recount the worthy achievement of their invincible and dreadful navy. Of which the number of soldiers, the fearful burden of their ships, the commanders' names of every squadron, with all other, their magazines of provisions, were put in print, as an army and navy irresistible and disdaining prevention; with all which their great terrible ostentation they did not, in all their sailing round about England, so much as sink or take one ship, bark, pinnace, or cock-boat of ours, or even burn so much as one sheepcote on this land."

The story is told by Mr. Barrow principally through the medium of extracts from the Spanish journal, and interesting letters of the Lord High Admiral and Sir Francis Drake. When he speaks in his own person, he displays occasional peculiarities of style which somewhat impair the effect of the narration. He speaks, for example, of the "hellish" superstition of a Spanish Roman Catholic; and, alluding to an oversight of Drake, in omitting to carry lights according to the orders of the Admiral, we are assured, with touching earnestness, that he "nearly got into a scrape."

The expedition to Spain and Portugal in 1589, undertaken partly with the view of distressing the former, and partly with the view of restoring Don Antonio to the Portuguese throne, which he claimed by virtue of a popular election, was not attended with complete success. Its prominent incidents are generally known; Mr. Barrow has given additional interest to some of them by the letters of the admiral, who seems to have acted his part on this, as on all other occasions, with ability and judgment. It has been said, that he was desirous of proceeding directly to Lisbon, before time could be afforded to make preparations for defence; but that the commander of the land forces insisted on landing at Corunna, to annoy the Spaniards. If so, it is not the only instance in which the English have acted on the system of assailing an enemy by thrusting pins into his extremities, instead of aiming at the heart.

In the interval between this expedition and that of 1595, Sir Francis Drake was actively employed, under the direction of the queen, in watching the movements of his old enemies, the Spaniards. In 1593, he took his seat in Parliament as a member from Plymouth, then his place of residence, and, though rising seldom in debate, was laborious, active, and much respected. This city has reason to cherish his memo

ry.

It was to his liberality and enterprise, that it was indebted for the supply of fresh water which it has enjoyed from that time to ours; and there are various facts on record, which show that he was at all times careful of its interests. Mr. Barrow mentions his efforts to provide for its defence at a particular period; he does not mention the year, but his language leaves no doubt, that he supposes them to have been made in 1589. It must, however, have been earlier; for on the May-day of that year, when he says that Drake took order for the regular keeping of watch and ward, the admiral was on his way to Corunna. There is another error of a similar kind. He says that, while Drake was preparing for his last voyage, he earnestly recommended to the Lords of the Privy Council to make various arrangements for the protection of the sea-coast; and that he was moved to do this by a descent made by the Spaniards during the preceding year. But this irruption of the. Spaniards actually took place when the expedition was on the point of sailing, and was the means of delaying its departure; and it was probably at this time that the letter of Drake was written, having been suggested by a recent warning, rather than one of a year's standing.

The author's account of the expedition to the West Indies and South America, which was rendered memorable by the death of Sir John Hawkins and his far greater associate, Sir Francis Drake, though attended with no brilliant success, presents us with no novel information. There is no want of materials for the use of the writer of its history. A copious journal of its incidents can be found in Hakluyt, and another in the quarto edition of "Sir Francis Drake Revived," published in 1652. Mr. Barrow says nothing of the authorship of these journals. The last was probably written by Thomas Drake, and published by his son; it contains some facts which are not found in the other, which is, in general, the more particular and better of the two. Various explanations have been given of the causes which induced these veteran admirals to engage in this unfortunate adventure. Some have supposed, that Hawkins, now an old man, was stung by a sarcasm of the queen, on the occasion of his return from an unsuccessful expedition, a few years before; others, that he was impelled by the hope of rescuing a son, who was held as a captive by the Spaniards. It has been said, too, that Drake was accused by some of hav

ing failed in the expedition against Spain and Portugal. But surely, the reputation of both must have rested upon foundations too strong to be affected by any suggestions to their prejudice. That of Drake, in particular, must have placed him immeasurably above them. In fact, it was by no means unnatural, that men of unwearied energy, whose whole lives had been passed in constant action, should find pleasure in returning, to the element where they had already gained their fame and honors. Both fell victims to disease upon the coast of Spanish America. It was upon the 28th of January, 1596, that Sir Francis Drake breathed his last; his body was committed to the deep; and as the last honors were paid by his companions to the memory of one so eminent, they might well have responded to the eulogy in the epitaph written by an unknown admirer of his fame:

"The sea, that was his glory, is his grave."

We know not who was the author of the following "quaint conceit"; but as it is too good to be lost, we place it before our readers :

"O Nature, to old England still

Continue these mistakes;

Give us for our Kings such Queens,

And for our Dux such Drakes."

If Sir Francis Drake is to be considered second to any in the long line of the great naval commanders of his country, the name of Nelson only is crowned with higher glory; and considering the state of the British navy in his day, and the surpassing talent with which he availed himself of limited resources, it is doubtful whether even this exception can be made with justice. There is no more emphatic evidence of his reputation in his own day, than the fact that, after the overthrow of the Armada, he was solicited by the Lord High Admiral himself to mention him with commendation to the queen. His personal character was illustrated by many virtues; he was liberal, high-minded, and generous; and though for a time led by the spirit of his age into enterprises which cannot be commended, he conducted them with a degree of humanity of which the time gave few examples, and abandoned them for the higher purpose of serving and doing honor to his country.*

In the preparation of this article, we have availed ourselves freely of the results of the research of Mr. Samuel G. Drake, a gentleman whose name is honorably known to the public in more than one field of antiquarian inquiry.

ART. IV. The Library of American Biography. Conducted by JARED SPARKS. Second Series. Volume I. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown. 1844. 12mo. pp. 400.

WE several times expressed our views respecting the plan of this work, and the manner in which particular portions of it were executed, while the first series was in the course of publication; and we regretted its suspension at a time when the lives of many of the most eminent of our countrymen had found no place in its pages. Some work of the kind seems indispensably necessary in order to render the general reader familiar with the history of those whose honor is identified with the honor of his country, and tends, perhaps, in his estimation, to enhance his own. The notices of them contained in biographical dictionaries are too meagre to afford much instruction; and the more elaborate biographies are in general quite too voluminous for the purpose of such a reader; while the sketches in a work like this are too short to inspire much weariness, and at the same time long enough to serve to point a moral. Nor is there any want of rich material, much of it yet unwrought. There are the discoverers, who may fairly claim to belong to the country which they brought to light; the explorers, who penetrated its recesses and laid them open to civilization, as the hardy settler opens the forest-sheltered soil to the sweet influences of the sun; the pioneers, always a bold and resolute, and sometimes a noble race, wrestling with privation, with savage en- emies, and the sharp evils of solitude and sickness, on the spot where, a few years after, their children "sing the merry songs of peace." Then comes the long and stately procession of those who established all that constitutes a state; the warrior, the lawgiver, the statesman, the man of God; each in his own way giving his powers to the cause of human improvement, and advancing it no less by his example than his labors. Here is surely an array, upon which the painter of life and manners may be long engaged with as much pleasure to himself as profit to mankind. We think it a good augury, that Mr. Sparks has been induced to resume this useful and important work. He has been so long and so honorably employed in building the tombs of the prophets,

that the charge could hardly have been so well confided to another hand; and, if we are to form a judgment of the volumes which are to succeed from the one before us, the new series will be in no degree inferior in attractiveness and value to the former.

There are two biographies in this volume. The first in order, written by Mr. Sparks himself, is that of Robert Cavelier de la Salle, one of those noble natures which are neither grazed nor pierced by the "shot of accident, nor dart of chance"; whose grand and gloomy figure stands in somewhat dim outline in the short history of the French ascendency in this country. Unfortunately, the particulars of his personal history have come down to us only as they are connected with that of his researches and discoveries, and neither has been uniformly recorded by friendly hands. But enough of him has been handed down to show, that, in fardiscerning vision, in resolution, patience, energy, in short, in all the qualities which fit one to devise great enterprises, and to execute them wisely, he stands below no explorer of his own or any other time. Educated, as is supposed, for the church, in a seminary of the Jesuits, he comes to Canada, and is for several years engaged in trade with the same spirit and energy which marked his later and more useful labors. Meanwhile, his mind is fixed upon the grand project of proceeding through the chain of the great lakes, and thence finding his way through some unexplored channel to the China seas. This was the brilliant vision which had misled many lofty spirits of an earlier time; without impairing, either in their case or in his, the deep practical sagacity which leads to sure judgment in the pursuit of attainable objects. When the return of Marquette and Joliet had assured him respecting the Great River of the West, which they had descended to the confluence of the Arkansas, he knew that its waters mingled with those of the Gulf of Mexico, and vast schemes of colonization and extended empire dawned upon his mind. In Colbert, Louis the Fourteenth's great minister, he found a spirit like his own. He had previously, with his eye fixed upon this plan of peaceful conquest, obtained a grant of Fort Frontenac, where the waters of the St. Lawrence flow out of Lake Ontario, and had traversed, with considerable vessels, the bosom of that inland He was now, by the letters patent of the king, in

sea.