ly, I will do so, and be thankful to my Muse. If I fail as a poet,
as a Briton at least I will show my loyalty and fling up my cap and huzzah
for the conqueror:

--------"Rheni pacator et Istri
Omnis in hoc uno variis discordia cessit
Ordinibus; laetatur eques, plauditque senator,
Votaque patricio certant plebeia favori."

"There were as brave men on that field," says Mr. Esmond (who never could
be made to love the Duke of Marlborough, nor to forget those stories which
he used to hear in his youth regarding that great chief's selfishness and
treachery)--"there were men at Blenheim as good as the leader, whom neither
knights nor senators applauded, nor voices plebeian or patrician favoured,
and who lie there forgotten, under the clods. What poet is there to sing
them?"

"To sing the gallant souls of heroes sent to Hades!" says Mr. Addison,
with a smile: "would you celebrate them all? If I may venture to question
anything in such an admirable work, the catalogue of the ships in Homer
hath always appeared to me as somewhat wearisome; what had the poem been,
supposing the writer had chronicled the names of captains, lieutenants,
rank and file? One of the greatest of a great man's qualities is success;
'tis the result of all the others; 'tis a latent power in him which
compels the favour of the gods, and subjugates fortune. Of all his gifts I
admire that one in the great Marlborough. To be brave? every man is brave.
But in being victorious, as he is, I fancy there is something divine. In
presence of the occasion, the great soul of the leader shines out, and the
god is confessed. Death itself respects him, and passes by him to lay
others low. War and carnage flee before him to ravage other parts of the
field, as Hector from before the divine Achilles. You say he hath no pity;
no more have the gods, who are above it, and superhuman. The fainting
battle gathers strength at his aspect; and, wherever he rides, victory
charges with him."

A couple of days after, when Mr. Esmond revisited his poetic friend, he
found this thought, struck out in the fervour of conversation, improved
and shaped into those famous lines, which are in truth the noblest in the
poem of the _Campaign_. As the two gentlemen sat engaged in talk, Mr.
Addison solacing himself with his customary pipe; the little maidservant
that waited on his lodging came up, preceding a gentleman in fine laced
clothes, that had evidently been figuring at