Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

190 The English Admirals
forts and ships opened fire on him at once,
he scorned to shoot a gun, and made answer
with a flourish of insulting trumpets. I Hke
this bravado better than the wisest dispositions
to insure victory ; it comes from the heart
and goes to it. God has made nobler heroes,
but he never made a finer gentleman than
Walter Raleigh. And as our Admirals were
full of heroic superstitions, and had a strutting
and vainglorious style of fight, so they dis-
covered a startling eagerness for battle, and
courted war like a mistress. When the news
came to Essex before Cadiz that the attack
had been decided, he threw his hat into the
sea. It is in this way that a schoolboy hears
of a half-holiday ; but this was a bearded
man of great possessions who had just been
allowed to risk his life. Benbow could not
lie still in his bunk after he had lost. his leg;
he must be on deck in a basket to direct
and animate the fight. I said they loved
war like a mistress ; yet I think there are
not many mistresses we should continue to
woo under similar circumstances. Trowbridge