TO THE

DUKE

O F

MARLBOROUGH.

MY LORD,

A

S 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 preferve

VOL. IV.

A

this

this Work from Oblivion, by affixing to it Your memorable Name.

I fhall not here presume 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 defcribe 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 Yourself, obferve, that You excel the reft of Mankind in the leaft, as well as the greatest

En

Endowments. Nor were it a Circumftance to be mentioned, if the Graces and Attractions of Your Perfon 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 furprizing Revolutions in your Story, 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 Sword into the Countries of all that had oppofed: the Cause of Liberty, and ftruck a Terrour into the Armies of France, had, in the midst of His high Station, a Behaviour as gentle as is ufual in the firft Steps towards Greatnefs? And if it were poffible

to express that eafy Grandeur, which did at once perfuade and command; it would appear as clearly to those to come, as it does to his Contemporaries, that all the great events which were brought to pass under the Conduct of so well-governed a Spirit, were the Bleffings of Heaven upon Wisdom and Valour; and all which feem adverse fell out by divine Permiffion, which we are not to fearch into.

YOU have pafs'd that Year of Life wherein the moft 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 Juftice. He spoke it after he had arrived at Empire, by an Ufurpa