eir young friends, and to join in games of cards and other
amusements with them. They used to get up private theatricals to
gratify the gentle old warrior. We hear of a version of Dryden's "All
for Love" being thus performed. The Duchess of Marlborough had cut out
of the play its unseemly passages, and even its too amorous
expressions--the reader will probably think there was not much left of
the piece when this work of purification had been accomplished--and she
would not allow any embracing to be performed. The gentleman who
played Mark Antony wore a sword which had been presented to Marlborough
by the Emperor. The part of the high-priest was played by a pretty
girl, a friend of Marlborough's granddaughters, and she wore as {209}
high-priest's robe what seems to have been a lady's night-dress,
gorgeously embroidered with special devices for the occasion. A
prologue, written by Dr. Hoadly, was read, in which the glories of the
great Duke's career were glowingly recounted. Some painter, it seems
to us, might make a pretty picture of this: the great hall in Blenheim
turned into a theatre, the handsome young men and pretty girls enacting
their chastened parts, the fading old hero looking at the scene with
pleased and kindly eyes, and the imperious, loving old Duchess turning
her devoted gaze on him.

So fades, so languishes, grows dim, and dies the conqueror of Blenheim,
the greatest soldier England ever had since the days when kings ceased
to be as a matter of right her chiefs in command. In the early days of
June, 1722, Marlborough was stricken by another paralytic seizure, and
this was his last. He was in full possession of his senses to the end,
perfectly conscious and calm. He knew that he was dying; he had
prayers read to him; he conveyed in many tender ways his feelings of
affection for his wife, and of hope for his own future. At four in the
morning of June 16th his life ebbed quietly away. He was in his
seventy-second year when he died. None of the great deeds of his life
belong to this history; none of that life's worst offences have much to
do with it. Marlborough's career seems to us absolutely faultless in
two of its aspects; as a commander and as a husband we can only give
him praise. He was probably a greater commander than even the Duke of
Wellington. If he never had to encounter a Napoleon, he had to meet
and triumph over difficulties which never came in Wellington's way. It
was not Welli