140 MEMOIR OF 



pen even of a Whyte-Melville, would have been 

 powerless to paint with a like effect. But to 

 have seen and enjoyed them, as he and his 

 friends did, must have been a foretaste to them 

 of the Elysian fields. 



" It was said by Voltaire, that Marlborough 

 had never besieged a fortress which he had not 

 taken, never fought a battle which he had not 

 won, never conducted a negotiation which he 

 had not brought to a prosperous close." So 

 wrote Lord Stanhope ; and every one who has 

 read his charming history of Queen Anne's 

 reign will remember that the Duke of Marl- 

 borough's achievements — himself beyond all 

 doubt, one of the first militarv chiefs of that or 

 any age — could never have been so brilliant and 

 so uniformly successful but for the support he 

 obtained from " the Grand Alliance." 



In like manner, if it be permitted to com- 

 pare great things with small — the war of 

 powerful nations with the sylvan campaign which 

 Russell was waging among the remote and 

 peaceful Britons of the far West — it is equally 

 certain that he, too, proved himself a great 

 general in his way ; killing or accounting for 

 his fox almost every time he found him ; 

 and conquering all classes, not less by the 

 sport he showed than by his genial fellowship, 

 manly bearing, and consummate tact. Nor 

 should the support he met with from his 



