and of which the translation, by Mr. Leigh Hunt, is worthy of the old Archdeacon himself "I devise to end my days-in a tavern drinking: May some Christian hold for me-the glass when I am shrinking; 'God be merciful to a soul-of this gentleman's way of thinking.'" When this was the temper of the greater scholars of the century, we suspect that the little ones were pleasant in proportion, and that William, whose letters show his waggish propensities, was very fair company at Canynge's or Sturmey's. Be this as it may, he is foremost on the list of Bristol antiquaries, and from him we chiefly derive our notions as to the appearance of this Borough towards the impressive close of the fifteenth century. THE COMING OF THE ARMADA. Novelty of Mr. Motley's View.-Its necessary Complement.-The Gentleman Adventurer.-Parma and Philip.-The Interests at stake.-Preparation of the Mine. Its impotent Explosion.-Dimensions of the Peril, and Historic Corollaries. It is a memorable excuse for our national vanity that the grandest event in the history of England was the grandest also in that of Modern Europe, and, we may add, that its issue was so critical for mankind, that no sense of incongruity is coupled with the circumstance that we owe its latest and best history to an American. Mr. Motley has come to the turning-point in the English-Dutch struggle against Spain and the counter-reformation, when the hopes and prospects of centuries were staked upon the Spanish Holy Armada. By observation of the Armada from a new point of view, by watching it from the opposite coast,-from the side of our Dutch allies, he has seen its cosmopolitan dimensions and bearings, as indicated through the vista of its historical perspective. Its contributories, its adversaries, all who then watched and waited, and the vast interests and secret aspirations involved, are included in his estimate, are examined and assessed. The shock of battle stretches over the whole west of Europe, and ranges even to the New World, like the clouds of combatants flying skyward in the picture-fight of the Huns; and the dwellers in distant vales, even to the edge of the Carpathians, and still more the posterity of every Arian race, are implicated in the success of those who strive in the foreground, and pluck up Liberty itself out of the surges of the narrow seas. On the other hand, it must be conceded that this compre hensive survey tends to dwindle the foremost champions in the contest, and that an English history of equal vigour is required to redress the balance. Mr. Charles Knight, in his admirable "Popular History of England," has told the story with that hearty and infectious patriotism which is one of his characteristic qualifications for his task. But we still need a special history of this epoch, which shall exhaust the national resources for its illustration. Had Mr. Kingsley devoted his great talents to this office, for which he possesses the requisite sympathies, we can imagine the glorious and triumphant inspiration he would have caught from the subject, and imparted to his readers. As it is, he has depicted one element of that moving age, and that the strongest in its culminating crisis, with as much discernment as Sir Walter Scott, in the opinion of Thierry, depicted the consequences of the Norman Conquest. As in the case of Ivanhoe, we must refer to a novel for much which the historian has left untold, and must recognise in "Westward Ho" a complement to "The United Netherlands." We owe to Mr. Kingsley, with some allowance for the poetic idealisation which is a common exigency of romantic fiction, a conception of the type of English audacity which conspired with the waves to wreck the policy of Rome and Spain. The gentleman adventurer of the days of Elizabeth, as painted by him, is a true heroic athlete, and, if it were agreed that history furnished the best materials for fiction, there would be few stories so attractive as his. Among the mariners of England he will be for ever conspicuous for a lofty conception of his calling, for a daring and skill which have never been surpassed, amid exigencies which have rarely been equalled, for fortunes as mutable, and a fame as enduring, as the element upon which he roved, and toiled, and triumphed. The epic complexion of his deep-sea buffetings is readily seen, as is also its origin. The ocean was then an uncircumscribed waste, a world to be known, a dominion to be conquered; THE GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER. 133 it was the storehouse of wonderful sights and inexhaustible treasures; above all, it was the battle-field of rival races and of hostile creeds, the prize for which the gallantry of the Middle Age competed in the spirit of modern enterprise, and the arena wherein they tested their prowess for the crowning conflict which was the Salamis of our modern civilisation. The life it opened was, in truth, as new as it was grand and fascinating. There were men who sailed in the Pelican with Drake, who had heard the first tidings of Cortez and Pizarro. Old Devonshire "sea-dogs" who lounged upon the Hoe at Plymouth could recall, within the experience of themselves or their fathers, the day when a new continent was discovered, when the tide setting westward bore on its current Castilian nobles and Clovelly fishermen, and attracted the gentlemen from "Down-along" to the prizes of the tropic seas. Men who knew little even of their own country, had beheld the wonders of a torrid zone and the expanse of a world compared with which England itself was but a speck; and, as they went to and fro over shoreless seas, or through forests as interminable, they were lifted out of the sphere of their natural capacity, and inspired with an ardour which might have been mythical, if it had not been as real and familiar as it was truly sublime. Mr. Kingsley can recall only two instancesthose of Raleigh and Columbus-where these early voyagers could depict their impressions; but, if from this circumstance he infers that they "were not astonished," he is limiting their emotions by his theory of human nature. The vocabulary did not at that time exist which now conveys-at least to the scientific ear-an idea of the marvels then newly disclosed. But many of those who were privileged to behold the West in all its virginal freshness and splendour, were not, we may be certain, insensible or apathetic. Dazzled and stunned" it is possible they may have been, as "by a great glory;" but their wonder or enthusiasm was not exhausted by the want of adequate expressions, it was compressed and intensified. It sustained them in the glowing brake and teeming swamp, on the ledges of the Andes and by the roar of Orenoque. It grew with what it fed upon, till it became insatiate, adding dreams to realities, and heaping fables upon facts. The New World became thus a land of enchantment, to which imagination transferred its creatures-its griffins, anthropophagi, mermaids and demons. It included abundance of actual treasures, of metals, gems, and spices; but it seemingly proffered to the spirit of adventure a realisation of the fairy legends of Europe, or of the still wilder fancies of the Arabian story-teller. Instead of tending, as suggested, to dull the feelings, to subdue or chill the exaltation of its explorers, it led them from the precious things at their feet to press forward after cities of solid gold, and to seek, in one instance, for the Fountain of Perpetual Youth. But the charm of the situation, or of the characters who filled it, was that of contrast. The adventurer came to these waste regions from the shores of a country refined and cultivated. Occasionally he took with him his euphuisms and conceits, his posies and his pastorals; but ordinarily, without interruption, he passed from Courts adorned by letters and the arts, where the State policy of Europe was developing into a system, to scenes where nature alone was paramount, and individual impulse otherwise unrestrained. Thither he transferred the gravest controversies, religious or political, of his pregnant epoch, and pursued them simply without check or compromise. Nature was before him to subdue and civilise, but the opportunity was suspended for weightier issues. The New World was wide, but its title was in dispute. . The ocean was vast, but it concerned nations unborn, that its empire should pass from their Catholic Majesties to the Protestant Sovereign of the free realm of Britain. Thus the English adventurer of the reign of Elizabeth went forth from her council-board with a complicated mission. He was a knight-errant for his Queen, and a |