his custom of swearing, and obscenity in speaking, made him seem a worse Christian than he was, and a better knight of the carpet than he should be; as he lived in a ruffling time, so he loved sword and buckler men, and such as our fathers were wont to call men of their hands; of which sort he had many brave gentlemen that followed him; yet not taken for a popular and dangerous person; and that is one that stood amongst the Togati, of an honest. stout heart, and such a one as, upon occasion, would have fought for his prince and his country; for he had the charge of the Queen's person, both in the court, and in the camp at Tilbury.

RALEIGH.

Sir Walter Raleigh was one, that, it seems, fortune had picked out of purpose, of whom to make an example, or to use as her tennis-ball, thereby to shew what she could do; for she tossed him up of nothing, and to and fro to greatness, and from thence down to little more than to that wherein she found him, a bare gentleman; not that he was less, for he was well descended, and of good alliance, but poor in his beginnings;* and for my Lord of Oxford's jest of him (the jack and an upstart†)

*He was the fourth son of Walter Raleigh of Fardel, near Plymouth, a gentleman of ancestry, but with a large family and diminished estate.

The story bears, that while Queen Elizabeth was playing on the virginals, Lord Oxford remarking the motion of the keys, said, in covert allusion to Raleigh's

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we all know, it savours more of emulation and his humour, than of truth; and it is a certain note of the times, that the Queen in her choice never took into her favour a mere new man, or a mechanic, as Comines observes of Lewis the Eleventh of France, who did serve himself with persons of unknown parents; such as was Oliver the barber, whom he created Earl of Dunoys, and made him ex secretis consiliis, and alone in his favour and familiarity; his approaches to the university and Inns of Court were the grounds of his improvement; but they were rather excursions than sieges, or settings down, for he stayed not long in a place; and being the youngest brother, and the house diminished in patrimony, he foresaw his own destiny, that he was first to rule, through want and disability, to subsist otherwise, before he could come to a repose: and as the stone doth by long ly

favour at court, and the execution of Essex, "When jacks start up, heads go down."

ing gather moss, he first exposed himself to the land service of Ireland, (a militia,) which then did not yield him food and raiment, for it was ever very poor; nor had he patience to stay there, though shortly after he came thither again,* under the command of my Lord Grey, but with his own colours flying in the field, having in the interim cast a new chance, both in the LowCountries, and in a voyage to sea; and if ever man drew virtue out of necessity, it was he, therewith was he the great example of industry; and though he might then have taken that of the merchant to himself, per mare, per terras, currit mercator ad Indos; he might also have said, and truly

* Oldys and Cayley, Raleigh's biographers, seem to deny that he was in Ireland more than once, when he served under Lord Grey as captain. But Naunton was likely to know the truth. The interim voyage was one in which Raleigh waited on the Duke of Anjou's agent Simier from Paris to England; and, in the expedition to the Low Countries, was in attendance on the Duke of Anjou himself when he went to Antwerp.

with the philosopher, omnia mea mecum porto. For it was a long time before he could brag of more than he carried at his back; and when he got on the winning side, it was his commendation, that he took pains for it, and underwent many various adventures for his after perfection, and before he came into the public note of the world. And it may appear how he came up, per ardua, per varios casus per tot descrimina rerum, not pulled up by chance, or by any gentle admittance of fortune; I will briefly describe his native parts, and those of his own acquiring, which were the hopes of his rising.

He had in the outward man a good presence, in a handsome and well compacted person, a strong natural wit, and a better judgment, with a bold and plausible tongue, whereby he could set out his parts to the best advantage; and to these he had the adjuncts of some general learning, which by diligence he enforced to a great augmentation and perfection; for he was an