THE SPECTATOR. WITH SKETCHES OF THE LIVES OF THE AUTHORS, AND EXPLANATORY NOTES. IN EIGHT VOLUMES. VOL. IV. London: PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS. TO THE DU K OF MARLBOROUG H. MY LORD, As it is natural to have a fondness for what has coft us much time and attention to produce, I hope your Grace will forgive an endeavour to preserve this work from oblivion, by affixing to it your memorable name. I fhall not here prefume to mention the illuftrious paffages of your life, which are celebrated by the whole age, and have been the subject of the most fublime pens; but if I could convey you to pofterity in your private character, and describe the stature, the behaviour, and afpect of the Duke of Marlborough, I queftion not but it would fill the reader with more agreeable images, and give him a more delightful entertainment, than what can be found in the following, or any other book. One cannot indeed, without offence to yourfelf, obferve, that you excel the rest of mankind in the leaft, as well as the greateft, endowments. Nor were it a circumftarce to be mentioned, if the graces and attractions of your person were not the only preeminence you have above others, which is left, almost, unobserved by greater writers. Yet how pleafing would it be to those who fhall read the surprising revolutions in your ftory, to be made acquainted with your ordinary life and deportment? How pleafing would it be to hear that the fame man, who had carried fire and fword into the countries of all that had opposed the caufe of liberty, and ftruck a terror into the armies of France, had, in the midst of his high station, a behaviour as gentle as is ufual in the firft fteps towards greatnefs? And if it were poffible to exprefs that eafy grandeur, which did at once perfuade and command, it would appear as clearly to thofe to come, as it does to his contemporaries, that all the great events which were brought to pafs under the conduct of fo well governed a fpirit, were the bleffings of Heaven upon wifdom and valour; and all which feem adverie fell out by divine permiffion, which we are. not to fearch into. You have paffed that year of life wherein the most able and fortunate Captain, before your time, declared he had lived enough both to nature and to glory; and your Grace may make that reflection with much more justice. He spoke it after he had arrived at empire, by an ufurpation upon those whom he had enflaved; but the Prince of Mindleheim may rejoice in a fovereignty which was the gift of him whofe dominions he had preserved. Glory, established upon the uninterupted fuccefs of honourable defigns and actions, is not fubject to diminution; nor can any attempts prevail against it, but in the proportion which the narrow circuit of rumour bears to the unlimited extent of fame. We may congratulate your Grace not only upon your high atchievements, but likewise upon the happy expiration of your |