through the mediation of the Duke of Buckingham, employed in consideration of 15007. paid to his uncles, Sir William, Sir John, and Sir Edward Villiers, Raleigh was released from the Tower, in March, 1615; and obtained permission to follow up his long-cherished scheme of establishing a colony in Guiana and working a goldmine, of which he had ascertained the existence and situation.

The terms on which this licence was granted are remarkable. He was not pardoned, but merely let loose on the engagement of his friends, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, that he should return to England. Neither did James contribute to the expense of the undertaking, though it was stipulated that he was to receive a fifth part of the bullion imported. The necessary funds were provided out of the wreck of Raleigh's fortune (his estate of Sherborne had been forfeited), and by those private adventurers who were willing to risk something in reliance on his experience and judgment. A fleet of fourteen sail was thus provided, and Raleigh, by letters under the privy seal, was appointed commander-in-chief and governor of the intended colony. He relied, it is said, on the full powers granted him by this commission as necessarily including a remission of all past offences, and therefore neglected to sue out a formal pardon, which at this period probably would hardly have been denied him. The results of this disastrous voyage must be shortly given. Raleigh sailed March 28, 1617, and reached the coast of Guiana in November following. Being himself disabled by sickness from proceeding farther, he dispatched a party to the mine under the command of Captain Keymis, an officer who had served in the former voyage to Guiana. But during the interval which had elapsed since Raleigh's first discovery of that country, the Spaniards had extended their settlements into it, and in particular had built a town called Santa Thome, in the immediate neighbourhood of the mine in question. James, with his usual duplicity, while he authorised the expedition, revealed every particular connected with it to the Spanish ambassador. The English,

therefore, were expected in the Orinoco, and preparation had been made for repelling them by force. Keymis and his men were unexpectedly attacked by the garrison of Santa Thome, and a sharp contest ensued, in which the English gained the advantage, and burnt the town. In this action Raleigh's eldest son was killed. The Spaniards still occupied the passes to the mine, and after an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge them, Keymis abandoned the enterprise, and returned to the ships. Raleigh's correspondence expresses in affecting terms his grief and indignation at this double misfortune; the loss of a brave and promising son, and the destruction of the hopes which he had founded on this long-cherished adventure. On his return to England, he found himself marked out for a victim to appease the resentment of the Spanish court, to which he had long been an object of fear and hatred. He quietly surrendered himself to Sir Lewis Stewkeley, who was sent to Plymouth to arrest him, and commenced the journey to London under his charge. But his mind fluctuated between the desire to confront his enemies, and a sense of the hopelessness of obtaining justice; and he was at last entrapped by the artifices of the emissaries of government who surrounded him into an attempt to escape, in which he was arrested and committed to close custody in the Tower. Here his conversation and correspondence were narrowly watched, in the hopes that a treasonable understanding with the French government, from which he had received the offer of an asylum in France, might be established against him. His conduct abroad had already been closely scrutinised, in the hope of finding some act of piracy, or unauthorised aggression against Spain, for which he might be brought to trial. Both these hopes failing, and his death, in compliment to Spain, being resolved on, it was determined to carry into effect the sentence passed fifteen years before, from which he had never been legally released; and a warrant was accordingly issued to the judges, requiring them to order execution. The case was a novel one, and threw that learned body into some perplexity. They determined, however,

that after so long an interval execution could not be granted without allowing the prisoner the opportunity of pleading against it; and Raleigh was therefore brought to the bar of the Court of King's Bench, October 28, 1618. The record of his conviction having been read, he was asked whether he could urge anything why the sentence should not be carried into effect. He insisted on the nature of his late commission, and on that plea being overruled, submitted with his usual calmness and dignity. The execution, with indecent haste, was ordered to take place on the following morning. In this last stage of life, his greatness of mind shone with even more than its usual lustre. Calm, and fearless without bravado, his behaviour and speech expressed the piety and resignation of a Christian, with the habitual coolness of one who has braved death too often to shrink at its approach. The accounts of his deportment on the scaffold effectually refute the charges of irreligion and atheism, which some writers have brought against him, unless we make up our minds to believe him an accomplished hypocrite. He spoke at considerable length, and his dying words have been faithfully reported. They contain a denial of all the serious offences laid to his charge, and express his forgiveness of those even who had betrayed him under the mask of friendship. After delivering this address, and spending some time in prayer, he laid his head on the block, and breathing a short private prayer, gave the signal to the executioner. Not being immediately obeyed, he partially raised his head, and said, "What dost thou fear? Strike, man!" and underwent the fatal blow without shrinking or alteration of position. He died in his sixty-sixth year.

Raleigh sat in several parliaments, and took an active part in the business of the house. His speeches, preserved in the Journals, are said by Mr. Tytler to be remarkable for an originality and freedom of thought far in advance of the time. His expression was varied and animated, and his powers of conversation remarkable. His person was dignified and handsome, and he excelled bodily accomplishments and martial exercises. He

was very fond of paintings, and of music; and, in literature as in art, he possessed a cultivated and correct taste. He was one of those rare men who seem qualified to excel in all pursuits alike; and his talents were set off by an extraordinary laboriousness and capacity of application. As a navigator, soldier, statesman, and historian, his name is intimately and honourably linked with one of the most brilliant periods of British history.

The works of Oldys, Birch, Cayley, Mrs. Thompson, and Mr. Tytler, may be consulted concerning this remarkable person. The Life by the last-named gentleman, published in the Edinburgh Cabinet Library,' is the most recent; and the industry of the author has enabled him to gain a clue to some points which before had been imperfectly understood. A list of Raleigh's numerous works is given in the 'Biographia Britannica.' They will be found collected in eight volumes, in the Oxford edition of 1829. Several of his MSS. are preserved in the British Museum.

THERE is no life the chronological course of which is more distinctly known than that of Camden; but it is the life merely of a student and a man of letters, consisting mostly in the history of his publications, and affording scarcely any anecdotical matter. Nor did he take part in any of the public transactions of his time, except only as an observer and recorder. It thus happens that in a case in which the materials of biography are unusually ample and satisfactory, the biography itself must still be but dry and meagre. Everything can be told, but there is not much of general interest to tell.

William Camden was a Londoner born. His birth took place on the 2nd of May, 1551, in the Old Bailey, at the house of his father, Samson Camden, who was a member of the Company of Painter-Stainers. This company, according to Maitland, the historian of London, still use every Saint Luke's Day, at the election of the master, a silver cup and cover which was given to