Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/110

 "No more our long—lost Arthur we bewail:— All hail, ye genuine kings! Britannia's issue bail ! Girt with many a baron bold Sublime their starry fronta they rear; And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old In bearded majesty, appear. In the midst a form divine Her eye proclaime her of the Briton-line Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face Attemper'd swert to virgin-grace. What strings symphonious tremble in the air, What strains of vocal transport round her play! Hear from the grave great Taliesin, hear They breathe a soul to animate thy clay."

For under the Tudors came the Reformation and the foundation of Britain's naval supremacy. "That this nation is what it is," says Mr. Gladstone, "and this church is what it is, may, without praise or blame, but only in acknowledgment of the fact, be owned due to Queen Elizabeth as much as to any human being that has ever in this island enjoyed or suffered the stern and bracing experiences of life." Mr. Gladstone thus pays homage to "a mind persistent in its work and singularly powerful, while clad in female form." He at the same time points out that she contributed little to Puritanism, to which we owe it that the doctrine of non—resistance, the birth–sin of