Raleigh by Edmund Gosse

Page 1 of 117

RALEIGH

ENGLISH WORTHIES.

EDITED BY ANDREW LANG.

_Price 2s. 6d. each._

ALREADY PUBLISHED:

CHARLES DARWIN. By GRANT ALLEN. MARLBOROUGH. By GEORGE SAINTSBURY. SHAFTESBURY (the First Earl). By H. D. TRAILL. ADMIRAL BLAKE. By DAVID HANNAY.

IN PREPARATION:

STEELE By AUSTIN DOBSON. SIR T. MORE By J. COTTER MORISON. WELLINGTON By R. LOUIS STEVENSON. LORD PETERBOROUGH By WALTER BESANT. CLAVERHOUSE By MOWBRAY MORRIS. LATIMER By Canon CREIGHTON. DRAKE By W. H. POLLOCK. BEN JONSON By J. A. SYMONDS. ISAAK WALTON By ANDREW LANG. CANNING By FRANK H. HILL.

London: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.

English Worthies

EDITED BY ANDREW LANG

RALEIGH

EDMUND GOSSE, M.A.

CLARK LECTURER IN ENGLISH LITERATURE AT TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

1886

PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON

PREFACE.

The existing Lives of Raleigh are very numerous. To this day the most interesting of these, as a literary production, is that published in 1736 by William Oldys, afterwards Norroy King at Arms. This book was a marvel of research, as well as of biographical skill, at the time of its appearance, but can no longer compete with later lives as an authority. By a curious chance, two writers who were each ignorant of the other simultaneously collected information regarding Raleigh, and produced two laborious and copious Lives of him, at the same moment, in 1868. Each of these collections, respectively by Mr. Edward Edwards, whose death is announced as these words are leaving the printers, and by the late Mr. James Augustus St. John, added very largely to our knowledge of Raleigh; but, of course, each of these writers was precluded from using the discoveries of the other. The present Life is the first in which the fresh matter brought forward by Mr. Edwards and by Mr. St. John has been collated; Mr. Edwards, moreover, deserved well of all Raleigh students by editing for the first time, in 1868, the correspondence of Raleigh. I hope that I do not seem to disparage Mr. Edwards's book when I say that in his arrangement and conjectural dating of undated documents I am very frequently in disaccord with him. The present Life contains various small data which are now for the first time published, and more than one fact of considerable importance which I owe to the courtesy of Mr. John Cordy Jeaffreson. I have, moreover, taken advantage up to date of the _Reports_ of the Historical MSS. Commission, and of the two volumes of _Lismore Papers_ this year published. In his prospectus to the latter Dr. Grosart promises us still more about Raleigh in later issues. My dates are new style.

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