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:—­

thanein d’ oisin anagka ti ke tis ananumon geras en skoto kathemenos epsoi matan, apanton 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 Spartans who in the summer morning sate “combing their long hair—­for death” in the passes of Thermopylae, have earned a more lofty estimate for themselves than this one crew of modern Englishmen.

In August, 1591, Lord Thomas Howard, with six English line-of-battle ships, six victuallers, and two or three pinnaces, were lying at anchor under the Island of Florez.  Light in ballast and short of water, with half their men disabled by sickness, they were unable to pursue the aggressive purpose on which they had been sent out.  Several of the ships’ crews were on shore:  the ships themselves “all pestered and rommaging,” with everything out of order.  In this condition they were surprised