reeable terrors to a description; but is no compliment to the person
to whom it is applied: eagles, tigers, and wolves, are made use of on
the same occasion, and very often with much beauty; but this is still an
honour done to the brute, rather than the hero. Mars, Pallas, Bacchus,
and Hercules, have each of them furnished very good similes in their
time, and made, doubtless, a greater impression on the mind of a
heathen, than they have on that of a modern reader. But the sublime
image that I am talking of, and which I really think as great as ever
entered into the thought of man, is in the poem called, 'The
Campaign';[422] where the simile of a ministering angel sets forth the
most sedate and the most active courage, engaged in an uproar of nature,
a confusion of elements, and a scene of divine vengeance. Add to all,
that these lines compliment the General and his Queen at the same time,
and have all the natural horrors, heightened by the image that was still
fresh in the mind of every reader.[423]

"_'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved,
That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved,
Amidst confusion, horror, and despair,
Examined all the dreadful scenes of war;
In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed,
To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid,
Inspired repulsed battalions to engage,
And taught the doubtful battle where to rage.
So when an angel by divine command,
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past,
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm._

"The whole poem is so exquisitely noble and poetic, that I think it an
honour to our nation and language." The gentleman concluded his critique
on this work, by saying, that he esteemed it wholly new, and a wonderful
attempt to keep up the ordinary ideas of a march of an army, just as
they happened in so warm and great a style, and yet be at once familiar
and heroic. Such a performance is a chronicle as well as a poem, and
will preserve the memory of our hero, when all the edifices and statues
erected to his honour are blended with common dust.

St. James's Coffee-house, July 18.

Letters from the Hague of the 23rd instant, N.S., say, that the Allies
were so forward in the siege of Tournay, that they were preparing for a
general assault, which, it w