Earle's chief title to remembrance is his witty and humorous work, "Microcosmographie", or a "Peece of the World discovered, in Essayes and Characters", which throws light on the manners of the time. First published anonymously in 1628, it became very popular, and ran through ten editions in the lifetime of the author. The style is quaint and epigrammatic: "A university dunner is a gentlemen follower cheaply purchased, for his own money has hyr'd him." Several reprints of the book have been issued since the author's death; and in 1671 a French translation by James Dymocke appeared with the title of "Le Vice ridicule". Earle was employed by Charles II to make the Latin translation of the "Eikon Basilike", published in 1649. A similar translation of Richard Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity" was accidentally destroyed.