at Southampton is one hundred and seventy-eight, the foreign hired
vessels included. A contemporary authority quoted by Sir Harris Nicolas
makes it three hundred and twenty, made up by contingents from the
neighbouring havens to between twelve and fourteen hundred. According to
the list published by Sir Harris Nicolas, the number of effective
fighting men did not exceed ten thousand five hundred, though there were
probably as many more attendants and camp-followers.

Page 27, l. 31 [Stz. 59]. "_The acclamation of the presse._" --Might be
said in our time of any popular war, but in how different a sense!

Page 28, l. 1 [Stz. 60]. --This and the following stanza are quoted by
Sir Harris Nicolas with just admiration. In fact, Drayton's description
of the marshalling and departure of the expedition are the best part of
his poem.

Page 29, ll. 4-6 [Stz. 64]. "_In Ensignes there, Some wore the Armes of
their most ancient Towne, Others againe their owne Diuises beare._"
--The catalogue which follows is entirely in the spirit of Italian
romantic poetry, and may be especially compared with that of Agramante's
allies and their insignia in the "Orlando Innamorato." In many instances
the device, as Drayton says, represents the escutcheon of some town
within the county; in others he seems to have been indebted to his
imagination, though endeavouring not unsuccessfully to adduce some
reason for his choice.

Page 30, l. 11 [Stz. 68]. "_Brack._" --Brine.

Page 30, l. 20 [Stz. 69]. "_Lyam._" --A band or thong by which to lead a
hound; hence _lyme-hound_.

Page 31, l. 3 [Stz. 71]. "_A Golden Fleece and Hereford doth weare._"
--Grammar requires this line to begin _And Hereford_. Awkward
dislocations, however, are not infrequent in Drayton.

Page 31, l. 6. "_The Shiere whose surface seems most brute._" --George
Eliot, like Drayton a native of fertile Warwickshire, entitles the
neighbouring county _Stonyshire_.

Page 33, l. 17 [Stz. 80]. "_The Fleet then full,_" _etc._ --Compare this
fine stanza, which might have been written by one who had never been on
shipboard, with the still more poetical and at the same time intensely
realistic one of Shakespeare ("Henry V.," act iii., prologue), which
proves that he must have been at sea on some occasion:

"Play with your fancies, and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails