In life and in literature a fiery and indefatigable adventurer, his productions, from sonnets and the long, and for the most part lost poem, "Cynthia" (on Elizabeth) to tracts on practical points; accounts of voyages and of South America, and the gigantic" History of the World," give proof of extraordinary energy and fertility. His description of the glorious fight of "The Revenge," and the death of Sir Richard Grenville (published in 1596) can never be forgotten. In 1596 appeared, too, his account of his first exploration (1595) of Guiana, with a description of "the great and golden City of Manoa,"--a mirage. On the death of Elizabeth, James I, on grounds of not unnatural if baseless suspicion, imprisoned Raleigh in the Tower, where he was well treated enough, and, with what amount of aid from collaborators is uncertain (Ben Jonson said that he had much) but, in any case with portentous industry, Raleigh compiled his "History of the World," from the creation to 130 B.C. The book (1614-1615) had a very great popularity: even the Puritans read it with admiration. There was then no such world-history in English, and though, as history, it is now obsolete of course; it is admired for its vigour, for the character it displays, and the personal observations suggested by the author's wide experience of men; and above all for occasional passages of lofty eloquence, and the organ-tones of a magnificent style, as in the famous address to Death. The capacities of style in original work had never so been exemplified in English, though such examples are but occasional. Raleigh's very title in "The Prerogative of Parliaments" was offensive to the king, who doted on the prerogative of princes, and the book was not printed till after Raleigh's execution, following his return from his second expedition to Guiana. He also wrote tracts on War in general, on "The Navy and Sea Service," on "Trade and Commerce," on "A War with Spain" (the last thing that James desired), on "The Arts of Empire" (published by Milton, 1658, as "The Cabinet Council") and doubtless much is lost of the 3452 sheets of Raleigh's writing which John Hampden was having transcribed before the Great Rebellion. More than Bacon, Raleigh tuned the language of "lofty, insolent, and passionate English prose": these terms were applied by Puttenham ("Art of English Poesie") to Raleigh's "dittie and amorous ode". "Insolent," of course, means here "out of the common". Overbury.