COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



ing audience over oceans of cider. All these worthies have 

 long since passed away, but nature is still unchangeable. The 

 heavily-laden horsechestnut-trees bow before the gentle breeze 

 sweeping round the garden, and the Virginian creeper over 

 the windows reddens, as they may have done one summer 

 when shouts told far and wide that the Armada was in our 

 seas. 



Just such a house may be seen in a lane near Budleigh- 

 Salterton. Sir Walter Raleigh was born in it. Its projecting 

 porch and heavily-thatched gables have an old-world look about 

 them ; but on the whole it takes its fame as a matter of course, 

 and makes no great pretensions to be anything more than an 

 Elizabethan country house. The hills rise above it at the back, 

 stacks close in round it, you hear the cows lowing from the 

 " linneys," the garden is full of old-fashioned flowers, and a 

 genial atmosphere of peace hangs over it. The general features 

 of the place must have changed very little since Sir Walter 

 rambled about the quiet woodland ways which hem it in. Here 

 he cherished boundless dreams of El Dorado, galleons and in- 

 gots. Hayeswood in front and the hills behind must often 

 have seen him, like another Alexander, chafing at the narrow 

 horizon of his world. The first pipe smoked in England may 

 have been puffed on the mossy bank where you sit at present, 

 It is impossible to refrain from associating this calm spot with 

 the courtier's after-life. How often must he have turned in 

 fancy to this little homestead when fainting under a tropical 

 sun, or chafing as a prisoner in the Tower ! The mind, they 

 say, often revisits early scenes in the moments of death. Ra- 

 leigh may have seemed to hear the sheep bleat, and called up 

 in fancy the well-remembered outline of Hayes Farm against 

 yonder green hill-side, as he closed his eyes and laid his head 

 on the block. 



Expeditions to such famous spots should be undertaken if 

 possible during summer. Candour compels us to state that na 



