Marlborough, the greatest general of the age.

"I drink to the greatest general with all my heart," says Mr. Webb; "there
can be no gainsaying that character of him. My glass goes to the general,
and not to the duke, Mr. Steele." And the stout old gentleman emptied his
bumper; to which Dick replied by filling and emptying a pair of brimmers,
one for the general and one for the duke.

And now his grace of Hamilton, rising up, with flashing eyes (we had all
been drinking pretty freely), proposed a toast to the lovely, to the
incomparable Mrs. Beatrix Esmond; we all drank it with cheers, and my Lord
Ashburnham especially, with a shout of enthusiasm.

"What a pity there is a Duchess of Hamilton," whispers St. John, who drank
more wine and yet was more steady than most of the others, and we entered
the drawing-room where the ladies were at their tea. As for poor Dick, we
were obliged to leave him alone at the dining-table, where he was
hiccupping out the lines from the _Campaign_, in which the greatest poet
had celebrated the greatest general in the world; and Harry Esmond found
him, half an hour afterwards, in a more advanced stage of liquor, and
weeping about the treachery of Tom Boxer.

The drawing-room was all dark to poor Harry, in spite of the grand
illumination. Beatrix scarce spoke to him. When my lord duke went away,
she practised upon the next in rank, and plied my young Lord Ashburnham
with all the fire of her eyes and the fascinations of her wit. Most of the
party were set to cards, and Mr. St. John, after yawning in the face of
Mrs. Steele, whom he did not care to pursue any more, and talking in his
most brilliant animated way to Lady Castlewood, whom he pronounced to be
beautiful, of a far higher order of beauty than her daughter, presently
took his leave, and went his way. The rest of the company speedily
followed, my Lord Ashburnham the last, throwing fiery glances at the
smiling young temptress, who had bewitched more hearts than his in her
thrall.

No doubt, as a kinsman of the house, Mr. Esmond thought fit to be the last
of all in it; he remained after the coaches had rolled away--after his
dowager aunt's chair and flambeaux had marched off in the darkness towards
Chelsea, and the town's-people had gone to bed, who had been drawn into
the square to gape at the unusual assemblage of chairs and chariots,
lackeys and torchmen. The poor mean wretch lingered yet for a few minutes,
to see whether the girl w