οὐ γὰρ ποτ' ἐρεῖς ὡς Ὠκεανοῦ
φίλος ἐστὶ βεβαιότερός σοι.
In truth, the whole national life of England is summed up in the fine lines of Swinburne:
All our past comes wailing in the wind,
And all our future thunders in the sea.
The natural instincts of a maritime nation are brought out in strong relief throughout the whole of English literature, from its very birth down to the present day. The author of "The Lay of Beowulf," whoever he may have been, rivalled Homer in the awe-stricken epithets he applied to the "immense stream of ocean murmuring with foam" (Il. xviii. 402). "Then," he wrote, "most like a bird, the foamy-necked floater went wind-driven over the sea-wave; ... the sea-timber thundered; the wind over the billows did not hinder the wave-floater in her course; the sea-goer put forth; forth over the flood floated she, foamy-necked, over the sea-streams, with wreathed prow until they could make out the cliffs of the Goths."
Although the claim of Alfred the Great to be the founder of the British navy is now generally rejected by historians, it is certain that from the very earliest times the need of dominating the sea was present in the minds of Englishmen, and that this feeling gained in strength as the centuries rolled on and the value of sea-power became more and more apparent. In a poem entitled "The Libel of English Policy," which is believed to have been written about the year 1436, the following lines occur:
Kepe then the see abought in specialle,
Whiche of England is the rounde walle;
As thoughe England were lykened to a cité.
And the walle enviroun were the see.
Kepe then the see, that is the walle of England,
And then is England kepte by Goddes sonde.
A long succession of poets dwelt on the same theme. Waller—presumably during a Royalist phase of his chequered career—addressed the King in lines which forestalled the very modern political idea that a powerful British navy is not only necessary for the security of England, but also affords a guarantee for the peace of all the world:
Where'er thy navy spreads her canvas wings
Homage to thee, and peace to all, she brings.
Thomson's "Rule, Britannia," was not composed till 1740, but before that time the heroism displayed both by the navy collectively and by individual sailors was frequently celebrated in popular verse. The death of Admiral Benbow, who continued to give orders after his leg had been carried off by a chain-shot at the battle of Carthagena in 1702, is recorded in the lines:
While the surgeon dressed his wounds
Thus he said, thus he said,
While the surgeon dressed his wounds thus he said:
"Let my cradle now in haste
On the quarter-deck be placed,
That my enemies I may face
Till I'm dead, till I'm dead."