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Sir Walter Raleigh

Dedicated to Master George Edward Brown, and written
especially for boys, Mr. John Buchan's SIR WALTER
RALEIGH (Nelson, 3s. 6d.) should appeal also to minds of a
more mature order as a picturesque study of the great sea
captain and courtier. For though to him Raleigh is the most
boyish hero in history he is also for all time the Father of
the British Colonies. His story, says Mr. Buchan, if we
look at it in one way, is a tragedy, for all his ventures seem
to fail. But out of failure came fruition for us of a later
age, in that he gave to the English race a better Indies than
the King of Spain's, and so fulfilled the purpose of his life.
In telling the story Mr. Buchan has hit upon the plan of
putting each chapter into the mouths of different speakers,
sometimes real and sometimes imaginary, but always easy
to accept as possible friends or followers of Raleigh's and
trustworthy eye-witnesses of the events in which they
bore a part. The book is not a complete history. Sir
Gabriel Bretton, for instance, in the chapter on "Belphoebe's
Smile," does not set down the whole truth of Sir Walter's
relations with Elizabeth Throckmorton before she became
his wife. And, though we are told of his share in the
massacre at Smerwick, care is taken to paint it in the most
favourable light. But on the whole the record is wonder-
fully full; and if it gives the impression that it shows Raleigh
as he himself would have liked us to see him, it also leaves
us with the feeling that in all probability it pictures the
man as he really was. We see him first as an imaginative
boy, drinking in an old sailor's tales of the Golden West,
then as a stern-faced but soft-hearted soldier in Ireland,
and then as the Queen's knight and courtier, reminding her
that his feet had been set by her on the stony steeps of
honour and that neither for him nor for her was there room
in life for common love. Then come sterner times, his
voyage to the Orinoko, after his first taste of the Tower,
in search of El Dorado, and the far-off sight of Manoa the
Golden ; his gallant attack in the Warspite on the Spanish
fleet, under the guns of the fortress of Cadiz ; and his second
committal to the Tower, after he had been condemned to
death for treason and reprieved. And lastly, there are the
pictures of his second disastrous expedition in search of
fairy gold (recorded by Captain Thomas Keymis), his
honourable return voyage, his third period of imprisonment,
and his courageous death on the block at Westminster.
It is a gallant story, well and truly told, and a fine example
for the men as well as the boys of the present day.