When the great Queen, arousing herself from the delusion in which the falsehoods of Farnese and of Philip had lulled her, should once more.
represent--as no man or woman better than Elizabeth Tudor could represent--the defiance of England to foreign insolence; the resolve of a whole people to die rather than yield; there was a thrill of joy through the national heart.

When the enforced restraint was at last taken off, there was one bound towards the enemy.

Few more magnificent spectacles have been seen in history than the enthusiasm which pervaded the country as the great danger, so long deferred, was felt at last to be closely approaching.

The little nation of four millions, the merry England of the sixteenth century, went forward to the death-grapple with its gigantic antagonist as cheerfully as to a long-expected holiday.

Spain was a vast empire, overshadowing the world; England, in comparison, but a province; yet nothing could surpass the steadiness with which the conflict was awaited.
For, during all the months of suspense; the soldiers and sailors, and many statesman of England, had deprecated, even as the Hollanders had been doing, the dangerous delays of Ostend.