Page:Sir Walter Raleigh by Thoreau, Henry David,.djvu/46

 in a handsome and well-compacted person;" that "he was a tall, handsome, and bold man;" and his "was thought a very good face," though "his countenance was somewhat spoiled by the unusual height of his forehead." "He was such a person (every way), that (as King Charles I says of the Lord Strafford) a prince would rather be afraid of, than ashamed of," and had an "awfulness and ascendency in his aspect over other mortals;" and we are not disappointed to learn that he indulged in a splendid dress, and "notwithstanding his so great mastership in style, and his conversation with the learnedest and politest persons, yet he spake broad Devonshire to his dying day."

Such a character as this was well suited to the time in which he lived. His age was an unusually stirring one. The discovery of America and the successful progress of the Reformation opened a field for both the intellectual and physical energies of his generation. The fathers of his age were Calvin and Knox, and Cranmer, and Pizarro, and Garcilaso; and its immediate forefathers were Luther