AN ANNUS MIRABILISSIMUS. 87 



we suppose we may regard the matter as a fait accompli, an event 



so unheard-of and unusual that we must go back for an exact 



parallel for more than two hundred years, when the Duke of 



York, afterwards James II., " a man of many woes," married the 



Lady Anne Hyde, daughter of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, whose 



history of the Eehellion is one of the most interesting, and, on 



account of its inimitable portraiture, one of the most valuable 



works of its kind in the English language. If to all this be added 



such events as the loss of the " Captain," built and armed on 



a principle, the ultimate adoption or rejection of which will so 



materially affect the navy of the future ; the revision of the 



Authorised Version of the Scriptures ; and many other matters, 



both at home and abroad, that will readily occur to the reader, 



this may be regarded as a very wonderful year indeed. Occupying 



the centre, as it were, of all these events, we are too near them at 



present to appraise either their magnitude or importance at their 



legitimate value. Not the man at the base of a lofty tower, but 



he who stands at some distance from it can take its proportions 



aright, and we may depend upon it that the reader of the history 



of our period a hundred years hence will turn to the page that 



records the events of 1870 as at once the most interesting and 



important in the annals of many centuries. Eeverting for a 



moment to the Annus Mirabilis of Dryden, it is but fair to 



acknowledge that they seem to have had one wonder to boast 



of in 1666 that we cannot claim for 1870, to this date at least; 



the wonder in question being two blazing comets in the nocturnal 



sky. Describing the English fleet advancing to attack the enemy 



at night, the poet, with a boldness of hyperbole for which he is 



always remarkable, says — ■ 



" To see that fleet upon the ocean move, 



Angels drew down the curtains of the skies ; 

 And Heaven, as if there wanted lights above, 

 For tapers, made two glaring comets rise ! " 



