roubles and joys too, for that matter, have come from a woman;
as thine will when thy destined course begins. 'Twas a woman that made a
soldier of me, that set me intriguing afterwards; I believe I would have
spun smocks for her had she so bidden me; what strength I had in my head
I would have given her; hath not every man in his degree had his Omphale
and Delilah? Mine befooled me on the banks of the Thames, and in dear
old England; thou mayest find thine own by Rappahannock.

To please that woman then I tried to distinguish myself as a soldier,
and afterwards as a wit and a politician; as to please another I would
have put on a black cassock and a pair of bands, and had done so but
that a superior fate intervened to defeat that project. And I say, I
think the world is like Captain Esmond's company I spoke of anon;
and could you see every man's career in life, you would find a woman
clogging him; or clinging round his march and stopping him; or cheering
him and goading him: or beckoning him out of her chariot, so that he
goes up to her, and leaves the race to be run without him or bringing
him the apple, and saying "Eat;" or fetching him the daggers and
whispering "Kill! yonder lies Duncan, and a crown, and an opportunity."

Your grandfather fought with more effect as a politician than as a
wit: and having private animosities and grievances of his own and
his General's against the great Duke in command of the army, and more
information on military matters than most writers, who had never seen
beyond the fire of a tobacco-pipe at "Wills's," he was enabled to do
good service for that cause which he embarked in, and for Mr. St. John
and his party. But he disdained the abuse in which some of the Tory
writers indulged; for instance, Dr. Swift, who actually chose to doubt
the Duke of Marlborough's courage, and was pleased to hint that his
Grace's military capacity was doubtful: nor were Esmond's performances
worse for the effect they were intended to produce, (though no doubt
they could not injure the Duke of Marlborough nearly so much in the
public eyes as the malignant attacks of Swift did, which were carefully
directed so as to blacken and degrade him,) because they were writ
openly and fairly by Mr. Esmond, who made no disguise of them, who was
now out of the army, and who never attacked the prodigious courage and
talents, only the selfishness and rapacity, of the chief.

The Colonel then, having writ a paper for one of