It is not our purpose here to dwell upon Raleigh's masterpiece. From the
preface of the _History of the World,_ which opens with 'the boundless
ambition of mortal man,' to the epilogue which closes up the work with
the glorious triumph of Death, the whole book is replete with lessons of
wisdom and warning. No one can rise from its perusal without perceiving
that the modern author has made himself by apt illustration an
accomplished actor in ancient history, while the ancient characters are
made in their vera effigies to strut on modern stages. His pictures of
great actions and great men, noble deeds and nobler princes, are drawn
with such masterly perspective of truth, that they serve for all time ;
while his portraiture of tyrants, villains, and dishonorable characters
are no less lifelike and human. One marvels not therefore that King
James, whose political creed was that the people are bound to princes by
iron, and princes to the people by cobwebs, should see in Raleigh's
portraiture of the upright kings no likeness to himself, but had no
difficulty in recognizing in the deformed greatness and selfish virtues
of the old monarchs qualities suggestive of himself and his favorites.
This grand history, extending from the creation over the four great
monarchies of the world, near four thousand years, closes with the final
triumph of Emilius Paullus in these memorable and oft-repeated words
from the first edition of 1614.

Kings and Princes have alwayes laid before them, the actions, but not
the ends, of those great Ones which precededthem. They are alwayes
transported with the glorie of the one, but they never minde the miserie
of the other, till they finde the experience themselves. They neglect
the advice of God, while they enioy life, or hope it; but they follow
the counsell of Death, upon his first approach. It is he that puts into
man all the wisdome of the world, without speaking a word ; which God