was completed in Charles's lifetime, but another and perhaps greater work was here established under his authority and interest. We are so apt to associate the "Merry Monarch" only with what is bad and vicious, that his better qualities and actions are entirely overlooked. Yet three things, if no more, might speak somewhat for his memory, - the Observatory, the Naval buildings, and the Hospital for Soldiers at Chelsea.

Of the Observatory all the world has heard, without knowing, perhaps, how it came to be erected. It had been brought to the king's notice that the art of navigation was greatly impeded by the lack of some definite means of finding the longitude. Charles declared that his sailors should no longer want such assistance, and directed that a building be erected suitable for taking proper observations, or, as the warrant expressed it, "to rectify the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the so-much-desired longitude at sea." For this purpose the king gave £500 in money; bricks from the ruins of Tilbury Fort, and other material from an old gatehouse near the Tower. The choice of the site was due to Sir Christopher Wren, who pointed out the advantages of the hill whereon stood Duke Humphrey's tower. Charles at once agreed to hand over the property; the Tower was pulled down, and on the old foundations rose the famous Royal Observatory. And here for more than two centuries has been carried on unceasingly the study of the distant worlds and those vast realms of space wherein "day unto day uttereth speech, night unto night sheweth knowledge."

A notable character in Greenwich during the latter part of the seventeenth century was the worthy John Evelyn, to whose Diary we are indebted for so much that is valuable and interesting. His estate, Sayes Court, was at Deptford, then a pretty village adjoining the manor of Greenwich.

He was

made commissioner for the care of the prisoners and of the sick and wounded in the Dutch war, and the office seems to

"I have here full five thousand sick, wounded, and prisoners, who are not to be fed without your care. We are now arrived at that height that perishing, reproach, and the utmost confusion will be the event of your not providing for us, the prisoners dying for want of bread, our sick and wounded for want of harbour and refreshment. His Majesty's subjects die in our sight and at our thresholds, without our being able to relieve them, which, with our barbarous exposure of the prisoners, and the utmost of sufferings, must redound to his Majesty's great dishonour, and to the consequences of losing the heart of our own people, who are ready to execrate and stone us as we pass." [Sayes Court, September 30, 1665.]

PRINCE RUPERT, VICE-ADMIRAL OF ENGLAND

A little later he writes:

"I have the importunity of a thousand clamours at my doors, which neither lets me rest day nor night.»*

*Domestic State, MSS., Charles II.

Better things were coming, however, and ere Evelyn's eventful life was ended these troubles were things of the past. His love of horticulture and his pride in his garden at Sayes Court received some, hard rubs on one occasion. Peter the Great, while studying ship-building at Deptford, occupied Sayes Court for a time, and great was the havoc wrought by his rough horseplay among Evelyn's trees and flower-beds. One of Peter's favorite diversions was that of driving a wheelbarrow through the fine holly hedges. Evelyn's servant, writing on the subject to his master, describes the Russian guests as being "right nasty," and doubtless he spoke the truth.

When Louis XIV of France espoused the cause of the unhappy James II he brought upon himself disaster and loss almost without parallel in the annals of naval warfare; and the terrible battle of La Hogue ended, for the time at least, the hopes of James's adherents. To commemorate the victory, and as an encouragement to the navy, the joint sovereigns, William and Mary, decided to use the unfinished palace at Greenwich as a hospital for aged and disabled seamen. Various grants were made, designs were furnished by Sir Christopher Wren, and in 1705

the institution received its first hundred inmates; our friend Evelyn being made first Treasurer. Tempora mutantur! joust and tourney have passed away, and in their place appear the quaint blue-coated figures of the Greenwich Pensioners, some minus a leg, some wanting an arm or an eye, or even both, and all lacking something, given up for their country's sake. Evelyn's efforts and complaints have borne fruit; henceforth care and comfort are to be provided for the sick and wounded sailor.

The four blocks of the Royal Hospital received the names of the sovereigns in whose reigns they were erected, and are still known respectively as King Charles's, King William's, Queen Mary's, and Queen Anne's buildings. The first was designed by Inigo Jones, and in the last Wren has closely copied it; both of these face the river.

Queen Mary's Building lies south of Queen Anne's, and contains the Chapel, in which there is some finely sculptured marble, the whole of the decorative work being in excellent taste. Over the altar is a fine painting by West, representing the shipwreck of St. Paul on the island of Melita.

King William's Building contains the

Painted Hall, originally the dining-room of the pensioners, but afterwards converted into a picture gallery. The painting of the ceiling was entrusted to Sir James Thornhill, and is very fine; for this and the frescoes on the walls he received £6,685. The frescoes are partly hidden by the collection of naval portraits and battle-scenes that now adorn the walls. There may be as fine or finer collections of paintings, but nowhere, in all the land, is there one that should appeal more to the English heart than this.

They are worth looking at, these old seadogs!-each one personifying the naval strength and glory of England, for each in his generation has added to the regions of her empire. Stern of face are they, for

fine impartiality is here, -Royalist and Republican, Whig and Tory, many in politics and opinions, but one in heroism and devotion to their country. Here is the daring Drake, the first to girdle the globe with an English sail, the first to receive honor from his sovereign on the deck of his own ship. With him are two other bold spirits, Hawkins and Cavendish, sharers of his adventures and his spoils. The youthful Cavendish has a special claim to notice, for he was one of that first party of English colonists in America, the expedition sent out by Raleigh to Roanoke Island. Here, in quaint costume of mingled armor. and puff, is the gifted and unfortunate Raleigh-and near him Lord Howard of Effingham, with other heroes of that time,

each worthy of a place in this gallery of heroes: Prince Rupert, rash, fiery, brave to a fault; and Cromwell's sturdy, highminded Admiral, Robert Blake. To the latter there is no finer tribute than Clarendon's:

"He was the first man that declined the old Track, and made it apparent that the Sciences might be attained in less time than was imagined. He was the first man that brought ships

But the genius of the Admiral was as nothing compared to the worth of the man; his single-mindedness and purity, his modesty and courage, mark him one of the greatest of Englishmen.

"He was jealous of the liberty of the sub. ject and the glory of his Nation; and as ho made use of no mean artifices to raise him. self to the highest command at Sea, so ho needed no interest but his merit to sup

He

to contemn Castles on shore, which had ever been thought very formidable, but were discovered by him to make a Noise only and to fright those who could rarely be hurt by them. was the first that infused that Proportion of Courage into Seamen, by making them see by Experience what mighty Things they could do if they were resolved, and taught them to fight in Fire as well as upon the Water; and, though he has been very well imitated and followed, was the first that gave the Example of that kind of Naval Courage and bold and resolute Achievements."

This masterly picture is the more vivid when we remember that Blake had no training whatever for the sea. A brave soldier, a skilful general, he had already proved to be, but until nearly fifty years of age he had no acquaintance with that element for which he was so eminently fitted.

port him in it. He scorned nothing more than money, which, as fast as it came in, was laid out by him in the service of the State, and to shew that he was animated by that brave publick spirit which has since been reckoned rather romantick than heroick. And he was so disinterested that though no man had more opportunities to enrich himself than he, who had taken so many millions from the enemies of England, yet he threw it all into the Publick Treasury, and did not die five hundred pounds richer than his father left him.»*

Blake is said to have been little of stature and to that circumstance owed his failure to obtain a fellowship at Merton College, the Warden, Sir Henry Saville, having a whimsical partiality for tall men. The portrait in the Painted Hall tallies well with the description of his features: "prepossessing and manly, with a quick, lively, and intelligent eye." Like most of his contemporaries he is represented clean shaven save for a small moustache, which, when angry, he had a trick of twirling - or, as Dr. Johnson quaintly puts it, "of curling his whiskers." The particular instance was when the Bey of Tunis sent an insolent defiance in reply to his demand for the release of the English captives. But Tunisian, Dutchman, or * Lives English and Foreign."

Spaniard, it was a bad lookout when Admiral Blake began to curl his whiskers. We may be very sure he did so when his arch-enemy, Van Tromp, went sailing through the Channel with a broom tied to his masthead as a declaration that he would sweep the seas clear of the English shipping.

In Blake we see all that is best of the Puritan spirit, with none of its disfiguring qualities. Though a true Republican, and opposed to the arbitrary gov

ernment of the king, he yet condemned the vindictive spirit that brought him to trial and death. "The country's good" was Blake's one ideal-and he held rigidly aloof from the quarrels between Cromwell and the Parliament. "It is not the business of a seaman to mind State affairs, but to hinder foreigners from fooling us," and to that opinion he adhered to the end of his life.

Hitherto the English navy had been largely a matter of private venture; now it became a national institution, of which Blake laid the foundation and Nelson its topmost crown. But between these two great men came a long line of famous admirals, whose lives, one by one, made it strong, solid, and enduring. Their faces are pictured here; their names are known from sea to sea.

Students of early colonial history will remember another Blake, Governor of Carolina from 1695 to 1700, and who also took a hand in the suppression of piracy. That old chronicler, John Oldmixon, tells us:

'Twas about this time, 1683, that the Persecution

raised by the Popish Faction and their adherents in England was at the height; and no part of this Kingdom suffered more than Somersetshire. The Author of this History liv'd at that time with Mr. Blake, brother to the famous General of that name, being educated by his Son-in-law who taught School in Bridgewater; and remembers, though then very young, the reasons old Mr. Blake us'd to give for leav

ing England. One of which was, That the miseries they endur'd, meaning the Dissenters then, were nothing to what he foresaw would attend the Reign of a Popish successor; wherefore he resolv'd to remove to Carolina. And he had so great an Interest among Persons of his principles, I mean Dissenters, that many honest substantial Persons engaged to go over with him.

I say the more of Mr. Blake, because his family is one of the most considerable in this Province; where he arriv'd in the year 1683, with several other Families, the followers of

his fortune. What Estate he sold in England, he sold to carry the effects along with him; and though the sum was not many Thousands, if it did at all deserve the plural Number; yet 't was all that his great Brother left him, though for several years he had commanded the British Fleet; and in a time when our Naval Arms were victorious, and the treasures of New Spain seldom reached home."