remarkable sagacity and determination in the choice of her chief officers of state which was one of her most striking characteristics. Many loyal Catholics who offered their services were, however, looked on with suspicion and not admitted to places of trust; but to their eternal honour be it said that they volunteered to serve as common soldiers or sailors rather than lose the opportunity of testifying to the fact that they considered themselves Englishmen first and Catholics afterwards, and were willing to sink their religious feelings in the face of a national

enemy.

So much then for the proposal itself and the means suggested for carrying it into effect.

We now come to consider very briefly some of the reasons why it appears desirable that such a commemoration should take place.

Charles Kingsley, a true son of Devon, who had an intense admiration for the great seamen of those glorious days, puts the matter very forcibly in his inimitable prose epic, Westward Ho! He says:

"It is to the sea-life and labour of the men of Devon that England owes the foundation of her naval and commercial glory. It was the Drakes and Hawkins, Gilberts and Raleighs, Grenviles and Oxenhams, and a host more of forgotten worthies, to whom she owes her commerce, her colonies, her very existence. For had they not first crippled, by their West India raids, the illgotten resources of the Spaniard, and then crushed his last huge effort in Britain's Salamis, the glorious fight of 1588, what had we been by now but a Popish appanage of a world tyranny as cruel as heathen Rome itself, and far more devilish?"

In the same work we are treated to a graphic picture of the scenes probably enacted on Plymouth Hoe on that eventful day when news was brought to the English captains there playing at bowls of the near approach of the Spaniards, which had been observed by Captain Fleming off the Lizard. Everybody has heard or read the story of that traditional game of bowls, and the characteristic speech of the blunt sailor, Drake "There is time to finish the game and beat the Spaniards afterwards." And most people have read Canon Kingsley's narrative, given in such a skilful manner and by such a masterly hand, that we are tempted to say as we read that thrilling chapter of Westward Ho!-Surely these things must be true; they must have happened just as they are here set forth, for there is a

freshness and a reality about them almost too natural to be the invention of a writer of fiction.

It may interest our readers to know that the writer of this article has proved, almost beyond question, the truth of this story of the game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe, an event so cleverly depicted in Lucas's fine painting, The Armada in Sight. Not relying upon hearsay evidence, and yet unwilling to give up old traditions which have been handed down from generation to generation, he has made search in some obscure corners of English literature, and with good results. In nearly every narrative of the Armada we find the story repeated. Oldys, in his Life of Ralegh, prefixed to Ralegh's History of the World (ed. 1736), records the fact, and refers to a curious collection of tracts published some years before. This collection, entitled Phoenix Britannicus (1731), was made by J. Morgan Gent, and amongst the tracts is one, the original of which was printed in 1624, in which occurs the following passage: "Did we not," says the Duke of Braganza, in a supposititious speech ascribed to that nobleman, "in '88, carry our Business, for England, so cunningly and secretly, as well in that well-dissembled Treaty with the English near Ostend . . . as in bringing our Navy to their Shoars, while their Commanders and Captains were at Bowls upon the Hoe of Plymouth, and had my Lord Alonzo Gusman, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, had but the Resolution (but, in Truth, his Commission was otherwise), he might have surprised them as they lay at Anchor and the like."

This statement therefore carries the incident back to a period when many persons then living would have had cognisance of the story.

Froude (another Devonian) has, in quite another way, told the history of that eventful time, as drawn from authentic contemporary documents, and has invested his subject with supreme interest and importance. There is no portion of his History so likely to arouse the patriotic ardour of Englishmen as the recital, towards the end of the work, of the events which culminated in the delivery of this country from foreign invasion, and the crushing defeat of Philip's Armada-the "God-defying Armada," as it has been termed.

We have cited the novelist and the historian; come we now to the words of a popular poet, also a native of the western shire. Austin Dobson, the writer of SO much acceptable verse, has given us a Ballad

to Queen Elizabeth of the Spanish Armada, which, with the author's permission, we here quote:-

"King Philip had vaunted his claims;

He had sworn for a year he would sack us, With an army of heathenish names

He was coming to fagot and stack us. Like the thieves of the sea he would track us, And shatter our ships on the main ; But we had bold Neptune to back us,And where are the galleons of Spain? "His carackes were christened of dames

To the kirtles whereof he would tack us;
With his saints and his gilded stern-frames,
He had thought like an egg-shell to crack us.
Now Howard may get to his Flaccus,

And Drake to his Devon again,
And Hawkins bowl rubbers to Bacchus,-
For where are the galleons of Spain?

"Let His Majesty hang to St. James

The axe that he whetted to hack us;
He must play at some lustier games
Or at sea he can hope to out-thwack us.
To his mines of Peru he would pack us,
To tug at his bullet and chain;
Alas! that his greatness should lack us!-
But where are the galleons of Spain?

Under these light, rollicking lines the poet tells us much sober, serious truth, and reveals in a striking manner the intentions of Philip and his colleagues in their endeavours to bring about the subjugation of this country, so happily frustrated.

To Macaulay's unfinished ballad, The Armada, we have already alluded, in which he so truthfully depicts the state of feverish expectation which pervaded the country at the approach of the Spaniards, and the preparations which were made to give them a warm reception. Macaulay's fragment has, however, inspired two other writers to continue the story, and without attempting to criticise their respective performances or to compare the additional stanzas with the popular original, we original, we may say that they have fairly caught the spirit of Macaulay's ballad. The two writers to whom we allude are W. C. Bennett, in Contributions to a Ballad History of England (Chatto and Windus), and the Rev. H. C. Leonard of Bristol, whose poem was originally published in the Boy's Own Paper. While on the sub1 Old-World Idylls. Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co. 1885.

ject of these literary efforts, mention may be made of two ballads by Thomas Deloney, written and published in the Armada year (1588). The first is entitled, The Queenes Visiting of the Campe at Tilsburie, with Her Entertainment there, and the other, "Old Ballad on the Overthrow of the Spanish Armada a Joyful Ballad, declaring the happie obtaining of the great Galleazzo, wherein Don Pietro de Valdez was the chiefe, through the mightie power and providence of God, being a special token of His gracious and fatherly goodness towards us, to the great encouragement of all those that willingly fight in the defence of His Gospel and our good Queene of England."

The bibliography of the Spanish Armada is, as may be supposed, very extensive, and can barely be touched upon here; but mention may be made in passing of one or two "curiosities of literature," which are to be found in the more precious collections at the British Museum. One is a small, thin, quarto volume, entitled Triumphalia de Victoriis Elizabetha Anglorum, Francorum, Hybernorumque Regina Augustissima, Fidei Defensoris Acerrima, contra classem instructissimam Philippi Hispaniarum Regis Potentissima Partis, Anno Christi, nati 1588. Julio et Augusto mensibus. This work is in beautiful painted binding, evidently the presentation copy to Queen Elizabeth, with the letters E. D. G., A. F. and H., R. D. F., on one side. It is a collection of verses in Latin and Greek in honour of the victory over the Armada, from some press on the Continent. There is no other signature to the dedication than that of N. Eleutherius. It is exceedingly rare. On the back of the title are twelve lines" Daniel Rogersio vivo politissimo." Signed, N. Eleutherius.

There is also a very curious work preserved in the King's Library: a volume of extreme rarity, which was finished at Lisbon, May 9, 1588, while the fleet was in the port of that place prepared for the expedition, entitled, "La Felicissima Armada, que el Rey Don Felipe nuestro Señor mandò juntar en el puerto de la Ciudad de Lisboa, en el Reyno de Portugal et Año de mil y quinientos y ochenta y ocho hecha por Pedro de Paz Salas, fol. Lisb. 1588; por Antonio Alvarez, Impressor." This copy was the identical one which was procured at the time of its publication for Lord Burghley, to acquaint him with the true detail of all the preparations; and he has noted in his own hand, in the margins of different pages, a variety of particulars relating to the defeat.

The above examples must suffice, but there

H H

Published by John Pine, June 94.1739-y FIRST ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN THE ENGLISH AND SPANISH FLEETS.

are scores of curious and interesting matters which might be given, all bearing on this eventful time.

Schiller, too, has penned some soul-stirring lines on the same great event, in which he displays righteous indignation at the thought of

"Britannia, island of the brave,"

ever bending to the yoke of the invader.

Southey, in somewhat milder strains, dwells on the same theme, and after describing the pomp and strength of the Spanish fleet, thus bursts out in a patriotic denunciation of the presumptuous Spaniards :

"O fools! to think that ever foe

Should triumph o'er that sea-girt land!
O fools! to think that ever Britain's sons
Should wear the stranger's yoke."

Besides our own historians who have written upon the Armada, the opinions of some foreign writers of repute may be cited as to the great importance to Europe generally of the action of Drake and his compatriots in warding off the danger which so closely threatened this land. Sismondi evidently regards the attack on England by Philip II. as part of a scheme for universal empire and for the conquest of France. This dread of an empire threatening France from both the Pyrenees and the Rhine is not yet extinct among Frenchmen, and was one of the causes, as is well known, of the late Franco-Prussian war. Had Philip succeeded, France would have been hemmed in, and being then divided by party conflicts, might have been conquered. So the tempest and Drake saved France as well as England and the Netherlands.

Ranke also gives some valuable evidence as to the preparations which were made by the Spaniards during their sojourn in Flanders, and refers to the fact that even new uniforms appear to have been ordered for the triumphal entry of the Spanish troops into London. "Philip" (says Ranke on another point) "found himself confronted in England by the national energies in all the force of their youth, and elevated by the full consciousness of their destiny. The bold corsairs, who had rendered every sea unsafe, gathered around the coasts of their native land. The whole body of the Protestants, even the Puritans, although they had been oppressed as heavily as the Catholics, rallied around the Queen, who now maintained to an admirable degree that masculine courage with which she was endowed, and gave proof of her princely talent

of winning, retaining, and controlling the minds of men. The insular position of the country, and even the elements, co-operated to the defence of England. The Invincible Armada was annihilated even before the assault had been made; the expedition failed completely." 1

Again, Motley, in his History of the United Netherlands, has furnished a full view of the English-Dutch struggle against Spain, and of the origin and destruction of the Spanish Armada. He says:"Few more magnificent spectacles have been seen in history than the enthusiasm which pervaded the country as the great danger, so long deferred, was felt at last to be closely approaching. The little nation of four millions, the merry England of the sixteenth century, went forward to the death-grapple with its gigantic antagonist as cheerfully as to a long-expected holiday. Spain was a vast empire, overshadowing the world; England in comparison but a province; yet nothing could surpass the steadiness with which the conflict was awaited." The same writer bears strong testimony to the loyalty of the English Catholics. "No man," he says, "who has studied the history of those times can doubt the universal and enthusiastic determination of the English nation to repel the invaders. Catholics and Protestants felt alike on the great subject. Philip did not flatter himself with assistance from any English Papists, save exiles and renegades like Westmoreland, Paget, Throgmorton, Morgan, Stanley, and the rest. The bulk of the Catholics, who may have constituted half the population of England, although malcontent, were not rebellious; and notwithstanding the precautionary measures taken by government against them, Elizabeth proudly acknowledged their loyalty."

It is however not our intention to enter further into these details, our only desire being to show the general consensus of opinion as to the magnitude of the danger which threatened the country, and the great cause there was for rejoicing over the Providential deliverance. It is then to show our gratitude as a people for national blessings; to acknowledge in a becoming manner the brave deeds of brave men; to do honour to Howard and Drake and the other great seacaptains of the Elizabethan era, that the men of the Victorian age are called upon to celebrate the memory of this great crisis in our history.

We have said that it is not our intention

1 Ranke's History of the Popes (Bohn), 1847.