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But it was not by his energy that Raleigh alone distinguished himself. The young Protestant volunteer, and the American adventurer would long since have been forgotten among a host of compeers, had not he presented far higher claims to the notice of posterity. “Raleigh was one of those rare men who seem qualified to excel in all pursuits alike; and his talents were set off by an extraordinary laboriousness, and capacity of application. (I II). As a navigator, soldier, statesman, and historian, his name is intimately and honourably linked with one of the most brilliant periods of British history.”^[18]

Sir Walter Raleigh occupies a distinguished place in literature, both as a poet and an historian. It is probable that only a small portion of his poetry has come down to us. He seems to have regarded it but lightly himself, and many very beautiful pieces, which there is no reason to doubt owe their origin to his creative brain, are without name, and only preserved in some obscure miscellaneous collections, under the modest signature ‘Ignoto.’ One of these, sometimes entitled “The Lie,” and sometimes “The Soul’s Errand,” is as beautiful, as Christian, and as philosophic a poem as any in the language; yet so little pains did he take to secure to himself the literary fame of the words with which he had relieved his labouring soul, that it has been attributed to divers poetasters, and, among others, to that most wretched inharmonious scribe, Joshua Sylvester.