judge what Louis XIV. would have done in restoring the maritime and military power of that great country, which nature had so largely gifted, and which man's misgovernment has so debased.
The death of King William, on the 8th of March, 1702, at first seemed likely to paralyze the league against France; "for, notwithstanding the ill success with which he made war generally, he was looked upon as the sole centre of union that could keep together the great confederacy then forming; and how much the French feared from his life had appeared a few years before, in the extravagant and indecent joy they expressed on a false report of his death. A short time showed how vain the fears of some, and the hopes of others were."[1] Queen Anne, within three days after her accession, went down to the House of Lords, and there declared her resolution to support the measures planned by her predecessor, who had been "the great support, not only of these kingdoms, but of all Europe." Anne was married to Prince George of Denmark, and by her accession to the English throne the confederacy against Louis obtained the aid of the troops of Denmark; but Anne's strong attachment to one of her female friends led to far more important advantages to the anti-Gallican confederacy than the acquisition of many armies, for it gave them Marlborough as their captain general.
There are few successful commanders on whom Fame has shone so unwillingly as upon John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, prince of the Holy Roman Empire, victor of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, captor of Liege, Bonn, Limburg, Landau, Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Oudenarde, Ostend, Menin, Dendermonde, Ath, Lille, Tournay, Mons, Douay, Aire, Bethune, and Bouchain; who never fought a battle that he did not win, and never besieged a place that he did not take. Marlborough's own character is the cause of this. Military glory may, and too often does, dazzle both contemporaries and posterity, until the crimes as well as the vices of heroes are forgotten. But even a few stains of personal meanness will dim a soldier's reputation irreparably; and Marlborough's faults were of a peculiarly base and mean order. Our feelings toward historical personages are in this respect like our feelings toward private acquaintances. There are actions of that shabby nature, that,
- ↑ Bolingbroke, vol. ii., p. 445.
