THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



In these rocks Belarius has lived, he says, for twenty 

 years, and during that time has paid more pious debts 

 to heaven than in all the fore-end of his life. A kind of 

 weariness of institutions pervades Shakespeare's later 

 plays ; and it is easy to believe that the fascinating tales 

 told by the voyagers quickened his longing for a simpler 

 society, and contributed something to his magical descrip- 

 tions of innocence and kindliness, whether in the wizard's 

 cell on the island, or on the shepherd's lawn in Bohemia, 

 or in the cave among the mountains of Wales. 

 Influence of There is no catching Shakespeare in the act of theft ; 



// natimar ^^^ creative power transforms and inspires all that it 

 imagination, touches, and brings it obedient to his own thought. It 

 is certain that he was a poet ; and there certainty ends. 

 But whether it count for much or little in the history 

 of his thought, the great fact of the Voyages can never 

 be neglected, nor its influence on the national imagination 

 denied. In this partial and naked record, preserved for 

 us by Hakluyt, are inscribed the deeds which for half 

 a century excited wild emotions, kindled emulation 

 in the young, provided strange food for the intellect, 

 and gave strength and purpose to the activities of a 

 nation. What this scholar or that learned we can only 

 The School of guess; but here was the school of the people. It was 

 the people. ^ great training-ground, and gave noble exercise to those 

 qualities of strenuousness, high carelessness, and almost 

 braggart magnanimity which are the distinguishing mark 

 of the Elizabethans. In those days the prudential 

 virtues hid their heads, to wait for a less stormy season, 

 when coasting voyages for profit should come into fashion 

 again. The poets and men of action vied with each 

 other in the effort to outshine deeds with words, and 



ii6 



