houlders, was but a sample of a storm of sarcasms upon the Government
which ran through the town. The anger displayed by Naunton and Villiers
a couple of years later at the appearance of so poor a satire as Captain
Gainsford's _Vox Spiritus, or Sir Walter Ralegh's Ghost_, which was
being circulated in manuscript, and their zeal in suppressing it,
testify to the durability of the alarm excited in the Court. It was no
momentary and evanescent impulse. Dean Tounson had written on November
9, of Ralegh's execution, that 'it left a great impression on the minds
of those that beheld him; inasmuch that Sir Lewis Stukely and the
Frenchman grow very odious. This was the news a week since; but now it
is blown over, and he almost forgotten.' The good Dean underrated the
solidity and reasonableness of English feeling. The nation might not
care to linger over creatures like Stukely and Manourie, even to
execrate them. Its grief for Ralegh was a lasting sentiment. A spectator
of his death declared that his Christian and truthful manner on the
scaffold made all believe that he was not guilty of treason nor of
malpractices. So sudden a conversion of the kingdom to faith in his
innocence and heroism would have been almost as irrational as the
original acquiescence without proof in his criminality, had it been as
abrupt as it seemed. It would have been as short-lived as Dean Tounson
anticipated, if its growth had been as gourd-like. In fact the nation
only at the instant ascertained the state of its mind. The mood itself
had been in course of formation for years.

[Sidenote: _Popular Forgetfulness._]

Ralegh, as we have seen, had been cordially detested in his day of
ascendency. All a reign's odium naturally condenses itself upon a royal
favourite. His elaborate courtesy did not produce the effect of
affability. His lavishness was thought ostentation. His good nature, for
he was good natured, had too much an air of condescension. The scorn of
rivals or his superiors in rank he met with scorn. His exploits by land
and sea, as impartial critics noted, heightened instead of pacifying
malignity. Later exposure to settled Court dislike blunted the edge of
popular enmity; it hardly turned it into kindness. The national attitude
towards Ralegh, downtrodden and harassed, long showed curiosity more
than affection. The kingdom wondered what he was doing, or would do.
Formerly it had believed, with repugnance, in his ability to extricate
himself f