SIR WALTER RALEIGH. I? 



shire, that Raleigh first saw the light of 

 day. He grew up in the country, from 

 babyhood to his teens, and into them, as 

 other boys do. He loved outdoors, play, 

 study. He was as adventurous as Clive 

 who, later on, gave England India; but 

 unlike Clive, he had his poetic days and 

 nights. Clive was all adventure, bold- 

 ness, recklessness, and business ; Raleigh 

 was all these except the latter. More- 

 over, he was a student and a lover of 

 poetry. 



Raleigh was educated at Oxford, and, 

 at the age of seventeen, when most Eng- 

 lish boys are going home for the holidays, 

 roast goose and apple sauce, plum pud- 

 ding and 'alf-an'-'alf, he began his me- 

 teor-like career, as a volunteer in the 

 cause of the French Protestants. For 

 more than five years he fought in the 

 Continental wars, and at the age of 

 twenty-four he joined his half-brother, 

 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in a voyage to 

 North America. In 1578, two years 



