Read Ebook: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 60 No. 374 December 1846 by Various

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"The foreign appearance of Leicester Square is not of recent growth. It seems to have been the favourite resort of strangers and exiles ever since the place was built. Maitland, who wrote more than a hundred years ago, describing the parish of St Anne's, in which it is situate, says--'The fields in these parts being but lately converted into buildings, I have not discovered any thing of great antiquity in this parish. Many parts of it so greatly abound with French, that it is an easy matter for a stranger to imagine himself in France.'"

Upon the old Westminster market-place a most barbarous event occurred in the time of that tyrannical, acetous old virgin, Queen Bess, who assuredly owes her renown and the sort of halo of respect that surrounds her memory, far less to any good qualities of her own, than to the galaxy of great men who flourished during her reign. The glory that encircles her brow is formed of such stars as Cecil, Burleigh and Bacon, Drake and Raleigh, Spencer, Shakspeare, and Sydney. Touching this barbarity, however, enacted by order of good Queen Bess. At the mature age of forty-eight, her majesty took it into her very ordinary-looking old head to negotiate a marriage with the Duke of Anjou. Commissioners came from France to discuss the interesting subject, and were entertained by pageants and tournaments, in which Elizabeth enacted the Queen of Beauty; and subsequently the duke came over himself, as a private gentleman, to pay his court to the last of the Tudors. The duke being a papist, the proposed alliance was very unpopular in England, and one John Stubbs, a barrister of Lincoln's-Inn, wrote a pamphlet against it, entitled, "The Discoverye of a gaping gulphe, whereinto England is like to be swallowed by another French marriage, if the Lord forbid not the banns, by letting her Majestye see the sin and punishment thereof." Certain expressions in this imprudent publication greatly angered the Queen; Stubbs and his servant, Page, were brought to trial, and condemned to lose their right hands. This cruel and unusual sentence was carried into effect on the market-place at Westminster, and witnessed by Camden, who gives an account of it. Both sufferers behaved with great fortitude and courage. Their hands were cut off with a butcher's cleaver and mallet, and as soon as Stubbs had lost his, he pulled off his cap with his left, waved it in the air, and cried--"God save the Queen!" He then fainted away. It took two blows to sever Page's hand, but he flinched not, and pointing to the block where it lay, he exclaimed--"I have left there the hand of a true Englishman!" And so he went from the scaffold, says the account, "stoutlie and with great courage."

"Nor is thy flaxen wig with safety worn: High on the shoulder, in a basket borne, Lurks the sly boy, whose hand, to rapine bred, Plucks off the curling honours of thy head."

Voltaire, when in England, after his release from the Bastille, whither he had been sent for libel, lodged in Maiden Lane, at the White Peruke, a wigmaker's shop. When walking out, he was often annoyed by the mob, who beheld, in his spare person, polite manners, and satirical countenance, the personification of their notion of a Frenchman. "One day he was beset by so great a crowd that he was forced to shelter himself against a doorway, where, mounting the steps, he made a flaming speech in English in praise of the magnanimity of the English nation, and their love of freedom. With this the people were so delighted, that their jeers were turned into applauses, and he was carried in triumph to Maiden Lane on the shoulders of the mob." From which temporary elevation the arch-scoffer doubtless looked down upon his dupes with glee, suppressed, but immeasurable.

MARLBOROUGH'S DISPATCHES.

After the reduction of Bouchain, Marlborough was anxious to commence without delay the siege of Quesnoy, the capture of which would, in that quarter, have entirely broken through the French barrier. He vigorously stimulated his own government accordingly, as well as that at the Hague, to prepare the necessary supplies and magazines, and expressed a sanguine hope that the capture of this last stronghold would be the means of bringing about the grand object of his ambition, and a general peace. The ministry, to appearance, went with alacrity into his projects, and every thing bore the aspect of another great success closing the campaign with honour, and probably leading to a glorious and lasting peace. Mr Secretary St John, in particular, wrote in the warmest style of cordiality, approving the project in his own name as well as in that of the Queen, and reiterating the assurances that the strongest representations had been made to the Dutch, with a view to their hearty concurrence. But all this was a mere cover to conceal what the Tories had really been doing to overturn Marlborough, and abandon the main objects of the war. Unknown to him, the secret negotiation with the French Cabinet, through Torcy and the British ministers, through the agency of Mesnager, had been making rapid progress. No representations were made to the Dutch, who were fully in the secret of the pending negotiation, about providing supplies; and on the 27th September, preliminaries of peace, on the basis of the seven articles proposed by Louis, were signed by Mesnager on the part of France, and by the two English secretaries of state, in virtue of a special warrant from the Queen.

Coxe, vi. 93.

The conditions of these preliminaries, which were afterwards embodied in the Treaty of Utrecht, were the acknowledgement of the Queen's title to the throne, and the Protestant succession, by Louis; an engagement to take all just and reasonable measures that the crowns of France and Spain should never be united on the same head,--the providing a sufficient barrier to the Dutch, the empire, and the house of Austria; and the demolition of Dunkirk, or a proper equivalent. But the crown of Spain was left to the Duke of Anjou, and no provision whatever made to exclude a Bourbon prince from succeeding to it. Thus the main object of the contest--the excluding the Bourbon family from the throne of Spain, was abandoned: and at the close of the most important, successful, and glorious war ever waged by England, terms were agreed to, which left to France advantages which could scarcely have been hoped by the Cabinet of Versailles as the fruit of a long series of victories.

This manly declaration, delivered in the most emphatic manner, produced a great impression; and a resolution against ministers was carried in the House of Peers by a majority of twelve. In the Commons, however, they had large majority, and an address containing expressions similar to those used by Lord Anglesea, reflecting on Marlborough, was introduced and carried there. The Whig majority, however, continued firm in the Upper House; and the leaders of that party began to entertain sanguine hopes of success. The Queen had let fall some peevish expressions in regard to her ministers. She had given her hand, in retiring from the House of Peers on the 15th December, to the Duke of Somerset, instead of her own Lord Treasurer; it was apprehended her old partiality for Marlborough was about to return; Mrs Masham was in the greatest alarm; and St John declared to Swift that the Queen was false. The ministers of the whole alliance seconded the efforts of the Whigs, and strongly represented the injurious effects which would ensue to the cause of European independence in general, and the interests of England in particular, if the preliminaries which had been agreed to should be made the basis of a general peace. The Dutch made strong and repeated representations on the subject; and the Elector of Hanover delivered a memorial strongly urging the danger which would ensue if Spain and the Indies were allowed to remain in the hands of a Bourbon prince.

Cunningham, ii. 367.

Alarmed at the weight which Marlborough might derive from the presence and support of so great a commander, and the natural sympathy of all generous minds with the cordial admiration which these two great men entertained for each other, the ministers had recourse to a pretended conspiracy, which it was alleged had been discovered on the part of Marlborough and Eugene to seize the government and dethrone the Queen, on the 17th November. St John and Oxford had too much sense to publish such a ridiculous statement; but it was made the subject of several secret examinations before the Privy Council, in order to augment the apprehensions and secure the concurrence of the Queen in their measures. Such as it was, the tale was treated as a mere malicious invention, even by the contemporary foreign annalists, though it has since been repeated as true by more than one party native historian. This ridiculous calumny, and the atrocious libels as to the embezzlement of the public money, however, produced the desired effect. They inflamed the mind of the Queen, and removed that vacillation in regard to the measures of government, from which so much danger was apprehended by the Tory administration. Having answered the desired end, they were allowed quietly to go to sleep. No proceedings in the House of Peers, or elsewhere, followed the resolutions of the Commons condemnatory of Marlborough's financial administration in the Low Countries. His defence, published in the newspapers, though abundantly vigorous, was neither answered nor prosecuted as a libel on the Commissioners or House of Commons; and the alleged Stuart conspiracy was never more heard of, till it was long after drawn from its slumber by the malice of English party spirit.

Meanwhile the negotiations at Utrecht for a general peace continued, and St John and Oxford soon found themselves embarrassed by the extravagant pretensions which their own conduct had revived in the plenipotentiaries of Louis. So great was the general indignation excited by the publication of the preliminaries at Utrecht, that St John felt the necessity of discontinuing any general negotiation, and converting it into a private correspondence between the plenipotentiaries of the English and French crowns. Great difficulty was experienced in coming to an accommodation, in consequence of the rising demands of the French plenipotentiaries, who, deeming themselves secure of support from the English ministry, not only positively refused to abandon Spain and the Indies, but now demanded the Netherlands for the Elector of Bavaria, and the cession of Lille and Tournay in return for the seizure of Dunkirk. The sudden death, however, first of the Dauphiness of France, and then of the Dauphin, the former of whom was carried off by a malignant fever on the 12th, the latter on the 18th February 1712, followed by the death of their eldest son on the 23d, produced feelings of commiseration for the aged monarch, now in his seventy-third year and broken down by misfortunes, which rendered the progress of the separate negotiation more easy. England agreed to abandon its allies, and the main object of the war, on condition that a guarantee should be obtained against the crowns of France and Spain being united on the same head. On this frail security, the English ministry agreed to withdraw their contingent from the Allied army; and to induce the Dutch to follow their example, Ipres was offered to them on the same terms as Dunkirk had been to Great Britain.

Coxe, vi. 189, 184.

Eugene to Marlborough, June 9, 1712.--Coxe vi. 199.

Marlborough seconded the motion of Halifax, in a speech of peculiar interest, as the last which he made on the conduct of this eventful war. "Although," said he, "the negotiations for peace may be far advanced, yet I can see no reason which should induce the Allies or ourselves to remain inactive, and not push on the war with the utmost vigour, as we have incurred the expense of recruiting the army for the service of another year. That army is now in the field; and it has often occurred that a victory or a siege produced good effects and manifold advantages, when treaties were still further advanced than in the present negotiation. And as I am of opinion that we should make the most we can for ourselves, the only infallible way to force France to an entire submission, is to besiege and occupy Cambray or Arras, and to carry the war into the heart of the kingdom. But as the troops of the enemy are now encamped, it is impossible to execute that design, unless they are withdrawn from their position; and as they cannot be reduced to retire for want of provisions, they must be attacked and forced. For the truth of what I say I appeal to a noble duke whom I rejoice to see in this house, because he knows the country, and is as good a judge of these matters as any person now alive." Argyle, though a bitter personal enemy of Marlborough, thus appealed to, said,--"I do indeed know that country, and the situation of the enemy in their present camp, and I agree with the noble duke, that it is impossible to remove them without attacking and driving them away; and, until that is effected, neither of the two sieges alluded to can be undertaken. I likewise agree that the capture of these two towns is the most effectual way to carry on the war with advantage, and would be a fatal blow to France."

"No one can doubt the Duke of Ormond's bravery; but he is not like a certain general who led troops to the slaughter, to cause a great number of officers to be knocked on the head in a battle, or against stone walls, in order to fill his pockets by the sale of their commissions."--Coxe, vi. 196.

Coxe, vi. 205.

Great was the mourning, and loud the lamentations, both in the British and Allied troops, when the fatal day arrived that the former were to separate from their old companions in arms. On the 10th July, the very day on which Quesnoy surrendered, the last of their long line of triumphs, Ormond, having exhausted every sort of procrastination to postpone the dreaded hour, was compelled to order the English troops to march. He in vain, however, gave a similar order to the auxiliaries in British pay; the hereditary Prince of Cassel replied--"The Hessians would gladly march, if it were to fight the French." Another, "We do not serve for pay, but fame." The native British, however, were compelled to obey the order of their sovereign, and they set out, twelve thousand strong, from the camp at Cambresis. Of all the Germans in British pay, only one battalion of Holstein men, and a regiment of dragoons from Liege, accompanied them. Silent and dejected they took their way; the men kept their eyes on the ground, the officers did not venture to return the parting salute of the comrades who had so long fought and conquered by their side. Not a word was spoken on either side, the hearts of all were too big for utterance; but the averted eye, the mournful air, the tear often trickling down the cheek, told the deep dejection which was every where felt. It seemed as if the Allies were following to the grave, with profound affection, the whole body of their British comrades. But when the troops reached their resting-place for the night, and the suspension of arms was proclaimed at the head of each regiment, the general indignation became so vehement, that even the bonds of military discipline were unable to restrain it. A universal cry, succeeded by a loud murmur, was heard through the camp. The British soldiers were seen tearing their hair, casting their muskets on the ground, and rending their clothes, uttering all the while furious exclamations against the government which had so shamefully betrayed them. The officers were so overwhelmed with vexation, that they sat apart in their tents looking on the ground, through very shame; and for several days shrunk from the sight even of their fellow-soldiers. Many left their colours to serve with the Allies, others withdrew, and whenever they thought of Marlborough and their days of glory, tears filled their eyes.

Cunningham, ii. 432; Milner, 356.

Meanwhile Eugene, after the departure of the British, continued his operations, and laid siege to Landrecies, the last of the barrier fortresses on the road to Paris, in the end of July. But it soon appeared that England had been the soul of the confederacy; and that it was the tutelary arm of Marlborough which had so long averted disaster, and chained victory to its standard. Nothing but defeat and misfortune attended the Allies after her secession. Even the great and tried abilities of Eugene were inadequate to procure for them one single success, after the colours of England no longer waved in their ranks. During the investment of Landrecies, Villars drew together the garrisons from the neighbouring towns, no longer threatened by the English troops, and surprised at Denain a body of eight thousand men, stationed there for the purpose of facilitating the passage of convoys to the besieging army. This disaster rendered it necessary to raise the siege of Landrecies, and Villars immediately resumed the offensive. Douay was speedily invested: a fruitless effort of Eugene to retain it only exposed him to the mortification of witnessing its surrender. Not expecting so sudden a reverse of fortune, the fortresses recently taken were not provided with provisions or ammunition, and were in no condition to make any effectual resistance. Quesnoy soon fell from this cause; and Bouchain, the last trophy of Marlborough's victories, opened its gates on the 10th October. The coalition was paralysed; and Louis, who so lately trembled for his capital, found his armies advancing from conquest to conquest, and tearing from the Allies the fruits of all their victories.

Marlborough's public career was now terminated; and the dissensions which had cast him down from power had so completely extinguished his political influence, that during the remaining years of his life, he rarely appeared at all in public life. On landing on the Continent, at Brille, on the 24th November, he was received with such demonstrations of gratitude and respect, as showed how deeply his public services had sunk into the hearts of men, and how warmly they appreciated his efforts to avert from England and the Coalition, the evils likely to flow from the Treaty of Utrecht. At Maestricht he was welcomed with the honours usually reserved for sovereign princes; and although he did his utmost, on the journey to Aix-la-Chapelle, to avoid attracting the public attention, and to slip unobserved through byways, yet the eagerness of the public, or the gratitude of his old soldiers, discovered him wherever he went. Wherever he passed, crowds of all ranks were waiting to see him, could they only get a glimpse of the hero who had saved the empire, and filled the world with his renown. All were struck with his noble air and demeanour, softened, though not weakened, by the approach of age. They declared that his appearance was not less conquering than his sword. Many burst into tears when they recollected what he had been, and what he was, and how unaccountably the great nation to which he belonged had fallen from the height of glory to such degradation. Yet was the manner of Marlborough so courteous and yet animated, his conversation so simple and yet cheerful, that it was commonly said at the time, "that the only things he had forgotten were his own deeds, and the only things he remembered were the misfortunes of others." Crowds of all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, hastened to attend his levee at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 17th January 1713, and the Duke de Lesdegui?res, on leaving it, said, with equal justice and felicity,--"I can now say that I have seen the man who is equal to the Mar?chal de Turenne in conduct, to the Prince of Cond? in courage, and superior to the Mar?chal de Luxembourg in success."

But if the veteran hero found some compensation, in the unanimous admiration of foreign nations, for the ingratitude with which he had been treated by the government of his own, he was soon destined to find that gratitude for past services was not to be looked for among foreign nations any more than his own countrymen. Upon the restoration of the Elector, by the treaty of Rastadt, the principality of Mendleheim, which had been bestowed upon Marlborough after the battle of Blenheim by the Emperor Joseph, was resumed by the Elector. No stipulation in his favour was made either by the British government or the Imperial court, and therefore the estate, which yielded a clear revenue of ?2000 a-year, was lost to Marlborough. He transmitted, through Prince Eugene, a memorial to the Emperor, claiming an indemnity for his loss; but though it was earnestly supported by that generous prince, yet being unaided by any efforts on the part of the English ministry, it was allowed to fall asleep. An indemnity was often promised, even by the Emperor in writing, but performance of the promise was always evaded. The Duke was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire, but obtained nothing but empty honours for his services; and at this moment, these high-sounding titles are all that remain in the Marlborough family to testify the gratitude of the Caesars to the hero who saved their Imperial and Royal thrones.

Coxe, vi. 249, 251.

The same oblivion of past and inappreciable services, when they were no longer required, pursued the illustrious general in his declining years, on the part of his own countrymen. The got-up stories about embezzlement and dilapidation of the public money, in Flanders, were allowed to go to sleep, when they had answered their destined purpose of bringing about his fall from political power. No grounds were found for a prosecution which could afford a chance of success, even in the swamped and now subservient House of Peers. But every thing that malice could suggest, or party bitterness effect, was done to fill the last days of the immortal hero with anxiety and disquiet. Additional charges were brought against him by the commissioners, founded on the allegation that he had drawn a pistole per troop, and ten shillings a company, for mustering the soldiers, though, in the foreign auxiliaries, it was often not done. Marlborough at once transmitted a refutation of those fresh charges, so clear and decisive, that it entirely silenced those accusations. But his enemies, though driven from this ground, still persecuted him with unrelenting malice. The noble pile of Blenheim, standing, as it did, an enduring monument at once of the Duke's services and the nation's gratitude, was a grievous eyesore to the dominant majority in England, and they did all in their power to prevent its completion.

Duke of Marlborough's Answer, June 2, 1713.

Orders were first given to the Treasury, on June 1, 1712, to suspend any further payments from the royal exchequer; and commissioners were appointed to investigate the claims of the creditors and expense of the work. They recommended the payment of a third to each claimant, which was accordingly made; but as many years elapsed, and no further payments to account were made, the principal creditors brought an action in the Court of Exchequer against the Duke, as personally liable for the amount, and the court pronounced decree in favour of the plaintiffs, which was affirmed, after a long litigation, in the House of Lords. Meanwhile the works, for want of any paymaster, were at a stand; and this noble pile, this proud monument of a nation's gratitude, would have remained a modern ruin to this day, had it not been completed from the private funds of the hero whose services it was intended to commemorate. But the Duke of Marlborough, as well as the Duchess, were too much interested in the work to allow it to remain unfinished. He left by his will fifty thousand pounds to complete the building, which was still in very unfinished state at the time of his death, and the duty was faithfully performed by the Duchess after his decease. From the accounts of the total expense, preserved at Blenheim, it appears, that out of three hundred thousand pounds, which the whole edifice cost, no less than sixty thousand pounds was provided from the private funds of the Duke of Marlborough.

Coxe, vi. 369, 373.

It may readily be believed that so long-continued and unrelenting a persecution of so great a man and distinguished benefactor of his country, proceeded from something more than mere envy at greatness, powerful as that principle ever is in little minds. In truth, it was part of the deep-laid plan for the restoration of the Stuart line, which the declining state of the Queen's health, and the probable unpopularity of the Hanover family, now revived in greater vigour than ever. During this critical period, Marlborough, who was still on the Continent, remained perfectly firm to the Act of Settlement, and the Protestant cause. Convinced that England was threatened with a counter-revolution, he used his endeavours to secure the fidelity of the garrison of Dunkirk, and offered to embark at its head in support of the Protestant succession. He sent General Cadogan to make the necessary arrangements with General Stanhope for transporting troops to England, to support the Hanoverian succession, and offered to lend the Elector of Hanover ?20,000 to aid him in his endeavour to secure the succession. So sensible was the Electoral house of the magnitude of his services, and his zeal in their behalf, that the Electress Sophia entrusted him with a blank warrant, appointing him commander-in-chief of her troops and garrisons, on her accession to the crown.

Coxe, vi. 263.

On the death of Queen Anne, on August 1, 1714, Marlborough returned to England, and was soon after appointed captain-general and master-general of the ordnance. Bolingbroke and Oxford were shortly after impeached, and the former then threw off the mask, by flying to France, where he openly entered into the service of the Pretender at St Germains. Marlborough's great popularity with the army was soon after the means of enabling him to appease a mutiny in the guards, which at first threatened to be alarming. During the rebellion in 1715, he directed, in a great degree, the operations against the rebels, though he did not actually take the field; and to his exertions, its rapid suppression was in a great measure to be ascribed.

Lediard, 496. Coxe, vi. 384, 385.

Coxe, vi. 384-387.

The extraordinary merit of Marlborough's military talents will not be duly appreciated, unless the peculiar nature of the contest he was called on to direct, and the character which he assumed in his time, is taken into consideration.

Cond?, though living in the same age, and alternately the enemy and comrade of Turenne, belonged to a totally different class of generals, and, indeed, seemed to belong to another age of the world. He was warmed in his heart by the spirit of chivalry; he bore its terrors on his sword's point. Heart and soul he was heroic. Like Clive or Alexander, he was consumed by that thirst for fame, that ardent passion for glorious achievements, which is the invariable characteristic of elevated, and the most inconceivable quality to ordinary, minds. In the prosecution of this object, no difficulties could deter, no dangers daunt him. Though his spirit was chivalrous--though cavalry was the arm which suited his genius, and in which he chiefly delighted, he brought to the military art the power of genius and the resources of art; and no man could make better use of the power which the expiring spirit of feudality bequeathed to its scientific successors. He destroyed the Spanish infantry at Rocroy and Lens, not by mere desultory charges of the French cavalry, but by efforts of that gallant body as skilfully directed as those by which Hannibal overthrew the Roman legions at Thrasymene and Cannae. His genius was animated by the spirit of the fourteenth, but it was guided by the knowledge of the seventeenth, century.

He was often outnumbered by the enemy, always opposed by a homogeneous army, animated by one strong national and military spirit; while he was at the head of a discordant array of many different nations, some of them with little turn for warlike exploit, others lukewarm, or even treacherous in the cause. But notwithstanding this, he never lost the ascendant. From the time when he first began the war on the banks of the Maese in 1702, till his military career was closed in 1711, within the iron barrier of France, by the intrigues of his political opponents at home, he never abandoned the initiative. He was constantly on the offensive. When inferior in force, as he often was, he supplied the defect of military strength by skill and combination; when his position was endangered by the faults or treachery of others, as was still more frequently the case, he waited till a false move on the part of his adversaries enabled him to retrieve his affairs by some brilliant and decisive stroke. It was thus that he restored the war in Germany, after the affairs of the Emperor had been wellnigh ruined, by the brilliant cross march into Bavaria, and splendid victory at Blenheim; and regained Flanders for the Archduke by the stroke at Ramilies, after the imperial cause in that quarter had been all but lost by the treacherous surrender of Ghent and Bruges, in the very centre of his water communications.

A most inadequate opinion would be formed of Marlborough's mental character, if his military exploits alone were taken into consideration. Like all other intellects of the first order, he was equally capable of great achievements in peace as in war, and shone forth with not less lustre in the deliberations of the cabinet, or the correspondence of diplomacy, than in directing columns on the field of battle, or tracing out the line of approaches in the attack of fortified towns. Nothing could exceed the judgment and address with which he reconciled the jarring interests, and smoothed down the rival pretensions, of the coalesced cabinets. The danger was not so pressing as to unite their rival governments, as it afterwards did those of the Grand Alliance in 1813, for the overthrow of Napoleon; and incessant exertions, joined to the highest possible diplomatic address, judgment of conduct, and suavity of manner, were required to prevent the coalition, on various occasions during the course of the war, from falling to pieces. As it was, the intrigues of Bolingbroke and the Tories in England, and the ascendency of Mrs Masham in the Queen's bedchamber councils, at last counterbalanced all his achievements, and led to a peace which abandoned the most important objects of the war, and was fraught, as the event has proved, with serious danger to the independence and even existence of England. His winter campaign at the Allied courts, as he himself said, always equalled in duration, and often exceeded in importance and difficulty, that in summer with the enemy; and nothing is more certain, than that if a man of less capacity had been entrusted with the direction of its diplomatic relations, the coalition would have soon broken up without having accomplished any of the objects for which the war had been undertaken, from the mere selfishness and dissensions of the cabinets by whom it was conducted.

In political life, during his career after that event, he was consistent and firm; faithful to his party, but more faithful still to his country. He was a generous friend, an attached, perhaps too fond a husband. During the whole of his active career, he retained a constant sense of the superintendence and direction of the Supreme Being, and was ever the first to ascribe the successes which he had gained, to Divine protection; a disposition which appeared with peculiar grace amidst the din of arms, and the flourish of trumpets for his own mighty achievements. Even the one occasion on which, like David, he fell from his high principles, will be regarded by the equitable observer with charitable, if not forgiving eyes. He will recollect, that perfection never yet belonged to a child of Adam; he will measure the dreadful nature of the struggle which awaits an upright and generous mind when loyalty and gratitude impel one way, and religion and patriotism another. Without attempting to justify an officer who employs the power bestowed by one government to elevate another on its ruins, he will yet reflect, that in such a crisis, even the firmest heads and the best hearts may be led astray. If he is wise, he will ascribe the fault--for fault it was--not so much to the individual, as the time in which he lived; and feel a deeper thankfulness that his own lot has been cast in a happier age, when the great moving passions of the human heart act in the same direction, and a public man need not fear that he is wanting in his duty to his sovereign, because he is performing that to his country.

Marlborough was often accused of avarice: but his conduct through life sufficiently demonstrated that in him the natural desire to accumulate a fortune, which belongs to every rational mind, was kept in subjection to more elevated principles. His repeated refusal of the government of the Netherlands, with its magnificent appointment of L.60,000 a-year, was a sufficient proof how much he despised money when it interfered with public duty; his splendid edifices, both in London and Blenheim, attest how little he valued it for any other sake but as it might be applied to noble and worthy objects. He possessed the magnanimity in every thing which is the invariable characteristic of real greatness. Envy was unknown, suspicion loathsome, to him. He often suffered by the generous confidence with which he trusted his enemies. He was patient under contradiction; placid and courteous both in his manners and demeanour; and owed great part of his success, both in the field and in the cabinet, to the invariable suavity and charm of his manner. His humanity was uniformly conspicuous. Not only his own soldiers, but his enemies never failed to experience it. Like Wellington, his attention to the health and comforts of his men was incessant; and, with his daring in the field and uniform success in strategy, endeared him in the highest degree to the men. Troops of all nations equally trusted him; and the common saying, when they were in any difficulty, "Never mind--'Corporal John' will get us out of it," was heard as frequently in the Dutch, Danish, or German, as in the English language. He frequently gave the weary soldiers a place in his carriage, and got out himself to accommodate more; and his first care, after an engagement, invariably was to visit the field of battle, and do his utmost to assuage the sufferings of the wounded, both among his own men and those of the enemy.

Marlborough House in London cost about L.100,000.--Coxe, vi. 399.

MILDRED;

A TALE.

The town of Wimborne, in Dorsetshire, boasts the possession of a very ancient cathedral-like church, dignified with the title of Minster, but, with this exception, is as utterly devoid, we believe, of all interest to the traveller, as any of the numerous country-towns which he rapidly passes through, and so gladly quits, wondering for the moment how it is that any one can possibly consent to be left behind in them. He who has journeyed from Southampton to Poole will remember the town, from the circumstance that he quitted by the same narrow streets by which he entered it, his road not passing directly through, but forming an angle at this point. He will call to mind what appeared an unaccountable turning and twisting about of the coach, whilst the horses were being changed, and a momentary alarm at finding that he was retracing his steps; he will remember the two massive square towers of the old church, peering above the roofs of the houses; and this is all that he will know, or have the least desire to know, of the town of Wimborne.

The only student who had, perhaps for some centuries, frequented it--and she brought her own books with her, and was very unlike either learned clerk, or monk, or friar--was Mildred Willoughby. She used to delight--a taste savouring of extreme youth--to bring the book she was perusing from her own comfortable parlour, to climb up with it to this solitary height, and there read it alone. She had no difficulty in obtaining from the parish-clerk permission to be left in this chosen solitude--to draw the one wooden chair it possessed to the window, and there to sit, and read, or muse, or look upon the landscape, just as long as she pleased. It did not very frequently happen that this functionary was called upon to exhibit the old tower to the curiosity of strangers; but if this occurred whilst she was thus occupied, she would rise from her seat, and for a moment put on the air of a visitor also--walk slowly round the room, looking at the backs of the books, or out of the window at the prospect, as if she saw them for the first time! and when the company had retreated, would quietly return to her chair, her study, or her reverie.

Two such persons, it will be supposed, were at first somewhat alarmed at the idea of taking into their establishment a little girl about four or five years old. Indeed, they had, in the first instance, only so far agreed to take charge of her as to find her a fit school--to receive her at the holidays--and, in this distant manner, superintend her education. But Mildred proved so quiet, so tractable, and withal so cheerful a child, that they soon resolved to depart from this plan. She had not been long in the house before it would have been a great distress to both of them to have parted with her. It was determined that she should reside perpetually with them, and that the remittances received from India should be employed in obtaining the very best masters that could be procured from Bath or Exeter. Mr Bloomfield found, in the superintendence of Mildred's education, an employment which made the day half as short as it had ever been before. He was himself a man fond of reading; and if he had not a very large store of thoughts, he had at least an excellent library, into which Mildred, who had now arrived at the age of fifteen, had already begun to penetrate.

And books--her music--&c., a few friends, more distinguished by good-breeding and good-nature than by any vivacity of mind, were all the world of Mildred Willoughby, and it was a world that there seemed little probability of her getting beyond. It had been expected that about this time she would have returned to India to her parents; but her mother had died, and her father had expressed no wish that she should be sent out to him. On the contrary, beyond certain pecuniary remittances, and these came through an agent's hands, there was nothing to testify that he bore any remembrance of his daughter. Of her father, very contradictory reports had reached her; some said that he had married again, and had formed an engagement of which he was not very proud; others that he had quitted the service, and was now travelling, no one knew where, about the world. At all events, he appeared to have forgotten that he had a daughter in England; and Mildred was almost justified in considering herself--as she did in her more melancholy moments--as in fact an orphan, thrown upon the care of an uncle and aunt, and dependent almost entirely upon them.

One fine summer's day, as she was enjoying her lofty solitude in the minster tower, a visitor had been allowed to grope up his way unattended into its antique library. On entering, he was not a little startled to see before him in this depository of mouldering literature a blooming girl in all the freshness and beauty of extreme youth. He hesitated a moment whether to approach and disturb so charming a vision. But, indeed, the vision was very soon disturbed. For Mildred, on her side, was still more startled at this entrance, alone and suddenly, of a very handsome young man--for such the stranger was--and blushed deeply as she rose from her chair and attempted to play as usual the part of casual visitor. He bowed--what could he less?--and made some apology for his having startled her by his abrupt entrance.

"Yes," she replied gaily, "a damsel discovered reading in this old turret ought to have book of chivalry in her hand. I have read Tasso, but I do not prefer him. Alfieri presents me quite as much as Tasso with a new world to live in, and it is a more real world. I seem to be learning from him the real feelings of men."

The stranger was manifestly struck by this kind of observation from one so young, and still more by the simple and unpretending manner in which it was uttered. Mildred had not the remotest idea of talking criticism, she was merely expressing her own unaffected partialities. He would have been happy to prolong the conversation, but the clerk, or verger, who had missed his visitor--as well he might, for his visitor had purposely given him the slip, as all wise men invariably do to all cicerones of whatever description--had at length tracked his fugitive up the tower, and into the library. His entrance interrupted their dialogue, and compelled the stranger very soon afterwards to retreat. He made his bow to the fair lady of the tower and descended.

Mildred read very little more that day, and if she lingered somewhat longer in meditation, her thoughts had less connexion than ever with antiquities of any kind. She descended, and took her way home. The probability that she might meet the stranger in passing through the town--albeit there was nothing, disagreeable in the thought--made her walk with unusual rapidity, and bend her eyes pertinaciously upon the ground. The consequence of which was, that in turning the corner of a street which she passed almost every day of her life, she contrived to entangle her dress in some of the interesting hardware of the principal ironmonger of the place, who, for the greater convenience of the inhabitants, was accustomed to advance his array of stoves and shovels far upon the pavement, and almost before their feet. As she turned and stooped to disengage her dress, she found that relief and rescue were already at hand. The stranger knight, who had come an age too late to release her as a captive from the tower, was affording the best assistance he could to extricate her from entanglement with a kitchen-range. Some ludicrous idea of this kind occurred to both at the same time--their eyes met with a smile--and their hands had very nearly encountered as they both bent over the tenacious muslin. The task, however, was achieved, and a very gracious "thank you" from one of the most musical of voices repaid the stranger for his gallantry.

That evening Mildred happened to be sitting near the window--it must have been by merest hazard, for she very rarely occupied that part of the room--as the Bath coach passed their gates. A gentleman seated on the roof appeared to recognise her--at least, he took his hat off as he passed. Was it the same?--and what if it were? Evidently he was a mere passer-by, who had been detained in the town a few hours, waiting for this coach. Would he ever even think again of the town of Wimborne--of its old minster--or its tower--and the girl he surprised sitting there, in its little antique library?

Between two or three years have elapsed, and our scene changes from the country town of Wimborne to the gay and pleasant capital of Belgium.

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