SOURCE: "The Judicious Historian," in Sir Walter Ralegh: A Study in Elizabethan Skepticism, Columbia University Press, 1951, pp. 254-75.

In the following excerpt, Strathmann examines the considerable fluctuations in Raleigh's reputation during his lifetime and on into the twentieth century, focusing on the History and Raleigh's alleged atheism.

Informations are often false, records not always true, and notorious actions commonly insufficient to discover the passions which did set them first on foot. (History, II, xxi, 6)

The chronicle of Ralegh's fame and disrepute, in Chapter II, stops with his imprisonment for treason in 1603, although a number of later allusions have been cited for their bearing upon specific problems in the interpretation of his writings. Some further samplings of opinion about him, especially in the century after his death, will be helpful both in concluding this survey of his thought and influence and in evaluating recent theories about his association with...