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But he was writing to a statesman of the Revolution, who was his political patron, just then out of office, and propriety suggested such personal compliment as calling the Boyne a Tiber, and Halifax an improvement upon Virgil; while his heart was in the closing emphasis, also proper to the occasion, which dwelt on the liberty that gives their smile to the barren rocks and bleak mountains of Britannia's isle, while for Italy, rich in the unexhausted stores of nature, proud Oppression in her valleys reigns, and tyranny usurps her happy plains.
May the laurels of Great Britain never be blighted. May all mankind make free to enjoy the blessings of liberty, but never take the liberty to subvert the principles of freedom. May Britannia's hand ever be armed with the bolts of Jove.
Perish the thought! The specks of white grew larger with alarming rapidity. It was not until the British destroyer flotilla was almost on us that we could discern, behind each dividing mass of curving foam, the sinister and capable grey shapes of Britannia's watch-dogs moving swiftly, in perfect harmony with sea and sky.
It wuz writ 'way back in the last war with England, an' I'll quote you the first two verses, words an' grammar both correct: "Britannia's gallant streamers Float proudly o'er the tide, And fairly wave Columbia's stripes In battle side by side, And ne'er did bolder seamen meet Where ocean surges pour O'er the tide now they ride While the bell'wing thunders roar While the cannon's fire is flashing fast And the bell'wing thunders roar.
No arm to guard me from Oppression's rod, My will subservient to a tyrant's nod! No gentle hand, when life is in decay, To soothe my pains, and charm my cares away; But helpless left to quit the horrid stage, Harass'd in youth, and desolate in age! "But I was born in Afric's tawny strand, And you in fair Britannia's fairer land. Comes freedom, then, from colour? Blush with shame!
The stealing of the Hesperian apples, and the penalty entailed, appear to be imitated from the breaking of Pan's tree in Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, as does also the devotion and rescue of Perindus . The orc probably owes its origin, directly or indirectly, to Ariosto, and the influence of the Metamorphoses is likewise, as so often, present.
Browne, in his "Britannia's Pastorals," makes the table on which they feast consist of: "A little mushroom, that was now grown thinner By being one time shaven for the dinner." Fairies have always been jealous of their rights, and are said to resent any infringement of their privileges, one of these being the property of fruit out of season.
At the beginning of this century the British navy was at the height of its splendor and self-confidence. Britannia ruled the waves, and Britannia's ships and squadrons enforced Britannia's policies in every sea. The next most powerful navy was that of France; but it was not nearly so large, and seemed to be no more efficient, in proportion to its size.
Browne, a poet who deserves well of all Devonshire men, was two years younger than Wither, and had just begun to come before the public as the author of that charming, lazy, Virgilian poem of Britannia's Pastorals. There was something of Keats in Browne, an artist who let the world pass him by; something of Shelley in Wither, a prophet who longed to set his seal on human progress.
The man thrust a hand into his trousers pocket, pulled out a penny, and after considering for a couple of seconds, spun it carelessly. It fell in his palm, tail up; and he regarded it as a sailor might a compass. The trident in Britannia's hand pointed westward, down the street. "West it is," he decided with a shrug, implying that all the four quarters were equally to his mind.
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