indeed but fifty marks, and which was paid, and has carried off 500
milch kine from the poor settlers whom he has planted there, and
forcibly thrust him out of possession of a castle. Moreover, the
whole Irish estates are likely to come to ruin; for nothing prevails
but rascality among the English soldiers, impotence among the
governors, and rebellion among the natives. Three thousand Burkes
are up in arms; his 'prophecy of this rebellion' ten days ago was
laughed at, and now has come true; and altogether, Walter Raleigh and
all belonging to him is in as evil case as he ever was on earth. No
wonder, poor fellow, if he behowls himself lustily, and not always
wisely, to Cecil, and every one else who will listen to him.

As for his fine speeches about Elizabeth, why forget the standing-
point from which such speeches were made? Over and above his present
ruin, it was (and ought to have been) an utterly horrible and
unbearable thing to Raleigh, or any man, to have fallen into disgrace
with Elizabeth by his own fault. He feels (and perhaps rightly) that
he is as it were excommunicated from England, and the mission and the
glory of England. Instead of being, as he was till now, one of a
body of brave men working together in one great common cause, he has
cut himself off from the congregation by his own selfish lust, and
there he is left alone with his shame. We must try to realise to
ourselves the way in which such men as Raleigh looked not only at
Elizabeth, but at all the world. There was, in plain palpable fact,
something about the Queen, her history, her policy, the times, the
glorious part which England, and she as the incarnation of the then
English spirit, were playing upon earth, which raised imaginative and
heroical souls into a permanent exaltation--a 'fairyland,' as they
called it themselves, which seems to us fantastic, and would be
fantastic in us, because we are not at their work, or in their days.