Great Ralegh. Hugh De Sélincourt
if not final. It is in the nature of generalization to be limited. For there are many wits where quickness and hardness, which he distinguishes so sharply, are as memorably, as in the case of young Ralegh, combined—"sharpe tooles" whose edges be never turned. Such incontestably was Ralegh. His mind and his character (the motive force) were on the same level of strength; neither preyed on the other, and he lived in a time when the world offered scope, as never perhaps in quite the same way before or since, to the resistless energy of united strength.
But to return to Ascham, whose little treatise throws an invaluable quiet light of its own upon the methods of the time, when he was old and Ralegh was young, and upon the making of great men and the great need of them—from its conception at the dinner party in the palace at Windsor, to its finish, years later, when the old man turned once more to the proper teaching of rudiments, doing his best for the younger generation whose best would outstrip all that he had ever dreamed of in his least scholastic moments. There is more than a touch of pathos in his warnings, for all their staid wisdom, and in his fears lest the young should be overcome by their "stout wilfulness"; blind as he could not but be to the goal to which stout wilfulness alone could lead them.
With a schoolmaster's conscious effort at broad-mindedness he would not have the young one sit all day at his studies. "To joyne learnyng with cumlie exercises Conto Baldesoer Castiglione in his booke Cortegiane doth trimlie teache: which booke advisedlie read and diligentlie folowed, but one year at home in England would do a yong ientleman more good, I wisse, then three yeares travell abrode spent in Italie." And he passes by way of example "two noble Primeroses of nobilitie, the yong Duke of Suffolk and Lord H. Matrevers" (such a two as "our tyme may rather wishe than looke for agayne") on to his famous invective against the Italianating of Englishmen, with that constant note of sadness at the falling off of the present generation. His ears were deaf to such names as Sidney, Gilbert, Champernoun, Ralegh, names which time has set at their proper value, and against which Ascham's noble primroses sink into their proper insignificance.
Ralegh was at Oxford only one year, and Anthony Wood writes: "His natural parts being strangely advanced by academical learning, under the care of an excellent tutor, he became the ornament of the juniors, and was worthily esteemed a proficient in Oratory and Philosophy." He seasoned his primer years at Oxford in knowledge and learning, a good ground, as Hooker says, and a sure foundation to build thereupon good actions.
Only one incident is recorded of that year of his life, and that is recorded by the illustrious Bacon in his apothegms. " … When Ralegh was a scholar at Oxford there was a cowardly fellow who happened to be a very good archer; but having been grossly abused by another, he bemoaned himself to Ralegh, and asked his advice what he should do to repair the wrong that had been offered him. Why, challenge him, answered Ralegh, to a match of shooting." It would be interesting to know how the repartee came to Lord Bacon's knowledge.
It is about in the proportion that Ralegh filled his life, compared with the ordinary way of living, that he took in one year out of Oxford what most men required seven years to take; for seven years was the usual time for a full course, and often, as in Germany to-day, men went from one University to another.
"Ein jeder lernt das was man lernen kann
Nur wer den Augenblick ergreifft das ist der rechte Mann."
Not that life at the University was restrained and dull. Far from it. Listen to Thomas Lever, who spoke of the work some twenty years before Ralegh's time. "From 5 to 6 a.m. there was common prayer with an exhortation of God's word in a common chapel, and from 6 to 10 either private study or common lectures. At 10 o'clock generally came dinner, most being content with a penny piece of beef amongst four. After this slender dinner the youths were either teaching or learning until 5 p.m., when they have a supper not much better than their dinner. Immediately after they went either to reasoning in problems or unto some other study until 9 or 10 of the clock, and then being without fire were fain to walk or run up and down half an hour to get a heat on their feet before they went to bed." This sounds splendidly strenuous, and shows what was expected by the authorities, and the standard of the dons to which doubtless many conformed. From Nash's trenchant pamphlets we see the other side of the picture. Thomas Lever was a preacher: Thomas Nash was not. It is while he is engaged in "pouring hot boiling ink on this contemptible Heggledepeg's barrain scalp" (or as we should put it, proving in controversy the errors of Gabriel Harvey) that he gives his sudden glimpses of life and customs in town and university. "What will you give me when I bring him uppon the Stage in one of the principallest Colledges in Cambridge? Lay anie wager with me and I will: or if you laye no wager at all, Ile fetch him aloft in Pedantius, that exquisite Comedie in Trinitie Colledge: where under the cheife part from which it tooke his name, as namely the concise and firking finicaldo fine Schoolmaster, hee was full drawen and delineated from the soale of his foot to the crowne of his head. The just manner of his phrase in his Orations and Disputations they stufft his mouth with and no Buffianism throughout his whole bookes but they bolstered out his part with … whereupon Dick came and broke the Colledge glasse windowes and Doctor Perne (being then either for himself or Deputie Vice Chancellour) caused him to be fetcht in and set in the Stockes till the Shew was ended and a great part of the night after."
This tells a less sombre tale, and when Nash begins to be scurrilous about John Harvey, the third brother, and records "the olde reakes hee kept with the wenches in Queenes Colledge Lane" (how strangely places retain their character!), the tale becomes less sombre still.
The Queen, too, would make journeys with royal visitors to the University, as in 1566, when Stowe tells with pride that she made "on the sodain an oration in Latin to the whole universitie of Oxford in the presence of the Spanish ambassadors;" so that neither university would be out of touch with the great world. Nor did the undergraduates keep at the same respectful distance from royalty that they are wont to now, as another delightful story of Nash about Harvey shows, who when the Court was at Audley End came "ruffling it out huffty-tuffty on his suite of velvet, to doo his countrey more worship and glory." He disputed with the courtiers and maids of honour, and at last was brought to kiss the Queen's hand, and the Queen was pleased to say that he looked like an Italian, a compliment from which he never quite recovered.
So there would be much to occupy the thoughts and attention of an ordinary boy of sixteen. But Ralegh in a year was ripe for other things, and left Oxford for the wars in France. The opportunity came through his kinsman, Henry Champernoun, son of John Champernoun of Modbury, his mother's eldest brother, raising a company of gentlemen to fight on the Huguenot side: and Ralegh took the opportunity of active service.
Very interesting are the steps in a great man's life. Chance seems to play so small a part. The instinct to get the most out of his personality becomes the conscious effort to which perhaps a great man chiefly owes his greatness.
Precisely in this way is the boy the father of the man, and Ralegh's life is a pregnant example of it. He had, of course, no serious motive for leaving Oxford. He longed for fighting and adventures, and seized without a thought on the reckless impulse that led him to the wars, laughing probably at the sad head-shaking of his staid tutors. But he had learned how to learn: and his passion for life never damped his passion for knowledge, and impulse led him to the discipline which his nature demanded. The stern discipline and hardship of war were wanted to impress him, while still pliant, with the proper value of things by showing him with war's crude force the bare facts of life and death and human nature.
The strength and ability of the body told in those times, when man dealt directly with man, and encountered nature at closer quarters than he need now do, when her forces are fended off him and controlled for his use in ways then only dreamed of. Being weaker, men were rougher and more cruel.
That is manifest in the punishments of the Government. Executions were public. There was no other means for making the punishment known than by making the punishment visible. A man paid for trespass against the laws by disfigurement of his body—by branding on the forehead or palm, by loss of ear or hand: any one dangerous, or who threatened danger to the order with such difficulty established,