And then Holofernes winds up the play with the Owl and Cuckoo song, a rambling verse, Winter speaking:
When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick, the shepherd, blows his wail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipped and ways be foul,
When nightly sings the staring owl
To-who;
Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note
While greasy Joan doth scum the pot.
CHAPTER X.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. WAR. SHAKSPERE IN IRELAND.
"Now all the youth of England are on fire
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;
Now thrive the armorers, and honor's thought
Hangs solely in the breast of every man.
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war!"
The reign of Queen Elizabeth was a most glorious one for the material and mental progress of England, but most disastrous for Philip of Spain, Louis and Henry of France, Mary of Scotland, O'Neil, O'Brien, Desmond and Tyrone of Ireland.
The Reformation of Martin Luther, a Catholic priest, against the faith and financial exactions of the Pope of Rome, cracked from the Catholic sky like a clap of thunder from the noonday sun, and reverberated over the globe with startling detonation.
The cry of personal liberty and personal responsibility to God, went out from the German cloister like a roaring storm and echoed in thunder tones among the columned aisles of the Vatican.