it is to be
feared, by political honesty, the expedition of Drake afforded the
highest gratification. Swarms of wits, accordingly, who are never
wanting in any reign, either to eulogize what the government has
sanctioned, or to infuse something of literary immortality into
popular enthusiasm, were in requisition on this extraordinary
occasion, and, as usual, vied with each other in bombast and the
fervour of exaggeration. If one might credit the legends, Sir Francis
accomplished much more than a visit to the antipodes, much more
indeed, than ever man did before or since. Witness an epigram on him
preserved in the Censura Literaria. vol. iii, p. 217:--

Sir Drake, whom well the world's end knew,
Which thou didst compasse round,
And whom both poles of heaven once saw
Which north and south do bound:
The stars above would make thee known,
If men were silent here;
The Sun himselfe cannot forget
His fellow-traveller.

This is evidently a quaint version of the quaint lines said, by
Camden, to have been made by the scholars of Winchester College:--

_Drace, pererrati quem novit terminus orbis,
Quemque simul mundi vidit uterque Polus;
Si taceant homines, facient te sidera notum.
Sol nescit comitis non memor esse sui_.

Abraham Cowley seems to have availed himself of the chief thought here
embodied, in his pointed epigram on the chair formed from the planks
of Drake's vessel, and presented to the university of Oxford. His
metaphysical genius, however, has refined the _point_ with no
small dexterity--the four last lines, more especially, displaying no
small elegance. The reader will not despise them:--

To this great ship, which round the world has run,
And matcht in race the chariot of the sun;
This Pythagorean ship (for it may claim
Without presumption, so deserved a name),
By knowledge once, and transformation now,
In her new shape, this sacred port allow.
Drake and his ship could not have wish'd from fate
An happier station, or more blest estate;
For lo! a seat of endless rest is given
To her in Oxford, and to him in Heaven.

It would be unpardonable to omit, now we are on the subject of Drake's
praises, the verses given in the Biog. Brit. and said to have been
unpublished before:--