Page:Sir Walter Raleigh by Thoreau, Henry David,.djvu/74

 he is said to have been a great chemist, and studied most in his sea voyages, "when he carried always a trunk of books along with him, and had nothing to divert him," and when also he carried his favorite pictures. In the Tower, too, says one, "he doth spend all the day in distillations;" and that this was more than a temporary recreation appears from the testimony of one who says he was operator to him for twelve years. Here also "he conversed on poetry, philosophy, and literature with Hoskins, his fellow-prisoner," whom Ben Jonson mentions as "the person who had polished him." He was a political economist far in advance of his age, and a sagacious and influential speaker in the House of Commons. Science is indebted to him in more ways than one. In the midst of pressing public cares he interested himself to establish some means of universal communication between men of science for their mutual benefit, and actually set up what he termed "An office of address" for this purpose. As a mathematician, he was the friend of Harriot, Dee, and the Earl of Northumberland. As an