SIR WALTER RALEGH , • - [To the Editor of
THE SPECTATOR.] " — - -
Sini—Dr.Harlow writes :, " Mr. Thompson's indignant reftisOl in his book to accept the idea that Ralegh, when hard pressed,
was given to prevarication indicates, I think,his 'general
line of: approach . few, if any, Elizabethans would have regarded such a statement as conveying a stignin The Anglo Saxons are almost unique in regarding veracity as a moral virtue,;_ and:-even among them the concept is of modern acceptance."
That seems, to me to paraphrase my own ,summing up (p. 364), that by the " tradition of truthfulness which distinguishes our race . . . Ralegh falls short. But that tradition has been British ' for a very brief period. It was not Elizabethan ; still less, infinitely less, was it Jacobean." On numerous occasions, I admit Ralegh's and his contemporaries' dis: honesty, on p. 81 remarking that he " lied with Elizabethan decision." As to my " indignant refusal," &c., it is on p. 304. " I owe too much to Mr. Harlow's invaluable study to want to criticize his criticisms of Ralegh. But I trust he will forgive a protest against building on such lapses, as this one an accusa- tion of ' an incurable habit of prevarication.' Ralegh was not superstition verax. But what Elizabethan was ? "
Ralegh's last voyage is too tangled a story to discuss here. I have never lost a chance of calling attention to Dr. Harlow's book on it, but I do think he takes over too readily opinions unfavourable to Ralegh—Corbett's of his seamanship, Gar- diner's of his character or even his poetical quality. Gardiner assumes, whenever there is conflict between Ralegh's word and that of his enemies, English or Spanish, that Ralegh is neces- sarily the liar. On the question of responsibility for the San Thome fightwhich is the sharpest disagreement between Dr. Ffarkiiv's book and inine-'—the knOwn faCtS se-6n to me best explained by not Making Ralegh the liar-in:chief and by his originil 'good faith. However, anyone who cares can compare our accounts and decide for hirnself whether Dr. Harlow is justified in picking out Ralegh Ws-notable=in King James's heyday—for " an 'incurable habit of prevarica- tion."Hyotlis faithfully,
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