affixing to it name. your memorable I fhall not here prefume to mention the illuftrious paffages of your life, which are celebrated by the whole age, and have been the fubject of the moft fublime pens; but if I could convey you to pofterity in your private character, and defcribe the ftature, the behaviour, and aspect of the Duke of Marlborough, I queftion not but it would fill the reader with more agreeable images, and give him a more delightful entertainment than what can be found in the following, or any other book. One cannot indeed without of fence, to yourfelf, obferve, that you excel the reft of mankind in the leaft, as well as the greatest endow 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, almoft, unobserved by greater writers. Yet how pleafing would it be to thofe who fhall read the furprifing revolutions in your story, 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 opposed 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 A 2 greatness? : 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 so 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 reflexion with much more justice. He spoke it after he had arrived at empire by an an ufurpation upon those whom he had enslaved; but the prince of Mindleheim may rejoice in a fovereignty which was the gift of him whofe dominions he had preserved. Glory established upon the uninterrupted fuccefs of honourable defigns and actions is not fubject 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 atchievements, but likewise upon the happy expiration of your command, by which your glory is put out of the power of fortune: And when your person shall be fo too, that the author and difpofer of all things A 3 may |