were all arenas of
glory to him--but he was infinitely happier by his own fireside, in
recalling the spirits of the great in the history of his country--nay, was
even more contented in the gloom of his ill-deserved prison, with the
volume of genius or the book of life before him, than in the most animating
successes of the battle-field.

"The event which clouded his prosperity and destroyed his influence with
the queen--his marriage with Elizabeth Throgmorton--was the one upon which
he most prided himself; and justly, too--for, if ever woman was created the
companion, the solace of man--if ever wife was deemed the dearest thing of
earth to which earth clings, that woman was his wife. Not merely in the
smiles of the court did her smiles make a world of sunshine to her Raleigh;
not merely when the destruction of the Armada made her husband's name
glorious; not merely when his successes and his discoveries on the ocean
made his presence longed for at the palace, did she interweave her best
affections with the lord of her heart. It was in the hour of adversity she
became his dearest companion, his 'ministering angel;' and when the gloomy
walls of the accursed Tower held all her empire of love, how proudly she
owned her sovereignty! Not even before the feet of her haughty mistress, in
her prayerful entreaties for her dear Walter's life, did she so eminently
shine forth in all the majesty of feminine excellence as when she guided
his counsels in the dungeon, and nerved his mind to the trials of the
scaffold, where, in his manly fortitude, his noble self-reliance, the
people, who mingled their tears with his triumph, saw how much the patriot
was indebted to the woman.

"Were there no other language but that of simple, honest affection, what a
world of poetry would remain to us in the universe of love! You may be
excited to sorrow for his fate by recalling the varied incidents of his
attractive life: you may mourn over the ruins of his chapel at his native
village: you may weep over the fatal result of his ill-starred patriotism:
you may glow over his successes in the field or on the wave: your lip may
curl with scorn at the miserable jealousy of Elizabeth: your eye may kindle
with wrath at the pitiful tyranny of James--but how will your sympathies be
so awakened as by reading his last, simple, touching letter to his wife.

"'You receive, my dear wife, my last words, in these my last lines. My
love, I send you that yo