SOURCE: An Introduction to Sir Walter Ralegh: Selected Writings, Carcanet Press, 1984, pp. 7-20.

In the following introduction to his edition of Raleigh's selected works, Hammond underscores the essentially pessimistic tone of Raleigh's writings and describes the stylistic features of his poetry and prose.

Sir Walter Ralegh was a bad walker and did not know Hebrew.¹ These two readily admitted deficiencies apart, it is difficult to think of any other large limitations to his achievement or ambition. He was soldier, scholar, horseman, and much else: father of the idea of the British Empire; chemist and alchemist; patron of poets, and yet a fine enough poet himself to rival any he patronized; prize courtier of England's greatest monarch, but a hero of the republican generation after his death; introducer of the potato to Ireland and tobacco to England; a founder of modern historical writing; explorer; ship-designer; naval and military strategist...