Excerpt from Sir Walter Ralegh: The Stanhope Essay, 1897 There are certain characters apparent on the page of history which at a first glance seem to be treated with scant justice or with an extravagant kindliness. We find them dismissed with a curt note, assigned to a very little niche in the house of fame, and branded as insignificant: in which case we are left to wonder at the extraordinary and dispro portioned vitality of such reputations in the popular mind. Or, again, it may happen that out of deference to fame they are treated at immoderate length, till we feel the compara tive smallness of their actual achievement, when added to the lengthy narration of their lives, to be something in the nature of an anti-climax. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.