to be contemned, either for judgment or style. Sir Henry Jonson Savile, grave, and truly lettered; Sir Edwin Sandys, excel- 1641 lent in both; Lord Egerton, the Chancellor, a grave and great orator, and best when he was provoked. But his learned and able (though unfortunate) successor is he who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue, which may be compared, or preferred, either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and about his times, were all the wits born, that could honour a language or help study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, and eloquence grows backward: so that he may be named, and stand as the mark and άκμǹ of our language.

I have ever observed it to have been the office of a wise patriot, among the greatest affairs of the state, to take care of the commonwealth of learning. For schools, they are the seminaries of state, and nothing is worthier the study of a statesman than that part of the republic which we call the advancement of letters. Witness the case of Julius Caesar, who, in the heat of the Civil War, writ his books of Analogy, and dedicated them to Tully. This made the late Lord St. Alban entitle his work Novum Organum, which though by the most of superficial men, who cannot get beyond the title of nominals, it is not penetrated nor understood, it really openeth all defects of learning whatsoever, and is a book Qui longum noto scriptore proroget aevum.

My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place, or honours: but I have and do reverence him, for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me, ever by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest.

III

THE TRUE ARTIFICER

Jonson IT cannot but come to pass, that these men who cunningly 1641 seek to do more than enough may sometimes happen on something that is good and great; but very seldom and when it comes, it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. For their jests, and their sentences (which they only and ambitiously seek for) stick out, and are more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about them; as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness than a faint shadow. Now because they speak all they can (however unfitly) they are thought to have the greater copy:1 where the learned use ever election and a mean; they look back to what they intended at first, and make all an evened and proportioned body. The true artificer will not run away from nature, as he were afraid of her; or depart from life and the likeness of truth; but speak to the capacity of his hearers. And though his language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it shall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamer-lanes and Tamerchams of the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting, and furious vociferation, to warrant them to the ignorant gapers. He knows it is his only art, so to carry it as none but artificers perceive it. In the meantime, perhaps, he is called barren, dull, a poor writer, and by what contumelious word can come in their cheeks, by these men, who without labour, judgment, knowledge, and almost sense, are received or preferred before him. He gratulates them, and their fortune. Another age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing, what sharpness; in jest what urbanity he uses : 1 Abundance,

how he doth weigh in men's affections: how invade and break Jonson 1641 in upon them; and makes their minds like the things he writes. Then in his elocution to behold what word is proper, which hath ornaments, which height, what is beautifully translated, where figures are fit, which gentle, which strong, to show the composition manly: and how he hath avoided faint, obscure, obscene, sordid, humble, improper, or effeminate phrase; which is not only praised of the most, but commended (which is worse) especially for that it is naught.

Ben Jonson.

FRA

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

RANCIS DRAKE was born nigh South Tavistock in Devonshire, and brought up in Kent; God dividing the honour betwixt two counties, that the one might have his birth, and the other his education. His father, being a minister, fled into Kent for fear of the Six Articles, wherein the sting of popery still remained in England, though the teeth thereof were knocked out, and the Pope's supremacy abolished. Coming into Kent, he bound his son Francis apprentice to the master of a small bark, which traded into France and Zealand, where he underwent a hard service; and pains with patience in his youth did knit the joints of his soul, and made them more solid and compacted. His master dying unmarried, in reward of his industry, bequeathed his bark unto him for a legacy.

For some time he continued his master's profession. But the narrow seas were a prison for so large a spirit, born for greater undertakings. He soon grew weary of his bark, which would scarce go alone, but as it crept along by the shore; wherefore, selling it, he unfortunately, in 1567, ventured most of his estate with Captain John Hawkins into the West Indies, whose goods were taken by the

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Fuller Spaniards at St. John de Ulva, and he himself scarce 1642 escaped with life. The King of Spain being so tender in those parts, that the least touch doth wound him, and so jealous of the West Indies, his wife, that willingly he would have none look upon her, and therefore used them with the greater severity.

Drake was persuaded by the minister of his ship that he might lawfully recover in value of the King of Spain, and repair his losses upon him anywhere else. The case was clear in sea-divinity, and few are such infidels as not to believe doctrines which make for their own profit. Whereupon Drake, though a poor private man, hereafter undertook to revenge himself on so mighty a monarch; who, as not contented that the sun riseth and setteth in his dominions, may seem to desire to make all his own where he shineth. And now let us see how a dwarf, standing on the mount of God's providence, may prove an overmatch for a giant.

After two or three several voyages to gain intelligence in the West Indies, and some prizes taken, at last he effectually set forward from Plymouth with two ships, the one of seventy, the other twenty-five tons, and seventy-three men and boys in both. He made with all speed and secrecy to Nombre de Dios, as loth to put the town to too much charge, which he knew they would willingly bestow, in providing beforehand for his entertainment; which city was then the granary of the West Indies, wherein the golden harvest brought from Panama was hoarded up till it could be conveyed into Spain. They came hard aboard the shore, and lay quiet all night, intending to attempt the town in the dawning of the day.

But he was forced to alter his resolution, and assault it sooner; for he heard his men muttering amongst themselves of the strength and greatness of the town. and when men's heads are once fly-blown with buzzes of suspicion, the vermin multiply instantly, and one jealously begets another. Where

fore he raised them from their nests before they had hatched
their fears, and, to put away those conceits, he persuaded
them it was day-dawning when the moon rose, and instantly
set on the town, and won it, being unwalled. In the
market-place the Spaniards saluted them with a volley of
shot; Drake returned their greeting with a flight of arrows,
the best and ancient English compliment, which drove their
enemies away.
Here Drake received a dangerous wound,
though he valiantly concealed it a long time, knowing if his
heart stooped, his men's would fall, and loth to leave off the
action, wherein if so bright an opportunity once setteth it
seldom riseth again. But at length his men forced him to
return to his ship, that his wound might be dressed, and this
unhappy accident defeated the whole design. Thus victory
sometimes slips through their fingers, who have caught it in
their hands.

But his valour would not let him give over the project as long as there was either life or warmth in it. And therefore having received intelligence from the negroes, called Symerons, of many mules' lading of gold and silver, which was to be brought from Panama, he, leaving competent numbers to man his ships, went on land with the rest, and bestowed himself in the woods by the way as they were to pass, and so intercepted and carried away an infinite mass of gold. As for the silver, which was not portable over the mountains, they digged holes in the ground and hid it therein.

There want not those who love to beat down the price of every honourable action, though they themselves never mean to be chapmen. These cry up Drake's fortune herein, to cry down his valour: as if this his performance were nothing, wherein a golden opportunity ran his head, with his long forelock, into Drake's hands beyond expectation. But certainly his resolution and unconquerable patience deserved 1 Cimaroon Indians.

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