58 GLAUCUS ; OR, 
glorious pageant’ which passed by in the glorious 
July days of 1588, when the Spanish Armada 
ventured slowly past Berry Head, with Elizabeth's 
gallant pack of Devon captains (for the London 
fleet had not yet joined) following fast in its wake, 
and dashing into the midst of the vast line, undis- 
mayed by size and numbers, while their kin and 
friends stood watching and praying on the cliffs, 
spectators of Britain’s Salamis. The white line of 
houses, too, on the other side of the bay, is Brix- 
ham, famed as the landing-place of William of 
Orange; the stone on the pier-head, which marks 
his first footsteps on British ground, is sacred in the 
eyes of all true English Whigs ; and close by stands 
the castle of the settler of Newfoundland, Sir 
Humphrey Gilbert, Raleigh’s half-brother, most 
learned of all Elizabeth’s admirals in life, most 
pious and heroic in death. And as for scenery, 
though it can boast of neither mountain peak nor 
dark fiord, and would seem tame enough in the eyes 
of a western Scot or Irishman, yet Torbay surely 
has a soft beauty of its own. The rounded hills 
