ed by the writer elsewhere. It is memorable
for a fine burst of indignation at the denial by some men that women
possess souls, and for several marvellous subtleties. For instance, the
necessity of the theory that man begets soul as well as body, is alleged,
since the contrary is said to involve the blasphemous absurdity that God
assists adultery by having to bestow souls upon its fruits. In the Oxford
edition of Ralegh's works, _A Discourse of Tenures which were before the
Conquest_ is also included. So versatile was Ralegh that he has thus been
assumed to have even amassed the lore of a black-letter lawyer. Its
authenticity nevertheless does not seem to have been questioned. That of
the _Life and Death of Mahomet_ has been, and on very sufficient grounds.
The _Dutiful Advice of a Loving Son to his Aged Father_ falls within a
different category. It is not more likely than Steele's counterfeit letter
in the _Englishman_ to Prince Henry against the phrase 'God's Vicegerent,'
or Bolingbroke's attacks, in Ralegh's name, upon Walpole in the _Craftsman
Extraordinary_, to have been put forth with any notion that it would be
believed to be his. Some editors have supposed it to be a libel upon him by
an enemy. Any reader who peruses it dispassionately will see that it is
sufficiently reverent pleading against the postponement of repentance to
the hour of death, written by an admirer of Ralegh's style, with no purpose
either of ridicule or of imposture.

[Sidenote: _Posthumous Publications._]

Dissertations which were undoubtedly his circulated in manuscript, and
were printed posthumously, if ever. _A Report of the Truth of the Fight
about the Isles of Azores_, the _Discovery of Guiana_, and the _History
of the World_, alone of his many prose writings appeared in his
lifetime. The _Prerogative of Parliaments in England_ was not published
till 1628, and then first at Middleburg. Milton had the _Arts of Empire_
printed for the first time in 1658, under the title of _The Cabinet
Council, by the ever-renowned Knight Sir Walter Ralegh_. Dr. Brushfield,
in his excellent _Ralegh Bibliography_, suggests that Wood may have
meant this essay by the _Aphorisms of State_, to which he alludes as
having been published in 1661 by Milton, and as identical with _Maxims
of State_. Others of his writings have disappeared altogether. David
Lloyd, in his _Observations on the Statesmen and Favourites of England_,
published in 1665, states that John Ha