Hugh De SElincourt

Friendship with George Gascoyne—Its importance—Ralegh in London—The arch-gossip Aubrey—Elizabethan London—Ralegh and Sir Humfrey Gilbert—The beginning of the great enterprise.

Ralegh returned from France in 1575 or 1576; and there are three years of his life—important years, from the age of twenty-three to twenty-six—which contain little or no record of his doings. Some authors, on the slenderest authority, maintain that he trailed a pike in the Lowlands, under Sir John Norris. But this is unlikely. The time of his possible presence there has been adroitly whittled down by William Oldys to the early part of the year 1578, and quite recently a document has been discovered bearing his signature, and the date of the deed is April 11th, 1578. If the signature is genuine, and expert evidence points to the fact that it is so, this is an additional, almost conclusive, proof that during these three years he remained in England.

There is another matter, intrinsically small, but exceedingly important because it throws a great light on his pursuits at this time. To George Gascoigne's satirical poem "The Steele Glas" is appended, among other commendatory verses, a poem by Walter Rawely, of the Middle Temple, which runs as follows—

"Swete were the sauce, would please ech kind of tast
The life likewise, were pure that never swerved
For spyteful tongs, in cankred stomaches plaste,
Deeme worst of things, which best (percase) deserved:
But what for that? this medcine may suffyse,
To scorne the rest, and seke to please the wise.
"Though sundry mindes in sundry sorte do deeme
Yet worthiest wights yelde praise for every payne,
But envious braynes, do nought (or light) esteeme
Such stately steppes as they cannot attaine.
For who so reapes, renowne above the rest,
With heapes of hate, shal surely be opprest.
"Wherefore to write, my censure of this booke
This Glasse of Steele impartially doth shewe,
Abuses all, to such as in it looke,
From prince to poore, from high estate to lowe
As for the verse, who lists like trade to trye,
I feare me much, shal hardly reache so high."

Edwards thinks, and rightly, that the verses show an intimate friendship with the poet in whose honour they were written; and "the poem itself to me discovers," writes Oldys, with his own quaint charm, "in the very first line of it a great air of that solid axiomatical vein which is observable in other productions of Ralegh's muse. And the whole middle hexastic is such an indication of his own fortune or fate, such a caution against that envy of superior merit which he himself ever struggled with, that it could proceed from no hand more properly than his own."

And these conjectures are strengthened into fact when it is remembered (and this point seems hitherto to have been passed over) that Gascoigne was a close friend of Sir Humfrey Gilbert, and a kinsman to Martin Frobisher. "Now it happened," writes Gascoigne ("in a letter from my lodging, where I march among the Muses for lacke of exercise in martial exploytes"), "now it happened that my selfe being one (amongst manie) beholding to the said S. Humfrey Gilbert for sundrie curtesies did come to visit him in Winter last past at his house in Limehouse, and beeing verie bolde to demande of him howe he spente his time in this loytering vacation from martial stratagems: he curteously tooke me up into his studie and there shewed me sundrie profitable and verie commendable exercises which he had perfected painefully with his own penne: And amongst the rest this present Discourse. The which as well because it was not long, as also because I understoode that M. Fourboiser (a kinsman of mine) did pretend to travaile in the same Discouverie, I craved at the said S. Humfreyes handes for two or three dayes to reade and peruse. And hee verie friendly granted my request, but still seming to doubt that thereby the same might, contrarie to his former determination be Imprinted."

Ralegh would meet Gascoigne often at Sir Humfrey's house, and to Gascoigne he probably owed his first impulse towards literature. For George Gascoigne was the most considerable man writing at that time; and though his work contained no actual greatness, it was very much on the right lines, that is to say, he was steeped in Chaucer and Gower, and acknowledged them his masters, rather than classical authors. Not that he was ignorant of either Latin or Greek; on the contrary, he was intimate with both, and his "Jocasta," which he adapted from an Italian translation by Dolce of the "Ph[oe]nissÆ" of Euripides, was not only one of the first plays in blank verse, but also was the first known attempt to produce translated tragedy upon the English stage.

And therein lies Gascoigne's chief quality. He was an innovator and original, and that bespeaks force of character, a trait which must have drawn young Ralegh to him. For like attracts like in a mysterious manner.

Gascoigne holds an interesting place in the literature of the time. Since the publication of "Tottel's Miscellany," in 1557, there had, for some thirty years, been a distinct lull in the output of poetry, and the work of Gascoigne was a prelude to the revival that came about the years 1579-1582, when Sidney, Spenser, Watson, and Lyly first made their appearance, the true harbingers of the mighty tempest of song that broke upon the world in 1590, and continued for some twenty amazing years.

He tried his hand, diffidently, as became a gentleman, at every form; realizing and pointing out, as it were, the capacity of the great instrument of the English language. "It is no mean feat," as an eminent scholar says, "to rank in history as George Gascoigne ranks with fair documentary evidence to prove his title as the actual first practitioner in English of comedy in prose, satire in regular verse, short prose tales, translated tragedy and literary animadversion" (in which word the eminent scholar refers to a short technical account of the making of English verse, prefixed to the "Steele Glas").

And apart from his writing, to which he devoted specially the last years of his life, there would be much that he would have in common with young Ralegh. Indeed, his life resembles in little the subsequent career of Ralegh himself, and the device, "Tam Marti quam Mercurio," suited him as nicely as it suited Ralegh who afterwards, by adopting the device, made it famous. He was the son of a gentleman of Bedfordshire, Sir John Gascoigne, and after going to Cambridge and being a member of Grays Inn, he served in Holland fighting for the Dutch under William, Prince of Orange, and had many strange adventures. On his return to London he had some post at Court, the exact nature of which is not known, and he sat twice as Member of Parliament for Bedfordshire. What is of special interest is, that he was in close touch with the Earl of Leicester, and Lord Grey de Wilton; for in 1575, when the Queen made her famous visit to Kenilworth, it was Gascoigne who was commissioned to devise masks for her entertainment; and it is Lord Grey de Wilton to whom he dedicates the chief of his poems. Therefore it is extremely probable that young Ralegh owed to him, if not his actual introduction to Leicester, at any rate a great furtherance of Leicester's notice of Ralegh. It is surely more than coincidence that Gascoigne's chief patrons should have also been among Ralegh's principal helpers.

And Gascoigne's early death, at the age of forty, in 1577, would impress his influence upon his young friend, and that influence is discoverable in the directness and freedom from literary affectation of any kind, which is very noticeable in the work of both. And it is interesting to speculate whether, without Gascoigne, Ralegh would ever have possessed knowledge and insight enough to realize later Spenser's worth, which the scholar Harvey (no mean authority at that time) completely failed to see. Be that as it may, the friendship of Gascoigne and Ralegh anticipates pregnantly that friendship of his with Spenser which was of importance to the literature of the world.

But Ralegh was no paragon of a young man continually engaged in staid discourse with his elders. It is refreshing to have authority for a different and delightfully human glimpse of his life. The authority is Aubrey, and Aubrey loved gossip—and especially scandalous gossip—so fervidly, that his stories bear the hall-mark of truth, apart from the fact that they are too ridiculous to be worth even Aubrey's while to fabricate. This is the tale, which Aubrey is careful to mention (his solemnity in telling his gossip comes little short of genius), was recounted to him by Dr. John Gell. "In his youthful time was one Charles Chester, that often kept company in his acquaintance: he was a bold, impertinent fellow, and they could never be at quiet for him; a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drumme in a roome. So one time at a taverne Sir W. R. beates him and seales up his mouthe (i.e. his upper and neather beard) with hard wax." Probably Charles Chester took this summary Elizabethan hint, but Aubrey throws no light on the hint's effect.

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The little incident is typical, not so much of Ralegh, though it shows his swift vigour, as of the times. Such a thing happening now would be likely to cause a scandal which would be known to most of the civilized world. Then the continents were being discovered which would now join in the outcry of amazement or laughter.

London was small. St. Paul's was the centre of life: Chepeside was the main and fashionable street; the streets were narrow and the houses were chiefly built of wood. The Mermaid Tavern was in Friday Street. There were large residences with gardens in the city, public gardens on Tower Hill, and green graveyards round the churches. The river, crossed by one bridge—London Bridge—was in constant use; and a wall ran round the semicircle of the city. Temple Bar, Holborn Bar, Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Aldersgate, the bar at Smithfield, the bar on the Whitechapel highway—the gates and bars tell the city area, and outside the walls clustered the Liberties, where vagrants had their quarters.

London was becoming crowded. In 1580 the Lord Burghley took measures to stop the expansion of the city, and from his table of births and deaths the population has been estimated at about ninety thousand. That figure is only approximate. There was no actual census until some eighty years later, when John Graunt, of Birchin Lane, at length succeeded in his scheme.

London was lively. Men lived much more in the streets. Merchants met customers there, and lawyers conversed with their clients. "Newgate Market, Cheapeside, Leaden Hall, and Gracechurch Street were unmeasurably pestered with the unimaginable increase and multiplicity of Market folkes, as well by carts as otherwise, to the great vexation of all the inhabitants, annoyance of the streete trouble, and danger to all passengers as well Coaches, Carts, etc. Horses as otherwise," writes Howes, giving the reason why magistrates of the City, in 1615, reduced the rude vast place of Smithfield into comely order for a market, and the citizens began their new pavement of broad free-stone close to their shops, and took down all the high causes in the Strand and Holborn. West Smithfield was called Ruffian's Hall, because there the young men used to fight with sword and buckler. Duelling was prevalent—one of the sincerities of human life which bursts through the thickest quilted formulas, as Carlyle ejaculates. Fighting was as common an amusement and exercise as cricket and football are now. Every serving man, from the base to the best, carried a buckler at his back. Rapier and dagger, however, which began about this time, made fighting less common, for it was far more dangerous than the manner of fighting with buckler and sword. "It was usuall to have Frays, Fightes and Quarrels upon the Sundayes and Holidayes, sometimes twenty, thirty and forty Swords and Bucklers, halfe against halfe, as well by quarrells of appointment as by chance: especially from the midst of Aprill untill the end of October by reason that Smithfield was then free from dirte and plashes. And in the winter season, all the high streetes were much annoyed and troubled with hourely frayes of sword and buckler men who took pleasure in that bragging fight. And although they made great shew of muche furie and fought often, yet seldom any man hurt, for thrusting was not then in use; neither would one in twentie strike beneath the waste by reason that they held it cowardly and beastly."

Pageants and processions enlivened the streets. The Queen and her courtiers could not hold aloof, and did not wish to. The Queen shared her father's liking for being on terms of cheerful repartee with the people. A courtier's arrival was a small event, for he travelled in state with a large retinue. Young gentlemen attached themselves to a great man, and wore his colours. And the great man needed a large number of followers, for his only means of keeping in touch with affairs and with friends was by messenger, and such messengers were necessarily brave and trustworthy men.

Up the Thames came ships loaded, perhaps, with treasure from foreign countries, and their men would land and spread news of battles in the Netherlands or Spain; or they would have strange tales to tell of new lands which they had found, of the manners of strange new peoples, of adventures with bears or morses or Spaniards, tales of marvellous wealth waiting for a daring hand to take, of countries where the sun never set, of seas where meremaiden swam, and where the sound of the cracking ice was loud as the crash of artillery. Small wonder that the poets found inspiration in the London taverns, and that men lived almost in the streets, where at any moment they might meet some fellow with a new tale of the world's wonder that might very likely be true.

London was no place in which a man could easily remain inert. The unexpected constantly occurred on account of the dramatic way that news was inevitably brought. News came like vivid flashes of light on darkness, and these flashes were continual.

Ralegh's energy had always been conspicuous, even in those times. He was no slug, as Aubrey pithily puts it. And now it is that one of the great ideas of his life came to him, perhaps the greatest. We hear of him as connected with Sir Humfrey Gilbert's enterprise for discovering the north-west passage. Sir Humfrey was instigated by his navigator's desire to find a nearer passage to the East. But Ralegh widened in his mind the scope of the scheme, with him it expanded into something immeasurably greater. He saw the overcrowding of London beyond the limits of health and of comfort, and this overcrowding was troubling the level head of the great Burghley, who tried to cope with it by restricting the building of new houses. Ralegh was a man whose nature always was "to turn necessity to glorious gain." He saw the tremendous possibilities of this superabundance of men, how, if they could be placed in these new lands, they would prove of infinite value to the old country which, by their presence, they were annoying. He knew that Spaniards had settled in wild new lands, and lived there for a time like marauders, and returned home with wealth which they had wrung from the natives. But his idea was larger; it was the first proper plan of colonization, for his imagination carried him far on into the future beyond the time of a generation or two, beyond the seizing of immediate wealth. The vastness of the scheme appealed to him; the difficulties he realized to be so great that they were worth a man's while to grapple with.

And the scheme held him by its enthralling interest, not only because he was ambitious (as all men worth anything are), and saw in it a means of furthering his ambitions; not only because he was patriotic, and saw in it a means of furthering his country's good, but primarily for the scheme's own sake. The idea obsessed him as an idea quite apart from its consequences, and whether the result would be good or bad; that would only be proved by the event, and that doubtless added enormously to the interest. But an inventor or a pioneer in any new field, who thinks chiefly of the consequences, does not get far on his journey. That part of any action is more profitably left to his friends and his advisers, and they are never far to seek.

Those were not the days of specialization. Affairs were not so intricate that an expert was needed to work out every branch of a subject. Less was known too; and a man of average intelligence could learn all there was to learn of most things without the standard of knowledge in each making him appear ignorant of all.

In June, 1578, Sir Humfrey Gilbert who, as has been said, had been busily engaged for many years in the discovery of a north-west passage, obtained a royal charter for the greater purpose. "Elizabeth by the grace of God, Queen of England, etc. To all people to whom these presents shall come, greeting. Know that of our especial grace certaine science and mere motion we have given and granted and by these presents for us our heires and successours doe give and grant to our trustie and well beloved servant Sir Humfrey Gilbert of Compton in our Countie of Devonshire knight, and to his heires and assignes for ever free libertie and license from time to time and at all times for ever hereafter to discover, finde, searche out and view such remote heathen and barbarous landes countries and territories, not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people, as to him his heires and assignes and to every or anie of them shall seem good: and the same to have hold, occupy and enjoy...." run the letters patent with their royal paraphernalia of phrase.

And in September, 1578, Gilbert had overcome the initial difficulty of collecting provisions sufficient to victual his eleven ships for a year, and of picking the right men for the enterprise, two matters of enormous importance. In the latter he was not successful. Sir Francis Knollys owned some of the ships, and his son went on the expedition. This son sowed dissension where unity was a vital necessity; he insulted Sir Humfrey Gilbert, and at length deserted. Contrary winds delayed the expedition, which became disorganized, and after a fight with the Spaniards was recalled. Ralegh was captain of a ship named the Falcon, and that was in all probability his first engagement at sea.

The expedition was on such a large scale that the Spanish authorities in England clamoured for its recall; and there is ample evidence, as Edwards remarks, to show that Ralegh was as much feared and hated in 1578 by the Spaniards, as ever he was at any later period of his career. They tried always to thwart his great scheme of colonization, the greatness of which they realized, seeing the danger of it to their own possessions, and for a time they succeeded in their aims.

It is in connection with this expedition that Ralegh's name first appears in the Council Book.

CHAPTER IV