ough not always
obvious, is generally discoverable; nor is it any where more likely to
be found than in private memoirs, which are generally published at a
time when any gross falsehood may be detected by living witnesses, and
which always contain a thousand incidents, of which the writer could not
have acquired a certain knowledge, and which he has no reason for
disguising.

Such is the account lately published by the dutchess of Marlborough, of
her own conduct, by which those who are very little concerned about the
character which it is principally intended to preserve or to retrieve,
may be entertained and instructed. By the perusal of this account, the
inquirer into human nature may obtain an intimate acquaintance with the
characters of those whose names have crowded the latest histories, and
discover the relation between their minds and their actions. The
historian may trace the progress of great transactions, and discover the
secret causes of important events. And, to mention one use more, the
polite writer may learn an unaffected dignity of style, and an artful
simplicity of narration.

The method of confirming her relation, by inserting, at length, the
letters that every transaction occasioned, has not only set the greatest
part of the work above the danger of confutation, but has added to the
entertainment of the reader, who has now the satisfaction of forming to
himself the characters of the actors, and judging how nearly such, as
have hitherto been given of them, agree with those which they now give
of themselves.

Even of those whose letters could not be made publick, we have a more
exact knowledge than can be expected from general histories, because we
see them in their private apartments, in their careless hours, and
observe those actions in which they indulged their own inclinations,
without any regard to censure or applause.

Thus it is, that we are made acquainted with the disposition of king
William, of whom it may be collected, from various instances, that he
was arbitrary, insolent, gloomy, rapacious, and brutal; that he was, at
all times, disposed to play the tyrant; that he had, neither in great
things, nor in small, the manners of a gentleman; that he was capable of
gaining money by mean artifices, and that he only regarded his promise
when it was his interest to keep it.

There are, doubtless, great numbers who will be offended with this
delineation of the mind of the immortal William, but