_Addressed:_ To his especiall good friend

Mr. THO : HARRYOT at Sion neere London.

About this time, it is understood, Raleigh took up seriously and
earnestly the great literary work of his life, _The History of the
World._ It must have been brewing in his mind for years, for in his
preface he expressed the fears he had entertained 'that the darkness of
age and death would have overtaken him long before the performance.' The
work, according to Camden, was published in April 1614, just before the
meeting of Parliament. It appeared anonymously, and for obvious reasons
was not entered at Stationers' Hall. James is said to have had his
conscience so pricked by certain passages which everywhere pervade the
work on the power, conduct and responsibility of princes, that strenuous
efforts were made in January 1615 to call in and suppress it, but the
king might as well have attempted to call back a departed spirit by Act
of Parliament as to call in that ' History of the World' by royal
proclamation. The Book was in type and in the hands of the people of
England. It could therefore no more be suppressed at that day by
princely power than could manifest destiny itself. The second edition of
1621 was the first with Raleigh's name.

This grand work, which in almost everychapter shows the masterly hand of
Raleigh himself, needs no comment here. It is however no disparagement
of the book (but the contrary) to say that in the collection,
arrangement and condensation of its materials; that in unlocking the
muniment room of antiquity and perusing the chief authors of the Greek
and Latin classics from Heroditus to Livy and Eusebius, covering a
period of near four thousand years, he must have had at cheerful beck