I think the bruit of his preparations is made the greater to terrify her Majesty and this country people.

But, thanked be God, her Majesty hath little cause to fear him.

And in this country they esteem no more of his power by sea than I do of six fisher-boats off Rye." Thus suggestive is it to peep occasionally behind the curtain.

In the calm cabinet of the Escorial, Philip and his comendador mayor are laying their heads together, preparing the invasion of England; making arrangements for King Alexander's coronation in that island, and--like sensible, farsighted persons as they are--even settling the succession to the throne after Alexander's death, instead of carelessly leaving such distant details to chance, or subsequent consideration.

On the other hand, plain Dutch sea-captains, grim beggars of the sea, and the like, denizens of a free commonwealth and of the boundless ocean-men who are at home on blue water, and who have burned gunpowder against those prodigious slave-rowed galleys of Spain--together with their new allies, the dauntless mariners of England--who at this very moment are "singeing the King of Spain's beard," as it had never been singed before--are not so much awestruck with the famous preparations for invasion as was perhaps to be expected.