nations might serve to let
us into the bewildering fancies of his magical architecture. Of that
self-creation for which he was so much abused in his own day as to have
lost his real avocation as an architect, and stands condemned for
posterity in the volatile bitterness of Lord Orford, nothing is left for
us but our own convictions--to behold, and to be for ever
astonished!--But "this voluminous correspondence?" Alas! the historian
of war and politics overlooks with contempt the little secret histories
of art and of human nature!--and "a voluminous correspondence" which
indicates so much, and on which not a solitary idea is bestowed, has
only served to petrify our curiosity!

Of this quarrel between the famous duchess and Vanbrugh I have only
recovered several vivacious extracts from confidential letters of
Vanbrugh's to Jacob Tonson. There was an equality of the genius of
_invention_, as well as rancour, in her grace and the wit: whether
Atossa, like Vanbrugh, could have had the patience to have composed a
comedy of five acts I will not determine; but unquestionably she could
have dictated many scenes with equal spirit. We have seen Vanbrugh
attempting to turn the debts incurred by the building of Blenheim on the
duke; we now learn, for the first time, that the duchess, with equal
aptitude, contrived a counterplot to turn the debts on Vanbrugh!

"I have the misfortune of losing, for I now see little hopes of ever
getting it, near 2000_l._ due to me for many years' service, plague, and
trouble, at Blenheim, which that wicked woman of 'Marlborough' is so far
from paying me, that the duke being sued by some of the workmen for work
done there, she has tried to turn the debt due to them upon me, for
which I think she ought to be hanged."

In 1722, on occasion of the duke's death, Vanbrugh gives an account to
Tonson of the great wealth of the Marlboroughs, with a caustic touch at
his illustrious victims.

"The Duke of Marlborough's treasure exceeds the most extravagant guess.
The grand settlement, which it was suspected her grace had broken to
pieces, stands good, and hands an immense wealth to Lord Godolphin and
his successors. A round million has been moving about in loans on the
land-tax, &c. This the Treasury knew before he died, and this was
exclusive of his 'land;' his 5000_l._ a year upon the post-office; his
mortgages upon a distressed estate; his South-Sea stock; his annuities,
and which were not subscribed in,