at nothing but that; sees everything only through the light of that;
sacrifices everything to that: the fanatic, in short. By fanatics,
whether military, commercial, or religious, and not by 'liberal-
minded men' at all, has the world's work been done in all ages. Amid
the modern cants, one of the most mistaken is the cant about the
'mission of genius,' the 'mission of the poet.' Poets, we hear in
some quarters, are the anointed kings of mankind--at least, so the
little poets sing, each to his little fiddle. There is no greater
mistake. It is the practical, prosaical fanatic who does the work;
and the poet, if he tries to do it, is certain to put down his spade
every five minutes, to look at the prospect, and pick flowers, and
moralise on dead asses, till he ends a Neron malgre lui-meme,
fiddling melodiously while Rome is burning. And perhaps this is the
secret of Raleigh's failure. He is a fanatic, no doubt, a true
knight-errant: but he is too much of a poet withal. The sense of
beauty enthrals him at every step. Gloriana's fairy court, with its
chivalries and its euphuisms, its masques and its tourneys, and he
the most charming personage in it, are too charming for him--as they
would have been for us, reader: and he cannot give them up and go
about the one work. He justifies his double-mindedness to himself,
no doubt, as he does to the world, by working wisely, indefatigably,
and bravely: but still he has put his trust in princes, and in the
children of men. His sin, as far as we can see, is not against man,
but against God; one which we do not nowadays call a sin, but a
weakness. Be it so. God punished him for it, swiftly and sharply;
which I hold to be a sure sign that God also forgave him for it.

So he stays at home, spends, sooner or later, 40,000 pounds on
Virginia, writes charming court-poetry with Oxford, Buckhurst, and
Paget, brings over Spenser from Ireland and introduces Colin Clout to