[4] The extraordinary means of the duplicity of this wily minister are stated by Mr. Tytler in the Appendix to his “Life of Rawleigh.”
[5] As Rawleigh, like all his contemporaries, including Shakspeare, wrote his name diversely, so that we are at a loss to pronounce it, this spontaneous sally of the Scottish monarch reveals its real pronunciation; which is also confirmed by a sort of epigram of that day.
[6] The secret history of this state-riddle—the conspiracy of Cobham, a disappointed courtier—as Mr. Lodge observes, might fill a moderate volume of speculations on its darker parts. All historians agree that it must remain insolvable, and “hopelessly obscure.” It is, however, opened with great vigour and novelty of research by Mr. Tytler in the Appendix to his biography of Rawleigh. But he passes over too slightly the conversation and the offer of the “eight thousand crowns;” and “the pension,” of which Rawleigh said—“he would tell him more when he saw the money.” It is quite evident that Rawleigh had been tampered with by the silly Cobham, whose ricketty brains had been concocting a crude, fantastic plot, which was hardly the initial of one. But Rawleigh had listened; he had not positively refused his participation, neither had he yielded his consent. When “the eight thousand crowns” had safely arrived, where were they to go? Rawleigh declared that “when he saw the money, he would be ready to talk more on the subject.” Mr. Tytler, like Sir Walter, is pleased to consider that the whole affair was “one of Lord Cobham’s idle conceits.”
[7] This incident in the life of Rawleigh is told in the “Curiosities of Literature,” vol. iii. I have been enabled to give the secret history of this Sir Lewis Stukeley, who having first despoiled, then betrayed his great kinsman. That history offers one of the most striking instances of moral retribution.
[8] The explanatory stanzas prefixed to this “Mind,” though unsubscribed by the name of the writer, were composed by Jonson, for they appear in his works.
[9] Rawleigh notices a singular instinct in the birds in these new regions, which built their nests on the twigs of trees, pendent over the waters, rather than in the branches, to save their young from the attacks of the monkeys. In such relations he is full and particular. He collects the marvellous accounts of the Ficus indica—the Banian, or sacred tree of the Brahmins; we nowhere find such a lively picture of that singular curiosity of nature, the self-planting tree, here minutely described.
[10] The authors of the “General Dictionary” censure Wood for his unauthenticated assertions; and they infer that, as he was thus evidently erroneous in his notion of Rawleigh’s history, he may have been equally so in his idea of the philosophical theology of Hariot. Wood, however, could have alleged his authority, though a very indifferent one. We have recently discovered that Wood here was only transcribing the crude hearsays of his friend Aubrey; and, in these matters, the Oxford antiquary, and the “magotie-headed” gossiper, as Wood afterwards found him to be, were equally intelligent.
[11] Hoskyns wrote many poems. A manuscript volume of his poems, fairly written we may presume for the press, and “bigger than all Donne’s works,” was “lent by his son Sir Benedict,” A. Wood tells us, “who was a man that ran with the usurping Parliament, to a certain person, in 1653, but he could never retrieve it.” We are left in the dark to know whether we have lost a great poet or only a loyalist; whether the “certain person” was a parliamentary enragé, or only utterly reckless of a collection of poems “bigger than Dr. Donne’s!” One poem of this great critic has come down to us, of which there is more than one manuscript in the Museum, and one in the Ashmolean,—“A Vision,” addressed to the king during his confinement, in which he introduces his mother, and his wife, and his child. By the frequency of these copies we find how much temporary passion gave an interest to very indifferent writings. It is printed by Dr. Bliss in the “Athenæ Oxonienses.”
[12] Preface to the “History of the World.”
[13] The name of Rawleigh proved too attractive for the booksellers to escape their grasp; they have forged his name on various occasions, and they have done worse; for they have unquestionably adulterated his genuine works by admitting writings which he never could have written. Rawleigh composed some “Instructions to his Son and to Posterity.” The publisher of his “Remains” probably considered that “The Dutiful Advice of a Loving Son to his Aged Father” must be equally acceptable. Sir Walter had no aged father to address; and if he had, he would not have written such a mean piece of puritanic insolence. I suspect that “The Advice” was nothing but a parody on “The Instructions” by some very witless scribbler.