More Books" of the Week (Continued from page -769.) We
ought before now to have drawn attention to that admirable example of the best kind of- historical biography, Sir John Hawkins.: The Time and the Man, by Mr. James A. Williamson (Oxford University Press, 20s.). Haivkins is too often dismissed, in books about the Elizabethan seamen, as a low fellow who dealt in slaves and who is not to be compared with his kinsman Drake. He was in truth a man of breeding and culture who did more than anyone else to reorganize the Navy in preparation for the Armada. Dr. Williamson has patiently built up this, the first authoritative life, from long research in the State papers and other sources, and he shows that Hawkins has been grossly undervalued. The author's spirited account of the fight at San Juan de Ulua, near Vera Cruz, in September, 1568, when the Spaniards treacherously attacked Hawkins while Drake sailed away, is one of the many notable things in a masterly book.
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