matter in hand as if he were born only for that.' Accordingly, he
sets to work faithfully and stoutly, to learn his trade of
soldiering, and learns it in silence and obscurity. He shares (it
seems) in the retreat at Moncontour, and is by at the death of Conde,
and toils on for five years, marching and skirmishing, smoking the
enemy out of mountain-caves in Languedoc, and all the wild work of
war. During the San Bartholomew massacre we hear nothing of him;
perhaps he took refuge with Sidney and others in Walsingham's house.
No records of these years remain, save a few scattered reminiscences
in his works, which mark the shrewd, observant eye of the future
statesman.

When he returned we know not. We trace him, in 1576, by some verses
prefixed to Gascoigne's satire, the 'Steele Glass,' solid, stately,
epigrammatic, 'by Walter Rawley of the Middle Temple.' The style is
his; spelling of names matters nought in days in which a man would
spell his own name three different ways in one document.

Gascoigne, like Raleigh, knew Lord Grey of Wilton, and most men about
town too; and had been a soldier abroad, like Raleigh, probably with
him. It seems to have been the fashion for young idlers to lodge
among the Templars; indeed, toward the end of the century, they had
to be cleared out, as crowding the wigs and gowns too much; and
perhaps proving noisy neighbours, as Raleigh may have done. To this
period may be referred, probably, his Justice done on Mr. Charles
Chester (Ben Jonson's Carlo Buffone), 'a perpetual talker, and made a
noise like a drum in a room; so one time, at a tavern, Raleigh beats
him and seals up his mouth, his upper and nether beard, with hard
wax.' For there is a great laugh in Raleigh's heart, a genial
contempt of asses; and one that will make him enemies hereafter: