True daughter, whose all-faithful, filial eyes Have seen the loneliness of earthly thrones,

Wilt neither quit the widow'd Crown, nor let

This later light of Love have risen in vain, But moving thro' the Mother's home, between

The two that love thee, lead a summer life, Sway'd by each Love, and swaying to each Love,

Like some conjectured planet in mid heaven

Between two Suns, and drawing down from both

The light and genial warmth of double day.

THE FLEET.1

I.

You, you, if you shall fail to understand

What England is, and what her all-in-all, On you will come the curse of all the land, Should this old England fall

Which Nelson left so great.

II.

His isle, the mightiest Ocean-power on earth,

Our own fair isle, the lord of every

sea

1 The speaker said that he should like to be assured that other outlying portions of the Empire, the Crown colonies, and important coaling stations were being as promptly and as thoroughly fortified as the various capitals of the self-governing colonies. He was credibly informed this was not so. It was impossible, also, not to feel some degree of anxiety about the efficacy of present provision to defend and protect, by means of swift well-armed cruisers, the immense mercantile fleet of the Empire. A third source of anxiety, so far as the colonies were concerned, was the apparently insufficient provision for the rapid manufacture of armaments and their prompt despatch when ordered to their colonial destination. Hence the necessity for manufacturing appliances equal to the requirements, not of Great Britain alone, but of the whole Empire. But the keystone of the whole was the necessity for an overwhelmingly powerful fleet and efficient defence for all necessary coaling stations. This was as essential for the colonies as for Great Britain. It was the one condition

WELCOME, welcome with one voice!
In your welfare we rejoice,

for the continuance of the Empire. All that Continental Powers did with respect to armies England should effect with her navy. It was essentially a defensive force, and could be moved rapidly from point to point, but it should be equal to all that was expected from it. It was to strengthen the fleet that colonists would first readily tax themselves, because they realised how essential a powerful fleet was to the safety, not only of that extensive commerce sailing in every sea, but ultimately to the security of the distant portions of the Empire. Who could estimate the loss involved in even a brief period of disaster to the Imperial Navy? Any amount of money timely expended in preparation would be quite insignificant when compared with the possible calamity he had referred to.'- Extract from Sir Graham Berry's Speech at the Colonist Institute, 9th November 1886.

Third Citizen. Ay, the Parliament can make every true-born man of us a bastard.. Old Nokes, can't it make thee a bastard? thou shouldst know, for thou art as white as three Christmasses.

Old Nokes (dreamily). Who's a-passing? King Edward or King Richard? Third Citizen. No, old Nokes. Old Nokes. It's Harry! Third Citizen. It's Queen Mary. Old Nokes. The blessed Mary's a[Falls on his knees. Nokes. Let father alone, my masters! he's past your questioning.

passing!

Third Citizen. Answer thou for him, then! thou'rt no such cockerel thyself, for thou wast born i' the tail end of old Harry the Seventh.

Nokes. Eh! that was afore bastardmaking began. I was born true man at five in the forenoon i' the tail of old Harry, and so they can't make me a bastard.

Third Citizen. But if Parliament can make the Queen a bastard, why, it follows all the more that they can make thee one, who art fray'd i' the knees, and out at elbow, and bald o' the back, and bursten at the toes, and down at heels.

Nokes. I was born of a true man and a ring'd wife, and I can't argue upon it; but I and my old woman 'ud burn upon it, that would we.

Marshalman. What are you cackling of bastardy under the Queen's own nose? I'll have you flogg'd and burnt too, by the Rood I will.

First Citizen. He swears by the Rood. Whew!

[The Procession passes, Mary and Elizabeth riding side by side, and disappears under the gate. Citizens. Long live Queen Mary! down with all traitors! God save her Grace; and death to Northumberland!

[Exeunt.

Manent Two GENTLEMEN. First Gentleman. By God's light a noble creature, right royal!

Second Gentleman. She looks comelier than ordinary to-day; but to my mind the Lady Elizabeth is the more noble and royal.

First Gentleman. I mean the Lady Elizabeth. Did you hear (I have a daughter in her service who reported it) that she met the Queen at Wanstead with five hundred horse, and the Queen (tho' some say they be much divided) took her hand, call'd her sweet sister, and kiss'd not her alone, but all the ladies of her following.

Second Gentleman. Ay, that was in her hour of joy; there will be plenty to sunder and unsister them again: this Gardiner for one, who is to be made Lord Chancellor, and will pounce like a wild beast out of his cage to worry Cranmer.

First Gentleman. And furthermore, my daughter said that when there rose a talk of the late rebellion, she spoke even of Northumberland pitifully, and of the good Lady Jane as a poor innocent child who had but obeyed her father; and furthermore, she said that no one in her time should be burnt for heresy.

Second Gentleman. Well, sir, I look for happy times.

First Gentleman. There is but one thing against them. I know not if you know.

Second Gentleman. I suppose you touch upon the rumour that Charles, the master of the world, has offer'd her his son Philip, the Pope and the Devil. I trust it is but a rumour.

First Gentleman. She is going now to the Tower to loose the prisoners there, and among them Courtenay, to be made Earl of Devon, of royal blood, of splendid

feature, whom the council and all her people wish her to marry. May it be so, for we are many of us Catholics, but few Papists, and the Hot Gospellers will go mad upon it.

Second Gentleman.

Was she not betroth'd in her babyhood to the Great Emperor himself?

First Gentleman. Ay, but he's too old. Second Gentleman. And again to her cousin Reginald Pole, now Cardinal; but I hear that he too is full of aches and broken before his day.

First Gentleman. O, the Pope could dispense with his Cardinalate, and his achage, and his breakage, if that were all : will you not follow the procession?

Second Gentleman. No; I have seen enough for this day.

First Gentleman. Well, I shall follow; if I can get near enough I shall judge with my own eyes whether her Grace incline to this splendid scion of Plantagenet. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A ROOM IN LAMBETH PALACE.

Cranmer. To Strasburg, Antwerp, Frankfort, Zurich, Worms, Geneva, Basle - - our Bishops from their

sees

Or fled, they say, or flying- Poinet, Barlow,

Bale, Scory, Coverdale; besides the Deans

Of Christchurch, Durham, Exeter, and

Wells

Ailmer and Bullingham, and hundreds

more;

So they report: I shall be left alone.
No: Hooper, Ridley, Latimer will not fly.

Enter PETER MARTYR.

Peter Martyr. Fly, Cranmer! were there nothing else, your name Stands first of those who sign'd the Letters Patent

That gave her royal crown to Lady Jane. Cranmer. Stand first it may, but it was written last:

Those that are now her Privy Council, sign'd

Before me: nay, the Judges had pronounced

That our young Edward might bequeath the crown

Of England, putting by his father's will. Yet I stood out, till Edward sent for me. The wan boy-king, with his fast-fading

eyes

Fixt hard on mine, his frail transparent hand,

Damp with the sweat of death, and griping mine,

Whisper'd me, if I loved him, not to yield His Church of England to the Papal wolf And Mary; then I could no more. - 1 sign'd.

Nay, for bare shame of inconsistency, She cannot pass her traitor council by, To make me headless.

Peter Martyr. That might be forgiven. I tell you, fly, my Lord. You do not own The bodily presence in the Eucharist, Their wafer and perpetual sacrifice : Your creed will be your death.

Cranmer.

Step after step, Thro' many voices crying right and left, Have I climb'd back into the primal