looking down; "but it was where my best is due, and that is in your Majesty's service."

The queen paused, and then said hastily: "You are very young to have fought so well and to speak so well. Now hark ye, Master Raleigh, see thou fail not to wear thy muddy cloak, till our pleasure be further known. And here," she added, giving him a jewel of gold in the form of a chessman, “I give thee this to wear at the collar."

Raleigh, to whom nature had taught those courtly arts which many scarce acquire from long experience, knelt, and as he took from her hand the jewel, kissed the fingers which

Sir Walter Raleigh (Raw'li), 1552– 1618. An English courtier, officer, colonizer, historian, and poet. He was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. But on the accession of James I, Raleigh was imprisoned as a traitor to the king, and was finally executed, in 1618. Elizabeth, Queen of England, 1558

1603. She was a woman of great ability and enterprise, and was devoted to her people. Her reign is famous for commercial prosperity and literary power. ret'i nue, band of attendants. bode, to give promise of. cav a lier', a knight.

King of the elements. People once called air, earth, water, and fire

gave

it.

"the four elements." The "king of the elements," then, is fire. Here the phrase refers to the sun. cai'tiff, a mean, low fellow; a wretch. hal'berd, a long-handled weapon, of

which the head had a point and several long, sharp edges. pen'sion ers, an honorable band of gentlemen who attend the sovereign of England on state occasions, and receive an annual pension.

au'gu ry, a sign of the future; an

omen.

liege'man, a subject; one loyal to

his sovereign.

Shan'non, the largest river in Ireland.

years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books.

An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small book, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted.

After some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me to his library, and very kindly lent me such books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces. My brother, thinking it might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing occasional ballads.

One was called the "Lighthouse Tragedy," and contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters. The other was a sailor's song, on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard), the pirate. They were wretched stuff, in the Grub Street ballad style; and, when they were printed, he sent me about town to sell them. The first sold

wonderfully, the event being recent, having made a great noise.

This flattered my vanity; but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet-probably a very bad one; but as prose-writing has been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired what little ability I have in that way.

About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion

in

any

for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse, and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again.

I also sometimes jumbled my collection of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and complete the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterward with the original, I discovered many faults, and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language; and this encouraged me to think I might possibly, in time, come to be a tolerable English writer of which I was extremely ambitious.

My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a newspaper. It was the second that appeared in America, and was called the New England Courant. He had some ingenious men among his friends, who amused themselves by writing little pieces for this paper, which gained it credit and made it more in demand, and these gentlemen often visited us.

Hearing their conversation, and their accounts of