to silver turn'd,
(Oh time too swift, and swiftness never ceasing)
My youth 'gainst age, and age at' youth hath spurn'd:
But spurn'd in vain, youth waneth by increasing,
Beauty, strength, and youth, flowers fading been,
Duty, faith, and love, are roots and evergreen.

My helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And lovers songs shall turn to holy psalms;
A man at arms must now sit on his knees,
And feed on pray'rs that are old age's alms.
And so from court to cottage I depart;
My saint is sure of mine unspotted heart.

And when I sadly sit in homely cell,
I'll teach my swains this carrol for a song:
"Blest be the hearts that think my sovereign well,
Curs'd be the souls that think to do her wrong."
Goddess, vouchsafe this aged man his right,
To be your beadsman now, that was your knight.

During this performance, there arose out of the earth a pavilion of
white taffeta, supported on pillars resembling porphyry and formed to
imitate the temple of the Vestal virgins. A superb altar was placed
within it, on which were laid some rich gifts for her majesty. Before
the gate stood a crowned pillar embraced by an eglantine, to which a
votive tablet was attached, inscribed "To Elizabeth:" The gifts and the
tablet being with great reverence delivered to the queen, and the aged
knight in the meantime disarmed, he offered up his armour at the foot of
the pillar; then kneeling, presented the earl of Cumberland to her
majesty, praying her to be pleased to accept of him for her knight and
to continue these annual exercises. The proposal being graciously
accepted, sir Henry armed the earl and mounted him on his horse: this
done, he clothed himself in a long velvet gown and covered his head, in
lieu of a helmet, with "a buttoned cap of the country fashion."

The king of Scots had now for a considerable time deserved extremely
well of Elizabeth. During the whole period of the Spanish armament he
had remained unshaken in his attachment to her cause, resolutely turning
a deaf ear to the flattering offers of Philip II. with the shrewd
remark, that all the favor he had to expect from this monarch in case of
his success against England, was that of Polypheme to Ulysses;--to be
devoured the last. A bon mot which was carefully copied into _The
English Mercury_. The ambassador to Scotland, from an unfounded opinion
that the discomfited armada sought shelter in the ports of t