I, "blubbering and crying over the boy, as if he was going out to settle
in New Zealand."

"I suspect there's a good deal of crying going on," replied old Morgan;
"let us look into the summer-house at the top of the garden." So we
hurried up the grass walk; and just as we got to the door, I was in the
very act of stepping into the bower, and old Morgan close on my heels,
when a man, with a handkerchief held to his eyes, rushed distractedly
upon us, and rolled us both down the steps, as if we had been pushed by
a bull; and in a minute or so, when I came to myself; I found my heels
in a gooseberry bush, and my head tight-jammed into a flower-pot; old
Morgan had rolled over into the next bed, which was prepared for celery,
and he lay in one of the long troughs, with his hands folded across his
breast, and evidently persuaded that he was his own effigy on the top of
his own tomb. And this was all the leave-taking we had with the
engineer; for, in an agony of grief at parting from his mother, and
perhaps to hide his crying, he had hurried out blindfolded, and took no
more notice of his host and his father than if we had been a couple of
old cabbage-stalks. However, I got up as soon as I was able, and
assisted Morgan once more upon his feet. This time we proceeded more
cautiously into the summer-house; and on the bench we saw Martha Brown
sitting and sobbing with all her might, with her head on Mrs Morgan's
shoulder, and Miss Sophia holding a bottle of salts to her nose; while a
tear, every now and then, rolled slowly over the tip of her own; and
Miss Letitia chafing the sufferer's hands, and occasionally giving them
a thump, as if to guard against a fit of hysterics.

Those Hindoos are certainly beautifully made. I never saw any thing more
graceful than the recumbent figure of Martha Brown; and I think that was
the first time I remarked that she was no longer a child. Up to that
moment I had scarcely observed her size; but there she was--a regular
full-grown woman--though, I must say, she was behaving rather like an
infant, to keep whimpering and sobbing in such a ridiculous way, merely
because I had fallen down-stairs.

"What is all this?" I said; "has any body hurt the child?"

"No, no, Mr Sneezum!" exclaimed Mrs Morgan, without looking at me;
"leave her alone for a minute or two; it will soon be over."

"How do feel, dear?" enquired Miss Letitia.

"Are you any better, love?" asked Miss Sophia.

And it was very evident they gave themselves no concern about the nearly
fatal accident we had met with, which had affected poor Martha so
deeply; so I became a little warm.

"Very pretty--very pretty this--upon my word! What in heaven's name is
the matter with you all? Here has been that blundering booby William,
pushed his father and me down-stairs, and Martha seems the only one that
would care a farthing if we had both been killed."

Upon this the girl made a great effort, and lifted up her head; but the
moment her eyes rested on me she gave a great scream--wild laughter
mixed with the most dreadful sobs; and she was fairly off in an
hysterical attack.

"Why, she's worse than she was," I said; but old Morgan took me aside.

"Don't you see," he said, "that she's of a most affectionate, gentle
nature, and that William's rushing off in the way he did"--

"Ay, to be sure, and upsetting me in such a dangerous manner. Poor
thing! is it all for my sake do you think she's crying?" So I went and
took her hand, and said--"Don't cry, Martha, don't cry--I'm not a bit
hurt--so be a good girl, and don't vex yourself any more."

Upon this, Mrs Morgan looked at me as if she thought me deranged--so did
Miss Letitia--and so did Miss Sophia; and even Martha, when she looked
at me again, fell back in fresh fit, holloing "His head! his head"--and
this time it was more laughter than sobs.

"Come away--come away," said old Morgan at last; "no wonder you frighten
them all to death. What the deuce is that you've got on your head?"

And there stood I with my brows enveloped by the flower-pot.

CHAPTER III.

I saw the Morgans were making a dead set to take me in. Sometimes it was
Miss Letitia, and sometimes Miss Sophia--and always the mother. To hear
that woman talk of her daughters, you would swear that two such were
never known on earth before. Their sweetness--their temper--their
beauty--the numbers of people that were in love with them--the hosts of
rich and handsome fellows they had rejected, and the decided turn both
of them had for a quiet country life, and the society of a
well-educated, intellectual man of a certain age. She was a wonderful
woman Mrs Morgan, and I really believe she thought she was speaking the
simple truth all the time. But it wouldn't do--I judged for myself, and
never took the least notice of all her hints and boastings. I tried to
have them less about the house than they used to be; but nothing would
keep them away--they always pretended it was for the sake of Martha
Brown--a very likely story that they should trouble their heads about my
uncle's anonymous contribution to the population returns, when his
veritable nephew and heir was to be had by hook or crook. But I don't
mean any disparagement by that to the poor little girl herself--far from
it--she was the nicest creature in the world, and really not so black as
I had thought; and she was now nearly twenty-one, and played and
sung--and such an excellent critic, too! I always read my writings to
her the moment they were finished, and she never found the slightest
fault in any of them. I had left my description of Maria Valentine de
Courcy incompleted for several years--for it is a long time now since
the foolish adventure of the flower-pot first showed me that she took a
tenderer interest in me than merely that of a cousin--and I now
determined to give my second chapter the finishing touch, and consult
her on the farther conduct of the story.

"Martha," I said, "I wish you would listen for a minute or two to what
I've written."

So she sat down in my study, and worked a flower in an Ottoman square,
and was evidently prepared to listen with the utmost attention.

"It is the rest of the second chapter."

"Oh, are you only there yet? I was in hopes you had come to the end of
the story."

To the end of the story! Could the girl be hinting that I ought to tell
her my mind; for I must tell you, I had so completely got over all
prejudice about her birth, that I was strongly tempted to give an
additional proof of my veneration for my uncle's memory, by giving his
poor little orphan my name. Can she mean any thing by wishing me to come
to the end of the story?

"How do you mean to wind up?" she asked.

"Oh! in a most mysterious and surprising manner; but we haven't got near
the _dénouement_ yet. There must be a duel, of course--a
misunderstanding--and a rival."

"Oh! Theodore Fitzhedingham has no occasion to fear a rival," said
Martha, pretending to have lost the stitch.

"No! 'Pon my word that's very good of you. Do you really think that
Maria Valentine de Courcy will prefer him to every one else?"

"She will be a very foolish, a very ungrateful girl, if she doesn't--for
hasn't he loved her ever since she was a child?"

"Well, Martha, you are certainly a very nice, a very affectionate girl;
and I may as well put your mind at rest at once by telling you"--

"Sneezum! Sneezum!"

There was old Morgan again kicking at the study door, and holloing
Sneezum with all his might. I had taken Martha's hand, and was just
going to tell her to make preparations to become Mrs Sneezum in a week
or two. I let go her hand, and rushed to the door.

"What the mischief do you want?"

"Why, here's Billy come back again," he said; "won't you come and give a
welcome to poor Billy?"

"No; I be hang'd if I do. He has never apologized for pushing me down
the steps; tell him to get out of my house; I have not forgot what alarm
my accident caused to poor Martha. Don't you remember it, my dear?"

But there sat Martha--sometimes red and sometimes white--with tears in
her eyes, and her lips half open, like the picture of St Cecilia.

"There! the very recollection of it frightens her to death. Go to your
room, my dear, and I'll send this blustering fellow out of the house."

She glided out of the study without speaking a word, and I hurried to
the drawing-room, but no Billy was there. His mother and sisters were
luckily in London, so I turned angrily round on the father.

"A pretty fellow this son of yours--never one word of apology, either to
me or Martha--I won't have him roystering here at all hours, frightening
affectionate little girls with his violence."

"Who is it he has frightened?" enquired old Morgan; "who are the
affectionate girls you mean? I'm sure he has never caused the least
alarm to his sisters in his life."

"Perhaps not--perhaps not, Mr Morgan; but there is another girl that I
wouldn't have any injury done to on any account. In fact, I may as well
tell you at once, that Martha evidently expects me to provide for her
happiness, and I am going to do it."

"Well, nothing can be fairer--but how?"

"Why, as to any little blot on her birth, I don't care much about it.
Uncle was a kind friend to me, and I really think I can't do better than
give a good steady husband to his child."

"Bravo! bravo! when you have found her."

"What do you mean by--when I have found her?"

"Why, have you never read the letters?"

"No; I never read letters. They're all in the wooden box."

"Then where, when, or how, have you encountered a daughter of your
uncle?"

"Why, Martha Brown. I tell you I don't dislike a little dash of Hindoo
blood; it's like curry, and gives a flavour."

"And who is the husband you have chosen for her?"

"Myself."

Old Morgan burst into a prodigious laugh, but I was in no humour to
stand such nonsense. I got into a furious passion--he answered in an
insulting manner--and so I ordered him to get out of my house, him and
his son, and all his baggage.

"Certainly, certainly, Mr Sneezum, but you'll repent of it; and, as to
your marrying Martha, you'll just as soon marry the Princess-Royal."

When he was gone, I went in search of Martha to settle the matter at
once. There was a circular basin among the shrubs upon the lawn, with a
nymph cowering under a waterfall that fell all round her like a veil--a
very pretty ornament to the grounds--and at one side of it was a little
arbour, where I used often to sit and see the sun make rainbows out of
the spray that rose round the head of the nymph. To get to it, it was
necessary to walk on the ledge of the wall that rose a little above the
water in the basin, and this I was induced to do; for, as I was
searching for Martha, I thought I heard a voice in the arbour, and I
hurried on to tell her what I had done to old Morgan. I stept steadily
on tiptoe along the coping-stone--for I wished to surprise her--but on
getting to the opening of the arbour, a sight met my eyes that made me
lose my balance all of a sudden; and with a start of rage and
indignation, I stept backward into the pond, and was forced to battle
among the water-lilies for my life. Martha rushed from the arbour and
held out her hands in vain; but the person with her--a tall young man,
with bushy whiskers and an enormous pair of mustaches--leapt into the
basin and lifted me on to the bank, just as I had found it useless to
try any longer to rise above the broad leaves that floated on the top,
and made up my mind to give it up as a bad job. When I came to myself my
preserver was gone, but Martha was supporting my head.

"Oh, you double-faced, deceitful gipsy!" I began. "Who would have
thought you would be sitting, hand locked in hand, with a horrid fellow
like the ruffian that was with you in the bower?"

"The ruffian! My dear guardian, don't you know him?"

"How should I? I never saw the vagabond's ugly face before."

"Why, it's William Morgan--how strange you shouldn't recognise him!"

"Well, if it were twenty William Morgans, that's no reason you should
sit with your hand in his like the sign of the fire-office over our
stable-door."

"Oh, he's such an old friend! Recollect, sir, we grew up together, and
now how can you keep your anger against him? He has saved your life."

"After first startling me into the water. No, no; I'll have none of the
Morgans here. I'll go and get changed, and then I'll finish what I was
going to tell you when Morgan came to the door."

I was inflexible; I wouldn't let one of the Morgans into my house. Miss
Letitia wrote a letter of four pages, and Miss Sophia enclosed a sonnet.
Nothing would do. I resolved to keep Martha all to myself; and, for fear
of other adventures in the bower, I gave her positive orders not to
leave the house. I set people to watch her. I threatened to hang her
Ayah with my own hands, and showed her the very bough of the tree I
would do it on, if Martha was allowed to speak to any body but myself. I
resolved to marry her in a week; and, merely to prevent her being
harassed by the Morgans in the interval, I took all these precautions.
After that, I determined to pardon the whole family, and had even
prepared a letter asking them all to dinner on our wedding-day. Martha
did not seem inconsolable. Day after day passed away; and, to show how
easy I was in my mind, I went on with the last chapter of my novel,
leaving all the middle part to be filled up at my leisure.

One morning--it was last Wednesday--I went into the study, and had just
taken pen in hand, when I recollected that that was the very day I had
summoned all the labourers on the estate to resist the approach of the
levellers and engineers of a disgusting railway that was determined to
force itself right through my garden and close under the dining-room
windows. I went out to the barn--all the men were there. I gave orders
to them to warn the intruders off; if they resisted, to knock them down
without ceremony and keep them in custody till I could get them before a
magistrate. Having satisfied my mind on these points, I felt so sure of
my object being gained in both respects--that is, Martha and the
railway--that I dispatched my letter to old Morgan, inviting the whole
family to dine with me on Friday, the day I had fixed on for the
marriage. Martha sat by my side in the study, and went on with the
everlasting Ottoman square. I read to her--

"'Is it in the circle of possible events--is it a contingency to be
calculated on in the decrees of fate,' exclaimed Theodore
Fitzhedingham--(this was the finest bit out of my last chapter)--'that
the girl I have loved--the paragon I have worshipped--the angel I have
adored, is, indeed no longer the humbly born maid I thought her but the
descendant of princes--the kinswoman of emperors--the inheritrix of
kings?'

"'It certainly is far from false, nay, it is absolutely true,' returned
Maria Valentine de Courcy, with a condescending smile, 'that I am not
the person you have taken me for, but oh! beloved Theodore--faithful
Fitzhedingham, need I tell you that my love is unaltered, my affections
are unabated, my heart unchanged'"----

"Sir! sir!" cried voice at the door, "they be come." I hurried out; my
servant was armed with the poker, I seized the hall tongs as I passed
through; and on the lawn, in the coolest possible manner, were about
half a dozen fellows smoking their cigars, and occasionally looking
through a bright brass instrument upon a three-legged stand, and noting
down the result with the greatest nonchalance.

"Oho!" I cried, and rushed at the intruders, "run for the people in the
barn, Thomas. Who are you, you infernal interloping vagabonds?"

"Engineers of the Episcopal and Universal Railway Company, sir, and we
will trouble you to stand out of the way," said a tall blackguard,
scarcely deigning to look at me.

"Oh, you are, are you? Just wait a minute till my men come up, and I'll
have you and your railway ducked in the horsepond."

"Don't interrupt us, old man," replied the scientific ruffian; "if we do
any damage, charge it to the Company--we have seventy-five thousand
shares, and can afford to pay any claims."

"Here!" I cried to the men, "catch that long villain with the dwarf
telescope and take him into the house; if I don't get him six weeks of
the treadmill my name is not Tom Sneezum."

The man made a stout resistance, but at last was overpowered, and
carried into the hall. I helped to repel the others, and as they were
tolerably civil, now that the ringleader was gone, I contented myself
with walking them to the very end of my boundaries, and gave them
notice, that if they ventured to return, I would treat them exactly as I
had done their chief. This whole business did not take up more than an
hour; and before going home, I walked across to Major Slowtops, the
nearest magistrate, and luckily found him at home. He promised to
trounce the fellow handsomely when I brought him; and telling him I
would be back with the culprit and the witnesses in half an hour, I
returned in no little triumph to Goslingbury.

"Where is the vagabond?" I exclaimed, when I got into the house.

"He's been gone this hour, sir," said Thomas, hardly able to keep in a
laugh.

"Gone! who let him go?"

"Why, he ordered the carriage, sir, and him and Miss Martha is off for
London."

"Are you mad, Thomas?--what is it you're speaking of? Where is the
rascally leveller of the railway?"

"Lor', sir--don't you know? It was only Mr William at one of his tricks.
The moment he took off the spectacles we all knew him, and Miss Martha
seemed so pleased"--

"Did she?"

"Oh, yes! and Mr William--but they say he's Captain Morgan now--laughed
so. It was certainly a rare good surprise--wasn't it, sir?"

I rushed into my study. "Let her go!" I said, "the false, deceitful
Hottentot, or Hindoo, or whatever she is; she's as black as my hat, and
a disgrace to my old uncle." So I stood very quietly, brooding over my
misfortune--if a misfortune it was--and revenging myself by tearing into
a million pieces the beginning and the end of my romantic novel.

"Here we are, Sneezum, my boy!" said old Morgan, on the Friday, at about
two o'clock; "I've come on before, to tell you to get into good-humour;
for perhaps you've forgotten the invitations you gave us all for
to-day."

"What has become of the young woman?" I asked, with a very disdainful
look; "my uncle's unowned little girl?"

"Do you mean William's wife?" inquired Mr Morgan; "they were married
this morning, at St George's, Hanover Square, and will take you for an
hour or two on their way to the North."

"I think, sir, as her guardian--not to say her cousin"----

"There, my dear Sneezum, you are altogether wrong; she was no relation
of your uncle. She was the daughter of a Mr Brown of the Commissariat,
and left to your uncle's charge; you, of course, succeeded to the
guardianship as his representative; but she is no more a Hindoo than you
are."

"That makes it worse, sir."

"Come, come, old Sneezum, don't keep up your anger; recollect you are
old enough to be her father, and that she likes you next in the whole
world to William. Shake hands with them, and be friends; and if you ever
had the folly to think of marrying her, keep your own secret, and nobody
will be a bit the wiser."

I thought old Morgan advised very wisely--so, if you show this to any
body, alter the names a little; for I would not have it known for the
world.--Believe me, sir, your obedient servant,

  T. S. S.

MARLBOROUGH.

NO. III.

The campaign of 1707 opened under very different auspices to the Allies
from any which had preceded it:--Blenheim had saved Germany, Ramilies
had delivered Brabant. The power of the Grande Monarque no longer made
Europe tremble. The immense advantage which he had gained in the outset
of the contest, by the declaration of the governor of Flanders for the
cause of the Bourbons, and the consequent transference of the Flemish
fortresses into his hands, had been lost. It was more than lost--it had
been won to the enemy. Brussels, Antwerp, Menin, Ath, Ostend, Ghent,
Dendermonde, Louvain, now acknowledged the Archduke Charles for their
sovereign; the states of Brabant had sent in their adhesion to the Grand
Alliance. Italy had been lost as rapidly as it had been won; the stroke
of Marlborough at Ramilies had been re-echoed at Turin; and Eugene had
expelled the French arms from Piedmont as effectually as Marlborough had
from Flanders. Reduced on all sides to his own resources, wakened from
his dream of foreign conquests, Louis XIV. now sought only to defend his
own frontier; and the arms which had formerly been at the gates of
Amsterdam, and recently carried terror into the centre of Germany, were
now reduced to a painful defensive on the Scheldt and the Rhine.

These great advantages would, in all probability, notwithstanding the
usual supineness and divisions of the Allied Powers, have led to their
obtaining signal success in the next campaign, had not their attention
been, early in spring, arrested, and their efforts paralyzed by a new
and formidable actor on the theatre of affairs. This was no less a man
than CHARLES XII. KING OF SWEDEN; who, after having defeated the
coalition of the northern sovereigns formed for his destruction,
dictated peace to Denmark at Copenhagen, dethroned the King of Poland,
and wellnigh overturned the empire of Russia--had now advanced his
victorious standards into the centre of Germany, and at the head of an
army hitherto invincible, fifty thousand strong, stationed himself at
Dresden, where he had become the arbiter of Europe, and threatened
destruction to either of the parties engaged in the contest on the Rhine
against whom he chose to direct his hostility.

This extraordinary man approached closer than any warrior of modern
times to the great men of antiquity. More nearly even than Napoleon, he
realized the heroes of Plutarch--a Stoic in pacific, he was a Cæsar in
military life. He had all their virtues, and a considerable share of
their barbarism. Achilles did not surpass him in the thirst for warlike
renown, nor Hannibal in the perseverance of his character and the
fruitfulness of his resources; like Alexander, he would have wept
because a world did not remain to conquer. Indefatigable in fatigue,
resolute in determination, a lion in heart, he knew no fear but that of
his glory being tarnished. Endowed by nature with a constitution of
iron, he was capable of undergoing a greater amount of fatigue than any
of his soldiers: at the siege of Stralsund, when some of his officers
were sinking under the exhaustion of protracted watching, he desired
them to retire to rest, and himself took their place. Outstripping his
followers in speed, at one time he rode across Germany, almost alone, in
an incredibly short space of time: at another, he defended himself for
days together, at the head of a handful of attendants, in a barricaded
house, against ten thousand Turks. Wrapt up in the passion for fame, he
was insensible to the inferior desires which usually rouse or mislead
mankind. Wine had no attractions, women no seductions for him: he was
indifferent to personal comforts or accommodations; his fare was as
simple, his dress as plain, his lodging as rude, as those of the meanest
of his followers. To one end alone his attention was exclusively
directed, on one acquisition alone his heart was set. Glory, military
glory, was the ceaseless object of his ambition; all lesser desires
were concentrated in this ruling passion; for this he lived, for this
he died.

That his military abilities were of the very highest order, may be
judged of by the fact that, with the resources of the poor monarchy of
Sweden, not at that period containing two millions of inhabitants, he
entirely defeated a coalition of Russia, Denmark, and Poland, headed by
the vast capacity and persevering energy of Peter the Great, and
numbering not less than forty millions of subjects under its various
sovereigns. Nor let it be said that these nations were rude in the
military art, and unfit to contend in the field with the descendants of
the followers of Gustavus Adolphus. The Danes are the near neighbours
and old enemies of the Swedes; their equals in population, discipline,
and warlike resources. Thirty years had not elapsed since the Poles had
delivered Europe from Mussulman bondage by the glorious victory of
Vienna, under John Sobieski, over two hundred thousand Turks. Europe has
since had too much reason to know what are the military resources of
Russia, against which all the power of Western Europe, in recent times,
has been so signally shattered; and though the soldiers of Peter the
Great were very different, in point of discipline, from those that
repelled the legions of Napoleon, yet their native courage was the same,
and they were directed by an energy and perseverance, on the part of the
Czar, which never has been exceeded in warlike annals. What then must
have been the capacity of the sovereign, who, with the resources of a
monarchy not equalling those of Scotland at this time, could gain such
extraordinary success over so powerful a coalition, from the mere force
of indefatigable energy, military ability, and heroic determination!

Charles, however, had many faults. He was proud, overbearing, and
opinionative. Like all men of powerful original genius, he was confident
in his own opinion, and took counsel from none; but, unfortunately, he
often forgot also to take counsel from himself. He did not always weigh
the objections against his designs with sufficient calmness to give them
fair play, or allow his heroic followers a practical opportunity of
crowning his enterprises with success. He had so often succeeded against
desperate, and apparently hopeless, odds, that he thought himself
invincible, and rushed headlong into the most dreadful perils, with no
other preparation to ward them off but his own calmness in danger, his
inexhaustible fecundity of resources, and the undaunted courage, as well
as patience of fatigue and privation, with which he had inspired his
followers. It is surprising, however, how often they extricated him from
his difficulties; and even in his last expedition against Russia, which
terminated in the disaster of Pultowa, he would, to all appearance, have
proved successful, if the Tartar chief, Mazeppa, had proved faithful to
his engagement. Like Hannibal, his heroic qualities had inspired a
multifarious army--_colluvies omnium gentium_--with one homogeneous
spirit, rendered them subject to his discipline, faithful to his
standard, obedient to his will. But in some particulars his private
character was still more exceptionable, and stained with the vices as
well as virtues of the savage character. Though not habitually cruel, he
was stern, vindictive, and implacable; and his government has been
stained by some acts of atrocious barbarity at which humanity shudders,
and which must ever leave an indelible stain on his memory.

Louis XIV., in his distress, was naturally anxious to gain the support
of so powerful an ally, who was now at Dresden at the head of
fifty-three thousand veteran soldiers, ready to fall on the rear of
Marlborough's army, that threatened the defensive barrier of France in
the Low Countries. Every effort, accordingly, was made to gain Charles
over to the French interest. The ancient alliance of France with Sweden,
their mutual cause of complaint against the Emperor, the glories of
Gustavus Adolphus and the thirty years' war, in which they had stood
side by side, were held forth to dazzle his imagination or convince his
judgment. The Swedish monarch appeared ready to yield to these efforts.
He brought forward various real or imaginary grounds of complaint
against the German powers, for infractions of the constitution of the
empire, of which he put himself forth as the guarantee, as heir to the
crown and fame of Gustavus Adolphus, as well as for sundry insults
alleged to have been committed against the Swedish crown or subjects.
These various subjects of complaint were sedulously inflamed by the
French agents; and the weight of their arguments was not a little
increased by the knowledge of the fact, that they were authorized to
offer Count Piper, the prime minister of Charles, 300,000 livres
(L.12,000), to quicken his movements in favour of the cabinet of
Versailles, besides bribes in proportion to the subordinate ministers of
the Swedish monarch.[10]

Marlborough, as well he might, was extremely uneasy at this negotiation,
which he soon discovered by secret information, as well as the
undisguised reluctance of the German powers to furnish the contingents
for which they were bound for the ensuing campaign. Indeed, it could
hardly be expected that the Northern powers in Germany should send their
chief disposable forces to swell Marlborough's army beyond the Rhine,
when so warlike a monarch, at the head of fifty thousand men, was in the
centre of the empire, with his intentions as yet undeclared, and exposed
to the influence of every imaginable seduction. He dispatched,
accordingly, General Grumbkow, an adroit and intelligent diplomatist,
who had been sent by the King of Prussia on a mission to the Allied
headquarters, to Dresden, to endeavour to ascertain the real intentions
of the Swedish monarch. He was not long of discovering that Charles had
assumed an angry tone towards the confederates, only in order to extract
favourable terms of accommodation from them, and that Muscovy was the
real object on which his heart was set. His despatches convey a curious
and highly interesting picture of Charles and the Swedish court and army
at this important juncture.[11] The negotiation went on for some time
with varying success; but at length matters were brought to a crisis, by
the King of Sweden declaring that he would treat with none but
Marlborough in person.

This immediately led to the English general repairing to the court of
Charles XII. at Dresden. He left the Hague on the 20th April
accordingly; and after visiting Hanover on the way, where, as usual,
there were some jealousies to appease, arrived at the Swedish camp of
Alt-Ranstadt on the 28th. The Duke drove immediately to the headquarters
of Count Piper, from whom he received the most flattering assurance of
the gratification which the Swedish monarch had felt at his arrival. He
was shortly after introduced to the monarch, to whom he delivered a
letter from the Queen of England, and at the same time addressed him in
the following flattering terms:--"I present to your Majesty a letter,
not from the chancery, but from the heart of the Queen, my mistress, and
written with her own hand. Had not her sex prevented it, she would have
crossed the sea, to see a prince admired by the whole universe. I am in
this particular more happy than the Queen, and I wish I could serve some
campaigns under so great a general as your Majesty, that I might learn
what I yet want to know in the art of war."[12]

This adroit compliment from so great and justly celebrated a commander,
produced an immediate effect on the Swedish monarch, who was
passionately desirous of military glory. His satisfaction was visible in
his countenance, and he returned a gracious answer in these terms:--"The
Queen of Great Britain's letter and your person are both very acceptable
to me, and I shall always have the utmost regard for the interposition
of her Britannic Majesty and the interests of the Grand Alliance. It is
much against my will that I have been obliged to give umbrage to any of
the parties engaged in it. I have had just cause to come into this
country with my troops; but you may assure the Queen, my sister, that my
design is to depart from hence as soon as I have obtained the
satisfaction I demand, but not till then. However, I shall do nothing
that can tend to the prejudice of the common cause in general, or of the
Protestant religion, of which I shall always glory to be a zealous
protector." This favourable answer was immediately followed by an
invitation to dine with the King, by whom he was placed on his right
hand, and honoured with the most flattering attention. In the course of
the evening the conversation turned chiefly on military matters, in
which Marlborough exerted himself with such skill and success, that he
had another long private audience of Charles; and before his departure,
that monarch even exceeded his views, and declared that there could be
no security for the peace of Europe till France was reduced to the rank
she held at the date of the treaty of Westphalia.

Though the address and abilities of Marlborough, however, had thus
removed the chief danger to be apprehended from the presence of the
Swedish monarch at Dresden, yet other matters of great delicacy remained
still for adjustment, which required all his prudence and skill to bring
to a satisfactory issue. Not the least of these difficulties arose from
the zeal of the King of Sweden for the protection of the Protestant
religion, and his desire to revive and secure the privileges granted to
the German Protestants by the treaty of Westphalia. As Marlborough
justly apprehended that the Court of Vienna might take umbrage at these
demands, and so be diverted from the objects of the Grand Alliance, he
exerted himself to the utmost to convince his Majesty that the great
object in the mean time, even as regarded the Protestant faith, was to
humble the French monarch, who had shown himself its inveterate enemy by
the atrocious persecutions consequent on the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes; and that, if this were once done, the Emperor would be unable to
prevent any stipulations being inserted in favour of the Reformed faith
in the general peace which might follow. Charles was convinced by these
arguments, which, in truth, were well-founded, and even went so far as
to propose a secret convention with England for the promotion of the
Protestant interest; a proposal which, so embarrassing at the moment
when Great Britain was in close alliance with the Emperor, Marlborough
contrived to elude with admirable dexterity. Another matter of great
delicacy was the conduct to be observed towards the dethroned King of
Poland, Augustus, who was also at Dresden, and of course viewed with the
utmost jealousy the close intimacy between Marlborough and his
formidable enemy Charles. Here, however, the diplomatic skill of the
English general overcame all difficulties, and by skilfully taking
advantage of his pecuniary embarrassments, after his territories had
been ravaged and exhausted by the Swedish forces, and engaging that the
Emperor should take a large part of his troops into his pay, he
succeeded at once in gaining over the dethroned monarch, and securing a
considerable body of fresh troops for the service of the Allies. By
these means, aided by the judicious bestowing of considerable pensions
on Count Piper and the chief Swedish ministers, paid in advance,
Marlborough succeeded in entirely allaying the storm which had
threatened his rear, and left the Saxon capital, after a residence of
ten days, perfectly secure of the pacific intentions of the Swedish
monarch, and having fully divined the intended direction of his forces
toward Moscow.[13]

The brilliant success with which this delicate and important negotiation
terminated, naturally induced a hope that vigorous operations would be
undertaken by the Allied powers, and that the great successes of the
preceding campaign would be so far improved, as to compel the Court of
France to submit to such terms as the peace of Europe, and the
independence of the adjoining States, required. It was quite the
reverse, and Marlborough had again the indescribable mortification of
seeing month after month of the summer of 1707 glide away, without one
single measure conducive to the common cause, or worthy of the real
strength of the Allied powers, having been attempted. They had all
relapsed into their former and fatal jealousies and procrastination. The
Dutch, notwithstanding the inestimable services which Marlborough had
rendered to their Republic, had again become distrustful, and authorized
their field-deputies to thwart and mar all his operations. They made no
concealment of their opinion, that their interests were now secured, and
that the blood and treasure of the United Provinces should no longer be
wasted in enterprises in which the Emperor or Queen of England alone
were concerned. They never failed accordingly to interfere when any
aggressive movement was in contemplation; and even when the Duke, in the
course of his skilful marches and countermarches, had gained the
opportunity for which he longed, of bringing the enemy to an engagement
on terms approaching to an equality, never failed to interpose with
their fatal negative, and prevent any thing being attempted. They did
this, in particular, under the most vexatious circumstances, on the 27th
May, near Nevilles, where Marlborough had brought his troops into the
presence of the enemy with every prospect of signalizing that place by a
glorious victory. A council of war forbade an engagement despite
Marlborough's most earnest entreaties, and compelled him in consequence
to fall back to Branheim, to protect Louvain and Brussels. The
indignation of the English general at this unworthy treatment, and at
the universal selfishness of the Allied powers, exhaled in bitter terms
in his private correspondence.[14]

The consequence of this determination on the part of the Dutch
field-deputies to prevent any serious operation being undertaken, was,
that the whole summer passed away in a species of armed truce, or a
series of manoeuvres so insignificant, as to be unworthy of the name
of a campaign. Vendôme, who commanded the French, though at the head of
a gallant army above eighty thousand strong, had too much respect for
his formidable antagonist to hazard any offensive operation, or run the
risk of a pitched battle, unless in defence of his own territory. On the
other hand, Marlborough, harassed by the incessant opposition of the
Dutch deputies, and yet not strong enough to undertake any operation of
importance without the support of their troops, was reduced to merely
nominal or defensive operations. The secret of this ruinous system,
which was at the time the subject of loud complaints, and appeared
wholly inexplicable, is now fully revealed by the published despatches.
The Dutch were absolutely set on getting an accession of territory, and
a strong line of barrier towns, set apart for them out of the _Austrian_
Netherlands; and as the Emperor, not unnaturally, objected to being
shorn of his territories, as a remuneration for his efforts in favour of
European independence, they resolved to thwart all the measures of the
Allied generals, in the hope that, it the end, they would in this manner
prevail in their demands with the Allied cabinets.[15]

It was not, however, in the Low Countries alone that the selfish views
and jealousies of the Allies prevented any operation of importance from
being undertaken, and blasted all the fair prospects which the brilliant
victories of the preceding campaign had afforded. In Spain, the Allies
had suffered a fearful reverse by the battle of Almanza, which in a
manner ruined the Austrian prospects in the Peninsula, and rendered some
operation indispensable, to relieve the pressure felt by the Allies in
that quarter. Peterborough, whose great military abilities had hitherto
nearly alone sustained their sinking cause in Spain, had been deprived
of his command in Catalonia, from that absurd jealousy of foreigners
which in every age has formed so marked a feature in the Spanish
character. His successor, Lord Galway, was far from possessing his
military abilities, and every thing presaged that, unless a great effort
was immediately made, the crown of Spain, the prize for which all
contended in the war, would be lost to the Allied powers. Nor was the
aspect of affairs more promising on the Rhine. The Margrave of Baden had
there died; and his army, before a successor could be appointed,
sustained a signal defeat at Stodhoffen. This disaster having opened the
gates of Germany, Marshal Villars, at the head of a powerful French
army, burst into the Palatinate, which he ravaged with fire and sword.
To complete the catalogue of disasters, the disputes between the King of
Sweden and the Emperor were again renewed, and conducted with such
acrimony, that it required all the weight and address of Marlborough to
prevent a rupture, threatening fatal consequences, from breaking out
between these powers.

Surrounded by so many difficulties, Marlborough wisely judged that the
most pressing danger was that in Spain, and that the first thing to be
done was to stop the progress of the Bourbon armies in that quarter. As
the forces in the Peninsula afforded no hopes of effecting that object,
he conceived, with reason, that the only way to make an effectual
diversion in that quarter was to take advantage of the superiority of
the Allies in Piedmont, since the decisive victory of Turin in the
preceding year, and threaten Provence with a serious irruption. For this
purpose, Marlborough no sooner heard of the disasters in Spain, than he
urged in the strongest manner upon the Allied courts to push Prince
Eugene with his victorious army across the Maritime Alps, and lay siege
to Toulon. Such an offensive movement, which might be powerfully aided
by the English fleet in the Mediterranean, would at once remove the war
from the Italian plains, fix it in the south of France, and lead to the
recall of a considerable part of the French forces now employed beyond
the Pyrenees. But though the reasons for this expedition were thus
pressing, and it afforded the only feasible prospect of bringing affairs
round in the Peninsula; yet the usual jealousies of the coalesced
powers, the moment it was proposed, opposed insurmountable objections to
its being carried into effect. It was objected to the siege of Toulon,
that it was a maritime operation, of value to England alone: the Emperor
insisted on the Allied forces being exclusively employed in the
reduction of the fortresses yet remaining in the hands of the French in
the Milanese; while Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, between whom and the
Imperialists the most violent jealousy had arisen, threatened to
withdraw altogether from the alliance, unless Eugene's army was directed
to the protection and consolidation of his dominion. The real reason of
these obstacles thrown by the Emperor in the way of these operations,
was, that he had ambitious designs of his own on Naples, and he had, to
facilitate their accomplishment, concluded a secret convention with
Louis for a sort of neutrality or understanding in Italy, which enabled
that monarch to direct the forces employed, or destined to be employed
there, to the Spanish peninsula. Marlborough's energetic
representations, however, at length prevailed over all these
difficulties; and the reduction of the Milanese having been completed,
the Emperor, in the end of June, consented to Prince Eugene invading
Provence at the head of thirty-five thousand men.[16]

The invasion of the territory of the Grande Monarque accordingly took
place, and was supported by a powerful English squadron, which, as
Eugene's army advanced into Provence by the Col di Tende, kept the
sea-coast in a constant state of alarm. No resistance, as Marlborough
had predicted, was attempted; and the Allies, almost without firing a
shot, arrived at the heights of Vilate, in the neighbourhood of Toulon,
on the 27th July. Had Eugene been aware of the real condition of the
defences, and the insubordination which prevailed in the garrison, he
might, without difficulty, have made himself master of this important
fortress. But from ignorance of these propitious circumstances, he
deemed it necessary to commence operations against it in form; and the
time occupied in the necessary preparations for a siege proved fatal to
the enterprise. The French made extraordinary efforts to bring troops to
the menaced point; and, amongst other reinforcements, thirteen
battalions and nine squadrons were detached from Vendôme's army in the
Netherlands. No sooner did Marlborough hear of this detachment, than he
concentrated his forces, and made a forward movement to bring Vendôme to
battle, to which the Dutch deputies had at length consented; but that
general, after some skilful marches and countermarches, retired to an
intrenched camp under the guns of Lille, of such strength as to bid
defiance to every attack for the remainder of the campaign. Meanwhile
the troops, converging towards Toulon, having formed a respectable array
in his rear, Eugene was under the necessity of raising the siege, and he
retired, as he had entered the country, by the Col di Tende, having
first embarked his heavy artillery and stores on board the English
fleet. But though the expedition thus failed in its ostensible object,
it fully succeeded in its real one, which was to effect a diversion in
the south of France, and relieve the pressure on the Spanish peninsula,
by giving the armies of Louis employment in the defence of their own
territory.

Marlborough led his army into winter quarters in the end of October, and
Vendôme did the same; the weather being so thoroughly broken as to
render it impossible to keep the field. He repaired first to Frankfort,
where he met the Elector of Hanover, and then to the Hague, where he
exerted himself to inspire a better feeling in the Dutch government, and
to get Eugene appointed to the supreme command in Spain: a project which
afforded the only feasible prospect of retrieving affairs in the
Peninsula, and which, if adopted, might have changed the fate and
ultimate issue of the war. Neither the Emperor nor the court of Madrid,
however, would consent to this arrangement; the former, because he
feared to lose that great general in Italy, the latter because they
feared to gain him in Spain. Marlborough, meanwhile, embarked for
England on the 7th November, where his presence had now become
indispensably necessary to arrest the progress of court and
parliamentary intrigues, which threatened to prove immediately fatal to
his influence and ascendancy.

The origin of these intrigues was to be found not merely in the asperity
of party feeling which, at that time, owing to the recent Revolution,
prevailed to a degree never before paralleled in English history, and
the peculiar obloquy to which Marlborough was exposed, owing to the part
he had taken in that transaction; but to another cause of a private
nature, but which, in all courts, and especially under a female reign,
is likely to produce important public results. During Marlborough's
absence from court, owing to his commanding the armies in Flanders, his
influence with the Queen had sensibly declined, and that of another
materially increased. Queen Anne had become alienated from her former
favourite, the Duchess of Marlborough, and, what is very remarkable, in
consequence of the growing ascendancy of a person recommended by the
duchess herself. Worn out with the incessant fatigue of attendance on
the royal person, the duchess had recommended a poor relative of her
own, named Abigail Hill, to relieve her of part of her laborious duties.
This young lady, who possessed considerable talents, and a strong desire
for intrigue and elevation, had been educated in High Church and Tory
principles, and she had not been long about the royal person before she
began to acquire an influence over the Queen's mind. Harley, whose
ambition and spirit of intrigue were at least equal to her own, was not
slow in perceiving the new source of influence thus opened up in the
royal household, and a close alliance was soon established between them.
These matters are not beneath the dignity of history; they are the
secret springs on which its most important changes sometimes depend.
Abigail Hill soon after bestowed her hand on Mr Masham, who had also
been placed in the Queen's household by the duchess, and, under the name
of MRS MASHAM, became the principal instrument in Marlborough's fall,
and the main cause of the fruit of the glorious victories of the English
general being lost by the treaty of Utrecht.

Though the ascendancy of Mrs Masham, and the treacherous part she was
playing to her benefactress, had long been evident to others, yet the
Duchess of Marlborough long continued blind to it. Her marriage,
however, opened the eyes of the duchess, and, soon after the promotion
of Davies and Blackhall, both avowed Tories, not free from the
imputation of Jacobitism, to the Episcopal bench, in opposition to the
recommendation of Marlborough and Godolphin, gave convincing proof that
their influence at court in the disposal even of the highest offices,
had been supplanted by that of the new favourite. The consequences were
highly prejudicial to Marlborough. The Whigs, who were not fully aware
of this secret influence, and who had long distrusted him on account of
his former connexion with James II., and envied him on account of his
great services to the country, and lustre at court, now joined the
Tories in bitter enmity against him. He was accused of protracting the
war for his own private purposes; and the man who had refused the
government of the Netherlands, and £60,000 a-year, lest it should breed
jealousies in the alliance, was accused of checking the career of
victory from sordid motives connected with the profits of the war. His
brother Churchill was prosecuted by Halifax and the Whigs on the charge
of neglect of duty; and the intercession of the duke, though made in
humble terms, was not so much as even honoured with a reply. The
consequences of this decline of court favour were soon apparent.
Recruits and supplies were forwarded to the army with a very scanty
hand--the military plans and proposals of the duke were either overruled
or subjected to a rigid and often inimical examination--and that
division of responsibility and weakening of power became apparent, which
is so often in military, as well as political transactions, the
forerunner of disaster.

Matters were in this untoward state, when Marlborough, in the middle of
November, returned from the Hague to London. The failure before Toulon,
the disasters in Spain, the nullity of the campaign in Flanders, were
made the subject of unbounded outcry in the country; and the most
acrimonious debates took place in Parliament, in the course of which
violent reproaches were thrown on Marlborough, and all his great
services to his country seemed to be forgotten. Matters even went so
far, that it was seriously proposed to draft fifteen thousand men from
Flanders to reinforce the armies in Spain, although it might easily be
foreseen that the only effect of this would be to drive the Dutch to a
separate peace, and lose the whole of Brabant, wrested at such an
expense of blood and treasure from the French arms. The Session of
Parliament was one incessant scene of vehement contention; but at length
the secret league of Harley with Mrs Masham and the Tories became so
apparent, that all his colleagues refused to attend a cabinet council to
which he was summoned, and he was obliged to retire. This decisive step
restored confidence between Marlborough and the Whigs, and for a time
re-established his influence in the government; but Mrs Masham's sway
over the Queen was not so easily subverted, and, in the end, proved
fatal both to his fortune and the career of glory he had opened to his
country.

Desirous of retaliating upon England the insult which the Allied armies
had inflicted upon France by the invasion of Provence, Louis XIV. now
made serious preparations for the invasion of Great Britain, with the
avowed object of re-establishing the Chevalier of St George, the heir of
James II., on the throne from which that unhappy monarch had been
expelled. Under Marlborough's able direction, to whom, as
commander-in-chief, the defensive measures were entrusted, every thing
was soon put in a train to avert the threatened danger. Scotland was the
scene where an outbreak was to be apprehended, and all the disposable
forces of the empire, including ten battalions brought over from
Flanders, were quickly sent to that country. The _habeas corpus_ act was
suspended. Edinburgh Castle was strongly garrisoned, and the British
squadron so skilfully disposed in the North Seas, that when the
Chevalier with a French squadron put to sea, he was so closely watched,
that after vainly attempting to land, both in the Firth of Forth and the
neighbourhood of Inverness, he was obliged to return to Dunkirk. This
auspicious event entirely restored Marlborough's credit with the nation,
and dispelled every remnant of suspicion with which the Whigs regarded
him in relation to the exiled family; and though his influence with the
court was secretly undermined, his power, to outward appearance, was
unbounded; and he resumed the command of the army in the beginning of
April 1708, with authority as paramount as he had enjoyed on any former
occasion.

Every thing announced a more important campaign than the preceding had
proved in the Low Countries. Encouraged by the little progress which the
Allies had made in the former campaign, Louis XIV. had been induced to
make the most vigorous efforts to accumulate a preponderating force, and
re-establish his affairs in that quarter. Vendôme's army had, by great
exertion, been raised to a hundred thousand men, and at the same time
secret communications were opened with a considerable portion of the
inhabitants in some of the frontier fortresses of Brabant, in order to
induce then on the first favourable opportunity to surrender them to the
French arms. The unpopularity of the Dutch authorities in those towns,
and the open pretensions which they put forth to wrest them from the
Emperor, and deliver them over at a general peace to the hated rule of
Protestant Holland, rendered those advances peculiarly acceptable.
Vendôme's instructions were to act on the offensive, though in a
cautious manner; to push forward in order to take advantage of these
favourable dispositions, and endeavour to regain the important ground
which had been lost during the panic which followed the battle of
Ramilies.

On their side the Allies had not been idle; and preparations had been
made for transferring the weight of the contest to the Low Countries.
The war in Italy being in a manner terminated by the entire expulsion of
the French from that peninsula, and their secret convention for a sort
of suspension of active operations with the Emperor in that quarter,
Prince Eugene had been brought to the theatre of real hostilities on the
northern frontier of France. It was agreed that two great armies should
be formed, one in Brabant under Marlborough, and the other on the
Moselle under Eugene; that the Elector of Hanover should act on the
defensive on the Rhine; that Eugene should join the English general, and
that with their united force they should force the French general to a
battle. This well conceived plan met with the usual resistance on the
part of the Allied powers, which compelled Marlborough to repair in
person to Hanover, to smooth over the objections of its Elector.
Meanwhile the dissensions and difficulties of the cabinet in London
increased to such a degree, that he had scarcely quitted England when he
was urged by Godolphin, and the majority of his own party, to return, as
the only means of saving them from shipwreck. Marlborough, however, with
that patriotic spirit which ever distinguished him, and not less than
his splendid abilities formed so honourable a feature in his character,
refused to leave the seat of war, and left his political friends to
shift for themselves as they best could. Having obtained a promise from
Eugene that he would join him before the month expired he joined the
army at Ghent on the 9th May 1708, and on the same day reviewed the
British division stationed in that city.

An event soon occurred which showed how wide-spread were the intrigues
of the French in the Flemish towns, and how insecure was the foundation
on which the authority of the Allies rested there. An accidental
circumstance led to the discovery of a letter put into the post-office
of Ghent, containing the whole particulars of a plan for admitting the
French troops into the citadel of Antwerp. Vendôme at the same time made
a forward movement to take advantage of these attempts; but Marlborough
was on his guard, and both frustrated the intended rising in Antwerp,
and barred the way against the attempted advance of the French army.
Disconcerted by the failure of this enterprise, Vendôme moved to
Soignies at the head of an hundred thousand men, where he halted at the
distance of three leagues from the Allied armies. A great and decisive
action was confidently expected in both armies; as, although Marlborough
could not muster above eighty thousand combatants, it was well known he
would not decline a battle, although he was not as yet sufficiently
strong to assume the offensive. Vendôme, however, declined attacking the
Allies where they stood, and, filing to the right to Braine la Leude,
close to the field of Waterloo, again halted in a position, threatening
at once both Louvain and Brussels. Moving parallel to him, but still
keeping on the defensive, Marlborough retired to Anderleet. No sooner
had he arrived there, than intelligence was received of a farther
movement to the right on the part of the French general, which indicated
an intention to make Louvain the object of attack. Without losing an
instant, Marlborough marched on that very night with the utmost
expedition, amidst torrents of rain, to Parc, where he established
himself in such strong ground, covering Louvain, that Vendôme, finding
himself anticipated in his movements, fell back to Braine-le-Leude
without firing a shot.[17]

Though Marlborough, however, had in this manner foiled the movement of
the French general, he was in no condition to undertake offensive
operations until the arrival of Eugene's army from the Moselle raised
his force nearer to an equality with the preponderating masses of the
enemy, headed by so able a general as Vendôme. The usual delays,
however, of the German powers, for long prevented this object being
attained. For about a month Marlborough was retained in a state of
forced inactivity from this cause, during which period he bitterly
complained, "that the slowness of the German powers was such as to
threaten the worst consequences." At length, however, the pressing
representations of the English general, seconded by the whole weight of
Prince Eugene, overcame the tardiness of the German Electors, and the
army of the Moselle began its march towards Brabant. But the Prince was
too far distant to bring up his troops to the theatre of active
operations before decisive events had taken place; and fortunately for
the glory of England, to Marlborough alone and to his army belongs the
honour of one of the most decisive victories recorded in its annals.

Encouraged by his superiority of numbers, and the assurances of support
he received from the malecontents in the Flemish towns, Vendôme, who was
both an able and enterprising general, put in execution, in the
beginning of July, a design which he had long meditated, for the purpose
of expelling the Allies from Brabant. This was by a sudden irruption to
make himself master of Ghent, with several of the citizens of which he
had established a secret correspondence. This city commands the course
of the Scheldt and the Lys, and lay in the very centre of Marlborough's
water communications; and as the fortifications of Oudenarde were in a
very dilapidated state, it was reasonable to suppose that its reduction
would speedily follow. The capture of these fortresses would at once
break up Marlborough's communications, and sever the connecting link
between Flanders and Brabant, so as to compel the English army to fall
back to Antwerp and the line of the Scheldt, and thus deprive them of
the whole fruits of the victory of Ramilies. Such was the able and
well-conceived design of the French general, which promised the most
brilliant results; and against a general less wary and able than
Marlborough, unquestionably would have obtained them.

Vendôme executed the first part of this design with vigour and success.
On the evening of the 4th July he suddenly broke up from
Braine-le-Leude, and marching rapidly all night, advanced towards Hall
and Tubise, dispatching at the same time, parties towards such towns in
that quarter as had maintained a correspondence with him. One of these
parties, by the connivance of the watch, made itself master of Ghent. At
the same time Bruges was surrendered to another party under the Count de
la Motte; the small but important fort of Plassendael was carried by
storm, and a detachment sent to recover Ghent found the gates shut by
the inhabitants, who had now openly joined the enemy, and invested the
Allied garrison in the citadel.

Marlborough no sooner heard of this movement than he followed with his
army; but he arrived in the neighbourhood of Tubise in time only to
witness their passage of the Senne, near that place. Giving orders to
his troops to prepare for battle, he put himself in motion at one next
morning, intending to bring the enemy to an immediate action. The
activity of Vendôme, however, baffled his design. He made his men, weary
as they were, march all night and cross the Dender at several points,
breaking down the bridges between Alort and Oerdegun, and the Allies
only arrived in time to make three hundred prisoners from the rearguard.
Scarcely had they recovered from this disappointment, when intelligence
arrived of the surprise of Ghent and Bruges; while, at the same time,
the ferment in Brussels, owing to the near approach of the French to
that capital, became so great, that there was every reason to apprehend
a similar disaster, from the disaffection of some of its inhabitants.
The most serious apprehensions also were entertained for Oudenarde, the
garrison of which was feeble, and its works dilapidated. Marlborough,
therefore, dispatched instant orders to Lord Chandos, who commanded at
Ath, to collect all the detachments he could from the garrisons in the
neighbourhood, and throw himself into that fortress, and with such
diligence were these orders executed that Oudenarde was secured against
a _coup-de-main_, before the French outposts appeared before it.
Vendôme, however, felt himself strong enough to undertake its siege in
form. He drew his army round it; the investment was completed on the
evening of the 9th, and a train of heavy artillery ordered from Tournay,
to commence the siege,[18] while he himself with the covering army, took
post in a strong camp at Lessines, on the river Dender.

Such was the chagrin experienced by Marlborough at these untoward
events, that he was thrown into a fever, the result of fatigue,
watching, and anxiety. His physician earnestly counselled him to leave
the camp, and retire to Brussels, as the only means of arresting his
distemper; but nothing could induce him to leave his post at such a
crisis. He continued in his tent accordingly, and the orders were issued
by Marshal Overkirk. He was greatly relieved on the 7th, by the arrival
of Prince Eugene, who, finding his troops could not come up in time, had
left his cavalry at Maestricht, and hastened in person, though without
any followers but his personal suite, to take part in the approaching
conflict. Great was the joy of Marlborough on learning the arrival of so
illustrious a general; not a feeling of jealousy crossed the breast of
either of these great men. His first words to Eugene were--"I am not
without hopes of congratulating your Highness on a great victory; for my
troops will be animated by the presence of so distinguished a
commander." Eugene warmly approved the resolution he had taken of
instantly attacking the enemy: and a council of war having been
summoned, their united opinion prevailed over the objections of the
Dutch deputies, who were now seriously alarmed for their barrier, and it
was resolved to give battle to the enemy in his position in front of
OUDENARDE.[19]

The Allies broke up at two in the morning of the 9th July, and advanced
towards the French frontiers at Lessines in four great columns. So rapid
and well ordered was the march, that before noon the heads of the
columns reached Herfilingen, fourteen miles fron Asche, whence they had
started. Bridges were rapidly thrown over the Dender, and it was crossed
early on the following morning in presence of Eugene and Marlborough,
whom the animation of the great events in progress, had, in a manner,
raised from the bed of sickness.[20] Here the duke halted, and the
troops encamped in their order of march with their right on the Dender
and their front covered by a small stream which falls into that river.
By this bold and rapid movement, Vendôme's well-concerted plan was
entirely disconcerted; Marlborough had thrown himself between the French
and their own frontier; he had rendered himself master of their
communications; and instead of seeking merely to cover his own
fortresses, threatened to compel them to fall back, in order to regain
their communications, and abandon the whole enterprise which had
commenced with such prospects of success. Vendôme was extremely
disconcerted at this able movement, and he gave immediate orders to fall
back upon Gavre, situated on the Scheldt below Oudenarde, where it was
intended to cross that river.

No sooner was this design made manifest, than Marlborough followed with
all his forces, with the double design of raising the investment of
Oudenarde, and if possible forcing the enemy to give battle, under the
disadvantage of doing so in a retreat. Anxious to improve their
advantage, the Allied generals pushed forward with the utmost
expedition, hoping to come up with the enemy when his columns and
baggage were close upon the Scheldt, or in the very act of crossing that
river. Colonel Cadogan, with a strong advanced guard, was pushed forward
by daybreak on the 11th towards the Scheldt which he reached by eleven,
and immediately threw bridges over, across which the whole cavalry and
twelve battalions of foot were immediately thrown. They advanced to the
summit of the plateau on the left bank of the river, and formed in
battle array, the infantry opposite Eynes, the cavalry extending on the
left towards Schaerken. Advancing slowly on in this regular array down
the course of the river on its left bank, Cadogan was not long of coming
in sight of the French rearguard under Biron, with whom he had some
sharp skirmishing. Meanwhile, Marlborough and Eugene were pressing the
passage at the bridges with all imaginable activity; but the greater
part of their army had not yet got across. The main body was still half
a league from the Scheldt, and the huge clouds of dust which arose from
the passage of the artillery and carriages in that direction, inspired
Vendôme with the hope that he might cut off the advanced guard which was
over the Scheldt, before the bulk of the Allied forces could get across
to their relief. With this view he halted his troops, and drew them up
hastily in order of battle. This brought on the great and glorious
action which followed, towards the due understanding of which, a
description of the theatre of combat is indispensable.

     "At the distance of a mile north of Oudenarde, is the village of
     Eynes. Here the ground rises into a species of low, but spacious
     amphitheatre. From thence it sweeps along a small plain, till it
     nearly reaches the glacis of Oudenarde, where it terminates in the
     village of Bevere. To the west the slope ascends to another broad
     hill called the Bosercanter; and at the highest point of the
     eminence stands a windmill, shaded by a lofty lime-tree, forming
     conspicuous objects from the whole adjacent country. From thence
     the ground gradually declines towards Mardlen; and the eye glancing
     over the humid valley watered by the Norken, rests on another range
     of uplands, which, gently sinking, at length terminates near Asper.
     Within this space, two small streams, descending from the lower
     part of the hill of Oycke, embrace a low tongue of land, the centre
     of which rises to a gentle elevation. The borders of these rivulets
     are crossed by frequent enclosures, surrounding the farm-yards of
     Barwaen, Chobon, and Diepenbeck. Near the source of one of these
     streams is a castellated mansion; at that of the other is the
     hamlet of Rhetelhouk, embosomed in a wooded nook. These streams
     unite at the hamlet of Scharken, and their united current flows in
     a marshy bed to the Scheldt, which it reaches near Eynes. The
     Norken, another river traversing the field, runs for a considerable
     distance parallel to the Scheldt, until, passing by Asper, it
     terminates in a stagnant canal, which joins the Scheldt below
     Gavre. Its borders, like those of the other streams, are skirted
     with coppice-wood thickets; behind are the enclosures surrounding
     the little plain. Generally speaking, this part of Flanders is even
     not merely of picturesque beauty and high cultivation, but great
     military strength; and it is hard to say whether its numerous
     streams, hanging banks, and umbrageous woods, add most to its
     interest in the eye of a painter, or to its intricacy and defensive
     character in warlike operations."[21]

As fast as the Allies got across the Scheldt, Marlborough formed them
along the high grounds stretching from Bevere to Mooreghem Mill, with
their right resting on the Scheldt. Vendôme's men stretched across the
plain, from the hill of Asper on the left, to Warreghem on the right. A
considerable body of cavalry and infantry lay in front of their position
in Eynes, of which they had retained possession since they had repulsed
Cadogan's horse. No sooner had the English general got a sufficient
number of troops up, than he ordered that gallant officer to advance and
retake that village. The infantry attacked in front, crossing the
rivulet near Eynes; while the horse made a circuit, and passing higher,
made their appearance in their rear, when the conflict was warmly going
on in front. The consequence was, that the village was carried with
great loss to the enemy, three entire battalions were cut off and made
prisoners, and eight squadrons cut to pieces in striving to make their
way across the steep and tangled banks of the Norken. This sharp blow
convinced the French leaders that a general action was unavoidable; and
though, from the vigour with which it had been struck, their remained
little hope of overpowering the Allied advanced guard before the main
body came up, yet they resolved, contrary to the opinion of Vendôme, who
had become seriously alarmed, to persist in the attack, and risk all on
the issue of a general engagement.[22]

It was four in the afternoon when the French commenced the action in
good earnest. The Duke of Burgundy ordered General Grimaldi to lead
Sistern's squadron across the Norken, apparently with the view of
feeling his way preparatory to a general attack; but when he arrived on
the margin of the stream, and saw the Prussian cavalry already formed on
the other side, he fell back to the small plain near the Mill of
Royeghorn. Vendôme, meanwhile, directed his left to advance, deeming
that the most favourable side to attack, but the Duke of Burgundy, who
nominally had the supreme command, and who was jealous of Vendôme's
reputation, countermanded this order; alleging that an impassable morass
separated the two armies in that quarter. Those contradictory orders
produced indecision in the French lines, and Marlborough, divining its
cause, instantly took advantage of it. Judging with reason that the real
attack of the enemy would be made on his left by their right, in front
of the castle of Bevere, he drew the twelve battalions of foot under
Cadogan from Heurne and Eynes, which they occupied, and reinforced the
left with them; while the bridges of the Norken were strongly occupied,
and musketeers disposed in the woods on their sides. Marlborough
himself, at the head of the Prussian horse, advanced by Heurne, and took
post on the flank of the little plain of Diepenbeck, where it was
evident the heat of the action would ensue. A reserve of twenty British
battalions, with a few guns, took post near Schaerken, and proved of the
most essential service in the struggle which ensued. Few pieces of
artillery were brought up on either side; the rapidity of the movements
on both having outstripped the slow pace at which those ponderous
implements of destruction were then conveyed.[23]

Hardly were these defensive arrangements completed, when the tempest was
upon them. The whole French right wing, consisting of thirty battalions,
embracing the French and Swiss guards, and the flower of their army,
debouched from the woods and hedges near Groemvelde, and attacking four
battalions stationed there, quickly compelled them to retreat. Advancing
then in the open plain, they completely outflanked the Allied left, and
made themselves masters of the hamlets of Barwaen and Banlaney. This
success exposed the Allies to imminent danger; for in their rear was
the Scheldt, flowing lazily in a deep and impassable current, through
marshy meadows, crossed only by a few bridges, over which retreat would
be impossible in presence of a victorious enemy; and the success against
the Allied left exposed to be cut off from their only resource in such a
case, the friendly ramparts of Oudenarde.

Anxiously observing the rapid progress of the French on his left,
Marlborough successively drew brigade after brigade from his right, and
moved them to the quarter which was now severely pressed. The hostile
lines fought with the most determined resolution. Every bridge, every
ditch, every wood, every hamlet, every inclosure, was obstinately
contested; and so incessant was the roll of musketry, that, seen from a
distance, the horizon seemed an unbroken line of fire. Hitherto
Marlborough and Eugene had remained together; but now, as matters had
reached the crisis, they separated. The English general bestowed on
Prince Eugene the command of his right, where the British battalions,
whose valour he had often praised, were placed. He himself, with the
Prussian horse on the banks of the Norken, kept the enemy's left in
check; while with his own left he endeavoured to outflank the enemy, and
retaliate upon then the manoeuvre which they had attempted against
him. This bold movement was attended with severe loss, but it proved
completely successful. Eugene was soon warmly engaged, and at first
wellnigh overpowered by the superior numbers and vehement onset of the
enemy. But Marlborough, whose eye was every where, no sooner observed
this, than he dispatched Cadogan with his twelve English battalions to
his support. Encouraged by this aid, Eugene moved forward General
Natzmer, at the head of the Prussian heavy horse and cuirassiers, to
charge the enemy's second lines near the Mill of Royeghem; while he
himself renewed the attack on their infantry near Herlehorn. Both
attacks proved successful. The enemy were expelled on the right from the
enclosure of Avelchens, and the battle restored in that quarter; while,
at the same time, their second line was drivers back into the enclosures
of Royeghem. But this last success was not achieved without a very heavy
loss; for the Prussian horse were received by so terrible a fire of
musketry from the hedges near Royeghem, into which they had pushed the
enemy's second line, that half of then were stretched on the plain, and
the remainder recoiled in disorderly flight.

Meanwhile, Marlborough himself was not less actively engaged on the
Allied left. At the head of the Hanoverian and Dutch battalions, he
there pressed forward against the hitherto victorious French right. The
vigour inspired by his presence quickly altered the state of affairs in
that quarter. Barlaney and Barwaen were soon regained, but not without
the most desperate resistance; for not only did the enemy obstinately
contest every field and enclosure, but, in their fury, set fire to such
of the houses as could no longer be maintained. Despite all these
obstacles, hovever, the English general fairly drove them back, at the
musket's point, fron one enclosure to another, till he reached the
hamlet of Diepenbeck, where the resistance proved so violent that he was
compelled to pause. His vigilant eye, however, erelong observed, that
the hill of Oycke, which flanked the enemy's extreme right, was
unoccupied. Conceiving that their right might be turned by this
eminence, he directed Overkirk, with the reserve cavalry, and twenty
Dutch and Danish battalions, to occupy it. The veteran marshal executed
this important, and, as it proved, decisive movement, with his wonted
alacrity and spirit. The wooded dells round the castle of Bevere soon
rung with musketry; the enemy, forced out of them, was driven over the
shoulder of the Bosercanter; soon it was passed, and the mill of Oycke,
and the plateau behind it, occupied by the Danish and Dutch battalions.
Arrived on the summit, Overkirk made his men bring up their left
shoulders, so as to wheel inwards, and form a vast semicircle round the
right wing of the French, which, far advanced beyond the centre, was now
thrown back, and grouped into the little plain of Diepenbeck. Observing
the effect of this movement, Marlborough directed Overkirk to press
forward his left still farther, so as to seize the passes of Mullem and
mill of Royeghem, by which the communication between the enemy's right
and centre was maintained. This order was executed with vigour and
success by the Prince of Orange and General Oxenstiern. The progress of
the extreme Allied left round the rear of the French right, was observed
by the frequent flashes of their musketry on the heights above Mullem,
down to which they descended, driving the enemy with loud cheers, which
re-echoed over the whole field of battle, before them. The victory was
now gained. Refluent from all quarters, enveloped on every side, the
whole French right was hurled together, in wild confusion, into the
plain of Diepenbeck; where seven regiments of horse, which made a noble
effort to stem the flood of disaster, was all cut to pieces or taken.

Seeing his right wing on the verge of destruction, Vendôme made a
gallant effort to rescue it. Dismounting from his horse, he led the
infantry of his left near Mullem, to the aid of their devoted comrades.
But the thick and frequent enclosures broke their array; the soldiers
were dismayed by the loud shouts of victory from their right; and when
they emerged from the enclosures; and approached the plain of
Diepenbeck, the firm countenance of the British horse, drawn up on its
edge, and the sturdy array of their infantry under Eugene, which
advanced to meet them, rendered the effort abortive. Meanwhile darkness
set in, but the battle still raged on all sides; and the frequent
flashes of the musketry on the heights around, intermingled with the
shouts of the victors, showed but too clearly how nearly the extremity
of danger was approaching to the whole French army. So completely were
they enveloped, that the advanced guard of the right under Eugene, and
the left under the Prince of Orange, met on the heights in the French
rear, and several volleys were exchanged between there, before the error
was discovered, and, by great exertions of their respective commanders,
the useless butchery was stopped. To prevent a repetition of such
disasters orders were given to the whole troops to halt where they
stood, and to this precaution many owed their safety as it was
impossible in the darkness to distinguish friend from foe. But it
enabled great part of the centre and left of the French to escape
unobserved, which, had daylight continued for two hours longer, would
have been all taken or destroyed. Their gallant right was left to its
fate; while Eugene, by directing the drums of his regiments to beat the
French _assemblée_, made great numbers of their left and centre
prisoners. Some thousands of the right slipped unobserved to the
westward near the castle of Bevere, and made their way in a confused
body toward France, but the greater part of that wing were killed or
taken. Vendôme with charateristic presence of mind formed a rearguard of
a few battalions and twenty-five squadrons, with which he covered the
retreat of the centre and left; but the remainder of those parts of the
army fell into total confusion, and fled headlong in wild disorder
towards Ghent.[24]

We have the authority of Marborough for the assertion, that "if he had
had two hours more of daylight the French army would have been
irretrievably routed, great part of it killed or taken, and the war
terminated on that day."[25] As it was, the blow struck was prodigious,
and entirely altered the character and issue of the campaign. The French
lost six thousand men in killed and wounded, besides nine thousand
prisoners and one hundred standards wrested from them in fair fight. The
Allied were weakened by five thousand men for the French were superior
in number and fought well, having been defeated solely by the superior
generalship of the Allied commanders.[26]

No sooner did daylight appear, than forty squadrons were detached
towards Ghent in pursuit of the enemy; while Marlborough himself, with
characteristic humanity, visited the field of battle, doing his utmost
to assuage the sufferings, and provide for the cure of the numerous
wounded--alike friend and foe--who encumbered its bloody expanse. Count
Lottnow was sent with thirty battalions and fifty squadrons, to possess
himself of the lines which the enemy had constructed between Ipres and
Warneton, which that officer did with vigour and success, making five
hundred prisoners. This was the more fortunate, as, at the moment they
were taken, the Duke of Berwick, with the French army from the Moselle,
was hastening up, and had exhorted the garrison to defend the lines to
the last extremity. At the same time, the corresponding Allied army,
commanded by Eugene, arrived at Brussels, so that both sides were
largely reinforced. Berwick's corps, which consisted of thirty-four
battalions and fifty-five squadrons, was so considerable, that it raised
Vendôme's army again to an hundred thousand men. With this imposing
mass, that able general took post in a camp behind the canal of Bruges,
and near Ghent, which he soon strongly fortified, and which commanded
the navigation both of the Scheldt and the Lys. He rightly judged, that
as long as he was there at the head of such a force, the Allies would
not venture to advance into France; though it lay entirely open to their
incursions, as Marlborough was between him and Paris.[27]

Encouraged by this singular posture of the armies, Marlborough strongly
urged upon the Allied council of war the propriety of relinquishing all
lesser objects, passing the whole fortified towns on the frontier, and
advancing straight towards the French capital.[28] This bold counsel,
however--which, if acted on, would have been precisely what Wellington
and Blucher did a century after, in advancing from the same country, and
perhaps attended with similar success--was rejected. Eugene, and the
remainder of the council, considered the design too hazardous, while
Vendôme with so great an army lay intrenched in their rear, threatening
their communications. It was resolved, therefore, to commence the
invasion of the territory of the Grande Monarque, by the siege of the
great frontier fortress of LILLE, the strongest and most important place
in French Flanders, and the possession of which would give the Allies a
solid footing in the enemy's territory. This, however, was a most
formidable undertaking; for not only was the place itself of great
strength, and with a citadel within its walls still stronger, but it was
garrisoned by Marshal Boufflers, one of the ablest officers in the
French service, with fifteen thousand choice troops, and every requisite
for a vigorous defence. On the other hand, Vendôme, at the head of an
hundred thousand men, lay in an impregnable camp between Ghent and
Bruges, ready to interrupt or raise the siege; and his position there
extremely hampered Marlborough in bringing forward the requisite
equipage for so great an undertaking, as it interrupted the whole water
navigation of the country, by which it could best be effected. The
dragging it up by land, would require sixteen thousand horses.
Nevertheless it was resolved to undertake the enterprise, sanguine hopes
being entertained, that, rather than see so important a fortress fall,
Vendôme would leave his intrenched camp, and give the Allies an
opportunity of bringing him again to battle on equal terms.[29]

No sooner was the undertaking resolved on, than the most vigorous
measures were adopted to carry it into execution. The obstacles which
presented themselves, however, were great indeed, and proved even more
formidable than had been at first anticipated. Every gun, every waggon,
every round of ammunition, required to be transported from Holland; and
even the nearest depôt for ordinary and military stores for the Allies,
was Brussels, situated twenty-five leagues off. Sixteen thousand horses
were requisite to transport the train which brought these stores, partly
from Maestricht, partly from Holland; and when in a line of march, it
stretched over fifteen miles. Prince Eugene, with fifty-three battalions
and ninety squadrons, covered the vast moving mass--Marlborough himself
being ready, at a moment's notice, in his camp near Menin, to support
him, if necessary. Between these two great men there existed then, as
ever, the most entire cordiality.[30] Their measures were all taken in
concord, and with such ability, that though Vendôme lay on the flank of
the line of march, which extended over above seventy miles, not a gun
was taken, nor a carriage lost; and the whole reached the camp at
Helchin in safety, on the 12th August, whither Marlborough had gone to
meet it. So marvellous were the arrangements made for the safe conduct
of this important convoy, and so entire their success, that they excited
the admiration of the French, and in no slight degree augmented the
alarm of their generals, who had hitherto treated the idea of Lille
being besieged, with perfect derision. "Posterity," says the French
annalist, Feuqueres, "will scarcely believe the fact, though it is an
undoubted truth. Never was a great enterprise conducted with more skill
and circumspection."[31]

Prince Eugene was entrusted with the conduct of the siege, while
Marlborough commanded the covering army. The former commenced the
investment of the place on the 13th August, while Marlborough remained
at Helchin, taking measures for the protection of the convoys, which
were incessantly coming up from Brussels. At length the whole were
passed, and arrived in safety in the camp before Lille, amounting to one
hundred and twenty heavy guns, forty mortars, twenty howitzers, and four
hundred ammunition waggons. Eugene's army for the siege consisted of
fifty-three battalions and ninety squadrons, in all about forty thousand
men. Marlborough's covering force was sixty-nine battalions and one
hundred and forty squadrons, numbering nearly sixty thousand men. But
the force of the French was still more considerable in the field.
Vendôme and Berwick united on the 30th, on the plain between Grammont
and Lessines, and on the 2d September advanced towards Lille with one
hundred and forty battalions and two hundred and fifty squadrons,
mustering one hundred thousand combatants, besides twenty thousand left,
under Count de la Motte, to cover Ghent and Bruges. But Marlborough had
no fears for the result, and ardently longed for a general action, which
he hoped would one way or other conclude the war. "If we have a second
action," says he, "and God blesses our just cause, this, in all
likelihood, will be our last campaign; for I think they would not
venture a battle, but are resolved to submit to any condition, if the
success be on our side; and if they get the better, they will think
themselves masters; so that, if there should be an action, it is like to
be the last this war. If God continues on our side, we have nothing to
fear, our troops being good, though not so numerous as theirs. I dare
say, before half the troops have fought, success will declare, I trust
in God, on our side; and then I may have what I earnestly wish for
quick."[32]

No sooner was Marlborough informed of the junction of Vendôme and
Berwick, than, anticipating the direction they would follow, and the
point at which they would endeavour to penetrate through, and raise the
siege, he marched parallel to the enemy, and arrived on the 4th
September at a position previously selected, having his right at
Noyelle, and his left at Peronne. So correctly had he divined the
designs of the able generals to whom he was opposed, that, within two
hours after he had taken up his ground, the united French army appeared
in his front. Notwithstanding their great superiority of forces, the
enemy, however, did not venture to attack, and the two armies remained
watching each other for the next fortnight, without any movement being
attempted on either side.[33]

Meanwhile, Eugene was actively prosecuting the siege of Lille. Trenches
were opened on the 22d, and a heavy fire was opened from eighty pieces
of cannon. On the following night, an outwork, called the Chapel of St
Magdalene, was stormed and taken. The second parallel was soon
completed, and some farther outworks carried; and the whole battering
guns having at length been mounted, a breach was effected in the salient
angle of one of the horn-works, and on the same night a lodgement was
effected. A vigorous sortie, on the 10th September, hardly retarded the
progress of the operations, and a sap was made under the covered way.
Marlborough, who visited the besiegers' lines on the 18th, however,
expressed some displeasure at the slow progress of the siege; and in
consequence, on the 20th, another assault was hazarded. It was most
obstinately resisted, but at length the assailants overcame all
opposition and bursting in, carried a demi-bastion and several adjoining
works, though with a loss of two thousand men. Great as this loss was,
it was not so severe as that of one officer who fell; for Eugene
himself, transported with ardour, had taken part in the assault, and was
seriously wounded. This grievous casualty not only gave the utmost
distress to Marlborough, but immensely augmented his labours; for it
threw upon him at once the direction of the siege, and the command of
the covering army. Every morning at break of day he was on horseback to
observe Vendôme's army; and if all was quiet in front, he rode to the
lines and directed the siege in person till evening, when he again
returned to the camp of the covering force. By thus in a manner doubling
himself, this great man succeeded in preventing any serious
inconvenience being experienced even from so great a catastrophe as
Eugene's wound, and he infused such vigour into the operations of the
siege, that, on the 23d September, great part of the tenaillons were
broken, with a large portion of the covered way. At the same time the
ammunition of the garrison began to fail so much in consequence of the
constant fire they had kept up for above a month, that Marshal Boufflers
sent intimation to Vendôme, that unless a supply of that necessary
article was speedily obtained, he should be obliged to surrender.[34]

The French generals, aware how much the fortress was straitened, were
meanwhile straining every nerve to raise the siege; but such was the
terror inspired by Marlborough's presence, and the skill with which his
defensive measures were taken, that they did not venture to hazard an
attack on the covering army. But a well-conceived project of Vendôme's,
for throwing a supply of powder into the fortress, in part succeeded;
although many of the horsemen who carried it were cut off, some
succeeded in making their way in through the Allied lines, and
considerably raised the spirits of the garrison, as well as prolonged
their means of defence. But meanwhile the ammunition of the besiegers
was falling short, as well as that of the besieged; and as the enemy
were completely masters of the communication with Brussels, no resource
remained but to get it up from Ostend. A convoy was formed there
accordingly by General Erle, and set out on the 27th September,
consisting of seven hundred waggons, escorted by General Webb with ten
thousand men. Count de la Motte instantly set out with the troops under
his command from the vicinity of Ghent, and came up with the convoy in
the defile of Wynandals. A sharp action ensued, and the French advanced
to the attack with their wonted impetuosity. But Webb's defensive
arrangements were so skilful, and the fire kept up by his troops so
vigorous, that the enemy were utterly routed; and the convoy forcing its
way, reached Menin on the following day, and entered the Allied camp,
amidst the acclamations of the whole army, on the 30th September.[35]

The safe arrival of this convoy gave new energy to the operations of the
siege; while the recovery of Eugene relieved Marlborough of half the
labour under which, to use his own words, he had been for a fortnight
"rather dead than alive." Three days after the whole tenaillon was
carried, and the troops established directly opposite the breaches of
the ramparts. Meanwhile Vendôme opened the sluices, and inundated the
country to the very borders of the dyke, so as to intercept
Marlborough's communication with Ostend, and prevent the arrival of
stores from it. But the English general defeated this device by bringing
the stores up in flat-bottomed boats from Ostend to Leffinghen, and
thence conveying them in carriages, mounted on very high wheels, to the
camp. Cadogan greatly distinguished himself in this difficult service.
Overkirk died at this critical juncture, to the great regret of
Marlborough, who could then ill spare his ardent and patriotic spirit.
Meanwhile, however, the siege continued to advance, and fifty-five heavy
guns thundered from the counterscarp on the breaches, while thirty-six
mortars swept all the works which commanded them. Finding himself unable
to withstand the assault which was now hourly expected, Boufflers, on
the 22d October, beat a parley, and capitulated; having sustained, with
unparalleled resolution, a siege of sixty days, of which thirty were
with open trenches. Penetrated with admiration at his gallant defence,
Eugene granted the French general and his brave garrison the most
honourable terms. The gates were surrendered on the 23d, and the
remainder of the garrison, still five thousand strong, retired into the
citadel,[36] where they prolonged their defence for six weeks more.

Thus had Marlborough the glory, in one campaign, of defeating, in
pitched battle, the best general and most powerful army possessed by
France, and capturing its strongest frontier fortress, the masterpiece
of Vauban, under the eyes of one hundred and twenty thousand assembled
from all quarters for its relief. He put the keystone at the same time
into this arch of glory, by again declining the magnificent offer of the
government of the Low Countries, with its appointment of sixty thousand
a-year for life, a second time pressed upon him by King Charles, from an
apprehension that such an offer might give umbrage to the government of
Holland, or excite jealousy in the Queen's government at home.[37]

FOOTNOTES:

[10] _Coxe_, III. 156. _Instructions pour le Sieur Recoux. Cardonell
Papers_.

[11] "Count Piper said, 'We made war on Poland only to subsist; our
design in Saxony is only to terminate the war; but for the Muscovite he
shall pay _les pots cassées_, and we will treat the Czar in a manner
which posterity will hardly believe.' I secretly wished that already he
was in the heart of Muscovy. After dinner he conveyed me to
headquarters, and introduced me to his Majesty. He asked me whence I
came, and where I had served. I replied, and mentioned my good fortune
in having served three campaigns under your Highness. He questioned me
much, particularly concerning your Highness and the English troops; and
you may readily believe that I delineated my hero in the most lively and
natural colours. Among other particulars, he asked me if your Highness
yourself led the troops to the charge. I replied, that as all the troops
were animated with the same ardour for fighting, that was not necessary;
but that you were every where, and always in the hottest of the action,
and gave your orders with that coolness which excites general
admiration. I then related to him that you had been thrown from your
horse, the death of your aide-de-camp Borafield, and many other things.
He took great pleasure in this recital, and made me repeat the same
thing twice. I also said that your Highness always spoke of his Majesty
with esteem and admiration, and ardently desired to pay you his
respects. He observed, 'That is not likely, but I should be delighted to
see a general of whom I have heard so much.' They intend vigorously to
attack the Muscovites, and expect to dethrone the Czar, compelling him
to discharge all his foreign officers, and pay several millions as an
indemnity. Should he refuse such conditions, the King is resolved to
exterminate the Muscovites, and make their country a desert. God grant
he may persist in this decision, rather than demand the restitution, as
some assert, of the Protestant churches in Silesia! The Swedes in
general are modest, but do not scruple to declare themselves invincible
when the King is at their head."--_General Grumbkow to Marlborough, Jan.
11 and_ 31, 1707. _Coxe_, III. 159-161.

[12] _Coxe_, III. 167-169. The authenticity of this speech is placed
beyond doubt by Lediard, who was then in Saxony, and gives it
_verbatim_.

[13] _Coxe_, III. 174-182.

[14] "I cannot venture unless I am certain of success; for the
inclinations in Holland are so strong for peace, that, if we had the
least disadvantage, it would make them act very extravagant. I must own
every country we have to do with, acts, in my opinion, so contrary to
the general good, that it makes me quite weary of serving. The Emperor
is in the wrong in almost every thing he does."--_Marlborough to
Godolphin, June 27, 1707_; _Coxe_, III. 261.

[15] _Despatches_, III. 142-207.--So much were the Dutch alienated from
the common cause at this time, and set on acquisitions of their own,
that they beheld with undisguised satisfaction the battle of Almanza,
and disasters in Spain, as likely to render the Emperor more tractable
in considering their proceedings in Flanders. "The States," says
Marlborough, "received the news of this fatal stroke with less concern
than I expected. This blow has made so little impression in the great
towns in this country, that the _generality of the people have shown
satisfaction at it rather then otherwise_, which I attribute mainly to
the aversion to the present government."--_Marlborough to Godolphin,
May_ 13, 1707. _Coxe_, III. 204.

[16] _Coxe_, III. 196-205.

[17] _Marlborough's Despatches_, IV. 49.

[18] _Desp._ IV. 95-101. _Coxe_, IV. 128-131.

[19] _Desp._ IV. 79-102. _Coxe_, IV. 130-132.

[20] "The treachery of Ghent, continual marching, and some letters I
have received from England, (from the Queen and the Duchess,) have so
vexed me, that I was yesterday in so great a fever, that the doctor
would have persuaded me to have gone to Brussels; but I thank God I am
now better, and by the next post I hope to answer your letters. The
States have used this country so ill, that I noways doubt but all the
towns in it will play us the same trick as Ghent if they have the
power."--_Marlborough to Godolphin, July 9, 1708._ _Coxe_, IV. 38.

[21] The above description of the field of Oudenarde is mainly taken
from _Coxe_, IV. 134-135; but the author, from personal inspection of
the field, can attest its accuracy.

[22] _Coxe_, IV. 140-143.

[23] _Marlborough to Count Piper, 15th July 1708.--Desp._ IV. 115.
_Coxe_, IV. 144-145.

[24] _Coxe_, IV. 146-151. _Marlborouqh to Count Piper, 16th July
1708.--Desp._ IV. 115. _Duke of Berwck's Mem._ II. 12.

[25] _Marlborough à M. De Themgue, 15th July 1708.--Desp._ IV. 111.

[26] _Desp._ IV. 111. Berwick himself states the prisoners at
9000.--_Marlborough_, II. 12. _Marlborough to the Duchess_, _July_ 16,
1708.--_Coxe_, IV. 157.

[27] _Marlborough to Lord Godolphin, July 16 and 19, 1708._--_Coxe_, IV.
158, 159.

[28] Conscious of the panic which prevailed in France, and aware that
some brilliant enterprise was requisite to prevent the Dutch from
listening to separate overtures for peace, Marlborough proposed to meet
at Lille, and penetrate by the northern frontier into the heart of
France. An expedition fitted out in England was to co-operate on the
coast. But the design of penetrating direct into France seemed too bold
even to Eugene, and, of course, encouraged strong opposition from a
government so timid and vacillating as that of Holland.--_Coxe_, IV.
165.

[29] _Marlborough to Godolphin, July 23, 1708._--_Coxe_, IV. 165.

[30] "I need not tell you how much I desire the nation may be at last
eased of a burdensome war, by an honourable peace; and no one can judge
better than yourself of the sincerity of my wishes to enjoy a little
retirement at a place you have contributed in a great measure to make so
desirable. I thank you for your good wishes to myself on this occasion.
_I dare say, Prince Eugene and I shall never differ about our
laurels._"--_Marlborough to Mr Travers_, July 30, 1708.

[31] _Coxe_, IV. 216-219.

[32] _Marlborough to Godolphin, August 30, 1708._--_Coxe_, IV. 222.

[33] _Desp_. IV. 241-260.

[34] _Desp_. IV. 260-271. _Marlborough to Godolphin, September 24,
1708._--_Coxe_, IV. 243.

[35] _Marlborough to Godolphin, October 1, 1708._--_Coxe_, IV. 254.

[36] _Desp._ IV. 271, _Marlborough to Godolphin, October 24,
1708._--_Coxe_, IV. 263, 264.

[37] "You will find me, my Prince, always ready to renew the patent for
the government of the Low Countries, formerly sent to you, and to extend
_it for your life_."--_King Charles to Marlborough, August 8, 1708._
_Coxe_, IV. 245.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A LOVER OF SOCIETY.

Many years ago, I was struck with the remark--that if any one would
write down, from week to week, the prominent events which occurred in
his time, he must make a book which many would like to read.

I took the hint; and here I give a portion of my Recollections. Not that
I have ever kept a regular Journal, a matter which I now regret; but I
have mingled a good deal in general life, I have seen nearly all the
remarkable characters of Europe in the most stirring period of the
world, and I have seen the beginning as well as the end of that most
extraordinary of all national catastrophes, the French Revolution.

At all times fond of associating with my fellow men, taking a strong
interest in public opinions, having strong opinions of my own, and
witnessing the most singular changes in almost every form of public, of
personal, and of national impressions, I have had my full share of
experience in the ways of men. And I now offer it to those who would
refresh their remembrances of memorable men, things, and times.

For the purpose of dealing in the fairest possible manner with my
readers, I have looked into the various records of those events which
might have escaped my memory. But I have not suffered them to bias
opinions conceived long since, and conceived in the spirit of sincerity.
Such is my design. It is given to the public with a perfect freedom from
all party influence; with a total avoidance of all personality; with
that calmness of retrospect which best becomes one who has no desire to
share in the passions of the world; and with that wish of the French
almanack-maker, which lies at the bottom of many a bulkier enterprise
than mine--

     "Je veux infiniment qu'on me lise."

1800.

_January 1._--The nineteenth century has commenced with one of those
events, which deserve to mark epochs. On this day the UNION Of Ireland
with England has begun. The church bells are ringing, at this moment, in
all quarters. Flags are flying on the various government establishments.
A new Imperial flag is hoisted at the Tower, and I now hear the guns
saluting it with their roar.

The last century was the era of Intrigue in politics, in war, in courts,
in every thing. In England, the Revolution at the close of the Century
before had extinguished the power of Despotism. Popery had perished
under the heel of Protestantism. The Jacobite had fled from the face of
the Williamite. The sword was seen no longer. But the strifes of party
succeeded the struggles of Religion; and Parliament became the scene of
those conflicts, which, in the century before, would have been fought in
the field.

I strongly doubt which age exhibits the national character in a more
elevated point of view. The war of Charles I. was a period of proud
feeling. It was the last burst of Chivalry. Men of rank and fortune
periled both from a sense of honour, and some of the noblest who fell on
the royal side, were as fully convinced of the royal errors as the
orators of Parliament; but their sense of honour urged them to the
sacrifice, and they freely shed their blood for a King, whose
faithlessness and folly were to be redeemed only by his martyrdom.

From the period of the Revolution, the character of the country had
changed. Still bold, sensitive, and capable of sacrifice, it had grown
more contemptuous of political romance, more clear-sighted as to public
merits, and more fixed on substantial claims. The latter part of the
seventeenth century had seen the worthless and treacherous Charles II.
brought back by the nobles and gentry of the land in a national triumph.
The middle of the eighteenth century saw the expulsion of the Pretender,
a gallant and adventurous prince, whose only adherents were the Scottish
chiefs, and whose most determined opponents were the whole multitude of
England.

France had lost her Chivalric spirit nearly a hundred years before. It
had died with Francis I. The wars of the League were wars of Chicane;
Artifice in arms, Subtlety in steel coats. The profligacy of the courts
of Louis Quatorze, and his successors, dissolved at once the morals and
the mind of France. That great country exhibited, to the eye of Europe,
the aspect of the most extravagant license, and the most rapid decay.
There lay the great voluptuary, under the general gaze; like one of its
feudal lords dying of his own debauch--lying helpless from infirmity,
surrounded with useless pomp, and in the sight of luxuries which he
could taste no more--until death came, and he was swept away from his
place among men.

Germany was unknown even in Europe, but by the military struggles of
Prussia and Austria. But the objects were trifling, and the result was
more trifling still. Prussia gained Silesia, and Austria scarcely felt
the loss, in an Empire extending from the Rhine to the Euxine. Then came
peace, lassitude, and oblivion once more. But this languid century was
to close with a tremendous explosion. A Belgian revolt was followed by a
French Revolution. The wearisome continuance of the calm was broken up
by a tornado, and when the surges subsided again, they exhibited many a
wreck of thrones flung upon the shore.

What is to be the next great change? What inscription shall be written
by the historian on the sepulchre of the coming hundred years? Will they
exhibit the recovery of the power of opinion by Kings, or the mastery of
its power by the People? Will Europe be a theatre of State intrigue, as
of old, or a scene of Republican violence? It would require a prophet to
pronounce the reality.

But I can already see symptoms of change; stern demands on the higher
classes; sullen discontents in every country; an outcry for
representative government throughout Europe. The example of France has
not been lost upon the populace; the millions of Europe, who have seen
the mob of the capital tear down the throne, will not forget the lesson.
They may forget the purchase, or they may disregard the miseries of the
purchase, in the pride of the possession. But we shall not have another
French Revolution. We shall have no more deifications of the axe, no
more baptisms in blood, no more display of that horrid and fearful
ceremonial with which France, like the ancient idolators, offered her
children to Moloch, and drowned the shrieks and groans of the dying in
the clangour of trumpets and the acclamations of the multitude. Those
scenes were too terrible to be renewed. The heart of man shrinks from
liberty obtained by this dreadful violation of all its feelings. Like
the legendary compacts with the Evil One, the fear of the Bond would
embitter the whole intermediate indulgence; and even the populace would
be startled at a supremacy, to be obtained only by means of such utter
darkness, and followed by such awful retribution.

31.--A piece of intelligence has arrived to-day, which has set all the
World of London in commotion. It is no less than a direct challenge to
our good King. Chivalry is not yet dead, as I supposed. After expulsion
from the sunny plains of Italy and Spain, it has revived among the polar
snows.

The Russian Emperor has actually published this defiance to the world,
in the St Petersburg _Gazette_. "It is said that his majesty the
Emperor, perceiving that the European powers cannot come to an
accommodation, and wishing to put an end to a war which has raged eleven
years, has conceived the idea of appointing a place, to which he will
invite the other potentates to engage together with himself in single
combat, in Lists which shall be marked out. For which purpose they shall
bring with them, to act as their esquires, umpires, and heralds, their
most enlightened ministers and able generals, as Thugut, Pitt, and
Bernstorff. He will bring, on his part, Counts Pahlen and Kutusoff."

The first impression on the appearance of this singular document was
surprise; the next, of course, was ridicule. The man must have utterly
lost his senses. He has been for some months playing the most fantastic
tricks in his capital: cutting off people's beards if they happen to
displease his taste as a barber, cutting off coat-skirts if they offend
his taste as a tailor, ordering the passers-by to pay him a kind of
Oriental homage, and threatening to send every body to Siberia. Under
such circumstances, the air of Russia is supposed to be unfavourable to
royal longevity.

The death of a singular character occurred a few days since, a
_protegée_ of Hannah More, and, as might be expected from that lady's
publishing habits, rendered sufficiently conspicuous by her pen. She was
a total stranger, apparently a German by her pronunciation of English,
yet carefully avoiding to speak any foreign language. She was first
found taking refuge under a haystack, apparently in a state of insanity,
and determined to die there. The peasantry, who occasionally brought her
food, of course soon gave her a name, and, as she was evidently a
gentlewoman, they called her the lady of the haystack. Hannah More, who
had unquestionably some humanity, though she was rather too fond of its
public exhibition, made her the heroine of a tale, and thus drew upon
her considerable notice. She was prevailed on, though with some
difficulty, to leave the haystack; and after a residence of a
considerable period in the country, supported by subscriptions, she was
removed, on its being ascertained that she was incurably insane, to an
hospital in London, where, after continuing several years, she died.

Her case excited great curiosity for the time, and every effort was made
in Germany to ascertain her family, and give some notice of her
condition. One of the most remarkable circumstances in her insanity, was
her guarded silence on the subject of her relatives. Though she rambled
into all conceivable topics, she could not be induced to give the
slightest clue to their names. The moment any attempt at their discovery
was made, all her feelings seemed to be startled; she shrank at once,
looked distressed, and became silent. Hannah More's "Tale of Woe," was
therefore a well-meant effort to attract attention to an unhappy
creature, who was determined to give no knowledge of herself to the
world.

Lord Camelford's eccentricities are well known, but the world has given
him credit for more than he deserves. He was unluckily a duellist almost
by profession, and thus as dangerous to associate with as a mad bull.
Yet I have heard traits of a generosity on his part as lavish as his
manners are eccentric. He is, however, so well known to be alert in the
use of the pistol, and to be of fiery temper, that some curious stories
are told of the alarm inspired by his presence. One of those is now
running the round of the Clubs.

Some days ago, his lordship, walking into a coffee-house, and taking up
the evening paper, began poring over its paragraphs. A coxcomb in an
adjoining box, who had frequently called to the waiter for the paper,
walked over to Lord Camelford's box, and, seeing him lay down the paper
for the moment while he was sipping his coffee, took it up, and walked
off with it without ceremony. His lordship bore the performance without
exhibiting any sign of disturbance, but waited till he saw the intruder
engaged in its paragraphs. He then quietly walked over, and with all the
eyes of the Coffeehouse upon him, snuffed out the fellow's candles, and
walked back to his own seat. The fellow, astonished and furious,
demanded the name of the person who had served him in this contemptuous
manner. His lordship threw him his card. He took it--read "Lord
Camelford" aloud--seemed petrified for a moment, and in the next
snatched up his hat, and made but one step to the door, followed by the
laugh of the whole room.

But his lordship has, like Hamlet, method in his madness. A report was
lately spread that he had resolved, in case of Horne Tooke's rejection
by the House as member for Old Sarum, that he would bring in his own
black footman. This report he resented and denied, sending a letter to
the newspapers, of which this is a fragment:--

     "A report, as preposterous as unfounded, has lately found its way
     abroad, stating that I meditated a gross and indecent insult upon
     the dignity of the legislature, by using an influence which I am
     supposed to possess, for the purpose of introducing an improper
     character into the formation of its body.

     "It becomes me to set the public right, by solemnly assuring them,
     that no such idea was ever in contemplation for one moment; and
     that I am at a loss to discover how the rumour originated; as, so
     far from being capable of harbouring a wish to add to the
     embarrassments of an unhappy and dejected people, it would be the
     pride and glory of my heart, if I had the power to place such
     persons in situations of responsibility, as, by their talents and
     integrity, might preserve our Laws and Government and
     Constitution."

The eccentricities of the unfortunate Emperor of Russia have come to
even a more rapid end than I had expected. A courier has just arrived
with the startling intelligence, that the Czar was found dead in his
chamber. The whole transaction is for the moment covered with extreme
obscurity; but it is to be feared that what the Frenchman, with equal
cleverness and wickedness, called the Russian trial by Jury, has been
acted on in this instance, and that the Russian annals have been stained
with another Imperial catastrophe.

How natural and magnificent are Shakspeare's reflections on the
anxieties that beset a crown--

  "Oh, polished perturbation! golden care,
  That keeps the ports of Slumber open wide
  To many a watchful night: O Majesty!
  When thou cost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
  Like a rich armour worn in heat of day,
  That scalds with safety."

If Voltaire's definition be true, that swindling is the perfection of
civilization, and that the more civilized, the more subtle we become,
England may boast of a swindler that seems to have brought the art to
its highest perfection. She is a female, not at all of the showy order,
which beguiles so many understandings through the eyes--an insignificant
and mean person, with an ordinary face, not at all exhibiting manners
superior to her appearance, yet certainly of the most superb ambition in
the art of tricking the World. Where she began her adventures first,
remains to be developed by future biography. At length she appeared in
the neighbourhood of Greenwich, and, representing herself there as an
heiress, took a handsome house, and contrived, in the usual way, to make
all the tradesmen in the neighbourhood contribute to its furnishing. By
the simplicity and plausibility of her manner, she even obtained loans
to the amount of some thousands, to set her household in motion, until
her affairs were settled. An heiress must, of course, have a carriage;
but this clever person was not content with doing things in an ordinary
way, but set up three. While her house was being prepared,--which she
ordered to be done by the first artists in their way, the walls being
painted in fresco,--she drove down to Brighton in her travelling
carriage, with four horses and two outriders. She gave an order for the
furnishing of her house to the amount of £4000, and commissioned from
Hatchett, the celebrated coachmaker, a first-rate chariot, with all
kinds of expensive mountings and mouldings, to be ready for the Queen's
birthday, when she was to be introduced at court by the wife of one of
the Secretaries of State. In the interval, she drove daily through the
West End, dropping her cards at the houses of persons of public name.
She thus proceeded for a while triumphantly; but having, in the
intoxication of her success, given the names of some persons of rank as
her relatives, inquiry was made amongst them, and the relationship being
of course disowned, suspicion was suddenly excited. Nothing could exceed
her indignation on the subject; but the tradesmen, thus rendered only
more suspicious, attempted to recover their furniture. The caption was
at last made, and bailiffs were put into the house, with the
expectation of apprehending the lady herself. However, she was adroit
enough to discover her danger, and to her house she returned no more.
Search was made after her, and it was said that she was discovered and
thrown into jail. But she suddenly disappeared; and failing her own
legacy, left to the unlucky people who had given her credit, a long
legacy of general quarrel and mutual disappointment.

When Fox was asked whether he had any faith in Political Economy, the
doctrines of which had become fashionable in his day, from the writings
of Turgot and the French school, he answered--"That it was too undefined
for his comprehension; that its views were either too large, or too
indistinct, to give his mind the feeling of certainty."

He well might say this, when no two of the modern Political Economists
agree, and when all the theories of the last age are laughed at by all
the theorists of the present. In the middle of the seventeenth century
Sir William Petty, one of the most acute, and also one of the most
practical men of his time, pronounced that the population of England
would take three hundred and sixty years to double--the fact being, that
it has doubled within about a seventh part of that period. Of London he
predicts, that its growth must finally stop in 1842; and that then its
population must amount to half the population of England. Yet London is
still growing, day by day, and yet its population scarcely exceeds a
twentieth of the whole.

The Emperor Paul, in the beginning of his reign, was a favourite with
the soldiery, whom he indulged in all possible ways, giving them money,
distributing promotion lavishly among them, and always pronouncing them
the bulwark of his throne. But when his brain began to give way, his
first experiments were with the soldiery, and he instantly became
unpopular. The former dress of the Russian soldier was remarkable alike
for its neatness and its convenience. He wore large pantaloons of red
cloth, the ends of which were stuffed into his boots; the boots were of
flexible leather, and an excellent and easy protection for the legs and
feet. He wore a jacket of red and green, with a girdle round the waist;
his head was protected by a light helmet. The whole dress thus
consisting of two garments, light, showy, and looking the true dress for
a soldier.

Paul's evil genius, which induced him to change every thing, began with
that most perilous of all things to tamper with--the army of a great
military power. He ordered the Austrian costume to be adopted. Nothing
could equal the general indignation. The hair must be powdered, curled,
and pomatumed; a practice which the Russian, who washed his locks every
day, naturally abhorred. The long tail made him the laugh of his
countrymen. His boots, to which he had been accustomed from his infancy,
and which form a distinctive part of the national costume, were to be
taken off, and to be substituted by the tight German spatterdash and the
shoe, the one pinching the leg, and the other perpetually falling off
the foot, wherever the march happened to be in the wet. The consequence
was, infinite discontent, and desertion to a great extent--a thing never
heard of in the service before.

It may be conceived with what disdain those frivolous, yet mischievous,
innovations must have been regarded by those Russian officers who had
known the reality of service. Suvaroff was then in Italy with his army.
One morning a large packet was brought to him by an Imperial courier. To
his astonishment, and the amusement of his staff, it was but models of
tails and curls. Suvaroff gave vent to a sneer, a much more fatal thing
than a sarcasm, in some Russian verses, amounting to--

  "Hair-powder is not gunpowder;
  Curls are not cannon;
  Tails are not bayonets."

The general's rough poetry was instantly popular; it spread through the
army, it travelled back to Russia, it reached the Imperial ear; the
Czar was stung by the burlesque, and Suvaroff was recalled.

Few things are more remarkable, than the slowness with which common
sense acts, even in matters which should evidently be wholly under its
guidance. It might appear that the mere necessities of war would dictate
the equipment of the soldier; namely, that it should be light, simple,
and safe, as far as is possible. Yet the equipment of the European
soldier, at the commencement of the French war, seemed to be intended
only to give him trouble, to encumber him, and to expose his personal
safety. The Austrian soldier's dress was an absolute toilette. The
Prussian, even with all the intelligence of the Great Frederic to model
it, was enough to perplex a French milliner, and to occupy the wearer
half the day in putting it off and on. The English uniform was modelled
on the Prussian, and our unlucky soldier was compelled to employ his
hours in tying his queue, powdering his hair, buttoning on his
spatterdashes, and polishing his musket-barrel. The heavy dragoons all
wore cocked hats, of all coverings of the head the most unprotecting and
the most inconvenient. The French light troops, too, all wore cocked
hats. The very colour of the royal French uniform, as well as the
Austrian, was white, of all colours the most unfitted for the rough work
of the bivouack, and also injurious, as shewing the immediate stain of
blood.

It actually took twenty years to teach the general officers of the
European armies, that men could fight without spatterdashes, that
hair-powder was not heroism, and that long tails were only an imitation
of the monkey; that muskets did not fire the worse for having brown
barrels, and that the cuirass was a better defence for the body of the
dragoon than a cloth waistcoat, however covered with embroidery. But why
shall not improvement go a little farther? Why shall not the arm of the
dragoon be a little protected as well as his body? A slight and simple
covering of steel rings would effect the purpose, and it is an important
one; for a slight wound in the arm disables him even more than a wound
in the body, unless the latter wound should be mortal at once. But why,
also, should not the foot soldier wear something equivalent to the
cuirass? The weight might be made trifling, it might be carried at the
back of his knapsack except when in actual engagement, and it would save
thousands of lives; for the most dangerous wounds are in the front, and
a wound in the abdomen is almost incurable. Five shillings' worth of
tin-plate might protect the soldier for his lifetime; and there can be
no doubt, that the consciousness of having such a protection would
render troops more efficient. Of the bravery of the British there can be
no doubt; but there can be just as little doubt, that every increase to
the personal security of troops renders them calmer under fire, and of
course fitter for obedience in the exigiencies of service. Besides, it
is a public duty to the brave men in our service, not to expose them
needlessly on any occasion; and they _are_ exposed needlessly, when they
are sent into the field without every protection which our skill can
give. But are we demanding armour for the foot soldiers? No; the armour
of the old times of Chivalry would be too heavy, and impede the activity
of those movements, of which so much of military success depends. The
defensive arms of the Roman soldier were simply a small light helmet, a
light cuirass, and greaves, or boots bound with brass. Yet with these
his average march was twenty miles a-day, carrying sixty pounds weight
of provisions and baggage on his back. The weight of his sword, his two
lances, and his intrenching tools and palisade, was not reckoned.

Buonaparte has made a Concordat with the Pope. The laughers have
attacked him in the following epigram:--

  Politique plus fin que General Eubile,
  Bien plus ambitieux que Louis dit le Grand.
  Pour être Roi d'Egypte, il croit à l'Alkoran,
  Pour être Roi de France, il croit à l'Evangile.

Our English epitaphs are often as disgraceful to the national taste, as
their levity is unsuitable to the place of the dead. I am not aware
whether this epitaph, by the most amiable of poets, Cowper, has been
preserved among his works. It is on the tomb of a Mrs Hamilton:--

  "Pause here and think--a monitory rhyme
  Demands one moment of thy fleeting time.
  Consult Life's silent clock. Thy glowing vein
  Seems it to say--'Health here has long to reign?'--
  Hast thou the vigour of thy youth? an eye
  That beams delight: a heart untaught to sigh?
  Yet fear. Youth ofttimes, healthful and at ease,
  Anticipates a day it never sees.
  And many a tomb, like Hamilton's, aloud
  Exclaims--Prepare thee for an early shroud!"

In the course of this year died three remarkable men, Lavater, Gilbert
Wakefield, and Heberden, the famous physician. Perhaps no man of his day
excited more general attention throughout Europe than John Gaspar
Lavater; and this is the more remarkable, when we recollect that he was
but a simple Swiss pastor at Zurich--minister of the church of St Peter.
When about thirty years' old, his mind was first turned to the study of