on
the defensive; but once, perhaps, was the duke on the point of indulging
some generous architectural fancy, when lo! Atossa stepped forwards and
"put a stop to the building."

When Vanbrugh at length produced the warrant of Lord Godolphin,
empowering him to contract for the duke, this instrument was utterly
disclaimed by Marlborough; the duke declares it existed without his
knowledge; and that if such an instrument for a moment was to be held
valid, no man would be safe, but might be ruined by the act of another!

Vanbrugh seems to have involved the intricacy of his plot, till it fell
into some contradictions. The queen he had not found difficult to
manage; but after her death, when the Treasury failed in its golden
source, he seems to have sat down to contrive how to make the duke the
great debtor. Vanbrugh swears that "He himself looked upon the crown, as
engaged to the Duke of Marlborough for the expense; but that he believes
the workmen always looked upon the duke as their paymaster." He advances
so far, as to swear that he made a contract with particular workmen,
which contract was not unknown to the duke. This was not denied; but the
duke in his reply observes, that "he knew not that the workmen were
employed for _his_ account, or by _his_ own agent:"--never having heard
till Sir John produced the warrant from Lord Godolphin, that Sir John
was "his surveyor!" which he disclaims.

Our architect, however opposite his depositions appear, contrived to
become a witness to such facts as tended to conclude the duke to be the
debtor for the building; and "in his depositions has taken as much care
to have the guilt of perjury without the punishment of it, as any man
could do." He so managed, though he has not sworn to contradictions,
that the natural tendency of one part of his evidence presses one way,
and the natural tendency of another part presses the direct contrary
way. In his former memorial, the main design was to disengage the duke
from the debt; in his depositions, the main design was to charge the
duke with the debt. Vanbrugh, it must be confessed, exerted not less of
his dramatic than his architectural genius in the building of Blenheim!

"The Case" concludes with an eloquent reflection, where Vanbrugh is
distinguished as the man of genius, though not, in this predicament, the
man of honour. "If at last the charge run into by order of the crown
must be upon the duke, yet the infamy of it must go upon ano