attributed their defeat. Lope studied
the exploits of Francis Drake from his first appearance to his end, and
he celebrated those exploits, as England herself has never yet thought
it worth her while to do, by making him the hero of an epic poem. There
are heroes and heroes. Lope de Vega's epic is called 'The Dragontea.'
Drake himself is the dragon, the ancient serpent of the Apocalypse. We
English have been contented to allow Drake a certain qualified praise.
We admit that he was a bold, dexterous sailor, that he did his country
good service at the Invasion. We allow that he was a famous navigator,
and sailed round the world, which no one else had done before him.
But--there is always a but--of course he was a robber and a corsair, and
the only excuse for him is that he was no worse than most of his
contemporaries. To Lope de Vega he was a great deal worse. He was Satan
himself, the incarnation of the Genius of Evil, the arch-enemy of the
Church of God.

It is worth while to look more particularly at the figure of a man who
appeared to the Spaniards in such terrible proportions. I, for my part,
believe a time will come when we shall see better than we see now what
the Reformation was, and what we owe to it, and these sea-captains of
Elizabeth will then form the subject of a great English national epic as
grand as the 'Odyssey.'

In my own poor way meanwhile I shall try in these lectures to draw you a
sketch of Drake and his doings as they appear to myself. To-day I can
but give you a part of the rich and varied story, but if all goes well I
hope I may be able to continue it at a future time.

I have not yet done with Sir John Hawkins. We shall hear of him again.
He became the manager of Elizabeth's dockyards. He it was who turned out
the ships that fought Philip's fleet in the Channel in such condition
that not a hull leaked, not a spar was sprung, not a rope parted at an
unseasonable moment, and this at a minimum of cost. He served himself in
the squadron which he had equipped. He was one of the small group of
admirals who met that Sunday afternoon in the cabin of the ark _Raleigh_
and sent the fire-ships down to stir Medina Sidonia out of his anchorage
at Calais. He was a child of the sea, and at sea he died, sinking at
last into his mother's arms. But of this hereafter. I must speak now of
his still more illustrious kinsman, Francis Drake.

I told you the other day generally who Drake was and where he came from;