madness of party spirit. Prosecution of Steele and Swift. Harley dismissed from the office of treasurer.-§ 16. Hopes of the Jacobites. The queen favourable to the pretensions of her brother Charles Edward Stuart. Her sudden illness.-§ 17. The Duke of Shrewsbury made Prime Minister and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Energetic preparations for eventualities.-§ 18. Death and character of Queen Anne.

§ 1. THE Princess Anne was thirty-seven years of age when she mounted the throne. For five-and-twenty years she had been under the guidance of one of her attendants, a beautiful, bold, aspiring woman of the name of Sarah Jennings, now wife of the Earl of Marlborough, who determined, with all the force of her impetuous nature, to advance the interest of her husband, and continue her mastery over the queen. The course of the greatest warrior of his time is therefore to be studied through the secret influences of pages and waitingmaids. The success of a campaign depended on the submission of the queen to the caprices of the imperious Sarah, and we shall learn that all the fame, skill, and genius of the matchless soldier were neglected or denied when a new favourite appeared at court, and the strings of the crowned puppet were pulled by other hands.

§ 2. But for eight years the reign of Sarah Jennings was uninterrupted by the slightest wish on the queen's part to break her chain. With confiding affection she did as she was told, and contentedly reaped all the glory of the wisdom of the wife and the prowess of the husband. The ministry was immediately changed by the advice of the favourite. Godolphin, who had kept up his correspondence with St. Germains to the same extent as Marlborough, was made Treasurer, and Nottingham, Secretary of State. With these dependents at the head of affairs, and the queen entirely in his power, Marlborough had no opposition to fear to anything he proposed. He proceeded to Holland to concert measures for the prosecution of the war, and must have heard already the shouts of victory in his ear, when he got himself

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appointed Commander-in-Chief of the allied armies, with instructions" to defend the common liberties of Europe, and reduce the power of France within due limits." For this purpose a rival for the throne of Spain, in opposition to the grandson of Louis, was found in the second son of the Emperor of Germany, who had been named to the succession in a former will of the late king; and the hostile Powers were ranged respectively under the banners of Philip V., the French claimant, and Charles III., the Austrian. English, Dutch, Portuguese, and Austrians against the French and Spaniards, and some of the German States; an equal balance as regarded wealth and power, but speedily to be inclined to the English side by the military successes of Marlborough.

§ 3. Scarcely inferior to the English chief was Prince Eugene of Savoy, who led the armies of the Empire, and restored the martial confidence of the Germans. In the first year of the war the contest was one of strategic skill. More valuable objects were gained, according to the saying of Napoleon, by the soldiers' legs than their arms. Marches were equivalent to victories, and the tide of success flowed on. By the advance of the English army, the Netherlands were freed from their French occupants; and when Liege was taken by assault with all its stores; both of money and provisions, Louis heard, with a rage which he had never experienced in the days of his great commanders Condé and Turenne, that his troops had recrossed the border, and were contented if they could defend the territories of France. Greedy of advancement, the Earl of Marlborough was gratified by his promotion to a dukedom, but a less heroic greed by which he was tormented had also to be satisfied, and the domain of Woodstock, with all its manors and farms, was perhaps still more satisfactory to the parsimonious pair than their elevation in rank.

§ 4. Marlborough's next year's triumph at Blenheim-the greatest of his battles-gave a name to the stately palace

erected on his new possession at the public expense, and justified an income secured on the revenue of the Post-office for a glorious though transitory success; while we read that in the same year Sir George Rooke, who by a dash at the unprepared Spaniards secured Gibraltar to the English crown, was treated with contumely and neglect; the key of the Straits being at that time so despised, that Parliament declined to give its thanks to the captors, and scarcely thought it worth the trouble of defence.

§ 5. The showy campaign of Lord Peterborough in Spain was received in a very different manner. This eccentric nobleman had formed himself on the model of the knights of old, and thought all things possible if a man had only the courage to attempt them. On this principle he undertook the conquest of a mighty kingdom with five thousand men; and as far as putting down all resistance, and marching wherever he chose, he certainly succeeded in his object. He inspired the Austrian candidate, King Charles, with his own enthusiasm ; the Prince of Hesse was also carried away by his zeal; Sir John Leake, the English admiral, was ready to fight any number of enemies with the few ships he commanded; and these four descendants of Amadis de Gaul, and first-cousins of Don Quixote, undertook the siege of Barcelona, which is one of the strongest fortresses of Europe, and the invasion of the province of Catalonia, which is the size of an ordinary kingdom. The garrison was more numerous than the besiegers, but Peterborough sent his fire-eaters against the citadel, and took it by storm. He then blazed away with all his guns at the devoted town, which hauled down its flag; and having established his communications with the sea, he led the king in triumphal procession from city to city, disciplining the peasantry that joined him as he went, and resisting for several months the united efforts of the Spaniards and French. Poets and pamphleteers were busy in telling how "Mordanto filled the trump of fame," and the nation seeing

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a man ready at all times to kill the enemy or be killed himself, considered he had fulfilled all the duties of a general, and put him on a level with Eugene and Marlborough.

§ 6. Meantime the latter of these unparalleled soldiers kept the tenor of his way, conquering the enemy in every field, and enriching himself with great offices and the favours of the queen. Not so grasping as he has been lately represented, and innocent of many of the crimes laid to his charge, he was yet not above the ignoble love of money, and the suspicion of being swayed by it in his actions more than by regard for the public service. But the man who for eight campaigns kept the hearts of his soldiers, and was familiarly called Corporal John, could not have been a selfish neglecter of their interests; the man who retained through a long life the love of the proudest and most exacting woman of her time, could not have been the heartless profligate his enemies represented; and on the whole we must conclude that, with the infirmities which characterize lower natures in periods of great national degradation, he possessed the virtues which only the loftiest can show; and if his lot had fallen in purer times, he would have risen with the rising standard, and been as nobly eminent in political morality as he was in domestic tenderness and the conduct of a war. When Sarah Jennings was asked, many years after his death, to bestow her hand on the greatest nobleman in England, the Duke of Somerset, "If I were young and handsome," she said, "as I was, instead of old and faded as I am, and you could lay the empire of the world at my feet, you should never share the heart and hand that once belonged to John, Duke of Marlborough."

§ 7. So great was his success, and so high the courage of the confederates, that, not satisfied with the conquest of all Brabant, in consequence of the victory of Ramillies, and the equal triumphs of the navy under Sir John Leake, which took the islands of Ivica and Majorca, the nation clamoured. for an attack on France, and Sir Cloudesley Shovel proceeded

with a fleet to the coast of Normandy; but finding the attempt hopeless, that rough and politic commander had the good sense to carry his ships to Barcelona, and recover the command of the Mediterranean and the submission of Catalonia, which Peterborough, who had taken it in a passion, had deserted in disgust.

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§ 8. All these foreign acquisitions, with the exception of the little-prized Gibraltar, have disappeared from the English The Balearic Isles are ours no more; Ramillies and Blenheim are but names to which very indistinct recollections are attached; but in this year an event happened which has contributed more to the glory and strength of England than the possession of all the islands in the sea and the beadroll of all her victories. This was the union with Scotland, long dwelt on in the schemes of politicians, as a desirable but almost impossible consummation; dreamt of by the far-seeing statesmen who advocated the marriage of Margaret Tudor with James IV., which in the course of time had united the crowns upon one brow; but only realized by the wisdom of the advisers of Queen Anne, when the kingdoms were indissolubly combined; "and Tweed, best pleased in uttering a blythe strain," ran peaceably between banks profaned no more with the best blood of both the realms. But Caledonia, stern and wild, was the most detestable bride that ever entered into a contract of "mutual society, help, and comfort." She kept firm hold of the sword, while she held out her bony finger for the wedding-ring, and to the last was far more ready to fight than to love or honour. Obey was omitted from the service, as totally incomprehensible to the northern mind.

When the articles of union were laid before the Scottish Parliament, the debates threatened to end in bloodshed. There was a great deal of talk about William Wallace and Robert Bruce. An Episcopalian majority and bishops in the House of Lords would overthrow the Presbyterian Church. English gold would corrupt the Scotch members, who would