At length he fixed on Sir Walter Raleigh as his hero.

On this he worked with all the assiduity that his militia life allowed, read a great quantity of original documents relating to it, and, after some months of labour, declared that "his subject opened upon him, and in general improved upon a nearer prospect." But half a year later he "is afraid he will have to drop his hero." And he covers half a page with reasons to persuade himself that he was right in doing so.

Besides the obvious one that he would be able to add little that was not already accessible in Oldys' _Life of Raleigh_, that the topic was exhausted, and so forth, he goes on to make these remarks, which have more signification to us now than perhaps they had to him when he wrote them.

"Could I even surmount these obstacles, I should shrink with terror from the modern history of England, where every character is a problem and every reader a friend or an enemy: when a writer is supposed to hoist a flag of party, and is devoted to damnation by the adverse faction.

Such would be _my_ reception at home; and abroad the historian of Raleigh must encounter an indifference far more bitter than censure or reproach.