of wit accompanying it, (as in the case of Mr. Paulding's severe retort) to call England a 'bloated world' is not very intelligible or elegant, and to say that Mr. Paulding's ' pen hurled envenomed shafts' against it, forms an incongruous figure and a very equivocal compliment, venom being generally understood to belong only to odious and despicable animals.

Having censured freely where censure was called for, we shall point out a few of the best lines, that our readers may part, in good humour, with the satirist. The following is a good figure, and we know nothing to the contrary of its being original.

'How many a grovelling wight

Flickers unhonoured in the shades of night.

Or feebly rising from his native mire,

With burthened pinions flutters to expire;

Like those bright fish with silver wings that leap,

And glittering skim the surface of the deep,

'Till self-exhausted, tumbling in the foam,

They seek in darkest depths their genial home.' p. 44.

And so is this,

Yet more is requisite than drawling verse,
Which crams the sense in a poetic hearse,

And slowly travels on, in solemn sloth,

Where dark oblivion yawns, and covers both.' p. 41.

And the description of a young rhymster's first attempt at publication is very passable.

'Nine times the midnight lamp has shed its rays

O'er that young labourer for poetic bays,
Who to the heights of Pindus fain would climb,
By seeking words that jingle into rhyme;
See how the varying passions flush his face!-
The hasty stamp!-the petulant grimace!—

His youthful brains are puzzled to afford A rhyme to sound with some unlucky word, 'Till by the Rhyming Dictionary's aid,

It finds a fellow and the verse is made;
"For so the rhyme be at the verses end,
No matter whither all the rest does tend."*

'Now, with a trembling step, he seeks the door,
So often visited in vain before,
Whose horizontal aperture invites
Communications from all scribbling wights;
He stops; and casts his timid eyes around;
Approaches;-footsteps on the pavement sound
With careless air, he wanders from the scene,
'Till no intruding passengers are seen,

Again returns:-fluttering with fears and hopes,
He slides the precious scroll—and down it drops!
With hurried steps that would outstrip the wind,
And casting many a fearful glance behind,
He hastens home to seek the arms of sleep,
And dreams of quartos, bound in calf or sheep.

'Gods! how his anxious bosom throbs and beats
To see the newsman creeping through the streets!
Thinks, as he loiters at each patron's door,
Whole ages passing in one short half-hour:
Now, from his tardy hand he grasps the news,
And, trembling for the honour of his muse.
Unfolds the paper;-with what eager glance
His sparkling eyes embrace the vast expanse!
Now, more intent, he gazes on the print,
But not one single line of rhyme is in't!
The paper falls; he cries, with many a tear,
My God! my Ode to Cupid-is not here!"

One hope remains: he claims it with a sigh,
And "Z to-morrow" meets his dazzled eye!' p. 50.

* Butler.

199

ART. III.-Memoirs of John, Duke of Marlborough; with his original correspondence: collected from the family records at Blenheim, and other authentic sources.

.trated with Portraits, Maps, and Military Plans. By William Coxe, M. A. F. R. S. F. S. A. Archdeacon of Wilts. 3 vols. 4to.

[From the Eclectic Review.]

'JOHN CHURCHILL entered into life under circumstances peculiarly advantageous to the development of his splendid powers. The poverty of his family imposed upon him the necessity of exertion, while the services and sufferings, not only of his father but of his grandfather, in the royal cause, entitled him to the patronage of the court, which was probably, the more efficient through the interest of his sister Arabella, who submitted to become the mistress of James, duke of York. At the early age of sixteen, he obtained an ensigncy in the guards, and when only twenty-two, commanded a company of grenadiers. In this capacity he served under the orders of Turenne, and from that consummate officer acquired the element of his future mastery in the art of war. Discreet and intrepid in his military conduct, and a model of manly beauty in his person, he became a favourite both with Turenne, and with his own immediate commander, the duke of Monmouth. After acquiring the admiration of the French general, and the gratitude of Monmouth, who ascribed to captain Churchill's intrepidity the preservation of his life, in 1674, when only twenty-four years of age, he was appointed by Louis XIV, colonel of an English regiment serving with the French army. His subsequent courtship and marriage are very cursorily described by his present biographer. We are indeed told of the romantic tenderness' and of the 'keen sensibility' expressed in his letters, and of the traits of character clearly to be traced in the epistles of the lady; but no specimens are inserted, though we should have

supposed that, without any infringement upon the most rigid delicacy, such extracts might have been selected as should have tended to exhibit the peculiar feelings and views of Marlborough, in this interesting portion of his life. We suspect, however, that this correspondence would not bear the light; that the epistles of the gentleman were fond and foolish, and the rejoinders of the lady petulant and capricious. The union took place in 1678. At this time, colonel Churchill was in the most intimate confidence of the duke of York, and employed by him in negotiations of the utmost secrecy and delicacy. On one occasion, when despatched by James to London for the purpose of urging decided measures on the part of Charles, it is affirmed that

'Arriving at court, colonel Churchill found the king too much alarmed to embrace the violent counsels of his brother; yet the dexterous negociator acquired a new title to the confidence of his patron, by the extreme address with which he executed his commission, and the impression which his representations made on the mind of the king.'

'It is certainly possible that Churchill proved himself a "dexterous" agent, but it does not appear, either in the illustrations or in the result, that he acquitted himself with the

extreme address" ascribed to him by Mr. Coxe. He failed in every point; nor would it seem, by the termination of the business, that he produced the slightest "impression" on the mind of the king. This sort of presumptive eulogy, which affirms without proving or supporting, is highly objectionable; and we regret we have to say that there is too much of this kind of writing throughout the work. During a considerable period, colonel Churchill was the close confident of James I. When the Gloucester yacht was wrecked in Yarmouth roads, and "so many persons of consideration perished," the duke himself invited his favourite to enter the boat which preserved the few who escaped; and when James was recalled to court by his brother, he procured for Churchill a

Scotch barony, and the command of "the royal regiment of horse guards." At the same time, the foundations of his future fortune were more deeply laid by the appointment of lady Churchill to an honourable post near the person of the princess Anne. On the accession of James, fresh marks of his favour were conferred upon Churchill, and he was despatched to Paris with the official intelligence of the death of Charles; on which occasion, he is said by Burnet, to have expressed to lord Galway his determination to abandon the king, if any attempt should be made to change the "religion and constitution" of England. In 1685, he was made an English peer. According to Mr. Coxe, he was the principal cause of the defeat of Monmouth in the preceding year. Soon after this, he commenced a correspondence with the prince of Orange, and when the measure of James's folly and wickedness had reached its consummation, took that decided step which his present biographer ascribes to" a sense of patriotism and religion," but the motives of which, we confess, appear to us extremely doubtful. We are disposed partly to agree with Hume, that such “conduct was a signal sacrifice, to public virtue, of every duty in private life, and required, ever after, the most upright, disinterested, and public spirited behaviour, to render it justifiable." We do not understand the "motives of delicacy" which induced him to absent himself from the Upper House, when the question concerning the vacancy of the throne was debated: it might seem that after having appeared in arms against James, the rest could be very little objectionable on the score of indelicacy.

'On the accession of William, Marlborough was employed under the prince of Waldeck, in the Netherlands, and distinguished himself by his courage and conduct, in the important affair of Walcourt. After his return to England, in the same year, he was successfully engaged in the reduction. of Cork and of Kinsale. In the commencement of 1691, we find a curious instance of his "dexterous" versatility, for he