ended, comes off with better applause, or miscarries with less disgrace, than a long-studied and openly-premeditated action. Besides, we see how great spirits, having mounted up to the highest pitch of performance, afterwards strain and break their credits in trying to go beyond it. We will not justify all the actions of any man, though of a tamer profession than a sea-captain, in whom civility is often counted preciseness. For the main, we say that this our captain was a religious man towards God, and his houses, generally speaking, churches, where he came chaste in his life, just in his dealings, true of his word, and merciful to those that were under him, hating nothing so much as idleness.” To these good qualities we may add that he was kind and considerate to his sailors, though strict in the maintenance of discipline: and liberal on fit occasions, though a strict economist. He cut a watercourse from Buckland Abbey to Plymouth, a distance of seven miles in a straight line, and thirty by the windings of the conduit, to supply the latter town with fresh water, which before was not to be procured within the distance of a mile. He is honourably distinguished from the atrocious race of buccaneers, to whom his example in some sort gave rise, by the humanity with which he treated his prisoners. And it should be mentioned, as a proof of his judicious benevolence, that in conjunction with Sir John Hawkins, he procured the establishment of the Chest at Chatham, for the relief of aged or sick seamen, out of their own voluntary contributions. The faults ascribed to him are ambition, inconstancy in friendship, and too much desire of popularity. In person, Drake was low, but strongly made, “well favoured, fayre, and of a cheerefull countenance.” The scarf and jewel which he wears in our portrait (which is engraved from a picture in the possession of Sir Trayton Drake, of Nutwell Court, near Exeter, the present representative of the family) were given him by Queen Elizabeth; the former when he took leave of her before sailing to meet the Armada. The jewel contains a portrait of herself: these relics are still in the possession of the family. Drake left no issue: his nephew was created a baronet by James I., and the title is still extant. The collection of voyages by Hakluyt, and the accounts published by Drake’s nephew, quoted in this memoir, contain the fullest accounts of Drake’s adventurous history. Prince’s ‘Worthies of Devon,’ Dr. Johnson’s ‘Life of Drake,’ Kippis’s ‘Biographia Britannica,’ and the ‘Edinburgh Cabinet Library,’ vol. v., all give satisfactory accounts of this eminent ornament of the British navy. [Illustration: [From “a drawn Plan of Her Majestie’s (Elizabeth) Harbour at Berwick.” Cottonian MSS. Augustus, vol. ii., in British Museum.] ] [Illustration: _Engraved by W. Holl._ CHARLES V. _From the Original by Holbein in the Private Collection of the King of the French._