A chapter
with such a caption as the following would hardly be found in a
universal history nowadays: "Of their opinion which make Paradise as
high as the moon; and of others which make it higher than the middle
regions of the air." The preface and conclusion are noble examples of
Elizabethan prose, and the book ends with an oft-quoted apostrophe to
Death. "O eloquent, just and mighty Death! Whom none could advise, thou
hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the
world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised;
thou hast drawn together all the far-fetched greatness, all the pride,
cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two
narrow words, _hic jacet_."
Although so busy a man, Raleigh found time to be a poet. Spenser calls
him "the summer's nightingale," and George Puttenham, in his _Art of
English Poesy_ (1589), finds his "vein most lofty, insolent, and
passionate." Puttenham used _insolent_ in its old sense, _uncommon_; but
this description is hardly less true, if we accept the word in its
modern meaning. Raleigh's most notable verses, _The Lie_, are a
challenge to the world, inspired by indignant pride and the weariness of
life--the _saeva indignatio_ of Swift.
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