CHAPTER XII. 



THERE is no period in the annals of England which is 

 more captivating to the student than that which includes 

 the years which close the reign of Elizabeth, and those 

 immediately following the accession of James I. It was 

 at this time, we are told, that there came a wonderful 

 awakening of the national life, an unexampled increase 

 in opulence, refinement and leisure. It was then that the 

 glory of the new literature burst forth; and imagination, 

 winged by the genius of Shakespeare, soared to its su- 

 premest height. Then the sails of Britain swept over the 

 furthest seas, and the romances of the old minstrels became 

 dull and vapid beside the tales which the weather-beaten 

 mariner brought back of the flowery lands and golden 

 shores which, beckoning so seductively, set the staid trader 

 of foggy London aflame with cupidity and with enterprise. 

 Then, it is said, arose a new impulse to classical study and 

 a passion for the master literature of Greece and Italy. 

 English commerce increased and wealth poured into the 

 land, bringing with it new luxuries and a new demand for 

 wines and jewels and rich apparel and sumptuous equipage 

 and costly dwellings. The huts of "sticks and mud" 

 which the followers of Spanish Philip had declared the 

 peasants' hovels to be, gave place to houses of stone and 

 brick; the grim and battlemented walls of feudal times to 

 mansions graceful and beautiful, embowered in smiling 

 gardens and decorated with the exquisite refinement of 

 Italian art. 



Such, briefly, is the picture, so often shown, following 

 the recital of the great sea victory and the story of 

 the years of fear and suspense and stagnation which 

 preceded it, until it seems as if the smoke of the guns 



(332) 



