nvey You to Posterity in your
private Character, and describe the Stature, the Behaviour and Aspect of
the Duke of _Marlborough_, I question not but it would fill the Reader
with more agreeable Images, and give him a more delightful Entertainment
than what can be found in the following, or any other Book.

One cannot indeed without Offence, to Your self, observe, that You excel
the rest of Mankind in the least, as well as the greatest Endowments.
Nor were it a Circumstance to be mentioned, if the Graces and
Attractions of Your Person were not the only Preheminence You have above
others, which is left, almost, unobserved by greater Writers.

Yet how pleasing would it be to those who shall read the surprising
Revolutions in your Story, to be made acquainted with your ordinary Life
and Deportment? How pleasing would it be to hear that the same Man who
had carried Fire and Sword into the Countries of all that had opposed
the Cause of Liberty, and struck a Terrour into the Armies of _France_,
had, in the midst of His high Station, a Behaviour as gentle as is usual
in the first Steps towards Greatness? And if it were possible to express
that easie Grandeur, which did at once perswade and command; it would
appear as clearly to those to come, as it does to his Contemporaries,
that all the great Events which were brought to pass under the Conduct
of so well-govern'd a Spirit, were the Blessings of Heaven upon Wisdom
and Valour: and all which seem adverse fell out by divine Permission,
which we are not to search into.

You have pass'd that Year of Life wherein the most able and fortunate
Captain, before Your Time, declared he had lived enough both to Nature
and to Glory; [2] and Your Grace may make that Reflection with much more
Justice. He spoke it after he had arrived at Empire, by an Usurpation
upon those whom he had enslaved; but the Prince of _Mindleheim_ may
rejoice in a Sovereignty which was the Gift of Him whose Dominions he
had preserved.

Glory established upon the uninterrupted Success of honourable Designs
and Actions is not subject to Diminution; nor can any Attempts prevail
against it, but in the Proportion which the narrow Circuit of Rumour
bears to the unlimited Extent of Fame.

We may congratulate Your Grace not only upon your high Atchievements,
but likewise upon the happy Expiration of Your Command, by which your
Glory is put out of the Power of Fortune: And when your Person shall be
so too, that the Autho