of the strength of the Indian nations, and of their alliances, connexions, and contests with each other, he returned to England. The Queen was so much pleased with his report, that she favoured the design of settling a colony in that country, to which she gave the name of Virginia. In 1584, her Majesty, as a token of her favor, conferred upon Raleigh the honour of Knighthood. In 1585 Sir Walter Raleigh sent out a fleet of seven sail to Virginia, under the command of his cousin Sir Richard Grenville, who left one hundred and seven persons to settle the colony of Virginia. On his homeward passage, he took a Spanish prize, estimated at £50,000. During the same year, in the suppression of the rebellion in Ireland, her Majesty granted him twelve thousand acres of the forfeited lands. Encouraged by this noble grant, Sir Walter fitted out a third fleet for Virginia, and in 1587, prepared a colony of one hundred and fifty men, who settled the city of Raleigh.

Sir Walter's court favor was now still further increased by his distinguished services, in preparing his country for the threatened Spanish invasion, and by his share in the destruction of the formidable Armada.

Raleigh's enemies, envious of his prevailing influence with the Queen, used every means to work his ruin, and that with so much success, that although employed in many honorable stations abroad, and distinguished by his success in many important expeditions, he continued in a state of personal banishment from the Queen's presence, till 1597, when he was entirely restored to her favor, which he enjoyed till her death. The death of Elizabeth was a great misfortune to Sir Walter, for her successor King James the First, had been greatly prejudiced against him. He had not been long upon the throne, before Sir Walter was dismissed from his post of Captain of the Guards; and soon after was charged with being engaged in a plot against the King, and with carrying on a treasonable correspondence with the King of Spain. No evidence was produced of his being en gaged in any treasonable act whatever, though he was

brought in guilty, and condemned for high treason. The trial was prosecuted with great rancour by the crown lawyers, who seemed determined to make treason where none was to be found; because the prisoner had made himself obnoxious to the King, and his death had been determined upon. To the eternal disgrace of his memory, that able lawyer and celebrated writer, Sir Edward Coke, the Attorney General, made use of the grossest abuse in opening the false accusation against the renowned prisoner; stigmatizing him with the opprobrious epithets of " traitor, monster, viper, and spider of hell.”

Sir Walter was confined at Winchester for nearly a month, during which time he lived in the daily expectation of death. Three days previous to that on which his execution was fixed to take place, he was reprieved and ordered to be committed to the Tower during the King's pleasure here he was confined till March, 1616, a period of more than twelve years. The true cause of this shameful treatment of Sir Walter Raleigh, was the very active part he had taken against the Scotch interest: having proposed in council, a short time before the death of Queen Elizabeth, that the King of the Scots should be engaged by the strongest contract that could be drawn up, to bring into England only a limited number of his countrymen, on his accession to the throne. This proposition was overruled, but it was never forgiven by James and his Scotch minions. And it must be confessed that Sir Walter, did not endeavor to abate their malice by temporising; on the contrary, when he found that his fears were realized, and scarcely any but Scotchmen countenanced at court, he boldly exclaimed against this partiality in their favour; and thus he wrought his own ruin.

Having at last recovered his liberty, Sir Walter turned his attention to a favorite scheme, that of settling Guiana. His Majesty granted him a patent for that purpose, which Sir Francis Bacon, on being applied to, assured him, implied a full pardon for all that was passed. The whole expense of this expedition was defrayed by Sir Walter and his friends. Owing to sick

ness and hostility of the Spaniards, he was unable to accomplish the objects of his voyage; and on his return home he was doomed to experience anew the animosity of King James the First. Indeed, the conduct

of the King, at this time, was marked by the most shameful duplicity. For while he encouraged Raleigh by granting him a special commission for this enterprise, he not only disavowed it by his ministers to the Spanish Ambassador, but he suffered them to give the Ambassador the particulars of Raleigh's force and destination, which being forwarded to the court of Spain, occasioned vast preparations to be made, which he found ready on his arrival to oppose him. Sir Walter could not forbear reproaching the court for this infamous conduct, in a letter from Sir Christopher to the Secretary of State; and this determined the Ministry to take him off.

Accordingly, on Sir Walter's return home, he found that King James had published a proclamation, declaring his detestation of his conduct, and asserting that his Majesty had, by express limitation, forbidden Raleigh from engaging in any act of hostility against his dear brother of Spain. This proclamation, however, did not deter Sir Walter from landing at Portsmouth, in July, 1618, being resolved to surrender himself into the King's hands, to whom he wrote in defence of himself. He was however, arrested, and committed to the Tower. But though his death had been resolved upon, it was not easy to find a method to compass it, since his conduct in his late expedition afforded no pretext in law for such a sentence: it was resolved, therefore, to sacrifice him to Spain, by calling him to judgment on his former sentence, passed fifteen years before. Thus by a strange contrariety of proceedings, he who had been condemned for being a friend to the Spaniards, now lost his life for being their enemy.

In consequence of this resolution, having the day before, received notice to prepare himself for death, he was on the 28th of October, taken out of his bed in the' hot fit of an ague, and carried to the bar of the King's'

Bench, where the Chief Justice ordered the record of his conviction and judgment in 1603, to be read; and then demanded what he had to offer why execution should not be awarded against him. The Court refused to hear his defence, and execution was instantly awarded. A warrant was produced for it to take place the next day, which had been signed and sealed beforehand, that no delay might arise from the King's absence, who had retired into the country the day before Sir Walter was arraigned. And on the very next day, though it was the Lord Mayor's day, he was conducted to the scaffold. A proclamation was then made for silence; after which he addressed the multitude and justified himself from the charges preferred against him, concluding by desiring the astonished spectators, to join with him in prayer to God, "whom" said he "I have most grievously offended, being a man full of vanity, who has lived a sinful life, in such callings as have been most inducing to it. For I have been a soldier, a sailor, and a courtier; which are all courses of wickedness and vice."

Of the manner in which this eminent man employed his time, particularly during his long imprisonment, we have conspicuous testimony in such of his writings as have been committed to the press among which the most extensive is his History of the World. The subjects on which Sir Walter employed his pen, are not less various than the characters he united in himself. When we view his actions we are astonished at the number of his writings; viewing his writings we wonder he found time for so much action.

By the paintings extant of Sir Walter Raleigh, his stature was about six feet, and his person well proportioned. His profusion in dress was very great, though in conformity with the custom of his time. We are told that he possessed a suit of clothes ornamented with jewels to the value of sixty thousand pounds, and one writer informs us that the precious stones on his court shoes exceeded six thousand pieces of gold, in value. Sir Walter left two sons, Walter and Carew. Walter was

killed at twenty-three years of age; Carew who was born in 1604 was presented at court about five years after his father's death. But King James disliking him, and saying he appeared to him like the ghost of his father, he was advised to travel till the King's death, which took place about a year afterward. Carew died in 1666, and was buried with his father's head in his coffin.

CIRCLE OF THE SCIENCES WITH SUITABLE REFLECTIONS,

When a man surveys the glorious firmament of stars, his sight represents them to be exceedingly small, but the mind at the same time contradicts the sight, by conceiving them to be of immense magnitude, and an oppressive sense of mysterious sublimity is the result. If, however, the spectator be a man of an active mind, he will not suffer his feelings to evaporate in simple wonder, but will ask himself the questions-How is it that my faculties are thus at issue?—the mind contradicting the sight!--which of them is true-the eye or the imagination ?-how can their differences be reconciled?

Now, the human soul hates a boundary; it is infinite in its desires and aided by this God-perceiving principle, the man whose curiosity we have just seen excited, tasks his ingenuity to contrive some means of ascertaining the size, situation, &c. of the rolling worlds above him. He begins with the eye, that marvellous organ,

"Which at once takes in the landscape of the world
At a small inlet, which a grain might close,

And half creates the wondrous world we see."

He invents a telescope, and pointing the sight-invigo rating tube to Heaven,

"A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,
And pavement stairs,"

lies plain before him ;-the bright imaginations of his soul are satisfied, he finds the truth of his conjectures, the little twinkling stars are worlds!

With this wonderful instrument in his hands, all things become new: the pure glory of the sun, shorn of