posing occurrences, we possess no means of ascertaining; but on the 28th of May he was smitten with paralysis, and became deprived on the instant both of sense and of speech. The best medical aid being at hand, he was speedily relieved from the fit, and under the skilful management of sir Samuel Garth, gradually regained his strength; but from the usual effects of such a stroke he never wholly recovered, neither his articulation nor his memory being restored to their original tone. He was able to proceed, it is true, so early as the 7th of July, to Bath, where he drank the waters with benefit, and he returned in a certain degree into society, resuming with apparent ease the ordinary course of his employment. That his faculties were not absolutely impaired, moreover, is demonstrated by the fact, that it was subsequently to this his first seizure that he played his part on the trial of lord Oxford; while his successful speculation in South Sea stock, by which, contrary to the custom of the adventure, he realised 100,000l., proves that the talent of making money, at least, had not deserted him. But it seems an idle as well as an uncalled for perversion of truth to contend, that from the date of his first attack he ever was the man he had been previously. If "the tears of dotage" did not flow from his eyes, it is certain that much of the vigour of mind which once belonged to him was lost, and even his speech continued embarrassed in the pronunciation of certain words, as his features were slightly distorted. Nor did the events which accumulated upon him, both at home and abroad, by abstracting him from painful subjects, tend to facilitate his recovery. The duchess, not less the slave of caprice now than formerly, managed to involve herself in a serious misunderstanding with the king, and withdrew, in consequence, her attendance on a court where her presence ceased to be agreeable. This was preceded by quarrels with almost all the oldest and steadiest friends of her husband, such as Cadogan, Stanhope, Sunderland, and secretary Scraggs, which were not composed till after the growing infirmities of the duke had taught them to think of what he once had been, and what he was likely soon to become. Nor was the death of Sunderland, which took place in April, 1722, without its effect in harassing the duke of Marlborough. That nobleman not only died in his father-in-law's debt, to the amount of 10,000l. ; but the sealing up of his papers by government occasioned a tedious suit, Marlborough being naturally anxious to secure them to himself; a measure which the government, on public grounds, resisted.

Besides being involved in these vexatious disputes, Marlborough was again harassed by the workmen employed at Blenheim, who in 1718 renewed their actions against him for arrears of wages dué since 1715. He resisted the demand; but a decree issued against him, from which he appealed, though without effect, to the house of

lords.

No doubt there was excessive meanness here on the part of government, of which Marlborough had just cause to complain. Yet was it beneath the dignity of the greatest man of his age to dispute with his ungrateful country about 9000%. Better would it have been had he paid the debt at once; for the sum was not such as to put him to the smallest inconvenience, and posterity would have more than recompensed the loss by the judgment which it would have passed on the entire transaction. In spite, however, of these multiplied sources of disturbance, it does not appear that the latter years of this great man's life were spent unhappily. Frequent returns of illness he doubtless had, each of which left him more and more enfeebled in mind and body; but his intervals of ease seem to have been passed in the society of those who were well disposed to cheat him, as far as they could, into a forgetfulness of his fallen condition. He played much at chess, whist, piquet, and ombre; he took exercise for a while on horseback, latterly, on account of weakness, in his carriage; he even walked, when at Blenheim, unattended about his own grounds, and took great delight in the performance of private theatricals. We have the best authority for asserting, likewise, that he was never, till within a short time of his death, either indisposed or incapable of conversing freely with his friends. Whether in London, at Blenheim, Holywell, or Windsor Lodge (and he latterly moved from place to place with a sort of restless frequency,) his door was always open to the visits of his numerous and sincere admirers; all of whom he received without ceremony, and treated with peculiar kindness.

In this manner Marlborough continued to drag on an existence, which, when contrasted with the tenour of years gone by, scarcely deserves to be accounted other than vegetation. In 1720, he added several codicils to his will, and "put his house in order ;" and in November, 1721, he made his appearance in the house of lords, where, however, he took no prominent part in the business under discussion. He had spent the winter too in London, according to his usual habits, and was recently returned to Windsor Lodge, when his paralytic complaint again attacked him, with a degree of violence which resisted all efforts at removal. On this occasion, it does not appear that the faculties of his mind failed him. He lay, indeed, for the better part of a week, incapable of the slightest bodily exertion, being lifted from his couch to his bed, and from his bed to his couch, according as he indicated a wish to that effect; but he retained his senses so perfectly as to listen with manifest gratification to the prayers of his chaplain, and to join in them, as he himself stated, on the evening preceding his death. The latter event befell at four o'clock in the morning of the 16th of June, 1722, "when his strength," says Dr.Coxe, "suddenly failed him, and he rendered up his spirit to his Maker, in the 72d year of his age.».

The most bitter political adversary to whom Marlborough ever stood opposed, and the individual at whose hands he suffered the deepest wrong, has not scrupled to leave on record this testimony to his character, that he was "the greatest general and the greatest minister whorn our country or any other has produced."* Higher praise than this, the involuntary tribute of an enemy, no man need desire; yet it can scarcely be accounted as extravagant. When Bolingbroke wrote, England, at least, had produced no military commander, whose exploits would bear one moment's comparison with those of the duke of Marlborough; while, as a minister or a diplo matist, it may admit of a question whether even yet any superior to him has arisen. It may not be out of place if we endeavour to ascertain the true causes of effects so remarkable; in other words, if we strive to point out, as far as our ability extends, those peculiar qualities of mind, a happy combination of which raised him, and will at all times raise others, above their competitors in the great games of politics and war.

It is admitted on all hands that to the care and diligence of tutors the duke of Marlborough owed nothing. He entered upon public life at an age when it was next to impossible that he could have acquired more than the first rudiments of education; and his studies were in consequence either totally neglected, or carried on without order, almost without an aim. But Marlborough had received from nature gifts infinitely superior, for the purposes of action, to any which mere learning can bestow. To an intuitive quickness, which enabled him to see into and understand the characters of others, he united an extraordinary share of circumspection in the developement of his own; a circumspection which was the more available, that it lay hidden under the guise of perfect openness and candour. Frank in his general deportment, and apparently without the wish or the power to hold back from others the absolute confidence which they bestowed upon him, he nevertheless contrived to communicate to each only so much of information as the peculiar disposition of the party consulted seemed to warrant. Discretion, therefore, may be said to have formed one very prominent feature in his mental portrait; that kind of discretion which, equally removed from timidity and rashness, directs a man as well when to exhibit reserve as when to display its opposite; as well how to meet an exigency as to avoid it; as well when to take the lead, as to be guided by the advice of others, the occurrence of circumstances, or the movements of an adverse party. We do not pretend to affirm that Marlborough was never deceived, that he never committed himself, with men who eventually betrayed him. This were to attribute to him such a de

*Lord Bolingbroke, in his Letters on the Study of History.

gree of foresight as belongs to no finite mind: but the narrative of his life forms one continued exemplification of prudence, to which there is not a parallel in history. Had he been able to control the wayward temper of his wife, the close of his public career would have offered no contrast to its commencement. That, however, he found it impracticable to accomplish; and hence a fabric of power, built up by the exercise of more than man's discretion, a woman's violence, the offspring of wounded vanity, threw to the ground.

Another important quality conspicuous in the character of this illustrious man, was that power of calculation which enabled him to examine before-hand, with surprising accuracy, all the chances, if we may so speak, of any undertaking in which he proposed to embark. Shutting his eyes to none of the dangers that might, by possi bility, attend it, he brought these into immediate contrast with their opposites, and he came to his conclusion according as the weight of probabilities appeared to incline to the one side or the other. If it be said that this, at least, is no unusual faculty, for that all men, when placed in situations of responsibility, exercise it: we answer, that the very reverse is the fact. Not one man in a million is gifted with sufficient clearness of perception to embrace all, and no more than all, the chances for and against an enterprise still in the future: the sanguine naturally overlook the obstacles which may stand in the way of success; the desponding are equally fertile in magnifying the risks of failure. It is only such a mind as that of Marlborough which can take in all the bearings of the question fairly and honestly, and decide upon it according to its merits. What but a military genius of the highest order would have dictated the march upon Vienna in 1704? yet how could the empire have been saved had no such march been accomplished?

In addition to this rare faculty of calculation, Marlborough possessed a third quality, without which hours of the most patient inquiry will prove useless; a firmness of purpose, which, when a resolution was once taken, hindered him from being diverted from it either by the remonstrances or the apprehensions of others. Entering upon no enterprise till after it had been examined in all its bearings, he ceased, so soon as the movement began, to deliberate; and considering the difficulties by which it was beset only so far as might be necessary to overcome them, he pressed steadily forward towards the end which it was sought to attain. There are a thousand proofs in every one of his campaigns, both of the truth of this observation, and of the benefits attending the habit of mind described; but in none was the unbending resolution of the great commander more prominently exhibited than during the prolonged and harassing siege of Lille. The obstacles opposed to him there were not only gigantic in themselves, but rendered doubly perplexing by the opinion

which the allies entertained of them; yet Marlborough met them one after another, and by patience and perseverance overcame them.

With three principal points of character, then, which seem equally requisite for the great general and the great politician, which, and as they are bestowed by nature alone, all the instruction in the world will not create, Marlborough was preeminently gifted. He was discreet in communicating with others, sagacious in deliberation, and prompt and decisive in execution. As a military man, on the other hand, he possessed little science; that is to say, he could not boast of any intimate acquaintance with the theories of professed tacticians; nor was his knowledge of engineering, in any of its departments, more than superficial. But these defects, and such they doubtless were, only served to bring more prominently into view excellences far more rare as well as more important. Marlborough has never been surpassed in the perfect knowledge to which he attained as to what men can really perform in the dexterity which he displayed in making the most of his instruments, we doubt whether he has ever been equalled. Long and painful marches he doubtless executed, when the exigencies of the moment seemed to require; but he who examines with a critical eye the operations of the whole war, will find that not a single instance occurs in which the allied troops were harassed beyond their strength, or deprived, even during the busiest times, of a just proportion of rest. It was this wise consideration for the health of his troops, which enabled him to bring them into the field, at all seasons, fit for their work; and we have said enough to show that his movements were, after all, both more rapid and better combined than those of his opponents. We dwell the more strongly upon this fact, because there are men who, in the excess of zeal, look upon an officer as wanting in activity, who is not prepared to move, both by night and day, as well in advance as in retreat. No really great general ever indulged wantonly in night marches. Rouse your soldiers as early in the morning as you please; but unless all be at stake, bring them to their ground, and let them sleep for three hours at least before midnight.

Again, though little read in strategy, Marlborough had obtained from nature an aptitude in the examination of ground for military purposes, such as she bestows only on the most gifted of mankind. Whether the matter under consideration were the choice of a position for his own army, or the detection of some weak point in that of the enemy, the eagle eye of Marlborough was equally keen; and of the advantages which either held out, he invariably took advantage with as much promptitude as effect. The battle of Blenheim affords one out of numerous instances of his extraordinary quickness in observing the errors committed by his opponents; the disposition of the corps which covered the sieges of Lille and

Douay shows how correct were his own views of the military strength of a country.

Of bravery, if by the term be meant the animal courage which prompts men to face danger, the great Marlborough could boast only in common with the meanest of his followers; but he possessed also that kind of courage which is found to co-exist only with talent of the first order. Neither perils nor difficulties, however unlooked for, deprived him for one moment of the most perfect self-command. In the heat of battle, he was as cool and collected as when deliberating with his staff in his tent; nor was his attention ever so completely engrossed with affairs in one quarter,

as to render him careless or inattentive to what might be doing elsewhere. At the battle of Blenheim, it is true that he led a charge of cavalry in person, and became for a brief space so mingled in the throng that it was impossible to look around; yet even here all his dispositions were made; and the smoke had no sooner cleared away than the effects of these dispositions became apparent. Reserves arrived exactly when they were needed; and Marlborough flew to some other point, where he saw that his presence appeared more likely to be useful. In like manner, neither the frustration of one part of his plan, nor the necessity thence arising to change it, in any degree discomposed the temper of his mind. At Malplaquet the rashness of the young prince of Orange had wellnigh proved fatal, by deranging the whole order of attack, and costing a prodigious loss of life; yet Marlborough treated it as an accident not uncontemplated, and modified at once his own dispositions, to meet the exigency. His campaign of 1711, again, not only displays the same indomitable self-command, but places him in the foremost rank among the masters of manœuvre. The passage of the lines has not been cast into the shade by any subsequent operation in presence of an enemy.

It has been said of Marlborough, by one of his most elaborate biographers, that "his genius was of English mould, vast, comprehensive, and daring; attaining its purposes by great and decided efforts, simple in design, and najestic in execution." We must be pardoned if we venture to say, that we do not exactly comprehend the object of this commendatory sentence. Between English genius and genius as it appears elsewhere, we know not how a diversity of character is to be detected; and as to the remainder of the eulogium, we must confess, that to us it is wholly unintelligible. As little are we able to comprehend what the learned author means, when he asserts that his hero, "averse by character as well as principle from defensive warfare, was always the assailant, and invariably pursued one grand object, regardless of minor consequences." The leader of an army, if he possess the talents which

* Dr. Coxe.

become his station, can permit neither principle nor natural bias to direct him in his mode of conducting a war. Wherever the state of affairs shall appear to recommend his acting on the offensive, he will, of course, and with all diligence, adopt that system; when a contrary mode of proceeding seems to hold out better hopes of ultimate success, he will with equal cheerfulness adopt it. The truth is, that the power of choosing between the fitting moment for aggressive and defensive manœuvre is exactly that which, more than any other, belongs to the great military genius. Events so ordered it, that an offensive warfare promised to Marlborough, in all his campaigns, more important results than its opposite; on this account he pursued it but had he been differently situated, we cannot for one moment doubt that he would have adapted his tactics, without violating any principle, to the position in which he stood.

In addition to these rare qualities of mind, the duke of Marlborough was endowed by nature with a person and address more than usually captivating, as well among his inferiors as his equals. To the elegance of that person and that address, indeed, lord Chesterfield does not hesitate to attribute a large share of Marlborough's success throughout life; and though we cannot exactly go so far as the noble author has done in the passage to which we allude, we are far from denying that it contains a great deal both of philosophy and sound reasoning. One thing, at least, is certain, that his mode of addressing the troops, the appearance of interest which he exhibited in his visits to the hospitals, and his manner of speaking to the meanest sentinel whenever he happened to cross his path, rendered him an object of equal love and respect to his followers. Nor ought it to be forgotten that Marlborough kept up something more than the forms of religion in his camp. He never entered upon a general action of which the plan had been deliberately laid, without himself receiving the sacrament, and causing prayers to be read at the head of every regiment; and the consequence was, that, to use the words of one who served under him, "cursing and swearing were seldom heard among the officers; and the poor soldiers, many of them the refuse and the dregs of the nation, became, at the close of one or two campaigns, civil, sensible, and clean, and had an air and spirit above the vulgar."

The plan of this work necessarily precludes us from offering any general review of the character of the illustrious Mariborough, considered as a statesman and a diplomatist. On some accounts we are disposed to lament, on others to rejoice, that such restrictions are imposed upon us; for though the exposure of even his moral delinquencies might convey a useful lesson to mankind, it were not an agreeable task to lay them bare. Enough is done, therefore, when we express our regret that the greatest hero of his age was not, as he might have been, also the most honest politician;

and that, when looking back upon his conduct towards his first master and early benefactor, we are almost compelled to acknowledge that the wrongs which he endured in his latter days were but a just recompense of his early treachery.

The duke of Marlborough left behind him three daughters, all of them married into the best families of the kingdom. Henrietta, the eldest, the wife of Francis earl of Godolphin, became on her father's decease duchess of Marlborough; but died in 1733, without male issue. Anne married Charles, earl of Sunderland, from whom are descended the present duke of Marlborough and the earl of Spencer; and Mary gave her hand to the duke of Montagu. The property which he had accumulated in the course of his long and busy life proved to be very great. In addition to the estates purchased for him by the country, he disposed by will of lands and money, of which the interest fell not short of 100,000l. a year; indeed, the annual revenue bequeathed to his successors in Woodstock alone is given on the best authority at 70,000. The mansion house at Blenheim was at the period of his death still in progress of erection, and he set apart a sum of money for the purpose of completing it, of which he committed the management exclusively to the duchess, who survived her husband many years. It seems alone necessary to add to this, that the estates of Woodstock are held on feudal tenure, the occupant presenting to the king once a year a standard similar to those which the founder of his house captured; and that these are regularly desposited in a private chapel at Windsor, where they may still be seen by the curious.

The funeral of this illustrious warrior and statesman was of course as magnificent as his reputation and the honour of the country seemed to require. His body, after undergoing the process of embalming, and lying in state at Marlborough House, was conveyed in a sort of triumphal car to Westminster Abbey, long lines of carriages following, and all the parade of troops, heralds, and mourners preceding and surrounding the senseless clay. A gorgeous canopy overshadowed it, adorned with plumes, military trophies, and heraldic achievements. Dukes and earls were the chief mourners; the pall being borne by persons of not less eminent rank; and the cavalcade was received by the light of blazing torches at the door of the abbey by all the dignitaries and ministers of the church in full canonicals. Yet was the solemn ceremony performed for no other purpose than to render due honours to the remains of England's most illustrious commander. The body was not permitted for any length of time to rest where, amid such splendour, it had been entombed; but, being removed to the chapel at Blenheim, it was finally deposited in a mausoleum, erected by Rysbrack, under the superintendence of the duchess.

CHARLES MORDAUNT, the son of John lord Mordaunt, of Reigate in Surrey, and viscount Avalon in the county of Somerset, by Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Carey, second son of Robert earl of Monmouth, was born at his father's house in the country, in the year 1658. Of the events which marked the progress of his childhood and early youth no record has been preserved, at least we have utterly failed in our efforts to obtain any information on the authority of which it would be prudent to rely. We know, indeed, that he served, when a mere boy, on board the Mediterranean fleet, under admirals Torrington and Narborough; and that in 1676 he succeeded to the honours and estates of his ancestors. We are likewise assured that he was present at the siege of Tangier, in 1680; having, by this time, exchanged the naval for the military profession: but of the system adopted in forming his early tastes, as well as of the names of his instructors, we are left entirely ignorant. To one fact, however, the habits of his latter years seem to bear tolerably conclusive testimony. His education, using that term in its ordinary sense, could not have been neglected: at least, if the contrary be the case, he stands forth an almost solitary instance of literary aptitude acquired in the decline of life, for which no preparation had been made in boyhood.

The first historical mention made of the subject of this memoir, represents him as a bold and uncompromising opponent of the state policy pursued by the last two princes of the house of Stuart. Walpole even asserts that his hostility to the court went so far as to involve him in the plot of which lord Russell and Algernon Sydney were the victims ;* and that he accompanied the latter to the scaffold. But as neither Burnet nor Tindal make mention of this circumstance, and as Walpole neglects to quote his authority, the truth of the statement may, at least, be doubted. Be this, however, as it may, we find him, immediately after the accession of James, taking an active part in the opposition set up to the proceedings of that ill-advised monarch. It is probable that his exertions in the cause of public liberty marked him out as an object of royal disfavour; or, it may be, that sheer disgust drove him, as it drove others, to abandon, for a time, his devoted country. At all events, he became, by degrees, so little satisfied

*Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors. 9*

Thus

with the state of affairs at home, that he solicited, and obtained, permission to serve abroad, and quitted England, avowedly for the purpose of commanding a portion of the Dutch fleet, which was then about to sail for the West Indies. screened from animadversion, he passed over to Holland, where he immediately attached himself to the person and fortunes of the prince of Orange; strongly urging upon him the wisdom of attempting, without further loss of time, a revolution for which all classes in England were ripe. But the advice, though according well with the designs of the stadtholder, was rejected for the present as premature. "The lord Mordaunt," says Burnet, was the first of all the English nobility that came over openly to see the prince of Orange. He asked the king's leave to do it. He was a man of much heat, many notions, and full of discourse. He was brave and generous, but had not true judgment. His thoughts were crude and indigested, and his secrets were soon known. He was with the prince in 1686; and then he pressed him to undertake the business of England; and he represented the matter as so easy, that this appeared too romantical to the prince to build upon it. He only promised, in general, that he should have an eye on the affairs of England; and should endeavour to put the affairs of Holland in so good a posture as to be ready to act when it should be necessary: and he assured him, that if the king should go about either to change the established religion, or to wrong the princess in her right, or to raise forged plots to destroy his friends, he would try what he could possibly do."

From this date, up to the memorable era of 1688, lord Mordaunt resided entirely in the Low Countries. He was much courted by the prince; being, as Burnet expresses it, "one whom his highness chiefly trusted, and by whose advice he governed his motions." Nor, when the cause finally triumphed, and William became king of England, were his services permitted long to go without their reward. On the 9th of April, 1689, he was created earl of Monmouth, having, on the day previous, been nominated to the twofold office of lord of the bedchamber and first commissioner of the treasury.

Lord Monmouth, as he must now be called, discharged his civil duties only till November, 1690; when, in consequence of some misunderstanding, of the precise nature of which we are ignorant, he was suddenly dismissed from the

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