The Quarterly review

ART. I.—Memoirs of John Duke of Marlborough, with his Original Correspondence; collected from the Family Records at Blenheim, and other authentic sources: illustrated with Portraits, Maps, and Military Plans. By William Coxe, M. A. F. R. S. F. S. A. Archdeacon of Wilts. Second Edition. Six Volumes. 8vo.

T is related of Sir Robert Walpole, that when his son Horace one day took up an historical work to read aloud to him, he exclaimed, Oh, do not read history, for that I know must be false.' 'He,' says his biographer Mr. Coxe, who had fathomed the secrets of all the cabinets of Europe, must have considered history as a tissue of fables, and have smiled at the folly of those writers who affect to penetrate into state-affairs, and trace all the motives of action.' This is somewhat too serious a comment upon a peevish speech. Walpole himself would have acknowledged after dinner, or in a sunshiny morning, that the remark was more splenetic than just. He was too good a statesman not to perceive that it is only by the study of history statesmen can be formed, and that though the secrets of cabinets can be known to few, and are not always worth knowing,-the causes of the rise and progress and decline of nations-the virtues by which they have flourishedthe vices by which they have fallen-the spirit by which revolutions are brought about, and the march of human events in which what has been is perpetually recurring, are within the reach of the historian, and form the lessons by which alone the science of politics can be attained. Least of all men should Mr. Coxe have given his sanction to the remark, who, in his Memoirs of the two Walpoles, of the House of Austria, of the Spanish Bourbons, and more especially in the present work, has brought before the public so large a mass of authentic and original information.

The present work is chiefly derived from the most unquestionable documents-the papers at Blenheim. They consist of Marlborough's own letters, private, official, and diplomatic-a correspondence almost unparalleled for value, interest, and extent -of Godolphin's letters, which are equal in point of number and of interest-of numerous letters from the different sovereigns of Europe, and their chief ministers-of the papers which that extraordinary woman, Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, left behind

her,—

her, and of the Sunderland collection. From these, from various other manuscript collections which have been opened to Mr. Coxe, in the liberal spirit of the present age, (properly called liberal in this point,) and from the printed works, the author has produced the first full and satisfactory account of Marlborough, a name which must ever hold one of the first places in military history. And now that the character of this illustrious man is brought into open daylight, it is delightful to see, after all the calumnies which have been heaped upon him, how nearly it is without a spot.

The Churchill family, obviously as that name might seem to explain its English origin, is traced to the Courcils of Poitou, who came over with the Conqueror. John Churchill, the subject of this history, was born at Ash, in Devonshire, on the 24th of June 1650. The father and grandfather had been conspicuous for their loyalty in the civil wars, and of course suffered in their estates: that loyalty, however, led to the subsequent elevation of the family. The father, Sir Winston Churchill, was rewarded with certain offices under government; his daughter, Arabella, was appointed maid of honour to the Duchess of York; and John was made page of honour to the Duke. He had previously been placed at St. Paul's school, and it has been affirmed, that he acquired his first inclination for a military life from perusing a copy of Vegetius in the school library. At a review of the foot-guards, the Duke asked him what profession he preferred, and received the answer which he probably expected when he put the question at such a time; the boy fell on his knees, and asked for a pair of colours in one of those fine regiments. His first essay in arms was at Tangiers. His second campaign was in 1672, during the disgraceful alliance between England and France: he then served with the English auxiliaries under Monmouth in that army which Louis XIV. commanded nominally in person, but which was really directed by Turenne and Condé. In that campaign he attracted the notice of Turenne, and received the thanks of the King of France, at the head of the army. And continuing till 1677 to serve with the French in their war against the Emperor, he acquired under Turenne, and the other distinguished French generals of the age, that knowledge of the art of war which was afterwards so well and so worthily employed in protecting Germany, and preserving Europe from the yoke of France.

His person was so remarkably fine, that Turenne distinguished him by the name of the handsome Englishman, and it is said that he did not escape from the vices which at that time disgraced the English court. In the twenty-eighth year of his age, however, he married Sarah Jennings, who was ten years younger than himself:

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