r fate has
been the same--the same bitter cup has been given to them to drink. And
so it was with the servants of England in the sixteenth century. Their
life was a long battle, either with the elements or with men; and it was
enough for them to fulfil their work, and to pass away in the hour when
God had nothing more to bid them do. They did not complain, and why
should we complain for them? Peaceful life was not what they desired,
and an honourable death had no terrors for them. Theirs was the old
Grecian spirit, and the great heart of the Theban poet lived again in
them:--

[Greek:
Thanein d' hoisin ananka, ti ke tis anonumon
geras en skoto kathemenos hepsoi matan,
hapanton kalon ammoros?]

'Seeing,' in Gilbert's own brave words, 'that death is inevitable, and
the fame of virtue is immortal; wherefore in this behalf _mutare vel
timere sperno_.'

In the conclusion of these light sketches we pass into an element
different from that in which we have been lately dwelling. The scenes in
which Gilbert and Davis played out their high natures were of the kind
which we call peaceful, and the enemies with which they contended were
principally the ice and the wind, and the stormy seas and the dangers of
unknown and savage lands. We shall close amidst the roar of cannon, and
the wrath and rage of battle. Hume, who alludes to the engagement which
we are going to describe, speaks of it in a tone which shows that he
looked at it as something portentous and prodigious; as a thing to
wonder at--but scarcely as deserving the admiration which we pay to
actions properly within the scope of humanity--and as if the energy
which was displayed in it was like the unnatural strength of madness. He
does not say this, but he appears to feel it; and he scarcely would have
felt it if he had cared more deeply to saturate himself with the temper
of the age of which he was writing. At the time, all England and all the
world rang with the story. It struck a deeper terror, though it was but
the action of a single ship, into the hearts of the Spanish people; it
dealt a more deadly blow upon their fame and moral strength than the
destruction of the Armada itself; and in the direct results which arose
from it, it was scarcely less disastrous to them. Hardly, as it seems to
us, if the most glorious actions which are set like jewels in the
history of mankind are weighed one against the other in the balance,
hardly will those 300 Sparta