“Throvghe scorchinge heate, throughe coulde, in stormes, and tempests force, By ragged rocks, by shelfes, & sandes: this Knighte did keepe his course. By gapinge gulfes hee pass’d, by monsters of the flood, By pirattes, theeues, and cruell foes, that long’d to spill his blood. That wonder greate to scape: but, GOD was on his side, And throughe them all, in spite of all, his shaken shippe did guide. And, to requite his paines: _By helpe of Power deuine._ His happe, at lengthe did aunswere hope, to finde the goulden mine. Let GRÆCIA then forbeare, to praise her IASON boulde? Who throughe the watchfull dragons pass’d, to win the fleece of goulde. Since by MEDEAS helpe, they weare inchaunted all, And IASON without perrilles, pass’de: the conqueste therefore small? But, hee, of whome I write, this noble minded DRAKE, Did bringe away his goulden fleece, when thousand eies did wake. Wherefore, yee woorthie wightes, that seeke for forreine landes: Yf that you can, come alwaise home, by GANGES goulden sandes. And you, that liue at home, and can not brooke the flood, Geue praise to them, that passe the waues, to doe their countrie good. Before which sorte, as chiefe: in tempeste, and in calme, Sir FRANCIS DRAKE, by due deserte, may weare the goulden palme.” How similar, in part at least, is the sentiment in _Hamlet_ (act v. sc. 2, l. 8, vol. viii. p. 164),— “Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well When our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.” In the Emblem we may note the girdle by which Drake’s ship is guided; may it not have been the origin of Puck’s fancy in the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 173, vol. ii. p. 216), when he answers Oberon’s strict command,— “And be thou here again Ere the Leviathan can swim a league. _Puck._ I’ll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes.” Besides, may it not have been from this voyage of Sir Francis Drake, and the accounts which were published respecting it, that the correct knowledge of physical geography was derived which Richard II. displays (act iii. sc. 2, l. 37, &c. vol. iv. p. 165)? as in the lines,— “when the searching eye of heaven is hid, Behind the globe, that lights the lower world. . . . . . . when from under this terrestrial ball He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines And darts his light through every guilty hole. . . . . . . revell’d in the night Whilst we were wandering with the antipodes.”