The History of the World (Raleigh)

[1] Raleigh intended to write more volumes relating the rise and fall of the great empires, but his release in 1615, his expedition to Guiana, and his execution in 1618, prevented the accomplishment of his plan.

[2] According to Edmund Gosse, "This huge composition is one of the principal glories of seventeenth-century literature, and takes a very prominent place in the history of English prose.

[2] It was his ambition to relate the successive fortunes of the four great empires of the world, by way of a preface to the History of England; but his release from imprisonment in 1615, his expedition to Guiana, and his execution in 1618, prevented the accomplishment of his plan.

It is not easy to sympathise with a historian who confutes Steuchius Eugubinus and Goropius Becanus at great length, especially as those flies now exist only in the amber of their opponent.

It is heavy and slow in movement, the true historical spirit, as we now conceive it, is absent, and it would probably baffle most readers to pursue its attenuated thread of entertainment down to the triumph of Emilius Paulus.