It is in passages like this, where we read the satire between the lines, and in those occasional fragments of autobiography to which we have already referred in the course of this narrative, that the secondary charm of the _History of the World_ resides. It is to these that we turn when we have exhausted our first surprise and delight at the great bursts of poetic eloquence, the long sonorous sentences which break like waves on the shore, when the spirit of the historian is roused by some occasional tempest of reflection. In either case, the book is essentially one to glean from, not to read with consecutive patience. Real historical philosophy is absolutely wanting. The author strives to seem impartial by introducing, in the midst of an account of the slaughter of the Amalekites, a chapter on 'The Instauration of Civility in Europe, and of Prometheus and Atlas;' but his general notions of history are found to be as rude as his comparative mythology. He scarcely attempts to sift evidence, and next to Inspiration he knows no guide more trustworthy than Pintus or Haytonus, a Talmudic rabbi or a Jesuit father. In the midst of his disquisitions, the reward of the continuous reader is to come suddenly upon an unexpected 'as I myself have seen in America,' or 'as once befell me also in Ireland.'
Another historical work, the _Breviary of the History of England_, has been claimed for Sir Walter Raleigh. This book was first published in 1692, from a manuscript in the possession of Archbishop Sancroft, and, as it would appear, in Raleigh's handwriting. Before its publication, however, the Archbishop had noted that 'Samuel Daniel hath inserted into his _History of England_ [1618], almost word for word, both the Introduction and the Life; whence it is that you have sometimes in the margin of my copy a various reading with "D" after it.' Daniel, a gentle and subservient creature, was the friend of Camden, and a paid servant of Queen Anne, during Raleigh's imprisonment. He died a few months after Raleigh's execution. It is very likely that he was useful to Raleigh in collecting notes and other material. It may even have been his work for the interesting prisoner in the Tower that caused Jonson's jealous dislike of Daniel. The younger poet's own account, as Mr. Edwards pointed out, by no means precludes the supposition that he used material put together by another hand. At the same time Sancroft's authority cannot be considered final as regards Raleigh's authorship of the _Breviary_, for the manuscript did not come into his hands until nineteen years after Raleigh's death.
