Raleigh

by Edmund Gosse

Meanwhile he had been writing an account of his travels, and on November 13, 1595, he sent a copy of this in manuscript to Cecil, no doubt in hope that it might be shown to Elizabeth. In the interesting letter which accompanied this manuscript he inclosed a map of Guiana, long supposed to have been lost, which was found by Mr. St. John in the archives of Simancas, signed with Raleigh's name, and in perfect condition. It is evident that Raleigh could hardly endure the disappointment of repulse. He says, 'I know the like fortune was never offered to any Christian prince,' and losing his balance altogether in his extravagant pertinacity, he declares to Cecil that the city of Manoa contains stores of golden statues, not one of which can be worth less than 100,000l. If the English Government will not prosecute the enterprise that he has sketched out, Spain and France will shortly do so, and Raleigh, in the face of such apathy, 'concludes that we are cursed of God.' Amid all this excitement, it is pleasant to find him remembering to be humane, and begging Cecil to impress the Queen with the need of 'not soiling this enterprise' with cruelty; nor permitting any to proceed to Guiana whose object shall only be to plunder the Indians. He sends Cecil an amethyst 'with a strange blush of carnation,' and another stone, which 'if it be no diamond, yet exceeds any diamond in beauty.'

Raleigh now determined to appeal to the public at large, and towards Christmas 1595 he published his famous volume, which bears the date 1596, and is entitled, after the leisurely fashion of the age, The Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful Empire of Guiana, with a Relation of the Great and Golden City of Manoa, which the Spaniards call El Dorado, and the Provinces of Emeria, Arromaia, Amapaia, and other Countries, with their Rivers, adjoining. Of this volume two editions appeared in 1596, it was presently translated into Latin and published in Germany, and in short gained a reputation throughout Europe. There can be no doubt that Raleigh's outspoken hatred of Spain, expressed in this printed form, from which there could be no escape on the ground of mere hearsay, was the final word of his challenge to that Power. From this time forth Raleigh was an enemy which Spain could not even pretend to ignore.

The Discovery of Guiana was dedicated to the Lord Admiral Howard and to Sir Robert Cecil, with a reference to the support which the author had found in their love 'in the darkest shadow of adversity.' There was probably some courtly exaggeration, mingled with self-interest, in the gratitude expressed to Cecil. Already the relation of this cold-blooded statesman to the impulsive Raleigh becomes a crux to the biographers of the latter. Cecil's letters to his father from Devonshire on the matter of the Indian carracks in 1592 are incompatible with Raleigh's outspoken thanks to Cecil for the trial of his love when Raleigh was bereft of all but malice and revenge, unless we suppose that these letters represented what Burghley would like to hear rather than what Robert Cecil actually felt. In 1596 Burghley, in extreme old age, was a factor no longer to be taken into much consideration. Moreover, Lady Raleigh had some hold of relationship or old friendship on Cecil, the exact nature of which it is not easy to understand. At all events, as long as Raleigh could hold the favour of Cecil, the ear of her Majesty was not absolutely closed to him.

The Discovery possesses a value which is neither biographical nor geographical. It holds a very prominent place in the prose literature of the age. During the five years which had elapsed since Raleigh's last publication, English literature had been undergoing a marvellous development, and he who read everything and sympathised with every intellectual movement could not but be influenced by what had been written. During those five years, Marlowe's wonderful career had been wound up like a melodrama. Shakespeare had come forward as a poet. A new epoch in sound English prose had been inaugurated by Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. Bacon was circulating the earliest of his Essays. What these giants of our language were doing for their own departments of prose and verse, Raleigh did for the literature of travel. Among the volumes of navigations, voyages, and discoveries, which were poured out so freely in this part of the reign of Elizabeth, most of them now only remembered because they were reprinted in the collections of Hakluyt and Purchas, this book of Raleigh's takes easily the foremost position. In comparison with the bluff and dull narratives of the other discoverers, whose chief charm is their naïveté, the Discovery of Guiana has all the grace and fullness of deliberate composition, of fine literary art, and as it was the first excellent piece of sustained travellers' prose, so it remained long without a second in our literature. The brief examples which it has alone been possible to give in this biography, may be enough to attract readers to its harmonious and glowing pages.

Among the many allusions found to this book in contemporary records, perhaps the most curious is an epic poem on Guiana, published almost immediately by George Chapman, who gave his enthusiastic approval to Raleigh's scheme. It is the misfortune of Chapman's style that in his grotesque arrogance he disdained to be lucid, and this poem is full of tantalising hints, which the biographer of Raleigh longs to use, but dares not, from their obscurity. These stately verses are plain enough, but show that Chapman was not familiar with the counsels of Elizabeth:

Then in the Thespiads' bright prophetic font,
Methinks I see our Liege rise from her throne,
Her ears and thoughts in steep amaze erect,
At the most rare endeavour of her power;
And now she blesses with her wonted graces
The industrious knight, the soul of this exploit,
Dismissing him to convoy of his stars:

Chapman was quite misinformed; and to what event he now proceeds to refer, it would be hard to say:

And now for love and honour of his wrath,
Our twice-born nobles bring him, bridegroom like,
That is espoused for virtue to his love,
With feasts and music ravishing the air,
To his Argolian fleet; where round about
His bating colours English valour swarms
In haste, as if Guianian Orenoque
With his full waters fell upon our shore.

Early in 1596, Raleigh sent Captain Lawrence Keymis, who had been with him the year before, on a second voyage to Guiana. He did not come home rich, but he did the special thing he was enjoined to do—that is to say, he explored the coast of South America from the mouth of the Orinoco to that of the Amazon. About the same time Raleigh drew up the very remarkable paper, not printed until 1843, entitled Of the Voyage for Guiana. In this essay he first makes use of those copious quotations from Scripture which later on became so characteristic of his writing. His hopes of interesting the English Government in Guiana were finally frustrated by the excitement of the Cadiz expedition, and by the melancholy fate of Sir Francis Drake. It is said that during this winter he lived in great magnificence at Durham House, but this statement seems improbable. All the letters of Raleigh's now in existence, belonging to this period, are dated from Sherborne.