Cambridge Poets 1900–1913

INTRODUCTION . appointed fleets which any age had ever seen , disputed the command of the greater half of the globe, the commerce of nations, and the riches of the universe . While these vast floating bodies moved against each other in parallel lines and our countrymen , under the happy conduct of his Royal Highness , went breaking , by little and little, into the line of the enemies , the noise of the cannon from both navies reached our ears about the City , so that all men being alarmed with it, and in a dreadful suspense of the event which we knew was then deciding , every one went following the sound as his fancy led him , and leaving the town almost empty , some took towards the park , some cross the river , others down it; all seeking the noise in the depth of silence .' Dryden goes on to relate how in company with three gentlemen ' whom their wit and quality have made known to all the town '-- they were Lord Buckhurst , Sir Charles Sedley and Sir Robert Howard , in the Essay disguised under the borrowed names of Eugenius , Lisideius and Crites - he took barge down through the crowded shipping to Greenwich ; where the four listened in silence as the air broke about them in little indulations of sound ' like the noise of distant thunder or of swallows in a chimney ,' until by little and little it fell away and at length Eugenius , lifting a hand , congratulated all on this certain omen of victory , adding the devout wish that wemight hear no more of that noise which was now leaving the English coast . Thereupon ( as the bravest will , when a long tension of the spirit is happily relaxed ) Sir Robert Howard let the strain down with a Alippant remark , that ' He could scarce have wished the