The first sentence of the History should be read aloud with a great voice in a cathedral.
"God, whom the wisest men acknowledge to be a Power uneffable and vertue infinite, a Light by abundant charitie invisible; an Understanding which itself can only comprehend, an essence eternal and spiritual, of absolute purenesse and simplicitie; was and is pleased to make himself knowne by the work of the World: in the wonderful magnitude whereof (all which Hee imbraceth, filleth, and sustayneth) we behold the Image of that glorie which cannot be measured, and withall that one and yet universal Nature, which cannot be defined. In the glorious Lights of Heaven, we perceive a shadow of his divine Countenance; in his mercifull provision for all that live, his manifold goodness, and lastly in creating and making existent the World universall, by the absolute Arte of his owne Word, his Power and Almightinesse; which Power Light Vertue Wisdome and Goodnesse, being all but attributes of one simple Essence and one God, we in all admire, and in part discern, per speculam creaturaram, that is in the disposition, order, and varietie of Celestiall and Terrestriall bodies: Terrestriall, in their strange and manifold diversities: Celestiall in their beautie and magnitude; which in their continuall and contrary motions are neither repugnant, intermixt nor confounded. By these potent effects we approch to the knowledge of the Omnipotent cause, and by these motions, their Almightie mover."
The History is based upon a fallacy; but the History is written in great prose—the prose of Ralegh. Even when the subject comes from remote authorities on antedeluvian epochs, it is shaped and filled with perpetual life by contact with the great living personality of Ralegh. Error in life or art matters little. It is vitality that matters.
Mr. Edmund Gosse remarks that "the entire absence of humour is characteristic.... The story of Periander's burning the clothes of the women closes with a jest; there is, perhaps, no other occasion on which the solemn historian is detected with a smile upon his lips." The remark is almost as astounding as that of Mr. Edwards, who, after a careful summary of the History, is obliged to say, "The three or four thousand pages of the History of the World contain, I believe, no line or word within which there lies the tiniest spark of prurient suggestion." Mr. Edwards is, of course, pleased at this; but there is no reason for Mr. Gosse's lament. Ralegh did not write with the continual bubble of humour which makes the Church History of Great Britain (of all impossible subjects) endeavoured by that inimitable old Thomas Fuller, one of the wittiest and most readable books in the language. Humour constantly occurs. Two instances in one paragraph are quite unforgetable. It is the fourth paragraph of the twenty-third chapter of the second book of the first part of the History (what portentous dimensions the book has!).
"Touching all that was said before of Phul Belosus, for the proving that Phul and Belosus were not sundry Kings, Joseph Scaliger pities their ignorance that have spent their labour to little purpose. Honest and painefull men he confesseth that they were, who by their diligence might have won the good liking of their Readers had they not by mentioning Annius his Authors given such offence that men refused thereupon to reade their Bookes and Chronologies. A short answere.
"For mine owne part, howsoever, I believe nothing that Annius his Berosus, Metasthenes, and others of that stampe affirme, in respect of their bare authority; yet am I not so squeamish, but that I can well enough digest a good Booke, though I finde the wordes of one or two of these good fellows alleaged in it: I have (somewhat peradventure too often) already spoken my mind of Annius, his Authors.... Neither indeed are those honest and painfull men (as Scaliger tearmes them, meaning if I mistake him not; good silly fellowes) who set down the Assyrian Kings from Pul forwards as Lords also of Babylon, taking Pul for Belosus and Salmanassar for Nabonassar, such writers as a man should be ashamed or unwilling to reade."
In such a passage even a student of Ralegh can see not only his lips smile, but his eyes twinkle with humour, which is a characteristic of their solemn historian. And he ends the paragraph by recounting a singularly pertinent and amusing jest.
"Therefore the fictions (or let them be called conjectures) painted in Maps doe serve only to mislead such discoverers as rashly beleeve them; drawing upon the publishers eyther some angry curses or well deserved scorne.... To which purpose I remember a pretie jest of Don Pedro de Sarmiento, a worthy Spanish Gentleman who had been employed by his King in planting a Colonie upon the Streights of Magellan; for when I asked him being then my Prisoner, some question about an Island in those Streights which me thought, might have done eyther benefit or displeasure to his enterprise, he told me merrily that it was to be called the Painters Wives Island; saying That whilest the fellow drew that Map, his Wife sitting by, desired to put in one Countrey for her; that she, in imagination might have an island of her owne. But in filling up the blankes of old Histories, wee need not be so scrupulous. For it is not to be feared that time should runne backward, and by restoring the things themselves to knowledge, make our conjectures appeare ridiculous...."
But the great work was never brought to an end. The first immense half of it, however, was finished, and that half is equal in bulk to about thirty modern novels. Many traditions survive as to the reason which caused Ralegh to discontinue his task. One is that Burr, the publisher, complained of the loss which the production of the first folio involved, and that Ralegh instantly laid hands on the heap of manuscript which lay on the table before him and, laying it on the fire, pushed it deep into the red embers with his foot, saying that no man should be the loser through his work. Another is (and this commends itself to the imagination of M. Anatole France) that Ralegh saw from his window two men fighting in the courtyard below; that he asked the cause of the quarrel and that, when two eye-witnesses gave him two essentially different accounts, he was so overcome with the mystery that must ever surround all truth, that he thereupon destroyed the remaining manuscript of his History. These stories are interesting but not authentic enough to carry any weight against the reason which Ralegh himself gives for leaving his work unfinished, though they may possibly be reckoned among the discouragements which he mentions. For these are his words:
"Lastly whereas this book by the title it hath, calls itselfe, The first part of Generall Historie of the World, implying a Second and Third Volume; which I also intended and have hewne out; besides many other discouragements perswading my silence; it hath pleased God to take that glorious Prince out of the world, to whom they were directed, whose unspeakable and never enough lamented losse hath taught mee to say with Job Versa est in luctum Cithara mea, et Organum meum in vocem flentium."