THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



build up his own greatness, and borrow a name from 

 ancient history or fable. But whatever is most charac- 

 teristic and vital in the life and thought of an age will 

 find utterance in its poetry, none the less. The im- 

 pressions recorded will perhaps have no very obvious 

 connection with the particular facts of history; they 

 will be those rather that strike the eye and fire the 



The sentiment imagination of a child. The romance of sea-faring will 

 of the sea. • ir • r 11 



express itselr not m an account or any one notable 



exploit, with due credit allotted by name to all who 



took part in it, but in some such vague memory and 



sentiment as that of the American poet : 



' I remember the black wharves, and the slips, 



And the sea-tides tossing free, 

 And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 

 And the beauty and mystery of the ships. 



And the magic of the sea.' 



Poetry speaks only that which it knows, and testifies only 

 that which it has seen. What did the Elizabethan 

 poets know and see of the world of promise revealed 

 by the navigators? 



Some direct and commendatory notice there was of 

 the most famous voyagers by name, and many poems, 

 some of them by good poets, were addressed to the 

 Warner on the adventurers on setting forth. The later books o{ Albion's 

 England ( 1 602), for instance, by William Warner, are 

 much concerned with the achievements recorded by 

 Hakluyt, and tribute is paid in passing to Hakluyt 

 himself. But Warner belongs to that older school of 

 Protestant poets who had their education chiefly from 

 the practice of metrical psalmody. His zeal is great, 

 and he gives high praise to many of the travellers, with 

 a full account, especially, of the North Eastern voyages 



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