ge, getting on towards Halesworth, where, if tradition be
trustworthy, Wolsey, as a butcher's boy, was nearly drowned, and where he
benevolently caused a bridge to be erected for the safety of all future
butcher-boys and others, when he became a distinguished man; or ramble by
the seaside to Walberswick, across the harbour, or on to Easton
Bavent--another decayed village, on the other side. Southwold has its
historical associations. Most of my readers have seen the well-known
picture of Solebay Fight at Greenwich Hospital. Southwold overlooks the
bay on which that fight was won. Here, on the morning of the 28th May,
1672, De Ruyter, with his Dutchmen, sailed right against those wooden
walls which have guarded old England in many a time of danger, and found
to his cost how invincible was British pluck. James, Duke of York--not
then the drivelling idiot who lost his kingdom for a Mass, but James,
manly and high-spirited, with a Prince's pride and a sailor's heart--won
a victory that for many a day was a favourite theme with all honest
Englishmen, and especially with the true and stout men who, alarmed by
the roar of cannon, as the sound boomed along the blue waters of that
peaceful bay, stood on the Southwold cliff, wishing that the fog which
intercepted their view might clear off, and that they might welcome as
victors their brethren on the sea. I can remember how, when an old
cannon was dragged up from the depths of the sea, it was supposed to be,
as it might have been, used in that fight, and now is preserved at one of
the look-out houses on the cliff as a souvenir of that glorious struggle.
The details of that fight are matters of history, and I need not dwell on
them. Our literature, also, owes Southwold one of the happiest effusions
of one of the wittiest writers of that age; and in a county history I
remember well a merry song on the Duke's late glorious success over the
Dutch, in Southwold Bay, which commences with the writer telling--

'One day as I was sitting still
Upon the side of Dunwich Hill,
And looking on the ocean,
By chance I saw De Ruyter's fleet
With Royal James's squadron meet;
In sooth it was a noble treat
To see that brave commotion.'

The writer vividly paints the scene, and ends as follows:

'Here's to King Charles, and here's to James,
And here's to all the captains' names,
And here's to all the Suffolk dames,
And here's to the hous