leisure. He wrote much. At different periods of his imprisonment, which cannot be precisely fixed, he composed a variety of treatises. He discussed many questions of politics, theoretical and practical. In his _Prerogative of Parliaments_ he undertook to prove by an elaborate survey of past relations between the Crown and the Legislature, that the royal power gains and does not lose through regular and amicable relations with the House of Commons.

The _Savoy Marriage_ is a demonstrative argument against the proposed double family alliance between Savoy and the House of Stuart. Of that, and of his _Discourse of the Invention of s.h.i.+ps_, his _Observations concerning the Royal Navy and Sea Service_, and the _Letter to Prince Henry on the Model of a s.h.i.+p_, I have already spoken. He composed _A Discourse on War in General_, which is very sententious. From his notebooks he collected, in his _Arts of the Empire_ and _The Prince_, better known as _Maxims of State_, a series of wise, almost excessively wise, thoughts which had occurred to him in the course of his eager reading. An essay on the _Seat of Government_, and _Observations concerning the Causes of the Magnificency and Opulency of Cities_, show equal exuberance of learning, chiefly cla.s.sical, though they cannot be said to be very conclusive. The former reads as if it had been meant for an introduction to a contemplated ampler view of polity. He must have studied not merely general, but economic politics, if the _Observations touching Trade and Commerce with the Hollander_ _and other Nations_ be by him. That remains a matter of doubt. Both Oldys and a recent German writer ascribe the work, published under five varying t.i.tles, to John Keymer, the Cambridge vintner, who is said to have composed, about 1601, _Observations upon the Dutch Fishery_. Ralegh more commonly has the credit of it. The dissertation, first printed inaccurately, and under a different heading, in 1650, shows minute statistical information, though it propounds, as might be expected, not a few economic fallacies. Its aim is the not very generous one of abstracting the carrying trade from Holland. The author engages, if he should be empowered to inquire officially, to enrich the King's coffers with a couple of millions in two or three years.

[Sidenote: _Moral and Metaphysical Essays._]

Ralegh is alleged to have written on the state, power, and riches of Spain.

He has had attributed to him a _Premonition to Princes; A Dialogue_, in 1609, _between a Jesuit and a Recusant; A Discourse on Spanish Cruelties to Englishmen in Havanna_, and others on the relations of France, England, and Spain, and the meaning of the words Law and Right. He expatiated in the field of practical morals in his celebrated _Instructions to his Son and to Posterity_. The treatise makes an unpleasant impression with its hard, selfish, and somewhat sensual dogmatism. In extenuation it must be recollected that it was addressed to a hot and impetuous youth. He cultivated a taste for metaphysics. _The Sceptic_ and _A Treatise on the Soul_ are exemplifications of it. The former, as it stands, is an apology for 'neither affirming, nor denying, but doubting.' Probably the intention, not carried out, was to have composed an answer in defence of faith. It is affirmed, as matter beyond scepticism, that bees are born of bulls, and wasps of horses. _The Treatise on the Soul_ is a performance of more mark.

The profusion of its learning is enough to prevent surprise, whatever the quant.i.ty of knowledge displayed by the writer elsewhere. It is memorable for a fine burst of indignation at the denial by some men that women possess souls, and for several marvellous subtleties. For instance, the necessity of the theory that man begets soul as well as body, is alleged, since the contrary is said to involve the blasphemous absurdity that G.o.d a.s.sists adultery by having to bestow souls upon its fruits. In the Oxford edition of Ralegh's works, _A Discourse of Tenures which were before the Conquest_ is also included. So versatile was Ralegh that he has thus been a.s.sumed to have even ama.s.sed the lore of a black-letter lawyer. Its authenticity nevertheless does not seem to have been questioned. That of the _Life and Death of Mahomet_ has been, and on very sufficient grounds.

The _Dutiful Advice of a Loving Son to his Aged Father_ falls within a different category. It is not more likely than Steele's counterfeit letter in the _Englishman_ to Prince Henry against the phrase 'G.o.d's Vicegerent,'

or Bolingbroke's attacks, in Ralegh's name, upon Walpole in the _Craftsman Extraordinary_, to have been put forth with any notion that it would be believed to be his. Some editors have supposed it to be a libel upon him by an enemy. Any reader who peruses it dispa.s.sionately will see that it is sufficiently reverent pleading against the postponement of repentance to the hour of death, written by an admirer of Ralegh's style, with no purpose either of ridicule or of imposture.

[Sidenote: _Posthumous Publications._]

Dissertations which were undoubtedly his circulated in ma.n.u.script, and were printed posthumously, if ever. _A Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of Azores_, the _Discovery of Guiana_, and the _History of the World_, alone of his many prose writings appeared in his lifetime. The _Prerogative of Parliaments in England_ was not published till 1628, and then first at Middleburg. Milton had the _Arts of Empire_ printed for the first time in 1658, under the t.i.tle of _The Cabinet Council, by the ever-renowned Knight Sir Walter Ralegh_. Dr. Brushfield, in his excellent _Ralegh Bibliography_, suggests that Wood may have meant this essay by the _Aphorisms of State_, to which he alludes as having been published in 1661 by Milton, and as identical with _Maxims of State_. Others of his writings have disappeared altogether. David Lloyd, in his _Observations on the Statesmen and Favourites of England_, published in 1665, states that John Hampden, shortly before the Civil Wars, was at the charge of transcribing 3452 sheets of Ralegh's writing. The published essays with his name attached to them do not nearly account for this vast ma.s.s. It may be suggested as a possible hypothesis that Hampden's collection comprised the ma.n.u.script materials for both parts of the History. Some compositions of his are known to have been lost. That has been the fate of his _Treatise of the West Indies_, mentioned by himself in the dedication of his _Discovery of Guiana_, and also of a _Description of the River of the Amazons_, if it were correctly a.s.signed to him by Wood. Most of all to be regretted, if Jonson or Drummond is to be believed, is the life Jonson, at Hawthornden, alleged 'S.W.', that is, Sir Walter, to have written of Queen Elizabeth, 'of which there are copies extant.' As a writer of prose, no less than as a poet, he had little literary vanity. He wrote for a purpose, and often for one pair of eyes. When the occasion had pa.s.sed he did not care to register the author's t.i.tle.

[Sidenote: _History of the World._]

The weightiness of thought, the enormous scope, the stateliness without pedantry or affectation, and the n.o.bility of style, of one literary product of his imprisonment insured it against any such casualty. Of all the enterprises ever achieved in captivity none can match the _History of the World_. The authors of _Pilgrim's Progress_ and _Don Quixote_ showed more literary genius, and as much elasticity of spirit. Their works did not exact the same constancy and inflexibility of effort. Mr.

Macvey Napier has well said: 'So vast a project betokens a consciousness of intellectual power which cannot but excite admiration.' Ralegh may himself not have commenced by realising the gigantic comprehensiveness of his undertaking. An accepted theory has been that his primary idea was a history of his own country, not of the world. It has been usual to cite a sentence of the preface in proof. The pa.s.sage does not confirm the hypothesis. It runs: 'Beginning with the Creation, I have proceeded with the history of our world; and lastly proposed, some few sallies excepted, to confine my discourse within this our renowned island of Great Britain.' Here is no intimation that he had begun by setting before him for his text English history, and that the history of the world was an enlarged introduction. If his own words are to be believed, his survey of universal antiquity was as much part of his scheme as English history. Only, as he proceeded, the ma.s.s of details would necessarily thicken, and he would be compelled to narrow his inquiries.

Having to choose, he naturally selected the nation which he regarded as the heir of successive empires, a race more valiant than the warriors, whether of Macedon or of Rome. But he distinctly preferred as a historical subject antiquity to recent times. As he says, 'Whosoever in writing a modern history shall follow truth too near the heels, it may haply strike out his teeth.'

[Sidenote: _Breviary of the History of England._]

It has been conjectured that he had already, before the History received its final shape, experimented on the more contracted or concentrated theme to which he purposed ultimately to devote himself. Archbishop Sancroft possessed a short ma.n.u.script ent.i.tled a _Breviary of the History of England under William the First_. This was printed in 1693 without the Archbishop's consent, under the t.i.tle _An Introduction to the Breviary of the History of England, with the Reign of King William I, ent.i.tled the Conqueror_. Sancroft, a good judge, considered the work in all its parts much like Ralegh's way of writing, and worthy of him.

Though the language is more careless than Ralegh's, and the tone is less elevated, there is a resemblance in the diction. But much importance cannot be attached to a general similarity in the style of compositions belonging to the same age. Sancroft had the ma.n.u.script from an old Presbyterian in Hertfords.h.i.+re, 'which sort of men were always the more fond of Sir Walter's books because he was under the displeasure of the Court.' Other ma.n.u.script copies also ascribe the authors.h.i.+p to Ralegh.

The book, which shows research, but is not very accurate, is almost identical with the corresponding portion of the poet Samuel Daniel's _Collection of the History of England_, printed in 1618, and entered originally in the Register of the Stationers as a _Breviary of the History of England_. Daniel introduces his narrative with the words: 'For the work itself I can challenge nothing therein, but only the serving, and the observation of necessary circ.u.mstances with inferences.' Ralegh, though it is not very likely, may have given the fragment to Daniel for use in his history. Clearly he had formed a project of writing a history of England himself. In an undated letter from the Tower he asks Sir Robert Cotton to lend him thirteen authors, 'wherein I can read any of our written antiquities, or any old French history, wherein our nation is mentioned, or any else in what language soever.' It is not impossible that the _Breviary_, if in any way it were his, led him on to his gigantic enterprise, which by its expansion, unfortunately or fortunately, usurped all the leisure he had prospectively appropriated to his native annals. But the composition of an elaborate history by him was no accident, though the choice of the particular subject may have been.

[Sidenote: _Studies for the History._]

Whatever the original design, the History in its final shape demanded encyclopaedic research and learning. Necessarily the preparation for it and its composition employed several years. The number is not known.

Ralegh is alleged to have begun to collect and arrange his matter in 1607. The date is purely conjectural. Sir John Pope Hennessy imagines that the preliminary investigations may be traced much farther back.

Ralegh quotes in his book Peter Comestor's _Scholastica Historia_, an abstract of Scripture history, which has been found, with other remnants of an old monastic library, in a recess behind the wainscot of Ralegh's bedroom, next to his study in the house at Youghal. Mr. Samuel Hayman, the historiographer of Youghal, writing in 1852, states that the discovery was made a few years before, and that the books had probably been 'hidden at the period of the Reformation.' Sir John conjectures that Ralegh may have been taking notes from the collection 'for the _opus magnum_ during his frequent Irish exiles.' An objection is that, according to Mr. Hayman, the authority cited by Sir John, Comestor's volume, with its companions, must have been secreted before Ralegh resided at Youghal, and have remained concealed till he had been dead for two centuries. In one sense he had been in training for the enterprise during his whole life; in another the actual work doubtless was accomplished after he felt that he was destined to a long term of imprisonment. He had always been a lover of books. In the midst of his adversities he spared 50 as a contribution towards the establishment of the Bodleian Library. When he was most deeply immersed in affairs he had made time for study. As Aubrey says, probably with complete truth, he was no slug, and was up betimes to read. On every voyage he carried a trunk full of books. During his active life, when business occupied thirteen hours of the twenty-four, he is said by s.h.i.+rley to have reduced his sleeping hours to five. He was thus able to devote four to study, beside two for conversation. He loved research; and his name is in a list of members of the Society of Antiquaries formed by Archbishop Parker, which, though subsequently dissolved, was the precursor of the present learned body bearing the name. In the Tower he could read without stint. He possessed a fair library. From the company of his books, writes Sir John Harington, he drew more true comfort than ever from his courtly companions in their chiefest bravery.

[Sidenote: _Care for Accuracy._]

Formerly, his reading necessarily had been desultory. For his History it had to be concentrated. He distrusted the exactness of his information, and was willing to accept advice freely. For criticism, Greek, Mosaic, Oriental and remoter antiquities, he consulted the learned Robert Burhill. Hariot had since 1606 been lodging or boarding in the Tower at the charge of the munificent Earl of Northumberland. He, Hues, and Warner were the Earl's 'three magi.' For chronology, mathematics, and geography, Ralegh relied upon him. 'Whenever he scrupled anything in phrase or diction,' he would refer his doubt to that accomplished serjeant-at-law, John Hoskyns or Hoskins. Hoskyns, now remembered, if at all, by some poor little epigrams, belongs to the cla.s.s of paragons of one age, whose excellence later ages have to take on trust. He is described by an admirer as the most ingenious and admired poet of his time. Wotton loved his company. Ben Jonson considered him his 'father'

in literature: ''Twas he that polished me.' In the summer of 1614 he became, in consequence of a speech in the House of Commons, Ralegh's fellow prisoner. He is said to have revised the History before it went to press. Ralegh's intense desire to secure accuracy, his avowal of it, and its notoriety, have given occasion for charges against his t.i.tle to the credit of the total result. Ben Jonson and Algernon Sidney are the only independent authorities for the calumny. But it has been caught up by other writers, especially by Isaac D'Israeli, who seems to have thought charges brought, as Mr. Bolton Corney showed, on the flimsiest evidence, of an impudent a.s.sumption of false literary plumage, in no way inconsistent with fervid admiration for the alleged pretender.

[Sidenote: _Borrowed Learning._]

Ben Jonson was a.s.sociated incidentally in the work. He prefaced it with a set of anonymous verses explanatory of an allegorical frontispiece.

The ma.n.u.script of them was found among his papers. They have always been included in his _Underwoods_. Though the version there differs materially from that prefixed to the History, no reasonable doubt of his authors.h.i.+p of both exists. His omission openly to claim the lines is supposed, not unreasonably, by Mr. Edwards, to have been due to his fear of the prejudice his favour at Court might sustain from an open connexion with a fame so odious there as Ralegh's. But a year after Ralegh's death he boasted over his liquor to civil sneering Drummond at Hawthornden, of other 'considerable' contributions. He had written, he said, 'a piece to him of the Punic War, which Sir Walter altered and set in his book.' In general, the best wits of England were, he a.s.serted, engaged in the production. Algernon Sidney, in his posthumous _Discourses concerning Government_, repeated this insinuation of borrowed plumes of learning. Ralegh, he stated, was 'so well a.s.sisted in his _History of the World_, that an ordinary man with the same helps might have performed the same thing.' This is all bare a.s.sertion, and refuted by the internal evidence of the volume itself, which in its remarkable consistency of style, method and thought, testifies to its emanation from a single mind. Ralegh had himself explained with a manly frankness, which ought to have disarmed suspicion, the extent to which alone he was indebted for a.s.sistance. In his preface he admits he was altogether ignorant of Hebrew. When a Hebrew pa.s.sage did not occur in Arias Monta.n.u.s, or in the Latin character in Sixtus Senensis, he was at a loss. 'Of the rest,' he says, 'I have borrowed the interpretation of some of my learned friends; yet, had I been beholden to neither, yet were it not to be wondered at; having had an eleven years' leisure to attain to the knowledge of that or any other tongue.' As a whole, the History must be recognised as truly his own, his not only in its mult.i.tude of grand thoughts and reflections, but in the narrative and general texture. It cannot be the less his that some of the 660 authors it cites may have been searched for him by a.s.sistants.

[Sidenote: _Period of Publication._]

As early as 1611 he must have settled the scheme, and even the t.i.tle, of the book. On April 15 in that year notice was given in the Registers of the Stationers' Company of '_The History of the World_, written by Sir Walter Rawleighe.' Part may be presumed to have been by that time written, and shown to Prince Henry. Three years pa.s.sed before actual publication. Camden fixes that on March 29, 1614. Though it is almost impossible to think Camden in error, yet, if the story of the perusal of the ma.n.u.script by Serjeant Hoskyns be true, and apply, as has been presumed, to the period of the Serjeant's imprisonment, the publication must have been half a year or more later. The later date would also accord better with a rumour of the suppression of the volume at the beginning of 1615. The publisher was Walter Burre, of the sign of the Crane in St. Paul's Churchyard. Burre published several works for Ben Jonson; and out of that circ.u.mstance has been constructed the statement that Jonson superintended the publication of the History for Ralegh. The form was that of a ma.s.sive folio, at a price vaguely put by Alexander Ross at 'twenty or thirty s.h.i.+llings.' The edition was struck off in two issues, the errata of the first being corrected in the second. None of the extant copies of either issue possess a t.i.tle-page, or contain any mention of the writer's name. The explanation may be the modesty or the pride which had led him habitually to neglect the personal glory of authors.h.i.+p, apprehension of the odium in which his name was held at Court, or a reason which will be mentioned hereafter. There is an engraved frontispiece by Renold Elstracke, the most elaborate of its kind known in English bibliography. A naval battle in the North Atlantic is depicted, and the course of the river Orinoko, with various symbolical figures. Ben Jonson's lines point its application. All the pages of the volume bear the heading, 'The First Part of the History of the World.'

[Sidenote: _Defects._]

[Sidenote: _Merits._]