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PRINTED BY BALLANTINE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCLVII. JULY, 1845. VOL. LVIII.

MARLBOROUGH.

No. I.

Alexander the Great said, when he approached the tomb of Achilles, "Oh!
fortunate youth, who had a Homer to be the herald of your fame!" "And
well did he say so," says the Roman historian: "for, unless the _Iliad_
had been written, the same earth which covered his body would have
buried his name." Never was the truth of these words more clearly
evinced than in the case of the Duke of MARLBOROUGH. Consummate as were
the abilities, unbroken the success, immense the services of this great
commander, he can scarcely be said to be known to the vast majority of
his countrymen. They have heard the distant echo of his fame as they
have that of the exploits of Timour, of Bajazet, and of Genghis Khan;
the names of Blenheim and Ramillies, of Malplaquet and Oudenarde, awaken
a transient feeling of exultation in their bosoms; but as to the
particulars of these events, the difficulties with which their general
had to struggle, the objects for which he contended, even the places
where they occurred, they are, for the most part, as ignorant as they
are of similar details in the campaigns of Baber or Aurengzebe. What
they do know, is derived chiefly, if not entirely, from the histories of
their enemies. Marlborough's exploits have made a prodigious impression
on the Continent. The French, who felt the edge of his flaming sword,
and saw the glories of the _Grande Monarque_ torn from the long
triumphant brow of Louis XIV.; the Dutch, who found in his conquering
arm the stay of their sinking republic, and their salvation from slavery
and persecution; the Germans, who saw the flames of the Palatinate
avenged by his resistless power, and the ravages of war rolled back from
the Rhine into the territory of the state which had provoked them; the
Lutherans, who beheld in him the appointed instrument of divine
vengeance, to punish the abominable perfidy and cruelty of the
revocation of the edict of Nantes--have concurred in celebrating his
exploits. The French nurses frightened their children with stories of
"Marlbrook," as the Orientals say, when their horses start, they see the
shadow of Richard Coeur-de-Lion crossing their