100 



MARLBOROUCIH, DUKE OP. 



MARMION, SHAKERLE7. 



110 



of regular fortresses and long-drawn lines of intrenohment. In the 

 system of operations which naturally grew out of such circumstances, 

 Marlborough greatly excelled; and of six conspicuous occasions on 

 which he is recorded to have penetrated the intrenched position of his 

 opponents, five were nearly bloodless triumphs of hia tactical skill. 

 In all these, his success equally proclaims hia own superiority over his 

 antagoni-its, and the vicious practice of the age, which, in attempting 

 to cover an assailable country with extended chains of intrenchinent, 

 laboriously invited ag many paints of attack as it multiplied works. 

 But Marlborough himself, in his own practice, adhered to the same 

 rules of defence, of which his success might have shown him the futility. 

 Once indeed, after the victory of Oudcnarde, he broke through the 

 pedantry of rules, and proposed to Eugene, by masking Lisle and 

 Tournay with a corps of observation, to penetrate iuto the heart of 

 France : a plan which, instead of consuming the remainder of a victo- 

 rious campaign in the siege of two fortresses, might have triumphantly 

 ended the war. But the bold proposal seemed too hazardous even to 

 Eugene. 



Each however of Marlborough's great battles, and of the operations 

 which'prece ltd them, will testify that his skill comprehended much 

 more than the conduct of a war of sieges and iatrenchmenta. The 

 cou-iummate adroitness with which the objects of his memorable 

 march into Germany in 1704 were concealed from the enemy, and 

 their fears successively misdirected to the Moselle, to Alsace, and to 

 Landau, until it was too late to prevent his real designs on the 

 Danube, must ever be numbered among the most perfect efforts of 

 military science. So also may be cited, with equal admiration, the 

 singular and beautiful mancouvres by which the battle of Ramilies 

 was won, and of which the curious military reader may find au ample 

 and lucid account in the memoirs of General Kane, himself au eye- 

 witness and an excellent tactician. And when it is considered that 

 the successes of Marlborough were gained with an army in which the 

 native British contingent never amounted to 20,000 men, and of 

 which three-fourths were composed of a motley roll of Dutchmen, 

 Hanoverians, and Hessians, Danes, Wiirtembergers, and Prussians, and 

 moreover that his plans were in almost every enterprise marred by 

 the timidity or obstinacy of the Dutch deputies, the moral triumphs 

 of victory with such heterogeneous materials, and under such heavy 

 disadvantages and discouragements, must very much raise our estimate 

 of the genius by which they were won. 



As a man, it is less easy to form a true judgment of the character 

 of Marlborough than as a statesman or a general. If wo were to 

 estimate his moral worth by his double treachery to James II. and 

 to William III., by his tame submission to the ingratitude of Queen 

 Anne, and by the avarice which degraded his private habits, he might 

 justly be numbered among the greatest and meanest of mankind. 

 Nor is there any weight in the extenuation which has been attempted 

 for his political falsehood, that he was no worse than his contempo- 

 raries ; since it is the test of true greatness to rise above, not to 

 sink to, the level of a common corruption. Yet with all his faults, 

 it would be e:i<y to prove that there were not wanting in Marlborough 

 many of the qualities of a good patriot and a good man. Uis friend 

 the lord-treasurer Godolphin and himself appear, of all their con- 

 temporaries, to have been most free from the virulent spirit of faction 

 and moat sincerely devoted to the true honour and interests of their 

 country. The attachment of Marlborough to the tenets and principles 

 of the Church of England was sincere and pure ; he was unaffectedly 

 a person of strong religious feeling and practice ; and in these respects 

 the example which, an a commander, he held out to his troops, and 

 enforced in hia camp, of a piety without fanaticism, was as salutary 

 as it has been infrequent. His courage too, which the inconceivable 

 baseness of faction affected to doubt, and which in his youth had 

 been fiery and impetuous, displayed in his later years the calm and 

 collected spirit of the Christian hero. In public action he was ever 

 as humane and merciful, as towards personal enemies he was placable 

 and magnanimous. In private life, if we except the stain of parsimony, 

 his conduct, at least after his marriage, was a pattern of moral 

 virtue; his temper was imperturbably sweet, gentle, and affectionate; 

 aii'l he was but too fond a husband, too confiding a friend, and too 

 indulgent a master. 



MacauUy, in his ' History of England,' and especially in the third 

 and fourth volumes, has pursued the memory of Marlborough with 

 studied and persevering enmity. It is needless to say that we are 

 very far from agreeing with his conclusions, and regret the evident 

 absence of the calm judicial spirit which should never be laid aside 

 by the historian : but his strictures, coming from so high an authority, 

 render it most desirable that the life of Marlborough should be again 

 investigated and more thoroughly than it yet has been in all its 

 bearings. 



The principal biographies of Marlborough and memoirs relating to 

 his rampaigns are: 1, Lediard's Life of him (3 vols., 8vo, London, 

 1736); 2, An anonymous Life, published in 8vo in 1713, and accom- 

 panied by a Lif of Princo Eugene, evidently written by one who had 

 erved under the iluke and shared his confidence; 3, Dumont and 

 Rouwet, ' The -Military History of Prince Eugene of Savoy, the Duke 

 of Marlborough,' Ac. (translated from the French by P. Uhamberlen, 

 folio, London, 1736); 4, ' Histoire de Jean Churchill, due de Marl- 

 borough ' (3 Tola. 8vo, Paris, 1808) : a signal foreign tribute to his 



greatness, since it was composed by order of Bonaparte, and written, 

 with a few exceptions, in a fair and candid spirit ; 5, Cose ' Memoirs 

 of John, duke of Marlborough' (3 vols. 4to, London, 1818-19) : a 

 work of which the chief value consists in a great mass of original 

 correspondence, published from the family papers at Blenheim and 

 other sources ; 6, ' Life of Marlborough,' by Sir Archibald Alison 

 (3rd edition, 2 vols. 8vo.); 7, Brodrick, ' Complete History of the late 

 War in the Netherlands' (8vo, London, 1713) ; 8, Kane, ' Campaigns 

 of King William and Queen Anne, from 1689 to 1712,' &c. (8vo, 

 London, 1745); 9, Millner, 'Journal of all the Marches, Battles, 

 Sieges, &c. of the Confederate High Allies, from 1701 to 1712, under 

 the conduct and command of the Duke of Marlborough' (Svo, 

 London, 1733); 10, 'Marlborough Despatches,' edited by Sir George 

 Murray. 



MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER, a dramatic writer of some eminence, 

 was born, according to Malone, in 1565, but the exact date is unknown. 

 All that is known of his life may be given in a very few lines. He wag 

 entered of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, took his Bachelor of 

 Arts' degree in 1583, and that of Master of Arts in 1587. On leaving 

 the university he bacame a playwright, and perhaps an actor. His 

 moral character appears to have been bad. He was killed in a quarrel 

 of a disgraceful nature, on the 1st of June 1593, as appears from the 

 register of the old church at Deptford, from Anthony a Wood, and 

 others. 



The following plays are attributed to him : 'Dr. Faustus,' ' Edward 

 the Second,' ' The Jew of Malta,' ' Tamburlaine the Great,' ' Lust's 

 Dominion,' 'The Massacre at Paris,' and ' Dido, Queen of Carthage.' 

 The prevailing opinion however is, that the three first only are his 

 sole productions. Both the matter and the style of ' Tamburlaine ' 

 are asserted to differ materially from Marlowe's other compositions, 

 and there is reason to believe that ' Lust's Dominion ' is later than 

 his time. 



There remain then, 'The Massacre at Paris,' 'The Jew of Malta," 

 1 Edward tho Second,' and ' Faustua.' Of the first little need be said ; 

 for the text, as it now stands, is an imperfect copy of a hasty work, as 

 Collier has very well shown by a comparison of the received version 

 with one leaf of a contemporary manuscript. ' The Jew of Malta ' ia 

 one of those extraordinary impersonations which imply in the chief 

 character a villainy more than human ; such in fact as was ascribed 

 only to tho nation to whom Barabaa belongs. There is a general 

 resemblance between Barabas, the ' Jew's dochter,' in the old ballad, 

 and Shylock ; but they are like, not as imitations of each other, but as 

 representations of one class, supposed to contain in itself malignity 

 and avarice, and cruelty beyond all comparison. 



Faustus, which succeeded the ' Jew of Malta,' is a play to which 

 greater interest is attached at present than fifty years ago, owing to 

 the celebrity of Gbthe's ' Faust.' Those who consider that the 'Faust' 

 of Germany is the greatest conception of human invention who 

 believe that a deep meaning lies hid behind all the apparent absurdities, 

 and that the moral influence of the work is of a high and impres- 

 sive kind will of course laugh at any attempt at comparing the 

 German with his English predecessor. At the same time they must 

 allow that Marlowe's play is one of the first, if not the very first, of 

 the attempts at portraying the struggles of a man whose faitli is 

 wavering the first exhibition in a dramatic shape of that doubting 

 spirit which has been on the ascendant for the last four centuries. 

 Moreover, the solitary horror of Faust's death far surpasses the stage- 

 effects which tell so strongly in the last scene of the first part of the 

 German poem ; and it would not be hard to show that Gijthe has 

 borrowed not a little from his English rival. Perhaps, on the whole, 

 we must assign the first place among Marlowe's works to 'Edward 

 the Second.' It is the prelude to the Shaksperian 'History,' and 

 contains many passages which almost come up to Shakspere'a 

 manner. 



Owing to the carelessness of the printers, many lines have been 

 confused in Marlowe's plays, to the grievous injury of various passages, 

 which now appear to be prose, though they are in reality verse. 

 Marlowe has been compared to ^Esohylus : there is something specious 

 in the comparison, but it can only be very general. To him we are 

 indebted for the first regular form of the English drama cleared of 

 rhymes; and he may be considered as the link between Shakspero 

 and the Moralities. 'Faustus' ia nearly a ' morality ;' 'Elward the 

 Second' is a regularly formed ' history.' Besides his plays, Marlowe 

 translated Ovid's 'Art of Love,' and some other classical works. 



(Collier, History of Dramatic Poetry /Preface to Marlowe's Works, 

 ed. 1826 ; and Quarterly Review.) 



MAHMION, SHAKERLEY, the son of a Northamptonshire squire, 

 was born in that county, became a gentleman commoner of Oxford in 

 1617, and proceeded master of arts in 1624. He squandered a good 

 fortune; took military service in the Low Countries; and in 1639 

 became one of the officers in the troop raised by Sir John Suckling 

 for the king in his expedition against the Scots. But, becoming sick 

 at York, he returned to London, and died there before the end of the 

 year. Besides small scattered poems, he wrote three plays: 1, 

 'Holland's Leaguer, an excellent comedy,' 1632, 4to; 2, 'A Fine 

 Companion,' a comedy, 1633, 4to; 3, ' The Antiquary,' a comedy, 1611, 

 4to, a drama of considerable merit, which is reprinted in the tenth 

 volume of Dodsley'a ' Collection.' 



