the house of Bourbon. The eldest sister of Charles II. of Spain married Louis XIV. of France: Charles dying without issue, and having no brothers, the Dauphin would consequently have been heir to the Spanish throne, but for an act of renunciation, executed by the Princess at her marriage, and confirmed by the Cortes. Charles's younger sister married Leopold, Emperor of Germany; and she also had renounced her claim to the throne, but the act had not been confirmed by the Cortes. A daughter of the Emperor married the Elector of Bavaria. The Emperor was himself first cousin to Charles. Both the Elector and the Emperor laid claim to the crown, and the Dauphin did the same. The Dauphin, however, proposed in his place, his second son, Phillip of Anjou; and the Emperor, his second son, the Archduke Charles. England, France, and Holland agreed to a Treaty of Partition, by which the Prince of Bavaria was to take Spain, the Indies, and the Netherlands; the Emperor, the Milanese; and the Dauphin, the two Sicilies. To this the claimants consented; but the Prince inopportunely died. By a second Treaty of Partition, it was settled that the Archduke should take the dominions assigned to the deceased Elector, and France have Lorraine, or some equivalent. Charles was prevailed upon, however, by French intrigue, aided by papal influence, to make a will, in his last days, bequeathing all his dominions to Phillip of Anjou. Charles died in 1700. William III. at once broke with his old enemy, Louis; but it is doubtful whether the English Parliament and nation would have given him the means of war, had not Louis, in one of his grand moods, acceded to the entreaties of the widowed queen of James II. to recognize her son as Prince of Wales. Instantly war was resolved upon, and vigorous preparations made for its prosecution. William and Marlborough repaired to Holland, and succeeded in forming a coalition against France. Before actual hostilities had commenced, William died (March 8, 1702); and he is said to have recommended Marlborough to his successor with his latest breath, as the fittest person in the realm to "head her armies, and direct her counsels."-The Peninsular War, it is only needful to remind the

reader, was undertaken for the expulsion from Spain of the king set up there by Napoleon.

In the conditions of the war,- and, consequently, the circumstances in which the commanders were placed,there is much similarity; although the military art had been revolutioned in the interval, by the soldiers of the French Republic, no less than the political geography of Europe. In the time of Marlborough, war was a tedious game, a prolix trial of skill, a system of exhaustive manœuvres, the science of strategem. The field of operations having been marked out, there were so many fortified places to take or defend; so many lines of communication to establish; and the day of battle had to be avoided till such a conjuncture of circumstances should arrive that success was certain. It was the undisciplined and ill-provided, but irresistibly ardent, armies of the Convention, that broke up this system. They rushed upon the threatened invaders of France; crossed the frontiers with naked feet, regardless of the fortresses that frowned upon them as they passed; fought and conquered in the heart of the enemy's country; and dictated, at the gates of his capital, their terms of peace. Bonaparte systematized this novel though natural mode of warfare; crossed the Rhine before the foe supposed he had quitted Paris; and pierced their centre with the heads of his columns, while they were stretching out their right and left according to the maxims of Saxe. Marlborough had not sufficient of original genius to venture on 80 bold an innovation as this; but he had sagacity and independence enow to avoid a pedantic adhesion to theoretic rules. In his first and second campaigns, the war was confined, so far as himself was concerned, to the Netherlands. He had to defend with an army of British, Dutch, Germans, and Danes, the frontiers of Holland and Germany, threatened by a larger force than his own; while the Earl of Peterborough assailed the French in Spain, and Prince Eugene held against them upper Italy. The summer months of 1702 and 1703 were consumed in marchings and counter-marchings, sieges and blockades. pitched battle was fought. By the close of the second campaign, though a number of towns had been taken, the

Not a single

French lines were unbroken; and it was known that Louis meditated a combination of his forces in the south of Germany, between the Danube and the Inn. Marlborough saw that to prevent this combination being effected, was essential to the safety of Austria; and he resolved to avail himself of the fears of the Emperor for the purpose of executing a counter conception. He arranged with Prince Eugene the plan of a campaign, which would draw both commanders from their respective fields of operation, and would therefore leave exposed the extremities of the field of war; but which offered a chance of finishing the contest at a blow. He dared not reveal this scheme in its entirety either to the Government at home or to his allies, the Dutch. With much difficulty, however, he procured permission to carry a portion of the army to the Moselle, leaving the Dutch general Overkirk in occupation of the Netherlands. The Elector of Bavaria was the ally of France, but Baden and the other German states were with the coalition. On the 10th of June, at Mondelsheim, on the Neckar, Marlborough met with Eugene. In a few days, the allied army crossed the Rhine, to the astonishment and perplexity of the French. On the 27th, Marlborough and the Margrave of Baden came up with the enemy at Donawert, on the banks of the Danube. The Gallo-Bavarians were rapidly converting the heights of Schellenberg into an impregnable camp. The Margrave would have delayed, but the English general was peremptory: the next morning he led an attack in person, and before night the bloody battle of Schellenberg had been fought and won. On the 11th of August following, he fought and conquered at Blenheim. It is this campaign on which rests the basis of Marlborough's fame; and in which we may, therefore, expect to find, if any where, his resemblance to Wellington.

Both had to oppose to an enemy possessing the prestige of invincibility, and armed with all the resources of an empire, an inferior and heterogeneous force, without the reputation of valour, and very defectively furnished with the implements of war. The armies of Louis XIV., though no longer commanded by the genius of Turenne or Condé, yet enjoyed that

measureless moral advantage which re peated success confers-an advantage that went far to counterweigh the mediocrity of Villeroy and Tallard. They issued from the fortresses and ports of France, a well-trained, perfectly accoutred host, the several arms of service duly proportioned, and ample provision made for siege or entrenchment. The troops of their ally, the Elector of Bavaria, were officered by skilful Frenchmen, and perfectly obedient to a common purpose. On the other hand, Marlborough was the first Englishman who had ever held supreme command in a continental war; his own troops were newly raised; and the Austrian and Dutch contingents had repeatedly suffered defeat at the hands of France. He was generalissimo in little more than name. The Dutch and German generals were vain and obstinate. The States of Holland, besides, sent into the field with their troops certain deputies, for the most part civilians, without whose consent nothing was to be undertaken. These functionaries, with the timidity natural to a commercial people, were indifferent to everything but the safety of their frontier. They therefore vetoed every movement which would derange the line of defence they had drawn, and would permit neither the invasion of France on the one hand nor of Bavaria on the other. And when the fears and interests of the deputies had been overcome by personal remonstrance at the Hague, Marlborough had yet to conquer the impracticability of the generals. Repeatedly he lost the opportunity of battle for which he panted, by the failure of the Dutch contingent to arrive in time; and, on one occasion, they exposed him to a general defeat by moving too soon. He was compelled to leave the experienced and chivalrous Eugene on the Rhine, because the Margrave of Baden, as his senior officer, insisted on leading the advance, and even himself to take alternate days of command with that pompous and obstinate old German. In his siege operations, the tools sent from home or from the arsenals of Holland, broke in the hands of the soldiers; and the magazines he had established with infinite labour, were destroyed or given up by his own allies. That he surmounted all these difficulties is greatly to his honour. But as much greater is the

honour of Wellington, as his difficulties were greater than those of Marlborough-as Napoleon was greater than Louis, and Soult than Tallard-as the Spaniards were more impracticable than the Dutch. Marlborough's forces were numerically inferior to those of France, but by many degrees superior, in proportion, to those of Wellesley, at any period of the Peninsula war. Sir Arthur, it will be remembered, landed in Portugal with but 15,000 English to oppose to Junot's 70,000. The 10,000 Portuguese added to his ranks by Beresford, had first to be trained; and the Spaniards, commanded by their own generals, worse than useless themselves, could not be got to act with the Portuguese. Marlborough had the heart of Europe in which to operate, and, for the most part, a friendly country-Wellington was confined to a narrow country, fully occupied by a victorious host. Marlborough had means at his command to feed and clothe his army in a style that astonished their continental comradesWellington's legions marched almost barefoot, in tattered coats, with pinched bellies; while the people for whom they fought were clothed, armed, and enriched from the English treasury. Marlborough's contingents at least stood fire, when once posted--Wellington could rely upon his Spaniards neither to stand nor charge. Marlborough, in short, worsted, by judgment, boldness, and perseverance, the first military power of his dayWellington, by native genius, heroic daring, and indomitable constancy, withstood till he had destroyed the greatest military power the world has

ever seen.

In their temporary subjection to misjudgment, there is a further comparison between these two illustrious men. When Marlborough transferred his army from the Netherlands to Germany, ill-omened predictions prevailed in London. He had rushed like a madman, it was said, to the distant banks of the Danube, and would never return to give an account of his lost army. When he was manoeuvring in deference to his allies, he was timidly avoiding battle-when he was known to intend the invasion of France, his capture was foretold as a certainty. So, it will be remembered, Wellington's wonderful self-control in the presence

of the enemy, was denounced as incapacity; his recall was petitioned for by the Corporation of London; and when he issued from his lines to give battle, he was stigmatized as rash and overconfident. To both, however, success was counted as virtue. The victor of Blenheim was hailed in Vienna as the deliverer of the empire, and in London as the pride of England. Addison was employed to sing his praise; the thanks of Parliament and the Manor of Woodstock were voted him; long the favourite of his Sovereign, he was now also the idol of the people. The rewards of Wellington are not even yet complete.

In the after-part of their respective careers, great is the happiness and glory enjoyed by Wellington over Marlborough. Both were closely concerned in the political as well as military events of their day. Marlborough, like Wellington, was a leader of the Tory party; and both became estranged from the ultra section of that party. But political names do not stand for the same things in the time of Victoria, as in the reign of Anne; and, happily, the methods of political warfare are vastly improved. On the war in which Marlborough was engaged, the succession to the British crown depended. If, therefore, he seemed either idle or rash, the Whigs charged him with unfaithfulness to the Protestant cause when victorious, the Tories broke from him, because he had gratified the Whigs. With each campaign the breach widened; and when Mrs. Masham supplanted the Duchess of Marlborough in the Queen's affections, the Duke was subjected to intolerable annoyance, threatened with prosecution on charges which, if true, were not criminal, and dismissed from his command at the hour of final victory. Blenheim Palace was ordered to be erected at the public expense; but the workmen's wages were withheld, that they might sue the Duke. The severest satirists and the lowest buffoons of the day were employed to libel and ridicule him. His appropriation of certain revenues was connived at, if not approved, till his ruin was necessary to save France from destruction, and our ministers from the punishment of traitors. So there was a time when Wellington was regarded as an upholder of despotism on the Continent.

and of every abuse at home; and another time when the madness of party coupled his name with the designs of treason. But, happily, he lived to be respected by all parties, at once for his fidelity to conviction and his openness to the instruction of events; and, with every year of his life of peace, fresh honours have been added to his name.

Not altogether, however, in the improved spirit of the times, must we seek for the cause of this contrast, but in the character of the men. To all, substantial justice is meted out by history; and while that arbiter of reputations has acquitted Marlborough of the crimes alleged against the soldier, it has confirmed the ill-reputation of the man. "His renown," says Macauley, "is strangely made up of glory and infamy." We have already remarked the baseness of his origin. He owed all to the Duke of York and James II. At twenty-five years of age, he was a Lieut.-General, a Privy Councillor, a member of the peerage, a well-paid courtier, and an old diplomatist. He was one of the first to join in the invitation to the Prince of Orange; yet he professed unabated attachment to James, had a high command in the army which set out to oppose William, and on the very eve of his desertion renewed his allegiance and urged the King to fight. He took with him in his flight the King's nephew and several of the principal officers, while his lady carried off the Princess Anne and George of Denmark. The virtual betrayer of one master, he was notoriously unfaithful to the next. Though raised by William to the rank of an earl, and entrusted with the command of his

armies, he entered into correspondence with James, and engaged to lead over the troops with whom he was sent to Flanders as soon as his plans should be matured. As William sat more firmly on his throne than was expected, those plans never were matured, and the crime of overt treason was not added to that of ungrateful and treacherous desertion. These faults were not forgotten when the motive for their repetition had passed away. There was probably as much of selfreproach as of self-control in the serenity which Marlborough evinced under the alternate distrust of both

parties in the state; nor could he fail to see in the undeserved calamities of his latter days, the providential retribution of his earlier sins. And though the peculations of which he was impeached, were probably justified by precedent, and exaggerated in amount, the man who began life by purchasing an annuity with the gift of a mistress, who wrangled with government about the payment of £9,000 to the builders of his mansion, and died worth more than £100,000 per annum, cannot be acquitted of an ignoble passion for money.

It would be injustice to a memory thus heavily weighted with honour and dishonour, and to the times in which he was so conspicuous and influential an actor, not to close this brief and imperfect parallel-to which only the pen of Plutarch would be fully adequate-with the final summary of his character and deeds by his greatest enemy, the eloquent Bolingbroke :“By his (King William's) death, the Duke of Marlborough was raised to the head of the army, and, indeed, of the confederacy, where he, a private man, a subject, obtained by merit and by management, a more deciding influence than high birth, confirmed authority, and even the crown of Great Britain had given to King William. Not only all the parts of that vast machine, the grand alliance, were kept more compact and entire, but a more rapid and vigorous motion was given to the whole; and instead of languishing or disastrous campaigns, we saw every scene of the war full of action. All those wherein he was not then an actor, but abettor, however, of their actions, were crowned with the most triumphant success. I take with pleasure, this opportunity of doing justice to that great man whose faults I knew and whose virtues I admired; and whose memory, as the greatest general and the greatest minister that our country, or any other, has produced, I honour.' -Wellington is not indebted, like Marlborough, for his highest panygeric to the pen of a generous antagonist; yet is it one of the worthiest offerings cast upon his tomb, that the historians and journalists of France concur with those of England in praising him as the Deliverer of Europe, and a benefactor to the world.