52 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



whose richness I can vouch, and choose our sea- 

 son and our day to start forth, on some glorious 

 morning of one of our Italian springs, to see 

 what last night's easterly gale has swept from the 

 populous shallows of Torbay, and east up, high 

 and dry, on Paignton sands. 



Torbay is a place which should be as much 

 endeared to the naturalist as to the patriot and 

 to the artist. We cannot gaze on its blue ring 

 of water, and the great limestone bluffs which 

 bound it to the north and south, without a glow 

 passing through our hearts, as we remember the 

 terrible and 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, undismayed by size and numbers, 

 while their kin and friends stood watchinir and 

 praying on the cliffs, spectators of Britain's 

 Salamis. The white line of houses, too, on the 

 other side of the bay, is Brixham, famed as 

 the landing-place of WUliam of Orange ; the 

 stone on the pier-head, which marks his first 

 footsteps on British ground, is sacred in the eyes 



