JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 205 



plank, and was washed on shore alone of the 

 whole company, and all the rest lay among cannon 

 and doubloon chests amidst the rocks in Blasket 

 Sound. . . . 



. . . Such was the fate of the brilliant chivalry 

 of Spain ; the choicest representatives of the most 

 illustrious families in Europe. They had rushed 

 into the service with an emotion pure and generous 

 as ever Templar to tlie Sepulchre of Christ. They 

 believed that they were the soldiers of the Almighty. 

 Pope and Bishop had commended them to the 

 charge of the angels and the saints. The spell 

 of the names of the Apostles had been shattered 

 by English cannon. The elements, which were 

 deemed God's peculiar province— as if to dis- 

 enchant Christendom, were disenchantment pos- 

 sible, of so fond an illusion — whirled them upon a 

 shore which the waves of a hundred million years 

 had made the most dangerous in the world ; there, 

 as they crawled half drowned through the surf, to 

 fall into the jaws of the Irish wolves. 



James Anthony i'roudf. 



