SAL. This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke,
As I have read, laid claim unto the crown;
And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king;
Who kept him in captivity, till he died.
But to the rest-
YORK. His eldest sister, Anne,
My mother, being heir unto the crown,
Married Richard Earl of Cambridge,
Who was the son to Edmund Langley,
Edward the Third's fifth son.-
By her I claim the kingdom: she was heir
To Roger Earl of March, who was the son
Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,
Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence.
So, if the issue of the elder son
Succeed before the younger, I am king.
WAR. What plain proceeding is more plain than this?
Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,
The fourth son; York here claims it from the third.
'Till Lionel's issue fail, his should not reign :
It fails not yet, but flourisheth in thee
And in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock.
Then, father Salisbury, kneel we together,
And in this private plot be we the first,
That shall salute our rightful sovereign,
With honour of his birth-right to the crown.
BOTH. Long live our sov'reign Richard, England's king!
Shakspere.-Henry VI. Part 2.
QUEEN ELIZABETH AND THE SPANISH ARMADA.
CALL back the gorgeous past,
Where bright and broadening to the main
Rolls on the scornful river.
Stout hearts beat high on Tilbury's plain :
Our Marathon for ever.
Leapt the loud joy from earth to heaven,
As through the ranks asunder riven,
The warrior-woman rode.
Hark! thrilling thro' the armed line
The martial accents ring,
"Though mine the woman's form, yet mine
The heart of England's king!"
5 This Richard, the father of Edward the Fourth, never actually
came to the throne, but was beheaded in 1460. See History, p. 68.
Woe to the island and the maid!
The Pope has preach'd the New Crusade 6,
His sons have caught the fiery zeal :
The monks are merry in Castile;
Bold Parma on the main ;
And through the deep exulting sweep
The thunder-steeds of Spain.
What meteor rides the sulphurous gale?
The flames have caught the giant sail;
Fierce Drake is grappling prow to prow;
God and St. George for victory now!
Death in the battle and the wind,
Carnage before and storm behind;
Wild shrieks are heard above the hurtling roar
By Orkney's rugged strands and Erin's ruthless shore.
Joy to the island and the maid!
Pope Sixtus wept the Last Crusade.
E. L. Bulwer's Ode on the Last Days of Elizabeth.
THE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND FROM
CHARLES II. TO GEORGE I.
THOU Kneller, long with noble pride,
The foremost of thy art, hast vied
With nature in a generous strife,
And touch'd the canvas into life.
Thy pencil has, by monarchs sought,
From reign to reign in ermine wrought,
And, in the robes of state array'd,
The kings of half an age display'd.
Here swarthy Charles appears, and there
His brother with dejected air:
Triumphant Nassau here we find,
And with him bright Maria join'd;
There Anna, great as when she sent
Her armies through the continent,
Ere yet her hero was disgraced:
may famed Brunswick be the last,
(Though Heaven should with my wish agree,
And long preserve thy art in thee)
The last, the happiest British king,
Whom thou shalt paint, or I shall sing!
6 The expedition, called "the Invincible Armada," was considered a ort of crusade or religious war, for the extermination of what the Romanists called heresy in England.
Wise Phidias thus, his skill to prove,
Through many a god advanced to Jove,
And taught the polish'd rocks to shine
With airs and lineaments divine;
Till Greece, amazed, and half-afraid,
Th' assembled deities survey'd.
Great Pan, who wont to chase the fair,
And loved the spreading oak, was there;
Old Saturn too with upcast eyes
Beheld his abdicated skies;
And mighty Mars, for war renown'd,
In adamantine armour frown'd!
By him the childless goddess rose,
Minerva, studious to compose
Her twisted threads; the web she strung,
And o'er a loom of marble hung:
Thetis, the troubled ocean's queen
Match'd with a mortal, next was seen,
Reclining on a funeral urn,
Her short-lived darling son to mourn.
The last was he, whose thunder slew
The Titan race, a rebel crew,
That from a hundred hills ally'd
In impious leagues their king defy'd.
This wonder of the sculptor's hand
Produced, his art was at a stand:
For who would hope new fame to raise,
Or risk his well-establish'd praise,
That, his high genius to approve,
Had drawn a George, or carved a Jove?
Addison's Ode to Sir Godfrey Kneller, on his
Picture of the King, George I.
GENERAL WOLFE AND LORD CHATHAM.
Each in his field of glory; one in arms
And one in council. Wolfe, upon the lap
Of smiling victory that moment won;
And Chatham, heartsick of his country's shame.
They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still
Consulting England's happiness at home,
Secured it by an unforgiving frown
If any wrong'd her. Wolfe, where'er he fought,
Put so much of his heart into his act,
That his example had a magnet's force,
And all were swift to follow where all loved.
NELSON AND PITT.
WHAT powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise;
The mind that thought for Britain's weal,
The hand that grasp'd the victor steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine,
Where glory weeps o'er NELSON's shrine;
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom
That shrouds, O PITT, thy hallow'd tomb!
Deep graved in every British heart,
O never let those names depart !
Say to your sons,-Lo! here his grave,
Who victor died on Gadite wave 8;
To him, as to the burning levin,
Short, bright, resistless course was given.
Where'er his country's foes were found,
Was heard the fated thunder's sound,
Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,
Roll'd, blazed, destroy'd,-and was no more.
Nor mourn ye less his perish'd worth,
Who bade the conqueror go forth,
And launch'd the thunderbolt of war
On Egypt, Hafnia 10, Trafalgar;
Who, born to guide such high emprize,
For Britain's weal was early wise;
Alas! to whom the Almighty gave,
For Britain's sins, an early grave.
Sir Walter Scott.-Introd. to Marmion, Canto 1.
8 The Bay of Cadiz was anciently called Sinus Gaditanus, and the Strait of Gibraltar, Fretum Gaditanum.
GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE, LONDON,
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