Louis XIV. was not only, as Richelieu, powerful, but he was majestic; not only, as Cromwell, great, but in him was serenity. Louis XIV. was not, perhaps, genius in the master, but genius surrounded him. This may lessen a king in the eyes of some, but it adds to the glory of his reign. As for me, as you already know, I love that which is absolute, which is perfect; and therefore have always a profound respect for this grave and worthy prince, so well-born, so much loved, and so well-surrounded; a king in his cradle, a king in the tomb; true sovereign in every acceptation of the word; central monarch of civilization; pivot of all Europe, seeing, so to speak, from tour to tour, eight popes, five sultans, three emperors, two kings in Spain, three kings of Portugal, four kings and one queen of England, three kings of Denmark, one queen and two kings of Sweden, four kings of Poland, and four czars of Muscovy appear, shine forth and disappear around his throne; polar star of an entire age, who, during seventy-two years, saw all the constellations majestically perform their evolutions round him.—V. HUGO. _The Rhine._ III. THE ENGLISH. THE BLEAK NORTH-WEST COAST. "_War with the world and peace with England._"—_Spanish._ We should expect to find a race of sailors pushing discovery on their own element. With English mariners of the seventeenth century, the belief in a North-west Passage to India was an inherited faith. Cabot led discovery in this direction. It became, almost exclusively, a field for the brave and adventurous of this nation who, from year to year, spreading their tattered sails to the frozen blasts of the Polar Sea, grimly fought their way on from cape to headland, in desperate venture, lured by the vain hope of finding the open waters of their dreams lying just beyond them. It is a story of daring and peril unsurpassed. Many a noble ship and gallant crew have gone down while attempting to solve those mysteries which the hand of God would seem forever to have sealed up from the knowledge of man. Among others the brave and ill-fated Henry Hudson,[1] in 1610, sailed through the straits leading into the bay now bearing his name, where his mutinous crew wickedly abandoned him to die of cold or hunger, or both.