And what we are told of his personal appearance is accordant with the rest,
that “he
had in the outward man a good presence, in a handsome and well-compacted
person;” that
“he was a tall, handsome, and bold man;” and his
“was thought a very good face,” though
“his countenance was some what spoiled by the unusual height of his forehead.”
“He was such a person
(every way), that (as King Charles I
says of the
Lord Strafford) a prince would rather be afraid of, than ashamed of,” and had an
“awfulness and ascendency in his aspect over other mortals;”
and we are not disappointed to learn that he indulged in a splendid dress, and
“notwithstanding his so great mastership in style, and his
conversation with the learnedest and politest persons, yet he spake broad
Devonshire to his dying day.”
Such a character as this was well suited to the time in which he lived. His
age was an unusually stirring one. The
discovery of America and the successful progress of
the Reformation opened
a field for both the intellectual and physical energies of his generation.
The fathers of his age
were Calvin
and Knox, and
Cranmer, and
Pizarro, and
Garcilaso; and its
immediate forefathers were
Luther and
Raphael, and
Bayard and
Angelo, and
Ariosto, and
Copernicus, and
Machiavel,
and Erasmus,
and Cabot, and
Ximenes,
and Columbus.
Its device might have been an anchor, a sword, and a quill. The Pizarro laid
by his sword at intervals and took to his letters. The Columbus set sail for
newer worlds still, by voyages which needed not the patronage of princes. The
Bayard alighted from his steed to seek adventures no less arduous than
heretofore upon the ocean and in the Western world; and the Luther who had
reformed religion began now to reform politics and science.
In Raleigh’s youth, however it may have concerned him,
Camoens
was writing a heroic poem in Portugal, and the arts still had their
representative in
Paul Veronese of
Italy. He may have been one to welcome the works of
Tasso and
Montaigne
to England, and when he looked about him he might have found such men as
Cervantes and
Sidney,
men of like pursuits and not altogether dissimilar genius from himself, for
his contemporaries, — a
Drake to rival him
on the sea, and a
Hudson in western
adventure; a Halley,
a Galileo, and a
Kepler, for his
astronomers; a Bacon, a
Behmen, and a
Burton,
for his philosophers; and a
Jonson, a
Spenser, and a
Shakespeare, his
poets for refreshment and inspiration.
But that we may know how worthy he himself was to make one of this
illustrious company, and may appreciate the great activity and versatility of
his genius, we will glance hastily at the various aspects of his life.
He was a proper knight, a born cavalier, who in the intervals of war betook
himself still to the most vigorous arts of peace, though as if diverted from
his proper aim. He makes us doubt if there is not some worthier apology for
war than has been discovered, for its modes and manners were an instinct with
him; and though in his writings he takes frequent occasion sincerely to
condemn its folly, and show the better policy and advantage of peace, yet he
speaks with the uncertain authority of a warrior still, to whom those juster
wars are not simply the dire necessity he would imply.
In whatever he is engaged we seem to see a plume waving over his head, and a
sword dangling at his side.
