lin. Since that early period she had remained possessed of her crystal dominions, she said, despite the various men of fame and might by whom Kenilworth had been successfully tenanted. The Saxons, the Danes, the Normans, the Saintlowes, the Clintons, the Mountforts, the Mortimers, the Plantagenets, great though they were in arms and magnificence, had never, she said, caused her to raise her head from the waters which hid her crystal palace. But a greater than all these great names had now appeared and she came in homage and duty to welcome the peerless Elizabeth to all sport, which the castle and its environs, which lake or land, could afford.

The queen received this address, also, with great courtesy, and made answer in raillery: "We thought this lake had belonged to our own dominions, fair dame; but since so famed a lady claims it for hers we will be glad at some other time to have further communing with you touching our joint interests."

With this gracious answer the Lady of the Lake vanished and Arion, who was among the maritime deities, appeared upon his dolphin. But Lambourne, who had taken upon himself the part in the absence of Wayland, chilled with remaining immersed in an element to which he was not friendly, having never got his speech by heart and not having, like the porter, the advantage of a prompter, paid it off with impudence, tearing off his vizor and swearing: "Cogs bones! he was none of Arion or Orion either, but honest Mike Lambourne, that had been drinking her majesty's health from morning till midnight and was come to bid her heartily welcome to Kenilworth Castle."

This unpremeditated buffoonery answered the purpose probably better than the set speech would have done. The queen laughed heartily and swore (in her turn) that he had made the best speech she had heard that day. Lambourne, who instantly saw his jest had saved his bones, jumped on shore, gave his dolphin a kick and declared he would never meddle with fish again, except at dinner.

At the same time that the queen was about to enter the castle that memorable discharge of fireworks by water and land took place, which Master Laneham, formerly introduced to the reader, has strained all his eloquence to describe.

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"Such," says the clerk of the council-chamber door, was the blaze of burning darts, the gleams of stars coruscant, the streams and hail of fiery sparks, lightnings of wildfire and flight-shot of thunderbolts, with continuance, terror and vehemence, that the heavens thundered, the waters surged and the earth shook; and for my part, hardy as I am, it made me very vengeably afraid."

THE DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA

(FROM WESTWARD HO!)

BY CHARLES KINGSLEY.

A

ND now began that great seafight. It is a twelve days' epic, worthy, as I said in the beginning of this book, not of dull prose, but of the thunder-roll of Homer's verse: but having to tell it, I must do my best, rather using, where I can, the words of contemporary authors than my own.

"The Lord High Admirall of Eng

land, sending a pinnace before, called the Defiance, announced war by discharging her ordnance; and presently approaching within musquetshot, with much thundering out of his own ship, called the Arkroyall (alias the Triumph), first set upon the admirall's as he thought, of the Spaniards (but it was Alfonso de Leon's ship). Soon after, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher played stoutly with their ordnance on the hindmost squadron, which was commanded by Recalde." The Spaniards soon discover the superior "nimbleness of the English ships;" and Recalde's squadron, finding that they are getting more than they give, in spite of

his endeavors, hurry forward to join the rest of the fleet. Medina the Admiral, finding his ships scattering fast, gathers them into a half-moon; and the Armada tries to keep solemn way forward, like a stately herd of buffaloes, who march on across the prairie, disdaining to notice the wolves which snarl around their track. But in vain. These are no wolves, but cunning hunters, swiftly horsed, and keenly armed, and who will" shamefully shuffle" (to use Drake's own expression) that vast herd from the Lizard to Portland, from Portland to Calais Roads; and who, even in this short two hours' fight, have made many a Spaniard question the boasted invincibleness of this Armada.

One of the four great galliasses is already riddled with shot, to the great disarrangement of her "pulpits, chapels," and friars therein assistant. The fleet has to close round her, or Drake and Hawkins will sink her; in effecting which manoeuvre, the "principal galleon of Seville," in which are Pedro de Valdez and a host of blue-blooded Dons, runs foul of her neighbor, carries away her foremast, and is, in spite of Spanish chivalry, left to her fate. This does not look like victory, certainly. But courage! though Valdez be left behind, "our Lady," and the saints, and the Bull Coenâ Domini (dictated by one whom I dare not name here), are with them still, and it were blasphemous to doubt. But in the meanwhile, if they have fared no better than this against a third of the Plymouth fleet, how will they fare when those forty belated ships, which are already whitening the blue between them and the Mewstone, enter the scene to play their part?

So ends the first day; not an English ship, hardly a

man is hurt. It has destroyed forever, in English minds, the prestige of boastful Spain. It has justified utterly the policy which the good Lord Howard had adopted by Raleigh's and Drake's advice, of keeping up a running fight, instead of "clapping ships together without consideration," in which case, says Raleigh, "he had been lost, if he had not been better advised than a great many malignant fools were, who found fault with his demeanour."

The fleet did not find Lord Howard till nightfall; he and Lord Sheffield had been holding on steadfastly the whole night after the Spanish lanterns, with two

and, indeed, throughout the fight, the Howards showed (as if to wipe out the slurs which had been cast on their loyalty by fanatics) a desperate courage, which might have thrust less prudent men into destruction, but led them only to victory. Soon a large Spaniard drifts by, deserted and partly burnt. Some of the men are for leaving their place to board her; but Amyas stoutly refuses. He has "come out to fight, and not to plunder; so let the nearest ship to her have her luck without grudging." They pass on, and the men pull long faces when they see the galleon snapped up by their next neighbor, and towed off to Weymouth,