undertakes to write the history of the French | To attain that, you must avoid as much as Revolution will soon find his narrative turn into the biographies of Wellington and Napoleon, so he who sets about the Life of Marlborough will ere long find that he has insensibly become engaged in a general history of the War of the Succession. Well, be it so, if only because that war it is of infinite importance to have better known than in fact it is. If Mr. Alison's object, in the work before us, were to produce a biography, to delineate character, and so to group events as to illustrate individuality-he has eminently succeeded; but his very success renders it difficult for those in our position to allow him to speak for himself, as copiously as doubtless he, and also our readers, would wish. As he has mastered his subject, so have we mastered his treatment of it, as, at least, we suppose; and as he took his own course, so shall we; wishing that we could give our readers the pleasure which his book has afforded ourselves. In order, however, to attain that object, they must read the book itself; and to induce them to do so, we proceed to indicate its leading characteristics in our own words, using his own as far as is consistent with our space and our object. To appreciate the mighty doings of Marlborough, let us glance for a moment at the position in which he found, and the position in which he left, the redoubtable Louis XIV. -him whose memory is for ever rendered detestable by his revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and his bloody exterminating persecution of the Protestants. Marlborough found him the centre of a galaxy of glory of almost every description of military, political, and intellectual distinction. He was blazing in the zenith of his power and success; he was making France the world, and installing the Roman Catholic religion in a black and bloody predominance. Unbroken good fortune," says Mr. Alison, "had attended all his enterprises, since he had launched into the career of foreign aggrandizement." But how did Marlborough leave him? Let the dying monarch speak for himself. When he felt death approaching, he ordered his infant heir, afterwards Louis XV., to be brought to his bedside; and placing his lean and withered hand on the head of the child, said with a firm voice,-" My child, you are about to become a great king; but your happiness will depend on your submission to God, and on the care which take of you your subjects. 66 * ALISON, ii. p. 300. you can engaging in wars, which are the ruin of the people; do not follow in that respect the bad example which I have given you. I have often engaged in wars from levity, and continued them from vanity. Do not imitate me, but become a pacific prince." Thus he had learned, at last, a great lesson through the tremendous teaching of Marlborough !* That great man seems to have fathomed the character and the purposes of Louis, in all their depth and comprehensiveness, from the first, with an intuitive sagacity; and the patient determination with which he carried out, under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty, his own great conceptions, exhibits perhaps the grandest spectacle that history can point to, in the case of a single individual. The reader of these volumes will frequently boil over with indignation at the obstacles which were thrown in the way of Marlborongh, by envy, faction, selfishness, and stupidity interposing, with a fell punctuality, at almost every great crisis during his career, and blighting the most splendid prospects of success. One only little inferior in magnanimity to Marlborough would have broken down on many different occasions, and fled from the scene of action in disgust and despair. With him, however, it was not so; and yet he was a man of keen sensibility, and has left on record various traces of heartwrung anguish. Here are one or two, among many scattered over these volumes :-"The unreasonable opposition I have met with has so heated my blood that I am almost mad." I am, at this moment, ten years older than I was four days ago!"-"My spirits are so broke, that whenever I can get from this employment, I must live quietly, or die.”— "My crosses make my life a burthen to me.” All this while, nevertheless, the great warrior statesman was steadily, yet rapidly, demolishing the vast fabric of French power and glory, and building up in massive proportions that of his own country. More, perhaps, than any other man," justly observes Mr. Alison at the close of his work, "“Marl 66 * "Even the great William," says Professor Smyth, "trained up amid a life of difficulties and war, with an intrepid heart, and a sound understanding, cessfully to resist, but not to humble him. It was was able only to stay the enterprises of Louis; sucfor Marlborough to teach that unprincipled monarch the danger of ambition, and the instability of human grandeur; it was for Marlborough to disturb his dreams of pleasure and of pride, by filling them with spectres of terror and images of desolation." The lecture from which this is taken is well worthy of a careful perusal. also, he had at length succeeded; and then came the trumpet-sound of war against France, which was forthwith proclaimed at London, the Hague and Vienna. Yet still a practical difficulty remained-one of peculiar delicacy-for the post of commander-in-chief of the allied forces was greatly coveted by several powerful candidates. Marlborough's own sovereign, Queen Anne, so strongly supported one of them-Prince George of Den borough was the architect of England's greatness; for he at once established on a solid basis the Protestant succession, which secured its religious freedom, and vanquished the formidable enemy which threatened its national independence. His mighty arm bequeathed to his country the honor and the happiness of the eighteenth century-the happiest period, by the admission of all his torians, which has dawned upon the world since that of the Antonines in ancient sto-mark, her husband-that she even protested ry." Let us now take a very hasty view of his radiant career, remembering the while that he ever bore about with him that which hung like a millstone round his neck-his indefensible conduct towards James II., the recollection of which must have galled and chafed the sensitive spirit of a soldier infinitely more than was known to any human being. she would not declare war unless he was appointed. The Dutch government, however, were resolute on behalf of Marlborough, as the only man equal to sustain the fearful responsibility; and thus Marlborough became invested with the chief direction, both civil and military, of the forces of the coalition. And it was not difficult to foresee the interminable anxieties and vexations which were in store Mr. Alison opens with a very imposing for him, derived from the jealousies and jarpicture of the state of public affairs, both in ring interests of the various states, their minthis country and on the Continent, when isters and generals, who were under the guidMarlborough commenced his campaigns; and ance of Marlborough. The barrier, however, also delineates with truth and force the charac- required to be cut through; and Marlborough ters of the leading actors, all remarkable per- resolved to commence it with the siege of sonages. Louis XIV. stands foremost, and Kaiserworth, a place of very great importance. is sketched with freedom and power. Then He took it but at a cost of 5000 men; and come James II., William III., Queen Anne, then took Venloo, and finally Liege-all Charles XII., Prince Eugene, and last of all, places of extreme importance, and desperateMarlborough, who, at the close of his firstly defended; and with these feats he concludcampaign, was regarded, both at home and abroad, as "The man of Destiny, raised up by Providence to rescue the Protestant religion and the liberties of Europe from the thraldom of France." It is impossible to He had broken through their line, so conceive any conjuncture of circumstances formidable for offensive and defensive war; more critical and perilous than those of this he had "thrust his iron gauntlet," says Mr. country at the period in question. Not only Alison, "into the centre of their resources." our religion, but our independence as a na- And the entire merit was his own, as Lord tion, and the very existence of social order, Athlone, his rival and second in command, were at stake. If one may use such an ex- thus nobly testified :-"The success of the pression, the odds were immensely against us campaign is entirely owing to its incompara-against all who were opposed to the giant ble commander-in-chief; for I, the second in energy of Louis XIV. The first step to be command, was, on every occasion, of an optaken was to form an alliance against him-posite opinion to that which he adopted !" and it was undertaken by Marlborough with consummate ability; then to induce the British Cabinet to take its right place as "the very soul of the Grand Alliance"-in that, ed the brief but brilliant campaign which laid the foundation of all his future victories. It stripped the French of many of the chief advantages with which they had opened the war. His success was like a bright burst of sunshine over a long-troubled land. But here an incident occurred which might have ruined all. While dropping down the Meuse, on his return to England at the conclusion of the campaign, he was positively taken prisoner by a small French force,-whose commander, however, ignorant of the prize which was within his reach, and skilfully misled by a sagacious device of Marlborough's servant, suffered him to depart! The peril in which he had been spread consternation everywhere, equalled only by joy at his escape, which was powerfully expressed to him by the Pensionary Heinsius. "Your captivity was on the point of causing the slavery of these provinces, and restoring to France the power of extending her uncontrollable dominion over all Europe. No hope remained if she had retained in bondage the man whom we revere as the instrument of Providence to restore independence to the greater part of the Christian world!" On what apparently trivial incidents often depend the greatest events that can happen to mankind! Marlborough was received with transports in England, and raised to the dukedom of Marlborough. The difficulties which the Dutch deputies had thrown in his way during the first campaign, owing, says Mr. Alison, to timidity, ignorance of the military art, personal presumption, and the spirit of party, on several great occasions thwarted the most decisive measures of Marlborough,-but proved only a foretaste of what was in store for the harassed commander. Mr. Alison gives an interesting letter which Marlborough wrote to his Countess, immediately on his arrival at the Hague. It is full of the pas sionate fondness of a lover to his mistress; yet was written by a man of fifty-two to a wife to whom he had been married twentythree years! There are innumerable other instances, in these volumes of the romantic fervor of their attachment. Such was Marlborough's first campaign, the herald of a long series of resplendent successes, many of them marked by features similar to those of the first. "He never," indeed, "fought a battle which he did not gain, nor sat down before a town which he did not take; and-alone of the great commanders recorded in historynever sustained a reverse! On many occations throughout the war, he was only prevented, by the timidity of the Dutch deputies, or the feeble co-operation of the Allied powers, from gaining early and decisive success; and as it was, he broke the power of the Grand Monarque, and if his hands had not in the end been tied up by an intrigue at home, he would have planted the British standards on Montmartre, and anticipated the triumphs of Blucher and Wellington." Here is the key to his position, from first to last an inkling of the tortures which wrung that great soul throughout his career. In this first campaign, Marlborough had laid the basis of great operations-which, indeed, followed in rapid succession, each eclipsing its predessor in magnitude of result and splendor of achievement, as to throw its foregoer comparatively into the shade. In order to appreciate the greatness of Marlborough, his position-harassed daily by the jealousies and selfishness of the Allied forces, which he commanded-should be compared with that of Louis XIV., where all was an overwhelming unity of will and purpose, perfect subordination, accompanied by immense military resources and consummate generalship. The war had, indeed, become already one of awful magnitude; for Louis XIV. and his advisers could not have failed to observe the settled determination of purpose, and forecasting sagacity, which characterized their great opponent. Louis brought all his power and resources to bear upon the plan of a second and magnificent campaign; showing that he felt the gravity of the situation, and the necessity of making commensurate efforts. "The great genius of Louis XIV., in strategy." says Mr. Alison, "here shone forth in full lustre. Instead of confining the war to one of forts and sieges in Flanders and Italy, he resolved to throw the bulk of his forces at once into Bavaria, and operate against Austria from the heart of Germany, by pouring down the valley of the Danube." "The genius of Louis," he adds, after a lucid explanation of the projected campaign, which was, indeed, grandly conceived, had outstripped the march of time; and the year 1703 promised the triumphs which were realized on the same ground, and by following the same plan, by Napoleon in 1805."* It was all, however, in vain, though his plans were carried into execution with infinite skill and energy. Marlborough got intelligence of them; and instantly conceived a masterly counter-plan, which, but for his being thwarted, as usual, by the Dutch deputies, would have been completely successful in the first instance. The resources which Marlborough's genius displayed in this transcendent campaign were prodigious. His rapidity of perception, his far-sighted sagacity, his watchful circumspection, his prompt energy, at length, triumphed over all obstacles, and eventuated in the glorious battle of Blenheim-than which none more splendid stands on record. The fearful consequences of failure were very eagerly pressed upon him by his own officers. "I know the danger," said he calmly, "yet a battle is absolutely necessary; and I rely on the bravery and discipline of the troops, which will make amends for our disadvantages." Mr. Alison's description of this battle is equally + Ibid. i. p. 159. * ALISON, i. p. 125. brilliant and impressive, and we wish we could transfer it entire into our columns. It was a fearful day for Louis XIV. The total loss of the French and Bavarians, including those who deserted during the calamitous retreat through the Black Forest, was 40,000,-" a number greater than any subsequently lost by France till the still more disastrous day of Waterloo." "The decisive blow struck at Blenheim resounded through every part of Europe. It, at once, destroyed the vast fabric of power which it had taken Louis XIV., aided by the genius of Turenne and Vauban, so long to construct. Instead of proudly descending the valley of the Danube, and threatening Vienna, as did Napoleon in 1805 and 1809, the French were driven in the utmost disorder across the Rhine. Thus, by the operation of one single campaign, was Bavaria crushed, Austria saved, and Germany delivered, and the Empire, delivered from invasion, was preparing to carry its victorious arms into the very heart of France! Such achievements require no comment. They speak for themselves, and deservedly place Marlborough in the very highest rank of military commanders. The campaigns of Napoleon exhibit no more decisive or important results."* His reception at the courts of Berlin and Hanover was like that of a sovereign prince; and, on his return home, the nation welcomed him with ecstasy. The Honor and manor of Woodstock were settled upon him; and the erection of the palace of Blenheim was commenced on a magnificent scale. Before the opening of this campaign, he lost his only surviving son, in his seventeenth year-an event which occasioned him a week's paroxysm of grief. Shortly before, two of his daughters, very beautiful women, were married respectively to the Earl of Bridgewater and Lord Monthermer, whose father was subsequently raised to the rank of Duke of Montague. Another daughter had been married to Lord Sunderland, who occasioned the Duke of Marlborough intense mortification, by suddenly opposing his policy in the House of Lords. And, indeed, he seems to have suffered exquisitely during this period, from the animosities with which he was assailed at home by the Tories. He sought permission from the Queen to resign, and retire into private life; and it was only on her sending him a holograph letter, couched in terms of unusual affection, that he was induced to * ALISON, p. 187. abstain from a step which would have been so fatal to the fortunes of his country.* It was in this campaign that Marlborough and Prince Eugene came together the latter a man of great military genius, and a chivalrously noble and generous character. The intimacy and co-operation of such a man must have cheered the spirit of Marlborough in many a dark hour of trial, difficulty, and danger. They never had a difference during all the campaigns in which they acted together. "The records of human achievements can present few, if any, greater men; but beyond all question, they can exhibit none in whom so pure and generous a friendship existed, alike unbroken by the selfishness consequent on adverse, and the jealousies springing from prosperous fortune." From this period, the affairs of perplexed and convulsed Europe may be said to have rested upon the Atlantean shoulders of this marvellous man. The impression left on one's mind, after reading these volumes, is that of wonder how human faculties could sustain, and for such a length of time, so vast and constantly increasing a pressure, alike upon his heart and his intellect. Never, perhaps, was greatness so perseveringly harassed by littleness. He may have exclaimed on a thousand occasions "The times are out of joint! O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set them right!" No The great event of his third campaign was the battle of Ramilies, where Marlborough was within a hair's-breadth of being taken prisoner on the field, and had to fight his way out from his throng of assailants, like the knights of old, sword in hand. sooner had he succeeded in this, than he had another escape-his horse fell in leaping a ditch; and his equerry's head was carried off by a cannon-ball while holding the Duke's stirrup as he mounted another. This was a very great battle, and attended by signal results-the acquisition of nearly all Austrian Flanders! What now was the position of Louis XIV.? "After five years of continued effort, he found himself stripped of all his conquests, shorn of his external influence, and compelled to maintain at once on the frontiers of Germany, Flanders, Spain, and Italy, a contest, from his own resources, with the forces of all Europe. His haughty spirit, long accustomed to prosperity, supported with difficulty the weight of ad+ Ibid. i. 247. * ALISON, p. 141. ertions, and at length were on the point of fighting another great battle: "and, by a most extraordinary coincidence, the two armies were of the same strength, and occupied the same ground, as did those of Napoleon and Wellington, a hundred and eight years afterwards!" Marlborough was eager for the fight, confident of a great victory; but, at the eleventh hour, a panic seized his old friends the Dutch deputies, and they compelled him to retire to his former position, and decline the encounter, to his unspeakable mortification. The enemy, showing no disposition to encounter him, at length retreated, Marlborough advancing, but finding it impossible to bring on a general action. Both armies were led into winter quarters, and Marlborough repaired to England, versity. The war, and all its concerns, was a forbidden subject at court. A melancholy gloom pervaded the halls of Versailles; and frequent bleedings of the monarch himself attested both the violence of his internal agitation and the dread which his physicians entertained of still greater dangers. Overcome by so many calamities, the fierce spirit of Louis was at length shaken, and he was prevailed on to sue for peace!* After the battle of Ramilies, Marlborough was offered the government of the Netherlands, the emoluments of which were no less than £60,000 a year; but he magnanimously refused it, from a regard to the public good, and on every subsequent offer of the same splendid and lucrative post, did the same. On his return to England he met with a rapturous reception-was thanked by Parlia-"where his presence had become indispensament-£5,000 a year was settled on him and his Duchess, and their descendants-and the dukedom extended to heirs female, "in order," as it was finely expressed, "that England might never be without a title which might recall the remembrance of so much glory." Equally indefatigable at home as abroad, in peace as in war, he addressed himself at once to his parliamentary duties, and took a leading part in the great and beneficial measure for uniting Scotland with England. His vast influence in the country, and at court, excited intense jealousy among both Whigs and Tories. The ensuing campaign (A. D. 1707) found Louis XIV. "reduced on all sides to his own resources," and thoroughly wakened from his dream of foreign conquests-seeking only, and that with anxiety and alarm, to defend his own frontier. Here, however, two new actors appear on the chequered scene-the Duke of Marlborough's nephew, the Duke of Berwick, who by his great victory of Almanza counteracted in Spain his uncle's efforts and Charles XII. of Sweden, a "new and formidable actor on the theatre of affairs in Germany." Louis XIV. made desperate efforts to win over Charles XII., but the exquisite adroitness of Marlborough frustrated them altogether. But Louis, encouraged by the gleams of success which had been visible in Spain and elsewhere, made immense efforts to recover his lost ground. Marlborough's energies were equally divided between delicate and perilous negotiations with the various European potentates, and another decisive campaign in the field. Both he and Louis made prodigious ex+ Ibid. p. 287. * ALISON, i. 277, 278. bly necessary for arresting the progress of public discontent, fanned as it was by court and parliamentary intrigues, and threatening to prove immediately fatal to his own influence and ascendency, as well as to the best interests of England."* Here we are plunged into the vortex of political intrigues,-the principal actors being Harley and St. John and Mrs. Masham on the one side, and on the other the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, whose ascendency over the Queen and the country, and even their own party, the Whigs, is evidently beginning to give way, and rapidly. Mr. Alison here shows his dispassionate character to great advantage, holding the balance evenly between all parties. His candid and luminous statement is equally interesting and instructive; and one thing he brings out in a very striking manner, though not in so many words: we mean the retributive justice with which the Duke's treachery to James II. was brought home to himself, and also to the Duchessthe latter being utterly incredulous of the ingratitude and treachery of Mrs. Masham towards her, and the former equally so in the case of Harley and St. John. How often and how bitterly may such reflections have occurred to the Duke and Duchess! Their position at court had become exceedingly trying; but their treatment of the Queen was highly imprudent, the Duke being doubtless greatly influenced by his imperious and intractable Duchess. Mr. Alison regards her as the "faithful representative of the whole Whig party," whose "arrogant domination and grasping disposition were the real causes of their fall from power, and the total change * Ibid. p. 330. |