Methought I sawe the grave where Laura lay;
  Within that temple, where the vestal flame;
  Was wont to burne:  and passing by that way,
  To see that buried dust of living fame,
  Whose tombe fair love, and fairer virtue kept,
  All suddenly I sawe the Fairy Queene: 
  At whose approach the soul of Petrarche wept
  And from henceforth, those Graces were not scene;
  For they this queen attended; in whose steede
  Oblivion laid him down in Laura’s hearse: 
  Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed. 
  And grones of buried ghosts the Heavens did perse;
  Where Homer’s spright did tremble all for ’griefe,
  And curst th’ accesse of that celestial thief.

But the most extraordinary work of Sir Walter’s is his History of the World, composed in the Tower; it has never been without its admirers; and I shall close the account of our author’s works, by the observation of the ingenious author of the Rambler upon this history, in a paper in which he treats of English Historians, No. 122.—­“Raleigh (says he) is deservedly celebrated for the labour of his researches, and the elegance of his stile; but he has endeavoured to exert his judgment more than his genius, to select facts, rather than adorn them.  He has produced a historical dissertation, but has seldom risen to the majesty of history.”

[Footnote 1:  Prince’s Worthies of Devon.]

[Footnote 2:  Camdeni Annales Elizabethae, p. 172.  Edit.  Batav. 1625.]

[Footnote 3:  Hooker, fol. 167.]

[Footnote 4:  Case’s History of Ireland, fol. 367.]

[Footnote 5:  Captain Haynes’s Report of Sir Humphry Gilbert’s voyage to Newfoundland, vol. iii. p. 149.]

[Footnote 6:  Oldys, fol. 125.]

[Footnote 7:  Birch’s life of Raleigh.]

[Footnote 8:  Letter of Rowland White, Esq; to Sir Robert Sidney, November 5, 1597.]

[Footnote 9:  Oldys, fol. 167.]

[Footnote 10:  Oldys, fol. 157.]

[Footnote 11:  Raleigh’s remains, vol. ii. p. 188.]

[Footnote 12:  Letter to his lady from Caliana, November 14, 1617.]

[Footnote 13:  Thompson.]

* * * * *

DR. JOHN DONNE

An eminent poet, and divine of the last century, was born in London in the year 1573.  His father was a merchant, descended from a very ancient family in Wales, and his mother from Sir Thomas More, Chancellor of England.  He was educated in his father’s house under a tutor till the 11th year of his age[1], when he was sent to Oxford; at which time it was observed of him, as of the famous Pica Mirandula, that he was rather born wise than made so by study.  He was admitted commoner of Harthall, together with his younger brother, in Michaelmas term 1584.[2] By advice of his relations, who were Roman Catholics, he declined taking the oath tendered upon the occasion of taking