erest as marking a stage in the
development of English fiction.

"RAINE, ALLEN" (MRS. BEYNON PUDDICOMBE).--Novelist. _A Welsh Singer_
(1897), _Tom Sails_ (1898), _A Welsh Witch_ (1901), _Queen of the Rushes_
(1906), etc.

RALEIGH, SIR WALTER (1552?-1618).--Explorer, statesman, admiral,
historian, and poet, _s._ of Walter R., of Fardel, Devonshire, was _b._
at Hayes Barton in that county. In 1568 he was sent to Oxf., where he
greatly distinguished himself. In the next year he began his career of
adventure by going to France as a volunteer in aid of the Huguenots,
serving thereafter in the Low Countries. The year 1579 saw him engaged in
his first voyage of adventure in conjunction with his half-brother, Sir
Humphrey Gilbert. Their object was to discover and settle lands in North
America; but the expedition failed, chiefly owing to opposition by the
Spaniards. The next year he was fighting against the rebels in Ireland;
and shortly thereafter attracted the notice of Queen Elizabeth, in whose
favour he rapidly rose. In 1584 he fitted out a new colonising expedition
to North America, and succeeded in discovering and occupying Virginia,
named after the Queen. On his return he was knighted. In the dark and
anxious days of the Armada, 1587-88, R. was employed in organising
resistance, and rendered distinguished service in action. His favour with
the Queen, and his haughty bearing, had, however, been raising up enemies
and rivals, and his intrigue and private marriage with Elizabeth
Throckmorton, one of the maids of honour, in 1593, lost him for a time
the favour of the Queen. Driven from the Court he returned to the schemes
of adventure which had so great a charm for him, and fired by the Spanish
accounts of the fabulous wealth of Guiana, he and some of his friends
fitted out an expedition which, however, though attended with various
brilliant episodes, proved unsuccessful. Restored to the favour of the
Queen, he was appointed an Admiral in the expeditions to Cadiz, 1596, and
in the following year was engaged in an attack on the Azores, in both of
which he added greatly to his reputation. The death of Elizabeth in 1603
was the turning point in R.'s fortunes. Thenceforward disaster clouded
his days. The new sovereign and his old enemies combined to compass his
ruin. Accused of conspiring against the former he was, against all
evidence, sentenced to death, and though this was not at the time carried
out, he was imprisoned in