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instruments of torture intended for the invasion, subjugation, and conversion of this little island.

Inasmuch, then, as the proposal to celebrate this national crisis comes from this fine old historic town, this mother of heroes, and mother of many another Plymouth up and down the wide world, it is but fitting that any demonstration such as that now proposed should there find its chief centre. It is therefore a sine quâ non that an Armada celebration should be held at Plymouth in July next.

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Various suggestions have been made as to the form the demonstration should take. great naval display has been proposed, but it is doubtful if the Government would be disposed to lend any assistance in the matter; also that a procession or pageant of representative historical scenes and personages-on the lines of those at Heidelberg and other places on the Continent, and at Ripon a while ago in this country-a series of historical tableaux in the public hall of the town, with appropriate scenery, would be an interesting feature; and a marine pageant, in which the vessels of the port should take part, equipped as nearly as possible to represent the little craft of the Elizabethan days, in which, to quote the words of Froude, "the seamen from the banks of the Thames and the Avon, the Plym and the Dart, self-taught and self-directed, with no impulse but what was beating in their own royal hearts, went out across the unknown seas, fighting, discovering, colonising, and graved out the channels, paving them at last with their bones, through which the commerce and enterprise of England has flowed out over all the world" (Froude's Short Studies, Second Series, p. 297). It is also proposed that an exhibition of Armada and other relics, of pictures of the period, portraits of the great sea-captains of those days, and other curiosities should be organised, and it is believed that a collection of exceptional interest might be got together.

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Amongst other valuable suggestions of a more general character are these: additions to the statue of Drake on Plymouth Hoe, to form an appropriate Armada memorial; a tower or other structure on which the names of the Armada heroes and other particulars might be inscribed; a separate statue of Sir Walter Ralegh; a Drake Home for decayed sailors of the mercantile marine; an Insurance Company for the lives and property of fishermen, &c., &c.

Such are a few of the proposals which have been made, and as the general scheme has

been approved by the London and local journals, and has received considerable favour in the locality chiefly concerned, it is to be hoped that the authorities both naval and municipal may be induced to lend their aid to carry them out effectively and liberally.

Of course it is not intended that the Armada celebrations shall be confined to the western seaport, although there undoubtedly should be the chief demonstration. The undertaking ought to be national in its character, even though the Government have no share in carrying it out; and doubtless other seaports would add their share of effort to give éclat to the occasion. There are other places, the rise and progress of which may be traced incidentally to the doings of those days, and it would be no difficult matter to arrange for a series of demonstrations all over the country in a similar manner to those which have taken place during the Jubilee year. A simultaneous firing of beacons, by a more preconcerted arrangement than that of Jubilee Day, might be carried out similar to that so graphically described by Macaulay :

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London, which contributed so nobly in ships, men, money, and munitions of war towards the defence of the country, and against which the aims of the Spaniards were largely directed, would without doubt prepare a monster pageant, in which the Queen and members of the Royal Family might be induced to take part, repeating in some measure the proceedings of her illustrious predecessor, Elizabeth, who, "attended by her privy council, by the nobility, and other honourable persons, as well spiritual as temporal, in great number, the French ambassador, the judges, the heralds, and trumpeters all on horseback, came in a chariot supported by four pillars and drawn by two white horses to St. Paul's Church, where, alighting at the west door, she fell on her knees and audibly praised God for her own and the nation's signal deliverance."

The matter has been taken up warmly

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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." 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

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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:

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'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?

ENVOY.

"GLORIANA! the Don may attack us Whenever his stomach be fain;

He must reach us before he can rack us,And where are the galleons of Spain ?” 1

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 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 Idylle. Kegan Paul, Trench, and

Co. 1885.

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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 speciall 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 Acerrimæ, 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

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