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DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.

MY LORD,

AS it is natural to have a fondness for what has cost 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 shall not here presume to mention the illustrious passages of your life, which are celebrated by the whole age, and have been the subject of the most sublime pens; but if I could convey you to posterity in your private character, and describe the stature, the behaviour, and aspect of the Duke of Marlborough, I question 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, observe, that you excel the rest of mankind in the

least, as well as the greatest endowments. Nor were it a circumstance 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 pleasing would it be to those who shal read the surprising revolutions in your story, to be made acquainted with your ordinary life and deportment? How pleasing would it be to hear that the same man, who had carried fire and sword into the countries of all that had opposed the cause of liberty, and struck a terror into the armies of France, had, in the midst of his high station, a behaviour as gentle as is usual in the first steps towards greatness? And if it were possible to express that easy grandeur, which did at once persuade 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 wellgoverned a spirit, were the blessings of Heaven upon wisdom and valour; and all which seem adverse fell out by divine permission, which we are not to search into.

You have passed 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 usurpation upon those whom he had enslaved; but the prince of Mindleheim may rejoice in a sovereign

ty which was the gift of him whose dominions he had preserved.

Glory established upon the uninterrupted success of honourable designs and actions is not subject 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 achievements, but likewise upon the happy expiration of your command, by which your glory is put out of the power of fortune; and when your person shall be so too, that the Author and Disposer of all things may place you in that higher mansion of bliss and immortality which is prepared for good princes, lawgivers, and heroes, when he in his due time removes them from the envy of mankind, is the hearty prayer of,

My Lord,

your Grace's most obedient,

most devoted, humble servant,

THE SPECTATOR.

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'I AM very sorry to find, by your discourse upon 'the eye, that you have not thoroughly studied the 'nature and force of that part of a beauteous face. 'Had you ever been in love, you would have said ten 'thousand things, which it seems did not occur to " you do but reflect upon the nonsense it makes men 'talk, the flames which it is said to kindle, the trans6 port it raises, the dejection it causes in the bravest 'men; and if you do believe those things are ex'pressed to an extravagance, yet you will own, that 'the influence of it is very great which moves men 'to that extravagance. Certain it is, that the whole 'strength of the mind is sometimes seated there; 'that a kind look imparts all that a year's discourse 'could give you, in one moment. What matters it

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