[Footnote: 'Shine 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 passionate,' 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?