Page:The Second Armada - Hayward - 1871.pdf/17



imaginary history is, as far as argument goes, as good as another, for none does more than express what the author thinks may happen, or might have happened, and the very nature of the literary artifice precludes any serious reasoning. We beg, therefore, to present our readers with a sketch of an Invasion of England which, though less elaborate in description than the Battle of Dorking, has quite as much claim to be considered a just view of the event of such an enterprise. The Battle of Dorking has given a new thrill, not unmixed with a sensation of gloomy pleasure, to our alarmists. If it had only appeared a few months ago, when the anti-Prussian fever was at its height, there is no saying what effect it might have produced. But, as its admirers would probably tell us, the cold fit is again on the British public; they are more absorbed by the catastrophe of the Commune, or even by the momentous question of "Baronet or Butcher," than by the danger which threatens them from the 200,000 Germans whom Moltke can launch against us out of all the ports from Ostend to the Elbe. In these cir-