ed to the many who gaze on those very triumphs
as on a raree-show to feed their silly wonder, or use and enjoy them
without thankfulness or understanding, as the ox eats the clover thrust
into his rack, without knowing or caring how it grew. But if any of them
were of the class by whom those very triumphs have been achieved; the
thinkers and the workers, who, instead of entering lazily into other
men's labors, as the mob does, labor themselves; who know by hard
experience the struggles, the self-restraints, the disappointments, the
slow and staggering steps, by which the discoverer reaches to his prize;
then the smile of those men would not have been one of pity, but rather
of filial love. For they would have seen in those outwardly paltry
armaments the potential germ of that mightier one which now loads the
Black Sea waves; they would have been aware, that to produce it, with
such materials and knowledge as then existed, demanded an intellect, an
energy, a spirit of progress and invention, equal, if not superior, to
those of which we now so loudly boast.

But if, again, he had been a student of men rather than of machinery,
he would have found few nobler companies on whom to exercise his
discernment, than he might have seen in the little terrace bowling-green
behind the Pelican Inn, on the afternoon of the nineteenth of July.
Chatting in groups, or lounging over the low wall which commanded a
view of the Sound and the shipping far below, were gathered almost
every notable man of the Plymouth fleet, the whole posse comitatus
of "England's forgotten worthies." The Armada has been scattered by a
storm. Lord Howard has been out to look for it, as far as the Spanish
coast; but the wind has shifted to the south, and fearing lest the Dons
should pass him, he has returned to Plymouth, uncertain whether the
Armada will come after all or not. Slip on for a while, like Prince Hal,
the drawer's apron; come in through the rose-clad door which opens
from the tavern, with a tray of long-necked Dutch glasses, and a silver
tankard of wine, and look round you at the gallant captains, who are
waiting for the Spanish Armada, as lions in their lair might wait for
the passing herd of deer.

See those five talking earnestly, in the centre of a ring, which longs
to overhear, and yet is too respectful to approach close. Those soft
long eyes and pointed chin you recognize already; they are Walter
Raleigh's. The fair young man in the flame-colo