do. He tells you that you are the image of his old commanding officer-a fine soldier ! I have no doubt Corporal Smart succeeds with a great many on the score of his very naturally expressed delight and surprise-recalling the tones of "Charley Wyndham" in a rattling comedy part.

When Lord Aberdeen was dying a party of gentlemen were travelling up to town in the train; among them was Delane, who took a printed slip out of his pocket and read portions of it. It was the obituary notice. All criticised it and found various faults One said it did not deal fairly with him. "All I can say is," said the editor, "that he has seen it himself!"

An old clubbist related some interesting anecdotes, notably of the good Harness. I once sat beside this divine at a public dinner, and it was a curious feeling to talk to one who had been the friend of Byron. He could have been a bishop or dean, but he asked as though he were badly treated-" How could I go to the theatre then?" He spoke of Moore also, whom he had seen at parties. The poet always addressed his songs to some particular lady whom he fancied for a time, and the wife of a certain dean whom he distinguished in this way was so agitated by the process that she burst into convulsive sobs. The little bard was delighted. I suppose "When he who adores thee" had been used in this fashion on scores. Once when he was in a shop in Paris with a friend, he noticed two handsome Englishwomen passing whom his friend knew. "Go and talk to them," said the poet good-humouredly, but rather artfully. The friend did so and returned. "Well, what did they say?" "Oh, they were delighted to hear that it was you." "Well?" The friend hesitated a little, but, being pressed, said, "They have been for years taking in your almanack, and they were so glad to see the author"!

There must be only one or two persons alive now who have seen Kemble. Lately I had a long conversation with that interesting veteran F., who was well acquainted "with them all," Siddons and the rest. Warming up as he spoke, he sat down in a chair and gave an imitation of Kemble in the "Stranger" when Mrs. Haller was approaching. The agitation affected not the voice or face, but the knees of the great man, which, as the lady drew nearer and yet nearer, began to shake and quiver palpably. In "Penruddock," when he said the line, Come hither, boy; I think you are like your mother," there were sobs and "blubbering" all through the house.

A little lord whom I knew was lately taken to a tailor's before

going to school. An energetic official of the house was measuring him privately, when he took occasion to say, with much sympathy, "I am sure, my lord, you will often be in want of little thingspocket-money, &c., and if your lordship will apply to us we shall only be too happy," &c. This, I think, is the most execrable instance on record.

Such are a few specimens from my diary. Should they be relished, I have more at the courteous reader's disposition.

PERCY FITZGERALD.

OUR FIRST GREAT SEA-FIGHT.

NOVE

ONE can deny that Britannia ruling the waves since first she rose from them forms a fine poetic figure of speech. But, full of the muse of lyric verse, Thomson probably forgot when he penned that daring hyperbole that the muse of history could lay lean pedantic finger on the date, the very day, when Britain's empire of the sea began. It began with the fame-worthy sea-fight at Sluys. That fight carries us back to the source of the Hundred Years' War-the claim set up by Edward III. to the French crown on the death of Philip the Handsome in 1328. But, luckily for the reader-and ourselves-we need not sift that claim, nor drag him through the details of the twelve years' fitful warfare which preceded the grand encounter. Enough to glance at a few of the main episodes in that warfare. But this we must, else we shear the drama of its first act.

Those episodes occurred in 1339, and stamped it as a black year in the annals of England. In that year Philip of France sent forth a mighty fleet to scour the Channel, harry our shipping, and waste our southern shores with fire and sword. His admirals' faithfully followed their instructions; and, at the outset, Fortune smiled upon their enterprise. A detachment of the fleet, numbering thirteen sail, soon fell in with five English vessels homeward bound from Flanders, where they had bartered English wool for Flemish goods and bullion. Three of the five, small craft unfit for fighting, spread sail and fled when the hostile cruisers hove in sight, leaving their portly companions, the St. Christopher and St. Edward, to their fate. These well-armed argosies maintained the unequal struggle for nine long hours before they reluctantly yielded to their unchivalrous foes, who flung overboard most of the wounded English -all but those who could pay fat ransom. After this sorry

triumph," the French," says a quaint old writer, "sore troubled this realm by sea and land, especially where the champain country stretches towards the coast." On the feast of Corpus Christi they landed at Hastings, burnt part of the town, and butchered some of

its inhabitants. In the harbours of Devon and Cornwall, and high up in the Bristol Channel, they took and burnt many ships, slaughtering the seamen who fell into their hands. They swooped upon Plymouth and burnt the greater part of it; though here they met a "Rowland for an Oliver" in the person of Sir Hugh Courter.ay, Earl of Devon, a brave old knight on the brink of fourscore, who mustered his dependents and neighbours for miles around, and drove the marauders back to their ships with heavy loss. Yet the French pursued their depredations. One Sunday morning fifty of the roving cruisers sailed up the Solent and burst upon Southampton while the townsfolk were at church. The bulk fled panic-stricken. The piratical invaders sacked the forsaken city, inflicting every sort of outrage on the luckless few they met, rifling the houses of the richer citizens, and hanging several of them from their own rafters. Thus, for a time, rape, robbery, and murder reigned supreme. Arson followed; for, after wrecking all the heavy plunder that balked their greed, and spending the rest of the day and the bulk of the night in reckless revelry, they finished their fiendish feat by setting fire to the town.

Even after all these years one feels a glow of satisfaction in recording that neither did these ruffians escape scot free. At daybreak on the morrow, as, clogged with drink and booty, they staggered shorewards, up rode Sir John Arundel colonelling a resolute troop of friends and yeomen, backed by the runaways of yesterday, panting for revenge. They wreaked it by slaying some five hundred of these "foreign devils" on the spot and chasing the rest into the sea, where many of them sank while striving to reach their ships, which, at sight of the English, had stood off from shore to avoid being boarded.

From the ruck of the undistinguished slain the old chroniclers single out one-" a son of the King of Sicily," they style him— who, whatever his rank or race, found bitter cause that day to rue his ignorance of English. Felied by a sturdy Hampshire hind who laid about him with a flail like mad, the gravelled foreigner raised a lusty roar of "Rançon! Rançon !" "Ay," replied his horny-handed foe, without ears for his French or eyes for the mystic blazon on his shield, "I know thou art a Françon, and therefore shalt thou die." And, suiting deed to word, he literally threshed the high-born pilferer to death.

Meanwhile, though partly wiped out in blood, the memory of these wrongs and of the loss of two of the stateliest vessels England then could boast, rankled in the breast of kin and

people. Moreover, the fast-growing naval power of France threatened ruin to our trade, hence to the realm. And now the rumour ran that King Philip was gathering an overwhelming fleet upon the Flemish coast, to smite us hip and thigh. Rumour soon solidified itself to certainty; and to forestall the threatened invasion, Edward mustered in the mouth of the Orwell a fleet of 260 vessels. With these, convoying a small train of transports freighted with a bevy of ladies bound for the Court of Queen Philippa at Ghent, he set sail for Flanders at daybreak on June 22, 1340. Early on the morrow they neared the Flemish coast and spied a forest of masts and spars flouting the welkin above the armlet of the sea which then served as the port of Sluys. At this sight Edward turned to the master of his ship and said, "What, think you, may yon vessels be?" "So please your Majesty," replied the mariner, "I take 'em to be Normans and others fitted out by the French King to rob and spoil your coasts and seize your Majesty's person if they can. And among 'em I doubt not we should find those very men who burnt your good town of Southampton and took your two goodly ships, the St. Edward and the St. Christopher." "Ha!" exclaimed the King, "long have I yearned to fight the French; for, truly, they have wrought me such foul wrong that I would fain revenge me an I may. And now, methinks, I shall do battle with some of them by the grace of God and good St. George." Then, summoning Lord Reginald Cobham, Sir John Chandos, and Sir Stephen de la Burkin, he bade them land and ride along the coast to scan and count the foe. Having naught to dread from the then thoroughly friendly Flemings, the three knights cheerfully obeyed, and returned, unscathed, before dusk, to report an enemy's fleet of some 400 sail, moored in the harbour of Sluys. Thereupon, the King, who-to quote the language of a quaint old author-must needs for the nonce play the admiral himself, gave orders to anchor for the night, and voiced his purpose to tackle the foe betimes next morning.

The fleet he itched to tackle was a motley swarm of French, Spanish, and Genoese vessels, with a contingent from Brittany, still an independent dukedom. Next in importance to the French squadron ranked the galleys of Genoa, captained by Boccanegra, brother to its Doge; and in the council of war witnessed by the peaceful stars that balmy summer night the voice of this brave and able warrior, impatient of delay, overrode the Fabian counsels of the French Admiral Bahuchet. On the other side, King Edward's rock-firm faith in the skill and courage of his men made him slight