High Virtue's hest is eloquent With spur and not with martingall: Sufficeth not thou'rt continent: BE COURTEOUS, BRAVE, AND LIBERAL. God fashion'd thee of chosen clay For service, nor did ever say "Deny thee this," "Abstain from yon," Save to inure thee, thew and bone, To be confirmed of the clan That made immortal Marathon-- _Virtue is that beseems a Man!_ ENVOY. Young Knight, the lists are set to-day: Hereafter shall be long to pray In sepulture with hands of stone. Ride, then! outride the bugle blown And gaily dinging down the van Charge with a cheer--Set on! Set on! _Virtue is that beseems a Man!_ A friend to whom I showed these verses remarked that Mr. Blank was indeed a person who fed his soul upon negatives; but that I possibly did him some injustice in charging so much of this to timidity, whereas the scent lay rather in the gusto with which he judged his fellow-men. "And, by the way," said he, "is there not some gusto in the scorn with which you are judging Mr. Blank at this moment?" "Do you remember," I answered, "how that man, after voting for war the other day, went straight off to a meeting of the Peace Society and put up a florid appeal to the Prince of Peace for a time when wars should be no more? Let him be, however: I do wrong to lose my temper with him. But on this matter of national timidity I have something to say. . . ." I have been reading John Holland's two _Discourses of the Navy_, written in 1638 and 1659, and published the other day by the Navy Records Society. The object of Mr. Holland's discourses was to reform the Navy, purge it of abuses, and strengthen it for the defence of this realm; and I have been curious to compare his methods with those of our own Navy League, which has been making such a noise for ten years or so. The first thing I observe is the attitude of mind in which he approaches his subject:-- "If either the honour of a nation, commerce or trust with all nations, peace at home, grounded upon our enemies' fear or love of us abroad, and attended with plenty of all things necessary either for the preservation of the public weal or thy private welfare, be things worthy thy esteem (though it may be beyond thy shoal conceit) then next to God and thy King give thy thanks for the same to the Navy. As for honour, who knows not (that knows anything) that in all records of late times of actions, chronicled to the everlasting fame and renown of this nation, still the naval part is the thread that runs through the whole wooft, the burden of the song, the scope of the text? . . ." He proceeds to enumerate some particular commercial advantages due to our mastery of the sea, and sums up in these words:--