me Monday
night, about twelve of the clock, or not long after, the frigate
being a-head 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."

So stirbt ein Held. It was a fine end for a mortal
man. We will not call it sad or tragic, but heroic and
sublime; and if our eyes water as we write it down,
it is not with sorrow, but with joy and pride.

"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; we know but little
more of him, and we can only conjecture that he
was 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 across the centuries; but what
a life must that have been of which this was the
conclusion! He was one of a race which have ceased to
be. We look round for them, and we can hardly
believe that the same blood is flowing in our veins.
Brave we may still be, and strong perhaps as they,
but the high moral grace which made bravery and
strength so beautiful is departed from us for ever.

Our space is sadly limited for historical portrait
painting; but we must find room for another of that
Greenaway party whose nature was as fine as that of
Gilbert, and who intellectually was more largely gifted.
The latter was drowned in 1583. In 1585 John Davis
left Dartmouth on his first voyage into the P