1 a letter from him, dated Hanover, and desiring Mordanto fills the trump of fame, In journies he outrides the post, Knows every prince in Europe's face, From Paris Gazette a-la-main, A messenger comes all a-reek, * Swift's Journal to Stella, 24th June, 1711. Next day the post-boy winds his horn, Mordanto gallops on alone, The roads are with his followers strown, His body active as his mind, A skeleton in outward figure; His meagre corpse, though full of vigour, So wonderful his expedition, When you have not the least suspicion, Shines in all climates like a star; Heroic actions early bred in, Ne'er to be matched in modern reading, Peterborough's haste was, in 1711, probably stimulated by the interest he took in the great public discussions on the policy of continuing the war with France. He argued in the affirmative with great ability, but without success. Although a strenuous Whig in principle, he was disliked by most of his own party, and greatly caressed in consequence by the Tories. After his return to England, he obtained the regiment of Royal Horse Guards, and the honours of the Garter, being installed 4th August, 1713. In November following, we find the Earl British Plenipotentiary to the King of Sicily and other Italian potentates; and in March 1713-14, he was appointed governor of the island of Minorca. Under George I. and George II. the Earl of Peterborough was General of the marine forces in Great Britain. In October 1735, he found it necessary to set sail for Lisbon for recovery of his health; " no body," to use Pope's expression, "being so much wasted, no soul being more alive." He was cut in the bladder for a suppression of urine; immediately after which cruel operation, he took coach, and travelled no less a journey than from Bristol to Southampton, "like a man," says the same poet, "determined neither to live nor die like other mortal." He died on his voyage to any Lisbon, 25th October, 1735, aged seventy-seven. The Earl of Peterborough was twice married, and left two sons and a daughter by his first wife. To all the talents of a General and negociator, this wonderful man added those belonging to a literary character. He associated with all the wits of Queen Anne's reign, was a lively poet, and his familiar letters are read to advantage. amongst those of Gay, Arbuthnot, Swift, and Pope. He lived in great intimacy with the last, who boasts, that He whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines, Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain. To Pope, Peterborough bequeathed on his deathbed his watch, a present from the King of Sardinia, that, as he expressed it, his friend might have something to put him every day in mind of him. The frame in which were lodged such com prehensive talents, was thin, short, spare, and well calculated to endure the eternal fatigue imposed by the restless tenant within. The famous lines of Dryden might be happily applied to the Earl of Peterborough: A fiery soul, which, working out its way, And o'er informed the tenement of clay. His face, judging from the print in Dr Birch's Lives, was thin; his eye lively and penetrating. Such was Charles, Earl of Peterborough, one of those phenomena, whom nature produces once in the revolution of centuries, to shew to ordinary men what she can do in a mood of prodigality. To this short sketch of the principal character in these Memoirs, the publishers would willingly have added some particulars of the author; but they are unable to say more on the subject than may be collected from the work itself, and the original preface. It is obvious that Captain George Carleton was one of those men who chuse the path of military life, not from a wish to indulge either indolent or licentious habits, but with a feeling of duty, which should be |