the vision of glittering knights pricking over solitary plains, making their way through gloomy and pathless forests in lowering twilight to the relief of phantom ladies in distress; gone is the splendid glow of colour; pierced at last is the impenetrable mist concealing the real humanity of our medieval ancestry. Individuals stand forth from the crowd, and at the head of all reigns the Maiden Queen, Elizabeth, ludicrous perhaps in her artificiality, but very human, frivolous, and fanciful. She knew—who better?—the temper of her people; she was ready to encourage their enterprise, to smile compassionately at their devotion, to reward, however shabbily, their deeds of heroism and daring. Hence the Elizabethan age is one of restless energy and splendid achievement, tempered with unbounded courage and reckless daring. Once more the blood of the Viking was passionately stirred, and across the tempestuous seas the Elizabethan explorer sailed to new lands and new scenes, in boats which showed no very marked advance on those in which our Saxon forefathers had approached our shores, some thousand years before. New worlds had opened before their astonished eyes, and with
