(_Edinburgh Review_, January, 1833.)
The {75}days when Miscellanies in Prose and Verse by a Person of
Honour, and Romances of M. Scuderi, done into English by a Person of
Quality, were attractive to readers and profitable to booksellers,
have long gone by. The literary privileges once enjoyed by lords are
as obsolete as their right to kill the King’s deer on their way to
Parliament, or as their old remedy of _scandalum magnatum_. Yet we
must acknowledge that, though our political opinions are by no means
aristocratical, we always feel kindly disposed towards noble authors.
Industry and a taste for intellectual pleasures are peculiarly
respectable in those who can afford to be idle and who have every
temptation to be dissipated. It is impossible not to wish success to a
man who, finding himself placed, without any exertion or any merit
on his part, above the mass of society, voluntarily descends from his
eminence in search of distinctions which he may justly call his own.
This is, we think, the second appearance of Lord Mahon in the character
of an author. His first book was creditable to him, but was in every
respect inferior to the work which now lies before us. He has
(1) _History of the War of the Succession in Spain_. By Lord
Mahon. 8vo London: 1832.
{76}undoubtedly some of the most valuable qualities of a historian,
great diligence in examining authorities, great judgment in weighing
testimony, and great impartiality in estimating characters. We are not
aware that he has in any instance forgotten the duties belonging to his
literary functions in the feelings of a kinsman. He does no more than
justice to his ancestor Stanhope; he does full justice to Stanhope’s
enemies and rivals. His narrative is very perspicuous, and is also
entitled to the praise, seldom, we grieve to say, deserved by modern
writers, of being very concise. It must be admitted, however, that, with
many of the best qualities of a literary veteran, he has some of the
faults of a literary novice. He has not yet acquired a great command of
words. His style is seldom easy, and is now and then unpleasantly stiff.
He is so bigoted a purist that he transforms the Abbé d’Estrées into
an Abbot. We do not like to see French words introduced into English
composition; but, after all, the first law of writing, that law to which
all other laws are subordinate, is this, that the words employed shall
be such as convey to the reader the meaning of the writer. Now an Abbot
is the head of a religious house; an Abbé is quite a different sort of
person. It is better undoubtedly to use an English word than a French
word: but it is better to use a French word than to misuse an English
word.
Lord Mahon is also a little too fond of uttering moral reflections in a
style too sententious and oracular. We will give one instance: “Strange
as it seems, experience shows that we usually feel far more animosity
against those whom we have injured than against those who injure us: and
this remark holds good with every degree of intellect, with every class
of fortune, {77}with a prince or a peasant, a stripling or an elder, a
hero or a prince.” This remark might have seemed strange at the court
of Nimrod or Chedorlaomer; but it has now been for many generations
considered as a truism rather than a paradox. Every boy has written
on the thesis “_Odisse quem laeseris_.” Scarcely any lines in English
Poetry are better known than that vigorous couplet,
“Forgiveness to the injured does belong;
But they ne’er pardon who have done the wrong.”
The historians and philosophers have quite done with this maxim, and
have abandoned it, like other maxims which have lost their gloss, to bad
novelists, by whom it will very soon be worn to rags.
It is no more than justice to say that the faults of Lord Mahon’s book
are precisely the faults which time seldom fails to cure, and that the
book, in spite of those faults, is a valuable addition to our historical
literature.
Whoever wishes to be well acquainted with the morbid anatomy of
governments, whoever wishes to know how great states may be made feeble
and wretched, should study the history of Spain. The empire of Philip
the Second was undoubtedly one of the most powerful and splendid that
ever existed in the world. In Europe, he ruled Spain, Portugal, the
Netherlands on both sides of the Rhine, Franche Comte, Roussillon, the
Milanese, and the Two Sicilies. Tuscany, Parma, and the other small
states of Italy, were as completely dependent on him as the Nizam and
the Rajah of Berar now are on the East India Company. In Asia, the King
of Spain was master of the Philippines and of all those rich settlements
which the Portuguese had made on the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel,
in the {78}Peninsula of Malacca, and in the spice-islands of the Eastern
Archipelago. In America, his dominions extended on each side of the
equator into the temperate zone. There is reason to believe that his
annual revenue amounted, in the season of his greatest power, to a sum
near ten times as large as that which England yielded to Elizabeth. He
had a standing army of fifty thousand excellent troops, at a time when
England had not a single battalion in constant pay. His ordinary naval
force consisted of a hundred and forty galleys. He held, what no other
prince in modern times has held, the dominion both of the land and of
the sea. During the greater part of his reign, he was supreme on both
elements. His soldiers marched up to the capital of France; his ships
menaced the shores of England.
It is no exaggeration to say that, during several years, his power over
Europe was greater than even that of Napoleon. The influence of the
French conqueror never extended beyond low-water mark. The narrowest
strait was to his power what it was of old believed that a running
stream was to the sorceries of a witch. While his army entered every
metropolis from Moscow to Lisbon, the English fleets blockaded every
port from Dantzic to Trieste. Sicily, Sardinia, Majorca, Guernsey,
enjoyed security through the whole course of a war which endangered
every throne on the Continent. The victorious and imperial nation which
had filled its museums with the spoils of Antwerp, of Florence, and of
Rome, was suffering painfully from the want of luxuries which use had
made necessaries. While pillars and arches were rising to commemorate
the French conquests, the conquerors were trying to manufacture coffee
out of succory and sugar out of beet-root. The influence of Philip
on the Continent {79}was as great as that of Napoleon. The Emperor of
Germany was his kinsman. France, torn by religious dissensions, was
never a formidable opponent, and was sometimes a dependent ally. At the
same time, Spain had what Napoleon desired in vain, ships, colonies, and
commerce. She long monopolised the trade of America and of the Indian
Ocean. All the gold of the West, and all the spices of the East, were
received and distributed by her. During many years of war, her commerce
was interrupted only by the predatory enterprises of a few roving
privateers. Even after the defeat of the Armada, English statesmen
continued to look with great dread on the maritime power of Philip. “The
King of Spain,” said the Lord Keeper to the two Houses in 1593, “since
he hath usurped upon the kingdom of Portugal, hath thereby grown mighty
by chaining the East Indies: so as, how great soever he was before, he
is now thereby manifestly more great:.... He keepeth a navy armed to
impeach all trade of merchandise from England to Gascoigne and Guienne,
which he attempted to do this last vintage; so as he is now become as
a frontier enemy to all the west of England, as well as all the south
parts, as Sussex, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight. Yea, by means of
his interest in St. Maloes, a port full of shipping for the war, he is a
dangerous neighbour to the Queen’s isles of Jersey and Guernsey, ancient
possessions of this crown, and never conquered in the greatest wars with
France.”
The ascendency which Spain then had in Europe was, in one sense, well
deserved. It was an ascendency which had been gained by unquestioned
superiority in all the arts of policy and of war. In the sixteenth
century, Italy was not more decidedly the land {80}of the fine arts,
Germany was not more decidedly the land of bold theological speculation,
than Spain was the land of statesmen and of soldiers. The character
which Virgil has ascribed to his countrymen might have been claimed by
the grave and haughty chiefs, who surrounded the throne of Ferdinand the
Catholic, and of his immediate successors. That majestic art, “regere
imperio populos,” was not better understood by the Romans in the
proudest days of their republic, than by Gonsalvo and Ximenes, Cortez
and Alva. The skill of the Spanish diplomatists was renowned throughout
Europe. In England the name of Gondomar is still remembered. The
sovereign nation was unrivalled both in regular and irregular warfare.
The impetuous chivalry of France, the serried phalanx of Switzerland,
were alike found wanting when brought face to face with the Spanish
infantry. In the wars of the New World, where something different from
ordinary strategy was required in the general and something different
from ordinary discipline in the soldier, where it was every day
necessary to meet by some new expedient the varying tactics of a
barbarous enemy, the Spanish adventurers, sprung from the common people,
displayed a fertility of resource, and a talent for negotiation and
command, to which history scarcely affords a parallel.
The Castilian of those times was to the Italian what the Roman, in the
days of the greatness of Rome, was to the Greek. The conqueror had less
ingenuity, less taste, less delicacy of perception than the conquered;
but far more pride, firmness, and courage, a more solemn demeanour, a
stronger sense of honour. The subject had more subtlety in speculation,
the ruler more energy in action. The vices of the former were those of
a {81}coward; the vices of the latter were those of a tyrant. It may be
added, that the Spaniard, like the Roman, did not disdain to study the
arts and the language of those whom he oppressed. A revolution took
place in the literature of Spain, not unlike that revolution which,
as Horace tells us, took place in the poetry of Latium: “Capta ferum
victorem cepit.” The slave took prisoner the enslaver. The old Castilian
ballads gave place to sonnets in the style of Petrarch, and to heroic
poems in the stanza of Ariosto, as the national songs of Rome were
driven out by imitations of Theocritus, and translations from Menander.
In no modern society, not even in England during the reign of Elizabeth,
has there been so great a number of men eminent at once in literature
and in the pursuits of active life, as Spain produced during the
sixteenth century. Almost every distinguished writer was also
distinguished as a soldier and a politician, Boscan bore arms with
high reputation. Garcilaso de Vega, the author of the sweetest and
most graceful pastoral poem of modern times, after a short but splendid
military career, fell sword in hand at the head of a storming party.
Alonzo de Ercilla bore a conspicuous part in that war of Arauco, which
he afterwards celebrated in one of the best heroic poems that Spain has
produced. Hurtado de Mendoza, whose poems have been compared to those
of Horace, and whose charming little novel is evidently the model of Gil
Bias, has been handed down to us by history as one of the sternest of
those iron pro-consuls who were employed by the House of Austria to
crush the lingering public spirit of Italy. Lope sailed in the Armada;
Cervantes was wounded at Lepanto.
It is curious to consider with how much awe our ancestors {82}in those
times regarded a Spaniard. He was, in their apprehension, a kind of
dæmon, horribly malevolent, but withal most sagacious and powerful.
“They be verye wyse and politicke,” says an honest Englishman, in a
memorial addressed to Mary, “and can, thorowe ther wysdome, reform and
brydell theyr owne natures for a tyme, and applye their conditions to
the maners of those men with whom they meddell gladlye by friendshippe;
whose mischievous maners a man shall never knowe untyll he come under
ther subjection: but then shall he parfectlye parceyve and fele them:
which thynge I praye God England never do: for in dissimulations untyll
they have ther purposes, and afterwards in oppression and tyrannye,
when they can obtayne them, they do exceed all other nations upon the
earthe.” This is just such language as Anninius would have used about
the Romans, or as an Indian statesman of our times might use about the
English. It is the language of a man burning with hatred, but cowed by
those whom he hates; and painfully sensible of their superiority, not
only in power, but in intelligence.
But how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How
art thou cut down to the ground, that didst weaken the nations! If we
overleap a hundred years, and look at Spain towards the close of the
seventeenth centnry, what a change do we find! The contrast is as great
as that which the Rome of Gallienus and Honorius presents to the Rome of
Marins and Caesar. Foreign conquest had begun to eat into every part of
that gigantic monarchy on which the sun never set. Holland was gone, and
Portugal, and Artois, and Roussillon, and Franche Comté. In the
East, the empire founded by the Dutch far surpassed {83}in wealth and
splendour that which their old tyrants still retained. In the West,
England had seized, and still held, settlements in the midst of the
Mexican sea.
The mere loss of territory was, however, of little moment. The reluctant
obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it is worth.
Empires which branch out widely are often more flourishing for a little
timely pruning. Adrian acted judiciously when he abandoned the conquests
of Trajan; and England was never so rich, so great, so formidable to
foreign princes, so absolutely mistress of the sea, as since the loss
of her American colonies. The Spanish empire was still, in outward
appearance, great and magnificent. The European dominions subject to the
last feeble Prince of the House of Austria were far more extensive
than those of Lewis the Fourteenth. The American dependencies of the
Castilian crown still extended far to the North of Cancer and far to the
South of Capricorn. But within this immense body there was an incurable
decay, an utter want of tone, an utter prostration of strength. An
ingenious and diligent population, eminently skilled in arts and
manufactures, had been driven into exile by stupid and remorseless
bigots. The glory of the Spanish pencil had departed with Velasquez and
Murillo. The splendid age of Spanish literature had closed with Solis
and Calderon. During the seventeenth century many states had formed
great military establishments. But the Spanish army, so formidable under
the command of Alva and Farnese, had dwindled away to a few thousand
men, ill paid and ill disciplined. England, Holland, and France had
great navies. But the Spanish navy was scarcely equal to the tenth part
of that mighty force which, in {84}the time of Philip the Second, had
been the terror of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The arsenals were
deserted. The magazines were unprovided. The frontier fortresses were
ungarrisoned. The police was utterly inefficient for the protection
of the people. Murders were committed in the face of day with perfect
impunity. Bravoes and discarded serving-men, with swords at their sides,
swaggered every day through the most public streets and squares of
the capital, disturbing the public peace, and setting at defiance the
ministers of justice. The finances were in frightful disorder. The
people paid much. The government received little. The American viceroys
and the farmers of the revenue became rich, while the merchants broke,
while the peasantry starved while the body-servants of the sovereign
remained unpaid, while the soldiers of the royal guard repaired daily to
the doors of convents, and battled there with the crowd of beggars for
a porringer of broth and a morsel of bread. Every remedy which was
tried aggravated the disease. The currency was altered; and this frantic
measure produced its never-failing effects. It destroyed all credit,
and increased the misery which it was intended to relieve. The American
gold, to use the words of Ortiz, was to the necessities of the state
but as a drop of water to the lips of a man raging with thirst. Heaps of
unopened despatches accumulated in the offices, while the Ministers were
concerting with bedchamber-women and Jesuits the means of tripping up
each other. Every foreign power could plunder and insult with impunity
the heir of Charles the Fifth. Into such a state had the mighty kingdom
of Spain fallen, while one of its smallest dependencies, a country not
so large as the province of Estremadura or Andalusia, situated under
{85}an inclement sky, and preserved only by artificial means from the
inroads of the ocean, had become a power of the first class, and treated
on terms of equality with the courts of London and Versailles.
The manner in which Lord Mahon explains the financial situation of
Spain by no means satisfies us. “It will be found,” says he, “that those
individuals deriving their chief income from mines, whose yearly produce
is uncertain and varying, and seems rather to spring from fortune than
to follow industry, are usually careless, unthrifty, and irregular in
their expenditure. The example of Spain might tempt us to apply the same
remark to states.” Lord Mahon would find it difficult, we suspect, to
make out his analogy. Nothing could be more uncertain and varying than
the gains and losses of those who were in the habit of putting into the
state lotteries. But no part of the public income was more certain than
that which was derived from the lotteries. We believe that this case is
very similar to that of the American mines. Some veins of ore exceeded
expectation; some fell below it. Some of the private speculators drew
blanks, and others gained prizes. But the revenue of the state depended,
not on any particular vein, but on the whole annual produce of two great
continents. This annual produce seems to have been almost constantly
on the increase during the seventeenth century. The Mexican mines were,
through the reigns of Philip the Fourth and Charles the Second, in a
steady course of improvement; and in South America, though the district
of Potosi was not so productive as formerly, other places more than made
up for the deficiency. We very much doubt whether Lord Mahon can prove
that the income which the Spanish government derived from the mines
{86}of America fluctuated more than the income derived from the internal
taxes of Spain itself.
All the causes of the decay of Spain resolve themselves into one cause,
bad government. The valour, the intelligence, the energy which, at the
close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, had
made the Spaniards the first nation in the world, were the fruits of
the old institutions of Castile and Arragon, institutions eminently
favourable to public liberty. Those institutions the first Princes
of the House of Austria attacked and almost wholly destroyed. Their
successors expiated the crime. The effects of a change from good
government to bad government is not fully felt for some time after
the change has taken place. The talents and the virtues which a good
constitution generates may for a time survive that constitution. Thus
the reigns of princes who have established absolute monarchy on the
ruins of popular forms of government often shine in history with a
peculiar brilliancy. But when a generation or two has passed away,
then comes signally to pass that which was written by Montesquieu, that
despotic governments resemble those savages who cut down the tree in
order to get at the fruit. During the first years of tyranny, is reaped
the harvest sown during the last years of liberty. Thus the Augustan age
was rich in great minds formed in the generation of Cicero and Caesar.
The fruits of the policy of Augustus were reserved for posterity. Philip
the Second was the heir of the Cortez and of the Justiza Mayor; and
they left him a nation which seemed able to conquer all the world. What
Philip left to his successors is well known.
The shock which the great religious schism of the sixteenth century gave
to Europe, was scarcely felt {87}in Spain. In England, Germany, Holland,
France, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, that shock had produced, with some
temporary evil, much durable good. The principles of the Reformation had
triumphed in some of those countries. The Catholic Church had maintained
its ascendency in others. But though the event had not been the same in
all, all had been agitated by the conflict. Even in France, in Southern
Germany, and in the Catholic cantons of Switzerland, the public mind
had been stirred to its inmost depths. The hold of ancient prejudice had
been somewhat loosened. The Church of Rome, warned by the danger which
she had narrowly escaped, had, in those parts of her dominion, assumed a
milder and more liberal character. She sometimes condescended to submit
her high pretensions to the scrutiny of reason, and availed herself more
sparingly than in former times of the aid of the secular arm. Even when
persecution was employed, it was not persecution in the worst and most
frightful shape. The severities of Lewis the Fourteenth, odious as they
were, cannot be compared with those which, at the first dawn of the
Reformation, had been inflicted on the heretics in many parts of Europe.
The only effect which the Reformation had produced in Spain had been to
make the Inquisition more vigilant and the commonalty more bigoted. The
times of refreshing came to all neighboring; countries. One people alone
remained, like the fleece of the Hebrew warrior, dry in the midst of
that benignant and fertilising dew. While other nations were putting
away childish things, the Spaniard still thought as a child and
understood as a child. Among the men of the seventeenth century, he
was the man of the fifteenth {88}century or of a still darker period,
delighted to behold an _Auto da fe_, and ready to volunteer on a
Crusade.
The evils produced by a bad government and a bad religion, seemed
to have attained their greatest height during the last years of the
seventeenth century. While the kingdom was in this deplorable state, the
King, Charles, second of the name, was hastening to an early grave. His
days had been few and evil. He had been unfortunate in all his wars,
in every part of his internal administration, and in all his domestic
relations. His first wife, whom he tenderly loved, died very young. His
second wife exercised great influence over him, but seems to have been
regarded by him rather with fear than with love. He was childless; and
his constitution was so completely shattered that, at little more than
thirty years of age, he had given up all hopes of posterity. His mind
was even more distempered than his body. He was sometimes sunk in
listless melancholy, and sometimes harassed by the wildest and most
extravagant fancies. He was not, however, wholly destitute of the
feelings which became his station. His sufferings were aggravated by the
thought that his own dissolution might not improbably be followed by the
dissolution of his empire.
Several princes laid claim to the succession. The King’s eldest sister
had married Lewis the Fourteenth. The Dauphin would, therefore, in
the common course of inheritance, have succeeded to the crown. But the
Infanta had, at the time of her espousals, solemnly renounced, in her
own name, and in that of her posterity, all claim to the succession.
This renunciation had been confirmed in due form by the Cortes. A
younger sister of the King had been the first wife of {89}Leopold,
Emperor of Germany. She too had at her marriage renounced her claims to
the Spanish crown; but the Cortes had not sanctioned the renunciation,
and it was therefore considered as invalid by the Spanish jurists. The
fruit of this marriage was a daughter, who had espoused the Elector
of Bavaria. The Electoral Prince of Bavaria inherited her claim to the
throne of Spain. The Emperor Leopold was son of a daughter of Philip
the Third, and was therefore first cousin to Charles. No renunciation
whatever had been exacted from his mother at the time of her marriage.
The question was certainly very complicated. That claim which, according
to the ordinary rules of inheritance, was the strongest, had been
barred by a contract executed in the most binding form. The claim of
the Electoral Prince of Bavaria was weaker. But so also was the contract
which bound him not to prosecute his claim. The only party against whom
no instrument of renunciation could be produced was the party who, in
respect of blood, had the weakest claim of all.
As it was clear that great alarm would be excited throughout Europe if
either the Emperor or the Dauphin should become King of Spain, each of
those Princes offered to waive his pretensions in favour of his second
son; the Emperor, in favour of the Archduke Charles, the Dauphin, in
favour of Philip Duke of Anjou.
Soon after the peace of Ryswick, William the Third and Lewis the
Fourteenth determined to settle the question of the succession without
consulting either Charles or the Emperor. France, England, and Holland,
became parties to a treaty by which it was stipulated {90}that the
Electoral Prince of Bavaria should succeed to Spain, the Indies, and
the Netherlands. The Imperial family were to be bought off with the
Milanese; and the Dauphin was to have the Two Sicilies.
The great object of the King of Spain and of all his counsellors was to
avert the dismemberment of the monarchy. In the hope of attaining this
end, Charles determined to name a successor. A will was accordingly
framed by which the crown was bequeathed to the Bavarian Prince.
Unhappily, this will had scarcely been signed when the Prince died. The
question was again unsettled, and presented greater difficulties than
before.
A new Treaty of Partition was concluded between France, England, and
Holland. It was agreed that Spain, the Indies, and the Netherlands,
should descend to the Archduke Charles. In return for this great
concession made by the Bourbons to a rival house, it was agreed that
France should have the Milanese, or an equivalent in a more commodious
situation. The equivalent in view was the province of Lorraine.
Arbuthnot, some years later, ridiculed the Partition Treaty with
exquisite humour and ingenuity. Everybody must remember his description
of the paroxysm of rage into which poor old Lord Strutt fell, on hearing
that his runaway servant Nick Frog, his clothier John Bull, and his old
enemy Lewis Baboon, had come with quadrants, poles, and inkhorns, to
survey his estate, and to draw his will for him. Lord Mahon speaks
of the arrangement with grave severity. He calls it, “an iniquitous
compact, concluded without the slightest reference to the welfare of
the states so readily parcelled and allotted; insulting to the pride of
Spain, {91}and tending to strip that country of its hard-won conquests.”
The most serious part of this charge would apply to half the treaties
which have been concluded in Europe quite as strongly as to the
Partition Treaty. What regard was shown in the treaty of the Pyrenees
to the welfare of the people of Dunkirk and Roussillon, in the treaty of
Nimeguen to the welfare of the people of Franche Comte, in the treaty of
Utrecht to the welfare of the people of Flanders, in the treaty of 1735
to the welfare of the people of Tuscany? All Europe remembers, and our
latest posterity will, we fear, have reason to remember how coolly, at
the last great pacification of Christendom, the people of Poland, of
Norway, of Belgium, and of Lombardy, were allotted to masters whom they
abhorred. The statesmen who negotiated the Partition Treaty were not
so far beyond their age and ours in wisdom and virtue as to trouble
themselves much about the happiness of the people whom they were
apportioning among foreign rulers. But it will be difficult to prove
that the stipulations which Lord Mahon condemns were in any respect
unfavourable to the happiness of those who were to be transferred to new
sovereigns. The Neapolitans would certainly have lost nothing by being
given to the Dauphin, or to the Great Turk. Addison, who visited Naples
about the time at which the Partition Treaty was signed, has left us a
frightful description of the misgovernment under which that part of
the Spanish Empire groaned. As to the people of Lorraine, an union with
France would have been the happiest event which could have befallen
them. Lewis was already their sovereign for all purposes of cruelty and
exaction. He had kept their country during many years in his own hands.
At the peace of Ryswick, indeed, their {92}Duke had been allowed to
return. But the conditions which had been imposed on him made him a mere
vassal of France.
We cannot admit that the Treaty of Partition was objectionable because
it “tended to strip Spain of hard-won conquests.” The inheritance was so
vast, and the claimants so mighty, that without some dismemberment
it was scarcely possible to make a peaceable arrangement. If any
dismemberment was to take place, the best way of effecting it surely
was to separate from the monarchy those provinces which were at a great
distance from Spain, which were not Spanish in manners, in language, or
in feelings, which were both worse governed and less valuable than
the old kingdoms of Castile and Arragon, and which, having always
been governed by foreigners, would not be likely to feel acutely the
humiliation of being turned over from one master to another.
That England and Holland had a right to interfere is plain. The question
of the Spanish succession was not an internal question, but an European
question. And this Lord Mahon admits. He thinks that when the evil had
been done, and a French Prince was reigning at the Escurial, England and
Holland were justified in attempting, not merely to strip Spain of
its remote dependencies, but to conquer Spain itself; that they were
justified in attempting to put, not merely the passive Flemings and
Italians, but the reluctant Castilians and Asturians, under the dominion
of a stranger. The danger against which the Partition Treaty was
intended to guard was precisely the same danger which afterwards was
made the ground of war. It will be difficult to prove that a danger
which was sufficient to justify the war was insufficient {93}to justify
the provisions of the treaty. If, as Lord Mahon contends, it was better
that Spain should be subjugated by main force than that she should be
governed by a Bourbon, it was surely better that she should be deprived
of Sicily and the Milanese than that she should be governed by a
Bourbon.
Whether the treaty was judiciously framed is quite another question. We
disapprove of the stipulations. But we disapprove of them, not because
we think them bad, but because we think that there was no chance of
their being executed. Lewis was the most faithless of politicians.
He hated the Dutch. He hated the Government which the Revolution had
established in England. He had every disposition to quarrel with his new
allies. It was quite certain that he would not observe his engagements,
if it should be for his interest to violate them. Even if it should be
for his interest to observe them, it might well be doubted whether
the strongest and clearest interest would induce a man so haughty and
self-willed to cooperate heartily with two governments which had always
been the objects of his scorn and aversion.
When intelligence of the second Partition Treaty arrived at Madrid, it
roused to momentary energy the languishing ruler of a languishing
state. The Spanish ambassador at the court of London was directed to
remonstrate with the government ef William; and his remonstrances were
so insolent that he was commanded to leave England. Charles retaliated
by dismissing the English and Dutch ambassadors. The French King, though
the chief author of the Partition Treaty, succeeded in turning the
whole wrath of Charles and of the Spanish people from himself, and in
directing it against the two maritime {94}powers. Those powers had now
no agent at Madrid. Their perfidious ally was at liberty to carry on his
intrigues unchecked; and he fully availed himself of this advantage.
A long contest was maintained with varying success by the factions which
surrounded the miserable King. On the side of the Imperial family was
the Queen, herself a Princess of that family. With her were allied the
confessor of the King, and most of the ministers. On the other side
were two of the most dexterous politicians of that age, Cardinal Porto
Carrero, Archbishop of Toledo, and Harcourt the ambassador of Lewis.
Harcourt was a noble specimen of the French aristocracy in the days
of its highest splendour, a finished gentleman, a brave soldier, and a
skilful diplomatist. His courteous and insinuating manners, his Parisian
vivacity tempered with Castilian gravity, made him the favourite of
the whole court. He became intimate with the grandees. He caressed the
clergy. He dazzled the multitude by his magnificent style of living.
The prejudices which the people of Madrid conceived against the French
character, the vindictive feelings generated during centuries of
national rivalry, gradually yielded to his arts; while the Austrian
ambassador, a surly, pompous, niggardly German, made himself and his
country more and more unpopular every day.
Harcourt won over the court and the city: Porto Carrero managed the
King. Never were knave and dupe better suited to each other. Charles
was sick, nervous, and extravagantly superstitious. Porto Carrero
had learned in the exercise of his profession the art of exciting and
soothing such minds; and he {95}employed that art with the calm and
demure cruelty which is the characteristic of wicked and ambitious
priests.
He first supplanted the confessor. The state of the poor King, during
the conflict between his two spiritual advisers, was horrible. At one
time he was induced to believe that his malady was the same with that of
the wretches described in the New Testament, who dwelt among the tombs,
whom no chains could bind, and whom no man dared to approach. At
another time a sorceress who lived in the mountains of the Asturias
was consulted about his malady. Several persons were accused of having
bewitched him. Porto Carrero recommended the appalling rite of exorcism,
which was actually performed. The ceremony made the poor King more
nervous and miserable than ever. But it served the turn of the Cardinal
who, after much secret trickery, succeeded in casting out, not the
devil, but the confessor.
The next object was to get rid of the Ministers. Madrid was supplied
with provisions by a monopoly. The government looked after this most
delicate concern as it looked after every thing else. The partisans
of the House of Bourbon took advantage of the negligence of the
administration. On a sudden the supply of food failed. Exorbitant prices
were demanded. The people rose. The royal residence was surrounded by an
immense multitude. The Queen harangued them. The priests exhibited the
host. All was in vain. It was necessary to awaken the King from his
uneasy sleep, and to carry him to the balcony. There a solemn promise
was given that the unpopular advisers of the crown should be forthwith
dismissed. The mob left the palace and proceeded to pull down {96}the
houses of the ministers. The adherents of the Austrian line were thus
driven from power, and the government was intrusted to the creatures of
Porto Carrero. The King left the city in which he had suffered so
cruel an insult for the magnificent retreat of the Escurial. Here his
hypochondriac fancy took a new turn. Like his ancestor Charles the
Fifth, he was haunted by a strange curiosity to pry into the secrets of
that grave to which he was hastening. In the cemetery which Philip the
Second had formed beneath the pavement of the church of St. Lawrence,
reposed three generations of Castilian princes. Into these dark vaults
the unhappy monarch descended by torch-light, and penetrated to that
superb and gloomy chamber where, round the great black crucifix, were
ranged the coffins of the kings and queens of Spain. There he commanded
his attendants to open the massy chests of bronze in which the relics of
his predecessors decayed. He looked on the ghastly spectacle with little
emotion till the coffin of his first wife was unclosed, and she
appeared before him--such was the skill of the embalmer--in all her
well-remembered beauty. He cast one glance on those beloved features,
unseen for eighteen years, those features over which corruption seemed
to have no power, and rushed from the vault, exclaiming, “She is with
God; and I shall soon be with her.” The awful sight completed the
ruin of his body and mind. The Escurial became hateful to him; and
he hastened to Aranjuez. But the shades and waters of that delicious
island-garden, so fondly celebrated in the sparkling verse of Calderon,
brought no solace to their unfortunate master. Having tried medicine,
exercise, and amusement in vain, he returned to Madrid to die. {97}He
was now beset on every side by the bold and skilful agents of the House
of Bourbon. The leading politicians of his court assured him that Lewis,
and Lewis alone, was sufficiently powerful to preserve the Spanish
monarchy undivided, and that Austria would be utterly unable to prevent
the Treaty of Partition from being carried into effect. Some celebrated
lawyers gave it as their opinion that the act of renunciation executed
by the late Queen of France ought to be construed according to the
spirit, and not according to the letter. The letter undoubtedly excluded
the French Princes. The spirit was merely this, that ample security
should be taken against the union of the French and Spanish crowns on
one head.
In all probability, neither political nor legal reasonings would have
sufficed to overcome the partiality which Charles felt for the House of
Austria. There had always been a close connection between the two great
royal lines which sprang from the marriage of Philip and Juana. Both had
always regarded the French as their natural enemies. It was necessary
to have recourse to religious terrors; and Porto Carrero employed those
terrors with true professional skill. The King’s life was drawing to a
close. Would the most Catholic prince commit a great sin on the brink
of the grave? And what could be a greater sin than, from an unreasonable
attachment to a family name, from an unchristian antipathy to a rival
house, to set aside the rightful heir of an immense monarchy? The tender
conscience and the feeble intellect of Charles were strongly
wrought upon by these appeals. At length Porto Carrero ventured on a
master-stroke. He advised Charles to apply for counsel to the Pope. The
King who, in the simplicity of his heart, considered {98}the successor
of St. Peter as an infallible guide in spiritual matters, adopted the
suggestion; and Porto Carrero, who knew that his Holiness was a mere
tool of France, awaited with perfect confidence the result of the
application. In the answer which arrived from Rome, the King was
solemnly reminded of the great account which he was soon to render, and
cautioned against the flagrant injustice which he was tempted to
commit. He was assured that the right was with the House of Bourbon, and
reminded that his own salvation ought to be dearer to him than the House
of Austria. Yet he still continued irresolute. His attachment to his
family, his aversion to France, were not to be overcome even by Papal
authority. At length he thought himself actually dying. Then the
cardinal redoubled his efforts. Divine after divine, well tutored for
the occasion, was brought to the bed of the trembling penitent. He was
dying in the commission of known sin. He was defrauding his relatives.
He was bequeathing civil war to his people. He yielded, and signed
that memorable Testament, the cause of many calamities to Europe. As he
affixed his name to the instrument, he burst into tears. “God,” he said,
“gives kingdoms and takes them away. I am already one of the dead.”
The will was kept secret during the short remainder of his life. On the
third of November 1700 he expired. All Madrid crowded to the palace.
The gates were thronged. The antechamber was filled with ambassadors and
grandees, eager to learn what dispositions the deceased sovereign had
made. At length the folding doors were flung open. The Duke of Abrantes
came forth, and announced that the whole Spanish monarchy was bequeathed
to Philip Duke of Anjou. {99}Charles had directed that, during the
interval which might elapse between his death and the arrival of his
successor, the government should be administered by a council, of which
Porto Carrero was the chief member.
Lewis acted, as the English ministers might have guessed that he would
act. With scarcely the show of hesitation, he broke through all the
obligations of the Partition Treaty, and accepted for his grandson
the splendid legacy of Charles. The new sovereign hastened to take
possession of his dominions. The whole court of France accompanied him
to Sceaux. His brothers escorted him to that frontier which, as they
weakly imagined, was to be a frontier no longer. “The Pyrenees,” said
Lewis, “have ceased to exist.” Those very Pyrenees, a few years later,
were the theatre of a war between the heir of Lewis and the prince whom
France was now sending to govern Spain.
If Charles had ransacked Europe to find a successor whose moral and
intellectual character resembled his own, he could not have chosen
better. Philip was not so sickly as his predecessor, but he was quite
as weak, as indolent, and as superstitious; he very soon became quite
as hypochondriacal and eccentric; and he was even more uxorious. He was
indeed a husband of ten thousand. His first object when he became King
of Spain, was to procure a wife. From the day of his marriage to the day
of her death, his first object was to have her near him, and to do what
she wished. As soon as his wife died his first object was to procure
another. Another was found as unlike the former as possible. But she was
a wife; and Philip was content. Neither by day nor by night, neither
in sickness nor in health, neither in time of business nor in time of
relaxation, did he ever suffer her to be absent from him for {100}half
an hour. His mind was naturally feeble; and he had received an
enfeebling education; he had been brought up amidst the dull
magnificence of Versailles. His grandfather was as imperious and as
ostentatious in his intercourse with the royal family as in public acts.
All those who grew up immediately under the eye of Lewis had the manners
of persons who had never known what it was to be at ease. They were all
taciturn, shy, and awkward. In all of them, except the Duke of Burgundy,
the evil went further than the manners. The Dauphin, the Duke of Berri,
Philip of Anjou, were men of insignificant characters. They had no
energy, no force of will. They had been so little accustomed to judge or
to act for themselves that implicit dependence had become necessary
to their comfort. The new King of Spain, emancipated from control,
resembled that wretched German captive who, when the irons which he
had worn for years were knocked off, fell prostrate on the floor of his
prison. The restraints which had enfeebled the mind of the young Prince
were required to support it. Till he had a wife he could do nothing; and
when he had a wife he did whatever she chose.
While this lounging, moping boy was on his way to Madrid, his
grandfather was all activity. Lewis had no reason to fear a contest
with the Empire singlehanded. He made vigorous preparations to encounter
Leopold. He overawed the States-General by means of a great army. He
attempted to soothe the English government by fair professions. William
was not deceived. He fully returned the hatred of Lewis and, if he
had been free to act according to his own inclinations, he would have
declared war as soon as the contents of the will were known. But he
was bound {101}by constitutional restraints. Both his person and his
measures were unpopular in England. His secluded life and his cold
manners disgusted a people accustomed to the graceful affability of
Charles the Second. His foreign accent and his foreign attachments were
offensive to the national prejudices. His reign had been a season of
distress, following a season of rapidly increasing prosperity. The
burdens of the late war and the expense of restoring the currency had
been severely felt. Nine clergymen out of ten were Jacobites at heart,
and had sworn allegiance to the new dynasty, only in order to save their
benefices. A large proportion of the country gentlemen belonged to the
same party. The whole body of agricultural proprietors was hostile to
that interest which the creation of the national debt had brought into
notice, and which was believed to be peculiarly favoured by the Court,
the monied interest. The middle classes were fully determined to keep
out James and his family. But they regarded William only as the less
of two evils; and as long as there was no imminent danger of a
counter-revolution, were disposed to thwart and mortify the sovereign by
whom they were, nevertheless, ready to stand, in case of necessity,
with their lives and fortunes. They were sullen and dissatisfied.
“There was,” as Somers expressed it in a remarkable letter to William,
“a deadness and want of spirit in the nation universally.” Every thing in
England was going on as Lewis could have wished. The leaders of the Whig
party had retired from power, and were extremely unpopular on account of
the unfortunate issue of the Partition Treaty. The Tories, some of whom
still cast a lingering look towards St. Germain’s, were in office, and
had a decided majority in the House of Commons. William {102}was so much
embarrassed by the state of parties in England that he could not
venture to make war on the House of Bourbon. He was suffering under a
complication of severe and incurable diseases. There was every reason to
believe that a few months would dissolve the fragile tie which bound up
that feeble body with that ardent and unconquerable soul. If Lewis could
succeed in preserving peace for a short time, it was probable that all
his vast designs would be securely accomplished. Just at this crisis,
the most important crisis of his life, his pride and his passions
hurried him into an error, which undid all that forty years of victory
and intrigue had done, which produced the dismemberment of the kingdom
of his grandson, and brought invasion, bankruptcy, and famine on his
own.
James the Second died at St. Germain’s. Lewis paid him a farewell visit,
and was so much moved by the solemn parting, and by the grief of the
exiled queen, that, losing sight of all considerations of policy,
and actuated, as it should seem, merely by compassion and by a not
ungenerous vanity, he acknowledged the Prince of Wales as King of
England.
The indignation which the Castilians had felt when they heard that three
foreign powers had undertaken to regulate the Spanish succession was
nothing to the rage with which the English learned that their good
neighbour had taken the trouble to provide them with a king. Whigs and
Tories joined in condemning the proceedings of the French Court. The cry
for war was raised by the city of London, and echoed and reechoed from
every corner of the realm. William saw that his time was come. Though
his wasted and suffering body could hardly move without support, his
spirit was as energetic and resolute as when, {103}at twenty-three, he
bade defiance to the combined forces of England and France. He left the
Hague, where he had been engaged in negotiating with the States and
the Emperor a defensive treaty against the ambitious designs of the
Bourbons. He flew to London. He remodelled the ministry. He dissolved
the Parliament. The majority of the new House of Commons was with the
King; and the most vigorous preparations were made for war.
Before the commencement of active hostilities William was no more. But
the Grand Alliance of the European Princes against the Bourbons was
already constructed. “The master workman died,” says Mr. Burke; “but
the work was formed on true mechanical principles, and it was as truly
wrought.” On the fifteenth of May, 1702, war was proclaimed by concert
at Vienna, at London, and at the Hague.
Thus commenced that great struggle by which Europe, from the Vistula to
the Atlantic Ocean, was agitated during twelve years. The two hostile
coalitions were, in respect of territory, wealth, and population, not
unequally matched. On the one side were France, Spain, and Bavaria; on
the other England, Holland, the Empire, and a crowd of inferior Powers.
That part of the war which Lord Mahon has undertaken to relate; though
not the least important, is certainly the least attractive. In Italy,
in Germany, and in the Netherlands, great means were at the disposal of
great generals. Mighty battles were fought. Fortress after fortress
was subdued. The iron chain of the Belgian strongholds was broken. By
a regular and connected series of operations extending through several
years, the French were driven back from the Danube and the Po into their
own provinces. The {104}war in Spain, on the contrary, is made up of
events which seem to have no dependence on each other. The turns of
fortune resemble those which take place in a dream. Victory and defeat
are not followed by their usual consequences. Armies spring out of
nothing, and melt into nothing. Yet, to judicious readers of history,
the Spanish conflict is perhaps more interesting than the campaigns
of Marlborough and Eugene. The fate of the Milanese and of the Low
Countries was decided by military skill. The fate of Spain was decided
by the peculiarities of the national character.
When the war commenced, the young King was in a most deplorable
situation. On his arrival at Madrid he found Porto Carrero at the head
of affairs, and he did not think fit to displace the man to whom he
owed his crown. The cardinal was a mere intriguer, and in no sense a
statesman. He had acquired, in the Court and in the Confessional, a rare
degree of skill in all the tricks by which weak minds are managed.
But of the noble science of government, of the sources of national
prosperity, of the causes of national decay, he knew no more than his
master. It is curious to observe the contrast between the dexterity
with which he ruled the conscience of a foolish valetudinarian, and the
imbecility which he showed when placed at the head of an empire. On
what grounds Lord Mahon represents the Cardinal as a man “of splendid
genius,” “of vast abilities,” we are unable to discover. Lewis was of
a very different opinion, and Lewis was very seldom mistaken in his
judgment of character. “Every body,” says he, in a letter to his
ambassador, “knows how incapable the Cardinal is. He is an object of
contempt to his countrymen.”
A few miserable savings were made, which ruined {105}individuals without
producing any perceptible benefit to the state. The police became more
and more inefficient. The disorders of the capital were increased by
the arrival of French adventurers, the refuse of Parisian brothels and
gaming-houses. These wretches considered the Spaniards as a subjugated
race whom the countrymen of the new sovereign might cheat and insult
with impunity. The King sate eating and drinking all night, lay in bed
all day, yawned at the council table, and suffered the most important
papers to lie unopened for weeks. At length he was roused by the only
excitement of which his sluggish nature was susceptible. His grandfather
consented to let him have a wife. The choice was fortunate. Maria
Louisa, Princess of Savoy, a beautiful and graceful girl of thirteen,
already a woman in person and mind, at the age when the females of
colder climates are still children, was the person selected. The King
resolved to give her the meeting in Catalonia. He left his capital, of
which he was already thoroughly tired. At setting out he was mobbed by a
gang of beggars. He, however, made his way through them, and repaired to
Barcelona.
Lewis was perfectly aware that the Queen would govern Philip. He,
accordingly, looked about for somebody to govern the Queen. He selected
the Princess Orsini to be first lady of the bedchamber, no insignificant
post in the household of a very young wife, and a very uxorious husband.
The princess was the daughter of a French peer, and the widow of a
Spanish grandee. She was, therefore, admirably fitted by her position to
be the instrument of the Court of Versailles at the Court of Madrid.
The Duke of Orleans called her, in words too coarse for translation,
the Lieutenant of Captain Maintenon; and the appellation {106}was
well deserved. She aspired to play in Spain the part which Madame de
Maintenon had played in France. But, though at least equal to her
model in wit, information, and talents for intrigue, she had not that
self-command, that patience, that imperturbable evenness of temper,
which had raised the widow of a buffoon to be the consort of the
proudest of kings. The Princess was more than fifty years old, but was
still vain of her fine eyes, and her fine shape; she still dressed in
the style of a girl; and she still carried her flirtations so far as to
give occasion for scandal. She was, however, polite, eloquent, and
not deficient in strength of mind. The bitter Saint Simon owns that no
person whom she wished to attach could long resist the graces of her
manners and of her conversation.
We have not time to relate how she obtained, and how she preserved her
empire over the young couple in whose household she was placed, how she
became so powerful, that neither minister of Spain nor ambassador from
France could stand against her, how Lewis himself was compelled to court
her, how she received orders from Versailles to retire, how the Queen
took part with her favourite attendant, how the King took part with the
Queen, and how, after much squabbling, lying, shuffling, bullying, and
coaxing, the dispute was adjusted. We turn to the events of the war.
When hostilities were proclaimed at London, Vienna, and the Hague,
Philip was at Naples. He had been with great difficulty prevailed upon,
by the most urgent representations from Versailles, to separate himself
from his wife, and to repair without her to his Italian dominions, which
were then menaced by the Emperor. The Queen acted as Regent, and, child
as she was, seems to {107}have been quite as competent to govern the
kingdom as her husband or any of his ministers.
In August, 1702, an armament, under the command of the Duke of Ormond,
appeared off Cadiz. The Spanish authorities had no funds and no regular
troops. The national spirit, however, supplied in some degree what
was wanting. The nobles and farmers advanced money. The peasantry were
formed into what the Spanish writers call bands of heroic patriots, and
what General Stanhope calls a “rascally foot militia.” If the invaders
had acted with vigour and judgment, Cadiz would probably have
fallen. But the chiefs of the expedition were divided by national and
professional feelings, Dutch against English, and land against sea.
Sparre, the Dutch general, was sulky and perverse. Bellasys, the English
general, embezzled the stores. Lord Mahon imputes the ill temper of
Sparre to the influence of the republican institutions of Holland. By
parity of reason, we suppose that he would impute the peculations
of Bellasys to the influence of the monarchical and aristocratical
institutions of England. The Duke of Ormond, who had the command of the
whole expedition, proved on this occasion, as on every other, destitute
of the qualities which great emergencies require. No discipline was
kept; the soldiers were suffered to rob and insult those whom it was
most desirable to conciliate. Churches were robbed; images were pulled
down; nuns were violated. The officers shared the spoil instead of
punishing the spoilers; and at last the armament, loaded, to use the
words of Stanhope, “with a great deal of plunder and infamy,” quitted
the scene of Essex’s glory, leaving the only Spaniard of note who had
declared for them to be hanged by his countrymen. {108}The fleet was
off the coast of Portugal on the way back to England, when the Duke of
Ormond received intelligence that the treasure ships from America
had just arrived in Europe, and had, in order to avoid his armament,
repaired to the harbour of Vigo. The cargo consisted, it was said, of
more than three millions sterling tin gold and silver, besides much
valuable merchandise. The prospect of plunder reconciled all disputes.
Dutch and English, admirals and generals, were equally eager for action.
The Spaniards might with the greatest ease have secured the treasure by
simply landing it; but it was a fundamental law of Spanish trade that
the galleons should unload at Cadiz, and at Cadiz only. The Chamber of
Commerce at Cadiz, in the true spirit of monopoly, refused, even at this
conjuncture, to bate one jot of its privilege. The matter was referred
to the Council of the Indies. That body deliberated and hesitated just a
day too long. Some feeble preparations for defence were made. Two
ruined towers at the mouth of the bay of Vigo were garrisoned by a few
ill-armed and untrained rustics; a boom was thrown across the entrance
of the basin; and a few French ships of war, which had convoyed the
galleons from America, were moored within. But all was to no purpose.
The English ships broke the boom; Ormond and his soldiers scaled the
forts; the French burned their ships, and escaped to the shore. The
conquerors shared some millions of dollars; some millions more were
sunk. When all the galleons had been captured or destroyed came an order
in due form allowing them to unload.
When Philip returned to Madrid in the beginning of 1703, he found the
finances more embarrassed, the people more discontented, and the hostile
coalition more {109}formidable than ever. The loss of the galleons had
occasioned a great deficiency in the revenue. The Admiral of Castile,
one of the greatest subjects in Europe, had fled to Lisbon and sworn
allegiance to the Archduke. The King of Portugal soon after acknowledged
Charles as King of Spain, and prepared to support the title of the House
of Austria by arms.
On the other side, Lewis sent to the assistance of his grandson an army
of 12,000 men, commanded by the Duke of Berwick. Berwick was the son
of James the Second and Arabella Churchill. He had been brought up to
expect the highest honours which an English subject could enjoy; but the
whole course of his life was changed by the revolution which overthrew
his infatuated father. Berwick became an exile, a man without a country;
and from that time forward his camp was to him in the place of a
country, and professional honour was his patriotism. He ennobled his
wretched calling. There was a stern, cold, Brutus-like virtue in the
manner in which he discharged the duties of a soldier of fortune. His
military fidelity was tried by the strongest temptations, and was found
invincible. At one time he fought against his uncle: at another time he
fought against the cause of his brother; yet he was never suspected of
treachery, or even of slackness.
Early in 1704, an army composed of English, Dutch, and Portuguese, was
assembled on the western frontier of Spain. The Archduke Charles had
arrived at Lisbon, and appeared in person at the head of his troops. The
military skill of Berwick held the Allies, who were commanded by Lord
Galway, in check through the whole campaign. On the south, however, a
great blow was struck. An English fleet, under Sir George Rooke,
having on board several regiments commanded {110}by the Prince of
Hesse Darmstadt, appeared before the rock of Gibraltar. That celebrated
stronghold, which nature has made all but impregnable, and against which
all the resources of the military art have been employed in vain,
was taken as easily as if it had been an open village in a plain. The
garrison went to say their prayers instead of standing on their guard. A
few English sailors climbed the rock. The Spaniards capitulated; and the
British flag was placed on those ramparts from which the combined armies
and navies of France and Spain have never been able to pull it down.
Rooke proceeded to Malaga, gave battle in the neighbourhood of that port
to a French squadron, and after a doubtful action returned to England.
But greater events were at hand. The English government had determined
to send an expedition to Spain, under the command of Charles Mordaunt
Earl of Peterborough. This man was, if not the greatest, yet assuredly
the most extraordinary character of that age, the King of Sweden himself
not excepted. Indeed, Peterborough maybe described as a polite,
learned and amorous Charles the Twelfth. His courage had all the French
impetuosity, and all the English steadiness. His fertility and activity
of mind were almost beyond belief. They appeared in every thing that
he did, in his campaigns, in his negotiations, in his familiar
correspondence, in his lightest and most unstudied conversation. He was
a kind friend, a generous enemy, and in deportment a thorough gentleman.
But his splendid talents and virtues were rendered almost useless to his
country, by his levity, his restlessness, his irritability, his morbid
craving for novelty and for excitement. His weaknesses had not only
brought him, on more than one occasion, into serious trouble; but had
{111}impelled him to some actions altogether unworthy of his humane and
noble nature. Repose was insupportable to him. He loved to fly round
Europe faster than a travelling courier. He was at the Hague one week,
at Vienna the next. Then he took a fancy to see Madrid; and he had
scarcely reached Madrid, when he ordered horses and set off for
Copenhagen. No attendants could keep up with his speed. No bodily
infirmities could confine him. Old age, disease, imminent death,
produced scarcely any effect on his intrepid spirit. Just before he
underwent the most horrible of surgical operations, his conversation was
as sprightly as that of a young man in the full vigour of health. On
the day after the operation, in spite of the entreaties of his medical
advisers, he would set out on a journey. His figure was that of
a skeleton. But his elastic mind supported him under fatigues and
sufferings which seemed sufficient to bring the most robust man to the
grave. Change of employment was as necessary to him as change of place.
He loved to dictate six or seven letters at once. Those who had to
transact business with him complained that though he talked with great
ability on every subject, he could never be kept to the point. “Lord
Peterborough,” said Pope, “would say very pretty and lively things in
his letters, but they would be rather too gay and wandering; whereas,
were Lord Bolingbroke to write to an emperor, or to a statesman, he
would fix on that point which was the most material, would set it in
the strongest and finest light, and manage it so as to make it the most
serviceable to his purpose.” What Peterborough was to Bolingbroke as a
writer, he was to Marlborough as a general. He was, in truth, the
last of the knights-errant, brave to temerity, liberal to profusion,
courteous {112}in his dealings with enemies, the protector of the
oppressed, the adorer of women. His virtues and vices were those of the
Round Table. Indeed, his character can hardly be better summed up, than
in the lines in which the author of that clever little poem, _Monks and
Giants_, has described Sir Tristram.
“His birth, it seems, by Merlin’s calculation,
Was under Venus, Mercury, and Mars;
His mind with all their attributes was mixed,
And, like those planets, wandering and unfixed.
“From realm to realm he ran, and never staid:
Kingdoms and crowns he won, and gave away: