endowments. Nor were it a cir cumftance to be mentioned, if the graces and attractions of your perfon were not the only pre-eminence you have above others, which is left, almost, unobserved by greater writers. Yet how pleafing would it be to those who fhall read the furprifing revolutions in your ftory, to be made acquainted with your ordinary life and deportment? How pleafing would it be to hear that the fame man, who had carried fire and fword into the countries of all that had oppofed the cause of liberty, and ftruck a terror into the armies of France, had, in the midst of his high ftation, a behaviour as gentle as is ufual in the first steps towards greatness? A 2 greatness? And if it were poffible to express that eafy grandeur, which did at once perfuade and command; it would appear as clearly to those to come, as it does to his contemporaries, that all the great events which were brought to pass under the conduct of fo well-governed a spirit, were the bleffings of heaven upon wisdom and valour; and all which feem adverfe fell out by divine permiffion, which we are not to fearch into. You have paffed that year of life wherein the most able and fortunate captain, before your time, declared he had lived enough both to nature and to glory; and your Grace may make that with much more juftice. reflexion He spoke it after he had arrived at empire by by an ufurpation upon those whom he had enflaved; but the prince of Mindlebeim may rejoice in a fovereignty which was the gift of him whofe dominions he had preferved. Glory established upon the uninterrupted fuccefs of honourable defigns and actions is not subject to diminution; nor can any attempts prevail against it, but in the proportion which the narrow circuit of rumour bears to the unlimited extent of fame. We may congratulate your Grace not only upon your high atchievments, but likewife upon the happy expiration of your command, by which your glory is put out of the power of fortune: And when your perfon fhall be fo too, that the author and difpofer of all things may place you in that higher manfion of blifs and immortality which is prepared for good princes, lawgivers, and heroes, when HE in His due time removes them from the envy of mankind, is the hearty prayer of, My LORD, Your Grace's moft obedient, moft devoted, bumble Servant, The SPECTATOR. |