It may seem surprising, and even incredible, to the modern critic, that men in this position should find any occasion to conceal their relation to those quite respectable contributions to the literature of the time, which they found themselves impelled to make. The fact that they did so, is one that we must accept, however, on uncontradicted cotemporary testimony, and account for it as we can. The critic who published his criticisms when 'the gentleman who wrote the late Shepherd's Calendar' was just coming into notice, however inferior to our modern critics in other respects, had certainly a better opportunity of informing himself on this point, than they can have at present. 'They have writ excellently well,' _he_ says of this company of Poets,--this 'courtly company,' as he calls them,--' they have writ excellently well, _if their doings could be found out and made public with the rest_.' _Sir Philip Sidney, Raleigh,_ and the gentleman who wrote the late Shepherd's Calendar, are included in the list of Poets to whom this remark is applied. It is Raleigh's verse which is distinguished, however, in this commendation as the most 'lofty, insolent, and passionate;' a description which applies to the anonymous poems alluded to, but is not particularly applicable to those artificial and tame performances which he was willing to acknowledge. And this so commanding Poet, who was at the same time an aspiring courtier and meddler in affairs of state, and who chose, for some mysterious reason or other, to forego the honours which those who were in the secret of his literary abilities and successes,--the very best judges of poetry in that time, too, were disposed to accord him,--and we are not without references to cases in antiquity corresponding very nearly to this; and which seemed to furnish, at least, a sufficient precedent for this proceeding;--this so successful poet, and courtier, and great man of his time, was already in a position to succeed at once to that chair of literary patronage which the death of Sir Philip Sidney had left vacant. Instinctively generous, he was ready to serve the literary friends whom he attracted to him, not less lavishly than he had served the proud Queen herself, when he threw his gay cloak in her obstructed path,--at least, he was not afraid of risking those sudden splendours which her favour was then showering upon him, by wearying her with petitions on their behalf. He would have risked his new favour, at least with his 'Cynthia,'--that twin sister of Phoebus Apollo,--to make her the patron, if not the inspirer of the Elizabethan genius. 'When will you cease to be a beggar, Raleigh?' she said to him one day, on one of these not infrequent occasions. 'When your Majesty ceases to be a most gracious mistress,' was this courtier's reply. It is recorded of her, that 'she loved to hear his reasons to her demands.'