een hours of the twenty-four, he is said by Shirley to have reduced
his sleeping hours to five. He was thus able to devote four to study,
beside two for conversation. He loved research; and his name is in a
list of members of the Society of Antiquaries formed by Archbishop
Parker, which, though subsequently dissolved, was the precursor of the
present learned body bearing the name. In the Tower he could read
without stint. He possessed a fair library. From the company of his
books, writes Sir John Harington, he drew more true comfort than ever
from his courtly companions in their chiefest bravery.

[Sidenote: _Care for Accuracy._]

Formerly, his reading necessarily had been desultory. For his History it
had to be concentrated. He distrusted the exactness of his information,
and was willing to accept advice freely. For criticism, Greek, Mosaic,
Oriental and remoter antiquities, he consulted the learned Robert
Burhill. Hariot had since 1606 been lodging or boarding in the Tower at
the charge of the munificent Earl of Northumberland. He, Hues, and
Warner were the Earl's 'three magi.' For chronology, mathematics, and
geography, Ralegh relied upon him. 'Whenever he scrupled anything in
phrase or diction,' he would refer his doubt to that accomplished
serjeant-at-law, John Hoskyns or Hoskins. Hoskyns, now remembered, if at
all, by some poor little epigrams, belongs to the class of paragons of
one age, whose excellence later ages have to take on trust. He is
described by an admirer as the most ingenious and admired poet of his
time. Wotton loved his company. Ben Jonson considered him his 'father'
in literature: ''Twas he that polished me.' In the summer of 1614 he
became, in consequence of a speech in the House of Commons, Ralegh's
fellow prisoner. He is said to have revised the History before it went
to press. Ralegh's intense desire to secure accuracy, his avowal of it,
and its notoriety, have given occasion for charges against his title to
the credit of the total result. Ben Jonson and Algernon Sidney are the
only independent authorities for the calumny. But it has been caught up
by other writers, especially by Isaac D'Israeli, who seems to have
thought charges brought, as Mr. Bolton Corney showed, on the flimsiest
evidence, of an impudent assumption of false literary plumage, in no way
inconsistent with fervid admiration for the alleged pretender.

[Sidenote: _Borrowed Learning._]

Ben Jonson was associated incidentally