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_." James did not like the History. He did not consider that Ralegh bated his breath sufficiently when writing of kings, who obtained their power, in his opinion, directly from a divine source. And he went farther in his dislike. For into what Ralegh had written of kings and men, long dead, he read criticisms against himself and his favourites; and these he could ill brook. James, like most cruel men, was sensitive, but he was "sensitive within alone, Inly only thrilling shrewd;" where others were concerned, he was, as is seen in his treatment of Ralegh, hard, "scaly as in clefts of pine."