nor whither it goeth, but we know that its blows have often been given with effect on human affairs; and it never blew with more usefulness, since the time when it used up the ships of Xerxes, than when it sent the ships of Philip to join "the treasures that old Ocean hoards." Had England then been conquered by Spain, though but temporarily, Protestant England would have ceased to exist, and the current of history would have been as emphatically changed as was the current of the Euphrates under the labors of the soldiers of Cyrus. We should have had no Shakspeare, or a very different Shakspeare from the one that we have; and the Elizabethan age would have presented to after centuries an appearance altogether unlike that which now so impressively strikes the mind. As that was the time out of which all that is great and good in England and America has proceeded, in letters and in arms, in religion and in politics, we can easily understand how vast must have been the change, had not the winds of the North been so unpropitious to the purposes of the King of the South. The English are very proud of the victories of Crécy and Agincourt, as well they may be; for, though gained in the course of as unjust and unprovoked and cruel wars as ever were waged even by Englishmen, they are as splendid specimens of slaughter-work as can be found in the history of "the Devil's code of honor." But they owe them both to the weather, which favored their ancestors, and was as unfavorable to the ancestors of the French. At Crécy the Italian cross-bow men in the French army not only came into the field worn down by a long march on a hot day in August, but immediately after their arrival they were exposed to a terrible thunder-storm, in which the rain fell in absolute torrents, wetting the strings of their bows, and rendering them unserviceable. The English archers, who carried the far more useful long-bow, kept their bows in their cases until the rain ceased, and then took them out dry, and in perfect condition; besides which, even if the strings of the long-bows had been wetted, they could not have been materially injured, as they were thin and pliable, while those of the cross-bows were so thick and unpliable that they could not be tightened or slackened at pleasure. In after-days this defect in the cross-bow was removed, but it existed in full force in 1346. When the battle began, the Italian _quarrel_ was found to be worthless, because of the strings of the arbalists having absorbed so much moisture, while the English arrows came upon the poor Genoese in frightful showers, throwing them into a panic, and inaugurating disaster to the French at the very beginning of the action. The day was lost from that moment, and there was not a leader among the French capable of restoring it.