Upon the bait, but never on the hook;
Nor envy, unless among
The birds, for prize of their sweet song.

'Go! let the diving negro seek
For pearls hid in some forlorn creek,
We all pearls scorn,
Save what the dewy morn
Congeals upon some little spire of grass,
Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass
And gold ne'er here appears
Save what the yellow Ceres bears.'


Tragic enough are the after scenes of Raleigh's life: but most
tragic of all are these scenes of vain-glory, in which he sees the
better part, and yet chooses the worse, and pours out his self-
discontent in song which proves the fount of delicacy and beauty
which lies pure and bright beneath the gaudy artificial crust. What
might not this man have been! And he knows that too. The stately
rooms of Durham House pall on him, and he delights to hide up in his
little study among his books and his chemical experiments, and smoke
his silver pipe, and look out on the clear Thames and the green
Surrey hills, and dream about Guiana and the Tropics; or to sit in
the society of antiquaries with Selden and Cotton, Camden and Stow;
or in his own Mermaid Club, with Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Beaumont, and
at last with Shakspeare's self to hear and utter


'Words that have been