their country finds fitting expression in the words which Shakespeare
puts into the mouth of John of Gaunt:

"This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise;
This fortress, built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed spot, this earth, this realm, this England,
Dear for her reputation through the world."

51. To guard this favored spot, and to protect its soil from the
polluting footstep of the hated Spaniard, mariners went forth to do or
die. It was now, in the moment of supreme peril, that the courage,
hardihood, and skill of England's great navigators gained in battle
with the elements in the unknown seas of the North and West, and in
many a strife against fearful odds with their Spanish foes, were found
to be equal to the occasion and sufficient to insure the safety of
their country.

52. On Sunday morning, July 21st, the English ships commenced their
attacks upon their unwieldy antagonists. "The Spanish ships," says
Motley, "seemed arrayed for a pageant in honor of a victory won.
Arranged in the form of a crescent whose horns were seven miles
asunder, those gilded towers and floating castles, with their