which approached the Coast in the form of a great Crescent, one mile
across. The little English "seadogs," not much larger than small
pleasure yachts, were led by Sir Francis Drake. They worried the
ponderous Spanish ships, and then, sending burning boats in amongst
them, soon spoiled the pretty crescent. The fleet scattered along the
Northern Coast, where it was overtaken by a frightful storm, and the
winds and the waves completed the victory, almost annihilating the
entire "Armada."

[Sidenote: Francis Bacon.]

England was great and glorious. The revolution, religious, social and
political, had ploughed and harrowed the surface which had been
fertilized with the "New Learning," and the harvest was rich. While all
Europe was devastated by religious wars there arose in Protestant
England such an era of peace and prosperity, with all the conditions of
living so improved that the dreams of Sir Thomas More's "Utopia" seemed
almost realized. The new culture was everywhere. England was garlanded
with poetry, and lighted by genius, such as the world has not seen
since, and may never see again. The name of Francis Bacon was
sufficient to adorn an age, and that of Shakespeare alone, enough to
illumine a century. Elizabeth did not create the glory of the
"Elizabethan Age," but she did create the peace and social order from
which it sprang.

If this Queen ever loved any one it was the Earl of Leicester, the man
who sent his lovely wife, Amy Robsart, to a cruel death in the delusive
hope of marrying a Queen. We are unwilling to harbor the suspicion that
she was accessory to this deed; and yet we cannot forget that she was
the daughter of Henry VIII.!--and sometimes wonder if the memory of a