The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded Part 3

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 G.o.ddess' 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 clerks.h.i.+p 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 partners.h.i.+p 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 _Friends.h.i.+p_' 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 _recherche_ performances of that kind sometimes.]

In the Lord Timon of the Shakspere piece, which was rewritten from an _Academic_ original after Raleigh's consignment to the Tower,--in that fierce satire into which so much Elizabethan bitterness is condensed, under the difference of the reckless prodigality which is stereotyped in the fable, we get, in the earlier scenes, some glimpses of this 'Athenian' also, in this stage of his career.

But it was not as a _Patron_ only, or chiefly, that he aided the new literary development. A scholar, a scholar so earnest, so indefatigable, it followed of course that he must be, in one form or another, an Instructor also; for that is still, under all conditions, the scholar's destiny--it is still, in one form or another, his business on the earth. But with that temperament which was included among the particular conditions of his genius, and with those special and particular endowments of his for another kind of intellectual mastery, he could not be content with the pen--with the Poet's, or the Historian's, or the Philosopher's pen--as the instrument of his mental dictation. A Teacher thus furnished and ordained, seeks, indeed, naturally and instinctively, a more direct and living and effective medium of communication with the audience which his time is able to furnish him, whether 'few' or many, whether 'fit' or unfit, than the book can give him. He must have another means of 'delivery and tradition,' when the delivery or tradition is addressed to those whom he would a.s.sociate with him in his age, to work with him as one man, or those to whom he would transmit it in other ages, to carry it on to its perfection--those to whom he would communicate his own highest view, those whom he would inform with his patiently-gathered lore, those whom he would _instruct_ and move with his new inspirations. For the truth has become a personality with him--it is his n.o.bler self. He will live on with it. He will live or die with it.

For such a one there is, perhaps, no inst.i.tution ready in his time to accept his ministry. No chair at Oxford or Cambridge is waiting for him. For they are, of course, and must needs be, the strong-holds of the past--those ancient and venerable seats of learning, 'the fountains and nurseries of all the humanities,' as a Cambridge Professor calls them, in a letter addressed to Raleigh. The principle of these larger wholes is, of course, instinctively conservative.

Their business is to know nothing of the new. The new intellectual movement must fight its battles through without, and come off conqueror there, or ever those old Gothic doors will creak on their reluctant hinges to give it ever so pinched an entrance. When it has once fought its way, and forced itself within--when it has got at last some marks of age and custom on its brow--then, indeed, it will stand as the last outwork of that fortuitous conglomeration, to be defended in its turn against all comers. Already the revived cla.s.sics had been able to push from their chairs, and drive into corners, and shut up finally and put to silence, the old Aristotelian Doctors--the Seraphic and Cherubic Doctors of their day--in their own ancient halls. It would be sometime yet, perhaps, however, before that study of the dead languages, which was of course one prominent incident of the first revival of a dead learning, would come to take precisely the same place in those inst.i.tutions, with their one instinct of conservation and 'abhorrence of change,' which the old monastic philosophy had taken in its day; but that change once accomplished, the old monastic philosophy itself, religious as it was, was never held more sacred than this profane innovation would come to be. It would be some time before those new observations and experiments, which Raleigh and his school were then beginning to inst.i.tute, experiments and inquiries which the universities would have laughed to scorn in their day, would come to be promoted to the Professor's chair; but when they did, it would perhaps be difficult to convince a young gentleman liberally educated, at least, under the wings of one of those 'ancient and venerable' seats of learning, now gray in Raleigh's youthful West--ambitious, perhaps, to lead off in this popular innovation, where Saurians, and Icthyosaurians, and Entomologists, and Chonchologists are already hustling the poor Greek and Latin Teachers into corners, and putting them to silence with their growing terminologies--it would perhaps be difficult to convince one who had gone through the prescribed course of treatment in one of these 'nurseries of humanity,' that the knowledge of the domestic habits and social and political organisations of insects and sh.e.l.l-fish, or even the experiments of the laboratory, though never so useful and proper in their place, are not, after all, the beginning and end of a human learning. It was no such place as that that this department of the science of nature took in the systems or notions of its Elizabethan Founders. They were 'Naturalists,' indeed; but that did not imply, with _their_ use of the term, the absence of the natural common human sense in the selection of the objects of their pursuits. 'It is a part of science to make _judicious_ inquiries and wishes,' says the speaker in chief for this new doctrine of nature; speaking of the particular and special applications of it which he is forbidden to make openly, but which he instructs, and prepares, and charges his followers to make for themselves.

One of those innovations, one of those movements in which the new ground of ages of future culture is first chalked out--a movement whose end is not yet, whose beginning we have scarce yet seen--was made in England, not very far from the time in which Sir Walter Raleigh, began first to convert the eclat of his rising fortunes at home, and the splendour of his heroic achievements abroad, and all those new means of influence which his great position gave him, to the advancement of those deeper, dearer ambitions, which the predominance of the n.o.bler elements in his const.i.tution made inevitable with him.

Even then he was ready to endanger those golden opinions, waiting to be worn in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon, and new-won rank, and liberty and life itself, for the sake of putting himself into his true intellectual relations with his time, as a philosopher and a beginner of a new age in the human advancement. For 'spirits are not finely touched but to fine issues.'

If there was no Professor's Chair, if there was no Pulpit or Bishop's Stall waiting for him, and begging his acceptance of its perquisites, he must needs inst.i.tute a chair of his own, and pay for leave to occupy it. If there was no university with its appliances within his reach, he must make a university of his own. The germ of a new 'universality' would not be wanting in it. His library, or his drawing-room, or his 'banquet,' will be Oxford enough for him. He will begin it as the old monks began theirs, with their readings. Where the teacher is, there must the school be gathered together. And a school in the end there will be: a school in the end the true teacher will have, though he begin it, as the barefoot Athenian began his, in the stall of the artisan, or in the chat of the Gymnasium, amid the compliments of the morning levee, or in the woodland stroll, or in the midnight revel of the banquet.

When the hour and the man are indeed met, when the time is ripe, and one _truly sent_, ordained of that Power which _chooses_, not one only--what uncloaked atheism is that, to promulgate in an age like this!--_not_ the Teachers and Rabbis of _one race_ only, but _all the successful_ agents of human advancement, the initiators of new eras of man's progress, the inaugurators of new ages of the relief of the human estate and the Creator's glory--when such an one indeed appears, there will be no lack of instrumentalities. With some verdant hill-side, it may be, some blossoming knoll or 'mount' for his 'chair,' with a daisy or a lily in his hand, or in a fisherman's boat, it may be, pushed a little way from the strand, he will begin new ages.

The influence of Raleigh upon his time cannot yet be fully estimated; because, in the first place, it was primarily of that kind which escapes, from its subtlety, the ordinary historical record; and, in the second place, it was an influence at the time _necessarily covert_, studiously disguised. His relation to the new intellectual development of his age might, perhaps, be characterised as _Socratic_; though certainly not because he lacked the use, and the most masterly use, of that same weapon with which his younger contemporary brought out at last, in the face of his time, the plan of the Great Instauration. In the heart of the new establishment which the magnificent courtier, who was a 'Queen's delight,' must now maintain, there soon came to be a little 'Academe.' The choicest youth of the time, 'the Spirits of the Morning Sort,' gathered about him. It was the new philosophic and poetic genius of the age that he attracted to him; it was on that philosophic and poetic genius that he left his mark for ever.

He taught them, as the masters taught of old, in dialogues--in words that could not then be written, in words that needed the master's modulation to give them their significance. For the new doctrine had need to be clothed in a language of its own, whose inner meaning only those who had found their way to its inmost shrine were able to interpret.

We find some contemporary and traditional references to this school, which are not without their interest and historical value, as tending to show the amount of influence which it was supposed to have exerted on the time, as well as the acknowledged necessity for concealment in the studies pursued in it. The fact that such an a.s.sociation _existed_, that it _began with Raleigh_, that young men of distinction were attracted to it, and that in such numbers, and under such conditions, that it came to be considered ultimately as a '_School_,'

of which he was the head-master--the fact that the new experimental science was supposed to have had its origin in this a.s.sociation,--that opinions, differing from the received ones, were also secretly discussed in it,--that _anagrams_ and other devices were made use of for the purpose of infolding the _esoteric_ doctrines of the school in popular language, so that it was possible to write in this language acceptably to the vulgar, and without violating preconceived opinions, and at the same time instructively to the initiated,--all this remains, even on the surface of statements already accessible to any scholar,--all this remains, either in the form of contemporary doc.u.ments, or in the recollections of persons who have apparently had it from the most authentic sources, from persons who profess to know, and who were at least in a position to know, that such was the impression at the time.

But when the instinctive dread of innovation was already so keenly on the alert, when Elizabeth was surrounded with courtiers still in their first wrath at the promotion of the new 'favourite,' indignant at finding themselves so suddenly overshadowed with the growing honours of one who had risen from a rank beneath their own, and eagerly watching for an occasion against him, it was not likely that such an affair as this was going to escape notice altogether. And though the secrecy with which it was conducted, might have sufficed to elude a scrutiny such as theirs, there was _another_, and more eager and subtle enemy,--an enemy which the founder of this school had always to contend with, that had already, day and night, at home and abroad, its Argus watch upon him. That vast and secret foe, which he had arrayed against him on foreign battle fields, knew already what kind of embodiment of power this was that was rising into such sudden favour here at home, and would have crushed him in the germ--that foe which would never rest till it had pursued him to the block, which was ready to join hands with his personal enemies in its machinations, in the court of Elizabeth, as well as in the court of her successor, that vast, malignant, indefatigable foe, in which the spirit of the old ages lurked, was already at his threshold, and penetrating to the most secret chamber of his councils. It was on the showing of _a Jesuit_ that these friendly gatherings of young men at Raleigh's table came to be branded as 'a school of Atheism.' And it was through such agencies, that his enemies at court were able to sow suspicions in Elizabeth's mind in regard to the entire orthodoxy of his mode of explaining certain radical points in human belief, and in regard to the absolute 'conformity' of his views on these points with those which she had herself divinely authorised, suspicions which he himself confesses he was never afterwards able to eradicate. The matter was represented to her, we are told, 'as if he had set up for a doctor in the faculty and invited young gentlemen into his school, where the Bible was jeered at,' and the use of profane anagrams was inculcated. The fact that he a.s.sociated with him in his chemical and mathematical studies, and entertained in his house, a scholar labouring at that time under the heavy charge of getting up 'a philosophical theology,' was also made use of greatly to his discredit.

And from another uncontradicted statement, which dates from a later period, but which comes to us worded in terms as cautious as if it had issued directly from the school itself, we obtain another glimpse of these new social agencies, with which the bold, creative, social genius that was then seeking to penetrate on all sides the custom-bound time, would have roused and organised a new social life in it. It is still the second-hand hearsay testimony which is quoted here. '_He is said_ to have set up an Office of Address, and it is _supposed_ that the office _might_ respect a _more liberal intercourse_--_a n.o.bler mutuality of advertis.e.m.e.nt_, than would perhaps admit of _all sorts of persons_.' 'Raleigh set up a kind of Office of Address,' says another, 'in the capacity of an agency for all sorts of persons.' John Evelyn, refers also to that long dried fountain of communication which _Montaigne_ first proposed, Sir Walter Raleigh put in practice, and Mr. Hartlib endeavoured to renew.

'This is the scheme described by Sir W. Pellis, which is referred traditionally to Raleigh and Montaigne (see Book I. chap. x.x.xiv.) An Office of _Address_ whereby the wants of _all_ may be made known to ALL (that painful and great instrument of this design), _where men may know what is already done in the business of learning, what is at present in doing, and what is intended to be done_, to the end that, by such a _general communication of design and mutual a.s.sistance, the wits and endeavours of the world_ may no longer be _as so many scattered coals_, which, for want of _union_, are soon quenched, whereas being laid together they would have yielded _a comfortable_ light and heat. [This is evidently _traditional_ language] ... such as advanced rather to the _improvement_ of _men_ themselves than their means.'--OLDYS.

_This_ then is the a.s.sociation of which Raleigh was the chief; _this_ was the state, within the state which he was founding. ('See the reach of this man,' says Lord c.o.ke on his Trial.) It is true that the honour is also ascribed to Montaigne; but we shall find, as we proceed with this inquiry, that _all_ the works and inventions of this new English school, of which Raleigh was chief, all its new and vast designs for man's relief, are also claimed by that same aspiring gentleman, as they were, too, by another of these Egotists, who came out in his own name with this identical project.

It was only within the walls of a school that the great principle of the new philosophy of fact and practice, which had to pretend to be profoundly absorbed in chemical experiments, or in physical observations, and inductions of some kind--though not without an occasional hint of a broader intention,--it was only in _esoteric_ language that the great principles of this philosophy could begin to be set forth _in their true comprehension_. The very trunk of it, the primal science itself, must needs be mystified and hidden in a shower of metaphysical dust, and piled and heaped about with the old dead branches of scholasticism, lest men should see for themselves _how_ broad and comprehensive _must_ be the ultimate sweep of its determinations; lest men should see for themselves, how a science which begins in fact, and returns to it again, which begins in observation and experiment, and returns in scientific practice, in scientific arts, in scientific re-formation, might have to do, ere all was done, with facts not then inviting scientific investigation--with arts not then inviting scientific reform.

In consequence of a sudden and common advancement of intelligence among the leading men of that age, which left the standard of intelligence represented in more than one of its existing inst.i.tutions, very considerably in the rear of its advancement, there followed, as the inevitable result, a tendency to the formation of some medium of expression,--whether that tendency was artistically developed or not, in which the new and n.o.bler thoughts of men, in which their dearest beliefs, could find some vent and limited interchange and circulation, without startling the _ear_. Eventually there came to be a number of men in England at this time,--and who shall say that there were none on the continent of this school,--occupying prominent positions in the state, heading, it might be, or ranged in opposite factions at Court, who could speak and write in such a manner, upon topics of common interest, as to make themselves entirely intelligible to each other, without exposing themselves to any of the risks, which confidential communications under such circ.u.mstances involved.

For there existed a certain mode of expression, originating in some of its more special forms with this particular school, yet not altogether conventional, which enabled those who made use of it to steer clear of the Star Chamber and its sister inst.i.tution; inasmuch as the terms employed in this mode of communication were not in the more obvious interpretation of them actionable, and to a vulgar, unlearned, or stupid conceit, could hardly be made to appear so. There must be a High Court of Wit, and a Bench of Peers in that estate of the realm, or ever these treasons could be brought to trial. For it was a mode of communication which involved in its more obvious construction the necessary submission to power. It was the instructed ear,--the ear of a school,--which was required to lend to it its more recondite meanings;--it was the ear of that new school in philosophy which had made History the basis of its learning,--which, dealing with _principles_ instead of _words_, had glanced, not without some nice observation in pa.s.sing, at their more '_conspicuous_' historical 'INSTANCES';--it was the ear of a school which had everywhere the great historical representations and diagrams at its control, and could subst.i.tute, without much hindrance, particulars for generals, or generals for particulars, as the case might be; it was the ear of a school intrusted with discretionary power, but trained and practised in the art of using it.

Originally an art of necessity, with practice, in the skilful hands of those who employed it, it came at length to have a charm of its own.

In such hands, it became an instrument of literary power, which had not before been conceived of; a medium too of densest ornament, of thick crowding conceits, and nestling beauties, which no style before had ever had depth enough to harbour. It established a new, and more intimate and living relation between the author and his reader,--between the speaker and his audience. There was ever the charm of that secret understanding lending itself to all the effects.

It made the reader, or the hearer, partic.i.p.ator in the artist's skill, and joint proprietor in the result. The author's own glow must be on his cheek, the author's own flash in his eye, ere that result was possible. The nice point of the skilful pen, the depth of the lurking tone was lost, unless an eye as skilful, or an ear as fine, tracked or waited on it. It gave to the work of the artist, nature's own style;--it gave to works which had the earnest of life and death in them the sport of the 'enigma.'

It is not too much to say, that the works of Raleigh and Bacon, and others whose connection with it is not necessary to specify just here, are written throughout in the language of this school. 'Our glorious w.i.l.l.y'--(it is the gentleman who wrote the 'Faery Queene' who claims him, and his glories, as 'ours'),--'our glorious w.i.l.l.y' was born in it, and knew no other speech. It was that 'Round Table' at which Sir Philip Sydney presided then, that his lurking meanings, his unspeakable audacities first 'set in a roar.' It was there, in the keen encounters of those flas.h.i.+ng 'wit combats,' that the weapons of great genius grew so fine. It was there, where the young wits and scholars, fresh from their continental tours, full of the gallant young England of their day,--the Mercutios, the Benedicts, the Birons, the Longuevilles, came together fresh from the Court of Navarre, and smelling of the lore of their foreign 'Academe,' or hot from the battles of continental freedom,--it was _there_, in those _reunions_, that our Poet caught those gracious airs of his--those delicate, thick-flowering refinements--those fine impalpable points of courtly breeding--those aristocratic notions that haunt him everywhere. It was there that he picked up his various knowledge of men and manners, his acquaintance with foreign life, his bits of travelled wit, that flash through all. It was there that he heard the clash of arms, and the ocean-storm. And it was there that he learned 'his old ward.' It was there, in the social collisions of that gay young time, with its bold over-flowing humours, that would not be shut in, that he first armed himself with those quips and puns, and lurking conceits, that crowd his earlier style so thickly,--those double, and triple, and quadruple meanings, that stud so closely the lines of his dialogue in the plays which are clearly dated from that era,--the natural artifices of a time like that, when all those new volumes of utterance which the lips were ready to issue, were forbidden on pain of death to be 'extended,'

must needs 'be crushed together, infolded within themselves.'

Of course it would be absurd, or it would involve the most profound ignorance of the history of literature in general, to claim that the principle of this invention had its origin here. It had already been in use, in recent and systematic use, in the intercourse of the scholars of the Middle Ages; and its origin is coeval with the origin of letters. The free-masonry of learning is old indeed. It runs its mountain chain of signals through all the ages, and men whom times and kindreds have separated ascend from their week-day toil, and hold their Sabbaths and synods on those heights. They whisper, and listen, and smile, and shake the head at one another; they laugh, and weep, and complain together; they sing their songs of victory in one key.

That machinery is so fine, that the scholar can catch across the ages, the smile, or the whisper, which the contemporary tyranny had no instrument firm enough to suppress, or fine enough to detect.

'But for her father sitting still on hie, Did warily still watch the way she went, And eke from far observed with jealous eye, Which way his course the wanton Bregog bent.

Him to deceive, for all his watchful ward, The wily lover did devise this slight.

First, into many parts, his stream he shared, That whilst the one was watch'd, the other might

Pa.s.s unespide, to meet her by the way.

And then besides, those little streams, so broken, He under ground so closely did convey, That of their pa.s.sage doth appear no token.'

It was the author of the 'Faery Queene,' indeed, his fine, elaborate, fertile genius burthened with its rich treasure, and stimulated to new activity by his poetical alliance with Raleigh, whose splendid invention first made apparent the latent facilities which certain departments of popular literature then offered, for a new and hitherto unparalleled application of this principle. In that prose description of his great Poem which he addresses to Raleigh, the distinct avowal of a double intention in it, the distinction between a particular and general one, the emphasis with which the elements of the ideal name, are discriminated and blended, furnish to the careful reader already some superficial hints, as to the capabilities of such a plan to one at all predisposed to avail himself of them. And, indeed, this Poet's manifest philosophical and historical tendencies, and his avowed view of the comprehension of the Poet's business would have seemed beforehand to require some elbow-room,--some chance for poetic curves and sweeps,--some s.p.a.ce for the line of beauty to take its course in, which the sharp angularities, the crooked lines, the blunt bringing up everywhere, of the new philosophic tendency to history would scarcely admit of. There was no breathing s.p.a.ce for him, unless he could contrive to fix his poetic platform so high, as to be able to override these restrictions without hindrance.

'For the Poet thrusteth into the midst, even where it most concerneth him, and then recoursing to the things fore-past, and _divining of things to come_, he maketh a pleasing _a.n.a.lysis_ of ALL.'

And it so happened that his Prince Arthur had dreamed the poet's dream, the hero's dream, the philosopher's dream, the dream that was dreamed of old under the Olive shades, the dream that all our Poets and inspired antic.i.p.ators of man's perfection and felicity have always been dreaming; but this one '_awakening_,' determined that it should be a dream no longer. It was the hour in which the genius of antiquity was reviving; it was the hour in which the poetic inspiration of all the ages was reviving, and _arming_ itself with the knowledge of 'things not dreamt of' by old reformers--that knowledge of nature which is _power_, which is the true _magic_. For this new Poet had seen in a vision that same 'excellent beauty' which 'the divine' ones saw of old, and 'the New Atlantis,' the celestial vision of _her_ kingdom; and being also 'ravished with that excellence, and _awakening_, he determined to _seek her out_. And so being by _Merlin armed_, and by _Timon thoroughly instructed_, he went forth to seek her in _Fairy Land_.' There was a little band of heroes in that age, a little band of philosophers and poets, secretly bent on that same adventure, sworn to the service of that same Gloriana, though they were fain to wear then the scarf and the device of another Queen on _their_ armour. It is to the prince of this little band--'the prince and mirror of all chivalry'--that this Poet dedicates his poem. But it is Raleigh's device which he adopts in the names he uses, and it is Raleigh who thus shares with Sydney the honour of his dedication.

'In that Faery Queene, I mean,' he says, in his prose description of the Poem addressed to Raleigh, 'in that Faery Queene, I mean Glory in my general intention; but, in my particular, I conceive the most glorious person of our sovereign the Queen, and _her_ kingdom--in _Fairy Land_.

'And yet, in some places, I do otherwise shadow her. For considering she beareth _two persons, one_ of a most Royal _Queen_ or _Empress_, the other of a most VIRTUOUS and BEAUTIFUL lady--the _latter part_ I do express in BEL-PHEBE, fas.h.i.+oning her name according to your own _most excellent conceit_ of "_Cynthia_," Phebe and Cynthia being both names of _Diana_.' And thus he sings his poetic dedication:--

'To thee, that art the Summer's Nightingale, Thy sovereign G.o.ddess's most dear delight, Why do I send this rustic madrigal, That may thy tuneful ear unseason quite?

_Thou, only fit this argument to write_, In whose high thoughts _pleasure hath built her bower_, And dainty love learn'd sweetly to indite.

My rhymes, I know, unsavoury are and soure To taste the streams, which _like a golden showre_, Flow from thy fruitful head of thy love's praise.

Fitter, perhaps, _to thunder martial stowre_,[Footnote]

When thee so list thy _tuneful_ thoughts to raise, Yet _till that thou thy poem wilt make known_, Let thy fair Cynthia's praises be thus rudely shown.'

[Footnote: 's.h.i.+ne forth, thou Star of Poets, and with _rage_ _Or influence chide_, or _cheer_ the drooping stage.'

BEN JONSON.]

'Of me,' says Raleigh, in a response to this obscure partner of his works and arts,--a response not less mysterious, till we have found the solution of it, for it is an enigma.

'Of me _no lines_ are loved, _no letters_ are of price, Of all that speak the English tongue, but those of _thy device_.'

[It was a '_device_' that symbolised _all_. It was a _circle_ containing the alphabet, or the _A B C_, and the esoteric meaning of it was '_all_ in _each_,' or _all_ in _all_, the new doctrine of the _unity_ of science (the '_Ideas_' of the New '_Academe_'). That was the token-name under which a great Book of this Academy was issued.]

It is to Sidney, Raleigh, and the Poet of the 'Faery-Queene,' and the rest of that courtly company of Poets, that the contemporary author in the Art of Poetry alludes, with a special commendation of Raleigh's vein, as the 'most lofty, insolent, and pa.s.sionate,' when he says,'

they have _writ_ excellently well, if their _doings_ could be found out and made public with the rest.'

CHAPTER IV.

RALEIGH'S SCHOOL, CONTINUED.--THE NEW ACADEMY.

EXTRACT FROM A LATER CHAPTER OF RALEIGH'S LIFE.

_Oliver_. Where will the old Duke live?

_Charles_. They say _he is already_ in the forest of _Arden_, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world.