r--'I will not
forsake my little company going homewards, with whom I have passed
so many storms and perils.'

Two-thirds of the way home they met foul weather and terrible seas,
'breaking-short and pyramid-wise.' Men who had all their lives 'occupied
the sea' had never seen it more outrageous. 'We had also upon our
mainyard an apparition of a little fier by night, which seamen do call
Castor and Pollux.'

Monday the ninth of September, in the afternoon, the frigate was
near cast away oppressed by waves, but at that time recovered, and
giving forth signs of joy, the General, sitting abaft with a book in
his hand, cried out unto us in the 'Hinde' so often as we did
approach within hearing, 'We are as near to heaven by sea as by
land,' reiterating the same speech, well beseeming a soldier
resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testify that he was. The same
Monday night, about twelve of the clock, or not long after, the
frigate being ahead of us in the 'Golden Hinde,' suddenly her lights
were out, whereof as it were in a moment we lost the sight; and
withal our watch cried, 'The General was cast away,' which was too
true.

Thus faithfully (concludes Mr. Hayes, in some degree rising above
himself) I have related this story, wherein some spark of the
knight's virtues, though he be extinguished, may happily appear; he
remaining resolute to a purpose honest and godly as was this, to
discover, possess, and reduce unto the service of God and Christian
piety, those remote and heathen countries of America. Such is the
infinite bounty of God, who from every evil deriveth good, that
fruit may grow in time of our travelling in these North-Western
lands (as has it not grown?), and the crosses, turmoils, and
afflictions, both in the preparation and execution of the voyage,
did correct the intemperate humours which before we noted to be in
this gentleman, and made unsavoury and less delightful his other
manifold virtues.

Thus as he was refined and made nearer unto the image of God, so it
pleased the Divine will to resume him unto Himself, whither both his
and every other high and noble mind have always aspired.

Such was Sir Humfrey Gilbert; still in the prime of his years when the
Atlantic swallowed him. Like the gleam of a landscape lit suddenly for a
moment by the lightning, these few scenes flash down to us acro