Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 374, December, 1846

Are we more successful in statues than in buildings? Mr Smith has some sensible remarks on this score. Speaking of the equestrian statue of George III. in Cockspur Street, he says, that "critics object to the cocked hat and tie-wig in the royal figure; but, some ages hence, these abused parts will be the most valuable in the whole statue. It may very reasonably be asked, why an English gentleman should be represented in the dress of a Roman tribune? Let the man appear, even in a statue, in his habit as he lived; and whatever we may say, posterity will be grateful to us. We should like to know exactly the ordinary walking-dress of Cæsar or Brutus, and how they wore their hair; and we should not complain if they had cocked hats or periwigs, if we knew them to be exact copies of nature." It is certain that modern physiognomy rarely harmonises with ancient costume. What is to be said of the aspect of the "first gentleman of Europe," wrapped in his horsecloth, and astride on his bare-backed steed, in the aforesaid Square of Trafalgar? Assuredly nothing in commendation. There are portraits of Napoleon in classic drapery, and, even with his classically correct countenance, he looks a very ordinary, under-sized Roman. But, in his grey capote and small cocked hat, the characteristic is preserved, and we at once think of, and wonder at, the hero of Austerlitz and Marengo.

Leicester Square, as Mr Smith justly observes, has more the appearance of the Grande Place of some continental city than of a London square. The headquarters and chief rendezvous of aliens, especially of Frenchmen, it bears numerous and unmistakeable marks of its foreign occupancy. French hotels and restaurants replace taverns and chop-houses. French names are seen above shops; promises of French, German, and Spanish conversation, are read in the windows; and grimy-visaged, hirsute individuals, in plaited pantaloons and garments of eccentric cut, saunter, cigar in mouth, over the shabby pavement. It is curious to remark the different tone and station taken by English in Paris and French in London. In the former capital, nothing is too good for the intruding islanders. In the best and most expensive season, they throng thither, and strut about like lords of the soil, perfectly at home, and careless of the opinions of the people amongst whom they have condescended to come. The best houses are for their use; the most expensive shops are favoured with their custom; and if occasionally tormented by a troublesome consciousness of paying dearly for their importance, they easily console themselves by a malediction on the French voleurs, who thus take advantage of their long purses and open hands. How different is it with the Frenchman in London! He comes over, for the most part, at the dullest time of the year, in the autumn, when the town is foggy, and dreary, and empty; when the Parks are deserted, shutters shut, the theatres dull, and exhibitions closed. He has certain vague apprehensions of the tremendous expense entailed by a visit to the English capital. To avoid this, he makes a toil of a pleasure; wearies himself with economical calculations; and creeps into some inferior hotel or dull lodging-house, tempted by low prices and foreign announcements. We find French deputies abiding in Cranbourn Street, and counts contenting themselves with a garret at Pagliano's. Thence they perambulate westwards; and ignorant, or not choosing to remember, that London is out of town, and that they have selected the very worst possible season to visit it, they greatly marvel at the paucity of equipages, at the abundance of omnibuses and hack-cabs, and the scarcity of sunbeams; and return home to inform their friends that London is a ville monstre, with spacious streets, small houses, few amusements; very great, but very gloomy; and where the nearest approach to sunshine resembles the twinkling of a rushlight through a plate of blue earthenware.

"The foreign appearance of Leicester Square is not of recent growth. It seems to have been the favourite resort of strangers and exiles ever since the place was built. Maitland, who wrote more than a hundred years ago, describing the parish of St Anne's, in which it is situate, says – 'The fields in these parts being but lately converted into buildings, I have not discovered any thing of great antiquity in this parish. Many parts of it so greatly abound with French, that it is an easy matter for a stranger to imagine himself in France.'"

Sydney Alley is named after the Earls of Leicester, who had their town-house on the north side of the square, where Leicester Place has since been opened. Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., occupied, for some years, this residence of the Sydneys. She also inhabited a house in Drury Place, where Craven Street now stands, which was built for her by Lord Craven. It was called Bohemia House for many years afterwards, and at last became a tavern, at the sign of the Queen of Bohemia. "The Earl of Craven was thought to have been privately married to the queen, a woman of great sweetness of temper and amiability of manners – a universal favourite both in this country and Bohemia, where her gentleness acquired her the title of 'The Queen of Hearts.' By right of their descent from her, the House of Hanover ascended the throne of this kingdom." Lord Craven was the eldest son of Sir William Craven, lord-mayor of London in 1611. He fought under Gustavus Adolphus with great distinction, and returned to England at the Restoration, when Charles II. made him viscount and earl. He commanded a regiment of the guards until within three or four years of his death, which occurred in 1697, at the advanced age of eighty-five. "He was an excellent soldier," says the advertisement of his decease in No. 301 of the Postman, "and served in the wars under Palsgrave of the Rhine, and also under the great Gustavus Adolphus, where he performed sundry warlike exploits to admiration; and, in a word, he was then in great renowne."

However indifferently Leicester Square may at present be inhabited, and notwithstanding its long-standing reputation as a foreign colony, it has been the chosen abode of many distinguished men. Hogarth and Reynolds lived and died there. Hogarth's house is now part of the Sablonière Hotel. Sir Joshua's was on the opposite side of the square; and both of them, especially the latter, were much resorted to by the wits and wise men of the day. Johnson, Boswell, and, at times, Goldsmith, were constant visitors to Reynolds. John Hunter, the anatomist, lived next-door to Hogarth's house; and in 1725, Lords North and Grey, and Arthur Onslow, the Speaker, also inhabited this square. Leicester House, where the Queen of Bohemia lived, is called by Pennant the "pouting-place of princes." George II. retired thither when he quarrelled with his father; and his son Frederick, the father of George III., did the same thing for the same reason. Whilst Prince Frederick and the Princess of Wales lived there, they received the wedding visit of the Hon. John Spencer, ancestor of the present Earl Spencer, and of his bride, Miss Poyntz. Contrary to established etiquette, the bridal party went to visit the Prince before paying their respects to the King. They came in two carriages and a sedan chair; the latter, which was lined with white satin, contained the bride, and was preceded by a black page, and followed by three footmen in splendid liveries. The diamonds presented to Mr Spencer, on occasion of his marriage, by Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, were worth one hundred thousand pounds. The bridegroom's shoe-buckles alone cost thirty thousand pounds. An old gentleman, born more than a century ago, from whom Mr Smith obtained some of these particulars, informed him, that about that time the neighbourhood was so thinly built, that when the heads of two men, executed for participation in the Scotch rebellion, were placed on Temple Bar, a man stood in Leicester Fields with a telescope, to give the boys a sight of them for a penny a-piece.

A house in Leicester Fields was the scene of some of the eccentricities of that semi-civilised hero, Peter the Great of Russia. It belonged to the Earl of Aylesbury, and was inhabited, during the Czar's visit to this country, by the Marquis of Carmarthen, who gave a grand ball there, on the 2d April 1698, in honour of the imperial stranger. The Marquis was Peter's particular chum and boon companion, and the Czar preferred his society to all the gaieties and visitors that beset him during his residence in England. Peter was very shy of strangers, and when William the Third gave him a magnificent entertainment at St James's, he would not mix with the company, but begged to be put into a cupboard, whence he could see without being seen. He drank tremendously, and made Lord Carmathen do the same. Hot brandy, seasoned with pepper, was his favourite drink. Something strong he certainly required to digest his diet of train-oil and raw meats. On one occasion, when staying in Leicester Fields with the Marquis, he is said to have drunk a pint of brandy and a bottle of sherry before dinner, and eight bottles of sack after it, and then to have gone to the play, seemingly no whit the worse. He lodged in York Buildings, in a house overlooking the river, supposed by some to be that at the left-hand corner of Buckingham Street. A house in Norfolk Street also had the honour of sheltering him. "On Monday night," says No. 411 of the Postman "the Czar of Muscovy arrived from Holland, and went directly to the house prepared for him in Norfolk Street." His principal amusement was being rowed on the Thames between London and Deptford; and at last, in order to live quietly and avoid the hosts of visitors who poured in upon him, he took Admiral Benbow's house at the latter place. It stood on the ground now occupied by the Victualling Office, and was the property of the well-known John Evelyn.

"Horne Tooke," says Mr Smith, "in his Diversions of Purley, derives the word Charing from the Saxon Charan, to turn; and the situation of the original village, on the bend or turning of the Thames, gives probability to this etymology." Every body knows that Charing, now so central a point, was once a little hamlet on the rural high-road between London and Westminster, and that the "Cross" was added to it by Edward the First, who, when escorting his wife's remains from Lincolnshire to Westminster Abbey, erected one at each place where the beloved corpse rested. The first cross, which was of wood, and probably of rude enough manufacture, gave way to one of stone, designed by Cavalini. About the middle of the seventeenth century, that period of puritanical intolerance, this was removed by order of the Commons' House, an order which the royalists took care to ridicule by song and lampoon. According to Lilly the astrologer and quack, the workmen were three months pulling it down, and some of the stones were used for the pavement before Whitehall. Others were made into knife-handles, and Lilly saw some of them which were polished and looked like marble. Those were days in which kingly memorials found as little favour as popish emblems; and after the death of Charles the First, the statue that now stands at Charing Cross, and which had been cast by Le Sueur in 1633 for the Earl of Arundel, was sold and ordered to be broken up. It was bought by one Rivet, a brazier, who, instead of breaking, buried it. This did not prevent the ingenious mechanic from making a large and immediate profit by the effigy of the martyred monarch; for he melted down old brass into knife and fork-handles, and sold them as proceeding from the King's statue. Roundheads and cavaliers all flocked to buy; the former desiring a trophy of their triumph, the latter eager to possess a memento of their lamented sovereign. In 1678, £70,000 was voted by Parliament for the obsequies of Charles I., and for a monument to his memory, and with a portion of this sum, how large a one is not known, the statue was repurchased.

The historian of the streets and houses of a great and ancient city, has, in many ways, a most difficult task to perform. Not only must he read much, observe closely, and diligently inquire, display ingenuity in deduction and judgment in selection, but he must be steadfast to resist temptation. For, assuredly, to the lover of antiquarian and historical lore, the temptation is immense, whilst culling materials from quaint old diaries, black-letter pamphlets, and venerable newspapers, to expatiate and extract at a length wholly inconsistent with the necessary limits of his work. Some writers are at pains to dilate their matter – his chief care must be to compress. What would fairly fill a sheet must be packed into a page – the pith and substance of a volume must be squeezed into a chapter. The diligent compiler should not be slightly considered by the creative and aspiring genius. Like the bee, he forms his small, rich store, from the fragrance of a thousand flowers – adopting the sweet, rejecting the nauseous and insipid. Nor must he dwell too long on any pet and particular blossom, lest what would please in due proportion should cloy by too large an admixture. To vary the metaphor, the writer of such a work as this Antiquarian Ramble, should be a sort of literary Soyer, mixing his materials so skilfully that the flavour of each is preserved, whilst not one unduly predominates. He must not prance off on a hobby, whether architectural, historical, social, or romantic, but relieve his cattle and his readers by jumping lightly and frequently from one saddle to another.

How many books might be written upon the themes briefly glanced at in Mr Smith's book! Let us take, for instance, the places of public executions in London. Charing Cross was for centuries one of them, and its pillory was the most illustrious amongst the many that formerly graced the capital – illustrious by reason of the remarkable evil-doers who underwent ignominy in its wooden and unfriendly embrace. The notorious Titus Oates, and Parsons, the chief contriver of the Cock-Lane Ghost, were exposed in it. To the rough treatment which, in former days, sometimes succeeded exposure in the pillory, the following paragraph, from the Daily Advertiser of the 11th June 1731, abundantly testifies: – "Yesterday Japhet Crook, alias Sir Peter Stranger, stood on the pillory for the space of one hour; after which he was seated in an elbow-chair, and the common hangman cut both his ears off with an incision knife, and showed them to the spectators, afterwards delivered them to Mr Watson, a sheriff's officer; then slit both his nostrils with a pair of scissors, and sear'd them with a hot iron, pursuant to his sentence. He had a surgeon to attend him to the pillory, who immediately applied things necessary to prevent the effusion of blood. He underwent it all with undaunted courage; afterwards went to the Ship tavern at Charing Cross, where he stayed some time; then was carried to the King's Bench Prison, to be confined there for life. During the time he was on the pillory he laughed, and denied the fact to the last." Petty punishments these, although barbarous enough, inflicted for paltry crimes upon mean malefactors. Criminals of a far higher grade had, previously to that, paid the penalty of their offences at the Cross of Charing. Hugh Peters, Cromwell's chaplain, was there hung, as were Scrope, Jones, Harrison, and others of the king-killers. Long had been their impunity; but vengeance at last overtook them. To the end they showed the stern fanatical resolution of Oliver's iron followers. "Where is your Good Old Cause?" cried a scoffer to Harrison, as he was led to the scaffold. "Here!" he replied, clapping hand on breast; "I go to seal it with my blood." At the foot of the ladder, which he approached with undaunted mien, his limbs were observed to tremble, and some amongst the mob made a mockery of this weakness. "I judge," said Harrison, "that some do think I am afraid to die, by the shaking I have in my hands and knees. I tell you NO! but it is by reason of much blood that I have lost in the wars, and many wounds I have received in my body, which caused this shaking and weakness in my nerves." And he spoke further, and told the populace how he gloried in that he had done, and how, had he ten thousand lives, he would cheerfully lay them down in the same cause. "After he was hanged, a horrible scene took place. In conformity to the barbarous sentence then, and for many years afterwards, executed upon persons convicted of treason, he was cut down alive and stripped, his belly was cut open, his bowels taken out and burned before his eyes. Harrison, in the madness of his agony, rose up wildly, it is said, and gave the executioner a box on the ear, and then fell down insensible. It was the last effort of matter over mind, and for the time it conquered." The other regicides died with the same firmness and contempt of death. "Their grave and graceful demeanour," says the account in the state trials, "accompanied with courage and cheerfulness, caused great admiration and compassion in the spectators." So much so, and so strong was the sympathy excited, that the government gave orders that no more of them should be executed in the heart of London. Accordingly the remainder suffered at Tyburn.

Upon the old Westminster market-place a most barbarous event occurred in the time of that tyrannical, acetous old virgin, Queen Bess, who assuredly owes her renown and the sort of halo of respect that surrounds her memory, far less to any good qualities of her own, than to the galaxy of great men who flourished during her reign. The glory that encircles her brow is formed of such stars as Cecil, Burleigh and Bacon, Drake and Raleigh, Spencer, Shakspeare, and Sydney. Touching this barbarity, however, enacted by order of good Queen Bess. At the mature age of forty-eight, her majesty took it into her very ordinary-looking old head to negotiate a marriage with the Duke of Anjou. Commissioners came from France to discuss the interesting subject, and were entertained by pageants and tournaments, in which Elizabeth enacted the Queen of Beauty; and subsequently the duke came over himself, as a private gentleman, to pay his court to the last of the Tudors. The duke being a papist, the proposed alliance was very unpopular in England, and one John Stubbs, a barrister of Lincoln's-Inn, wrote a pamphlet against it, entitled, "The Discoverye of a gaping gulphe, whereinto England is like to be swallowed by another French marriage, if the Lord forbid not the banns, by letting her Majestye see the sin and punishment thereof." Certain expressions in this imprudent publication greatly angered the Queen; Stubbs and his servant, Page, were brought to trial, and condemned to lose their right hands. This cruel and unusual sentence was carried into effect on the market-place at Westminster, and witnessed by Camden, who gives an account of it. Both sufferers behaved with great fortitude and courage. Their hands were cut off with a butcher's cleaver and mallet, and as soon as Stubbs had lost his, he pulled off his cap with his left, waved it in the air, and cried – "God save the Queen!" He then fainted away. It took two blows to sever Page's hand, but he flinched not, and pointing to the block where it lay, he exclaimed – "I have left there the hand of a true Englishman!" And so he went from the scaffold, says the account, "stoutlie and with great courage."

Amongst spots of sanguinary notoriety, Smithfield, of course, stands prominent. The majority of the two hundred and seventy-seven persons burned for heresy during Mary's short reign, suffered there; and here also, upon two occasions, the horrible punishment of boiling to death, formerly inflicted on poisoners, was witnessed. In France this was the punishment of coiners, and there is still a street at Paris known as the Rue de l'Echaudé. In Stow's Annals it is recorded, that on the fifth of April 1531, "one Richard Rose, a cook, was boiled in Smithfield for poisoning of divers persons, to the number of sixteen or more." Two only of the sixteen died, but the others were never restored to health. If any thing could reconcile us to torture, as a punishment to be inflicted by man on his offending brother, it is such a crime as this.

If the punishments of our ancestors were cruel, if trials were sometimes over hasty, and small offences often too severely chastised, on the other hand, culprits formerly had facilities of escape now refused to them. The right of sanctuary was enjoyed by various districts and buildings in London. Pennant and many other writers have stigmatised this practice as absurd; Mr Smith defends it upon very reasonable grounds. "In times when every man went armed, when feuds were of hourly occurrence in the streets, when the age had not yet learned the true superiority of right over might, and when private revenge too often usurped the functions of justice, it was essential that there should be places whither the homicide might flee, and find refuge and protection until the violence of angry passions had subsided, and there was a chance of a fair trial for him." Not all sanctuaries, however, gave protection to the murderer, at least in later times. Whitefriars, for instance, once a refuge for all criminals, except traitors, afforded shelter, after the fifteenth century, to debtors only. In 1697 this sanctuary was abolished entirely, at the same time with a dozen others. It is not well ascertained how it acquired the slang name of Alsatia, which is first found in a play of Shadwell's, The Squire of Alsatia. Immortalised by the genius of Scott, no sanctuary will longer be remembered than Whitefriars. It was one of the largest; many others of the privileged districts being limited to a court or alley, a few houses or a church. Thus Ram Alley and Mitre Court in Fleet Street, and Baldwin's Gardens in Gray's Inn Lane, were amongst these refugees of roguery and crime. Whitefriars was much resorted to by poets and players, dancing and fencing masters, and persons of the like vagabond and uncertain professions. The poets and players were attracted by the vicinity of the theatre in Dorset Gardens, built after the fire of London, by Sir Christopher Wren, upon the site of Dorset House, the residence of the Sackvilles. Here Sir William Davenant's company of comedians – the Duke of York's servants, as they were called – performed for a considerable time. It appears, however, that even before the great fire, there was a theatre in that neighbourhood. Malone, in his Prologomena to Shakspeare, quotes a memorandum from the manuscript book of Sir Henry Herbert, master of the revels to King Charles I. It runs thus: – "I committed Cromes, a broker in Long Lane, the 16th of February 1634, to the Marshalsey, for lending a church robe with the name of Jesus upon it to the players in Salisbury Court, to represent a Flamen, a priest of the heathens. Upon his petition of submission and acknowledgement of his faults, I released him the 17th of February 1634."

The ancient sanctuary at Westminster is of historical and Shaksperian celebrity, as the place where Elizabeth Grey, Queen of Edward the Fourth, took refuge, when Warwick the king-maker marched to London to dethrone her husband, and set Henry the Sixth on the throne. It was a stone church, built in the form of a cross, and so strongly, that its demolition, in 1750, was a matter of great difficulty. The precinct of St Martin's-le-Grand was also sanctuary. Many curious particulars respecting it are to be found in Kempe's Historical Notices of the Collegiate Church, or Royal Free Chapel and Sanctuary of St Martin's-le-Grand, London, published in 1825. In the reign of Henry the Fifth, this right of sanctuary gave rise to a great dispute between the Dean of St Martin's and the city authorities. "A soldier, confined in Newgate, was on his way to Guildhall, in charge of an officer of the city, when on passing the south gate of St Martin's, opposite to Newgate Street, five of his comrades rushed out of Panyer Alley, with daggers drawn, rescued him, and fled with him to the holy ground." The sheriff had the sanctuary forced, and sent rescued and rescuers to Newgate. The Dean of St Martin's, indignant at this violation of privilege, complained to the king, who ordered the prisoners to be liberated. Thereat the citizens, ever sticklers for their rights, demurred, and at last it was made a Star-Chamber matter. The dean pleaded his own cause, and that right skilfully and wittily. He denied that the chapel of St Martin's formed any part of the city of London, as claimed by the corporation; quoted a statute of Edward III. constituting St Martin's and Westminster Abbey places of privilege for treason, felony, and debt; and mentioned the curious fact, that "when the King's justices held their sittings in St Martin's Gate, for the trial of prisoners for treason or felony, the accused were placed before them, on the other side of the street, and carefully guarded from advancing forward; for if they ever passed the water-channel which divided the middle of the street, they might claim the saving franchise of the sacred precinct, and the proceedings against them would be immediately annulled." The dean also expressed his wonder that the citizens of London should be the men to impugn his church's liberties, since more than three hundred worshipful members of the corporation had within a few years been glad to claim its privilege. The Star-Chamber decided against the city, and the prisoners were restored to sanctuary. The Savoy was another sanctuary; and it was the custom of the inhabitants to tar and feather those who ventured to follow their debtors thither.

In the theatrical district of London, Mr Smith lingers long and fondly; for there each house, almost every brick, is rich in reminiscences, not only of players and playhouses, but of wits, poets, and artists. In the burial-ground of St Paul's, Covent-Garden, repose not a few of those who in their lifetime inhabited or frequented the neighbourhood. There lies the author of Hudibras. "Mr Longueville, of the Temple, Butler's steady friend, and who mainly supported him in his latter days, when the ungrateful Stuart upon the throne, whose cause he had so greatly served, had deserted him, was anxious to have buried the poet in Westminster Abbey. He solicited for that purpose the contributions of those wealthy persons, his friends, whom he had heard speak admiringly of Butler's genius, and respectfully of his character, but none would contribute, although he offered to head the list with a considerable sum." So poor Butler was buried in Covent-Garden, privately but decently. He is in good company. Sir Peter Lely, the painter of dames, the man who seemed created on purpose to limn the languishing and voluptuous beauties of Charles the Second's court, is also buried in St Paul's; as are also Wycherley and Southerne, the dramatists; Haines and Macklin, the comedians; Arne, the musician; Strange, the engraver; and Walcot, alias Peter Pindar. Sir Peter Lely lived in Covent-Garden, in very great style. "The original name of the family was Vandervaes; but Sir Peter's father, a gallant fellow, and an officer in the army, having been born at a perfumer's shop, the sign of the Lily, was commonly known by the name of Captain Lily, a name which his son thought to be more euphonious to English ears than Vandervaes, and which he retained when he settled here, slightly altering the spelling." Wycherley, a dandy and a courtier, as well as an author, had lodgings in Bow Street, where Charles II. once visited him when he was ill, and gave him five hundred pounds to go a journey to the south of France for the benefit of his health. When he afterwards married the Countess of Drogheda, a young, rich, and beautiful widow, she went to live with him in Bow Street. She was very jealous, and when he went over to the "Cock" tavern, opposite to his house, he was obliged to make the drawer open the windows, that his lady might see there was no woman in the company. This "Cock" tavern was the great resort of the rakes and mohocks of that day; of Buckhurst, Sedley, Killigrew, and others of the same kidney. In fact, Bow Street was then the Bond Street of London; and the "Cock," its "Long's" or "Clarendon." Dryden, in an epilogue, talks of the "Bow Street beaux," and several contemporary writers have similar allusions. Like most places where the rich congregate, this fashionable quarter was a fine field for the ingenuity of pick-pockets, and especially of wig and sword-stealers, a class of thieves that appeared with full-bottomed periwigs and silver-hilted rapiers. In those days, to keep a man's head decently covered, cost nearly as much as it now does to fill his belly and clothe his back. Wigs were sometimes of the value of forty or fifty pounds. Ten or fifteen pounds was an exceeding "low figure" for these modish incumbrances. Out of respect to such costly head-dress, hats were never put on, but carried under the arm. The wig-stealers could demand no more. Mr Smith quotes a passage from Gay, describing their manœuvres: —

"Nor is thy flaxen wig with safety worn:
High on the shoulder, in a basket borne,
Lurks the sly boy, whose hand, to rapine bred,
Plucks off the curling honours of thy head."

Will's coffeehouse was in Bow Street, and "being the grand resort of wits and critics, it is not surprising," says Mr Smith, "that it should become also the headquarters of envy, slander, and detraction." There was then a lack of printed vehicles for the venting of the evil passions of rival literati; lampoons were circulated in manuscript, and read at Will's. As the acknowledgment of the authorship might sometimes have had disagreeable consequences for the author, a fellow of the name of Julian, who styled himself "Secretary to the Muses," became the mouthpiece of libeller and satirist. He read aloud in the coffee-room the pasquinades that were brought to him, and distributed written copies to all who desired them. Concerning this base fellow, Sir Walter Scott gives some curious particulars in his edition of Dryden's works. There is no record of cudgelings bestowed upon Julian, though it is presumed that he did not escape them. "He is described," says Malone, "as a very drunken fellow, and at one time was confined for a libel." Dryden was a great sufferer from these violent and slanderous attacks – a sufferer, indeed, in more senses than one; for, besides being himself made the subject of venomous lampoons, he was suspected unjustly of having written one, and was waylaid and beaten on his way from Will's to his house in Gerrard Street. A reward of fifty pounds was offered for the apprehension of his assailants, but they remained undiscovered. Lord Rochester was their employer: Lord Mulgrave the real author of the libel.

In James Street, Covent-Garden, where Garrick lodged, there resided, from 1714 to 1720, a mysterious lady, who excited great interest and curiosity. Malcolm, in his Anecdotes of London during the Eighteenth Century, gives some account of her. She was middle-sized, dark-haired, beautiful and accomplished, and apparently between thirty and forty years old. She was wealthy, and possessed very valuable jewels. Her death was sudden, and occurred after a masquerade, where she said she had conversed with the King. It was remembered that she had been seen in the private apartments of Queen Anne; but after that Queen's death, she lived in obscurity. "She frequently said that her father was a nobleman, but that, her elder brother dying unmarried, the title was extinct; adding, that she had an uncle then living, whose title was his least recommendation. It seems likely enough that she was connected in some way with the Stuart family, and with their pretensions to the throne."

Dr Arne was born in King Street. His father, an honest upholsterer, at the sign of the "Two Crowns and Cushions," is said to have been the original of Murphy's farce of The Upholsterer. He did not countenance his son's musical propensities; and young Arne had to get up in the night, and practise by stealth on a muffled spinet. The first intimation received by the worthy mattress-maker of his son's proficiency in music, was one evening at a concert, where he quite unexpectedly saw him officiating as leader of the orchestra.

Voltaire, when in England, after his release from the Bastille, whither he had been sent for libel, lodged in Maiden Lane, at the White Peruke, a wigmaker's shop. When walking out, he was often annoyed by the mob, who beheld, in his spare person, polite manners, and satirical countenance, the personification of their notion of a Frenchman. "One day he was beset by so great a crowd that he was forced to shelter himself against a doorway, where, mounting the steps, he made a flaming speech in English in praise of the magnanimity of the English nation, and their love of freedom. With this the people were so delighted, that their jeers were turned into applauses, and he was carried in triumph to Maiden Lane on the shoulders of the mob." From which temporary elevation the arch-scoffer doubtless looked down upon his dupes with glee, suppressed, but immeasurable.

Quitting the abodes of wit and the drama for those of legal learning, we pass from Covent-Garden to Lincoln's Inn Fields, through Great Queen Street, in the Stuarts' day one of the most fashionable in London. Here dwelt Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and here he wrote the greater part of his treatise De Veritate, concerning the publication of which he believed himself, according to his own marvellous account, to have had a special revelation from heaven. A strange weakness, or rather madness, on the part of a man who disbelieved, or at least doubted, of general revelation. For himself, he thought an exception possible. Insanity alone could explain and excuse such illogical vanity. Near to this singular enthusiast lived Sir Godfrey Kneller, whose next-door neighbour and friend was Radcliffe the physician. "Kneller," says Horace Walpole, in his Anecdotes of Painting, "was fond of flowers, and had a fine collection. As there was great intimacy between him and the physician, he permitted the latter to have a door into his gardens; but Radcliffe's servants gathering and destroying the flowers, Kneller sent him word he must shut up the door. Radcliffe replied peevishly, "Tell him he may do any thing with it but paint it." "And I," answered Godfrey, "can take any thing from him but his physic." Pope and Gay were frequent visitors at the painter's studio. At the wall of Lincoln's Inn Garden, Ben Jonson is by some asserted to have laboured as a bricklayer. "He helped," says Fuller, "in the building of the new structure of Lincoln's Inn, where, having a trowel in his hand, he had a book in his pocket." Aubrey tells the same story, which is discredited by Mr Gifford, who denies that the poet ever was a bricklayer. Lord William Russell was executed in Lincoln's Inn Fields, it being, Pennant tells us, the nearest open space from Newgate, where he was confined.

Passing through Duke Street, where Benjamin Franklin lodged, when working as a journeyman printer in the adjacent Great Wyld Street, into Clare Market, the scene of Orator Henley's holdings-forth, we thence, by Drury-Lane, the residence of Nell Gwynne and Nan Clarges before they became respectively the King's mistress and a Duke's wife, get back to the Strand and move Citywards. But to refer, although merely nominally, to one half the subjects of interest met with on the way, and suggested by Mr Smith, would be to write an index, not a review. Here, therefore, we pause, believing that enough has been said to convince the reader of the vast amount of information and amusement derivable from the bricks and stones of London, and able to recommend to him, should he himself set out on a street pilgrimage, an excellent guide and companion in the Antiquarian Ramble.

MARLBOROUGH'S DISPATCHES

1711-1712

After the reduction of Bouchain, Marlborough was anxious to commence without delay the siege of Quesnoy, the capture of which would, in that quarter, have entirely broken through the French barrier. He vigorously stimulated his own government accordingly, as well as that at the Hague, to prepare the necessary supplies and magazines, and expressed a sanguine hope that the capture of this last stronghold would be the means of bringing about the grand object of his ambition, and a general peace.[5 - "The siege, so far as it depends on me, shall be pushed with all possible vigour, and I do not altogether despair but that, from the success of this campaign, we may hear of some advances made towards that which we so much desire. And I shall esteem it much the happiest part of my life, if I can be instrumental in putting a good end to the war, which grows so burdensome to our country, as well as to our allies." —Marlborough to Lord Oxford, Aug. 20, 1711; Coxe, vi. 92.] The ministry, to appearance, went with alacrity into his projects, and every thing bore the aspect of another great success closing the campaign with honour, and probably leading to a glorious and lasting peace. Mr Secretary St John, in particular, wrote in the warmest style of cordiality, approving the project in his own name as well as in that of the Queen, and reiterating the assurances that the strongest representations had been made to the Dutch, with a view to their hearty concurrence. But all this was a mere cover to conceal what the Tories had really been doing to overturn Marlborough, and abandon the main objects of the war. Unknown to him, the secret negotiation with the French Cabinet, through Torcy and the British ministers, through the agency of Mesnager, had been making rapid progress. No representations were made to the Dutch, who were fully in the secret of the pending negotiation, about providing supplies; and on the 27th September, preliminaries of peace, on the basis of the seven articles proposed by Louis, were signed by Mesnager on the part of France, and by the two English secretaries of state, in virtue of a special warrant from the Queen.[6 - Coxe, vi. 93.]

The conditions of these preliminaries, which were afterwards embodied in the Treaty of Utrecht, were the acknowledgement of the Queen's title to the throne, and the Protestant succession, by Louis; an engagement to take all just and reasonable measures that the crowns of France and Spain should never be united on the same head, – the providing a sufficient barrier to the Dutch, the empire, and the house of Austria; and the demolition of Dunkirk, or a proper equivalent. But the crown of Spain was left to the Duke of Anjou, and no provision whatever made to exclude a Bourbon prince from succeeding to it. Thus the main object of the contest – the excluding the Bourbon family from the throne of Spain, was abandoned: and at the close of the most important, successful, and glorious war ever waged by England, terms were agreed to, which left to France advantages which could scarcely have been hoped by the Cabinet of Versailles as the fruit of a long series of victories.

Marlborough felt deeply this clandestine negotiation, which not only deprived him of the main object for which, during his great career, he had been contending, but evinced a duplicity and want of confidence on the part of his own government at its close, which was a melancholy return for such inappreciable public services.[7 - "As you have given me encouragement to enter into the strictest confidence with you, I beg your friendly advice in what manner I am to conduct myself. You cannot but imagine it would be a terrible mortification for me to pass by the Hague when our plenipotentiaries are there, and myself a stranger to their transactions; and what hopes can I have of any countenance at home if I am not thought fit to be trusted abroad?" —Marlborough to the Lord Treasurer, 21st Oct. 1711.] But it was of no avail; the secession of England proved, as he had foreseen from the outset, a deathblow to the confederacy. Finding that nothing more was to be done, either at the head of the army, or in direction of the negotiations, he returned home by the Brille, after putting his army into winter-quarters, and landed at Greenwich on the 17th November. Though well aware of the private envy, as well as political hostility of which he was the object, he did nothing that could lower or compromise his high character and lofty position; but in an interview with the Queen, fully expressed his opinion on the impolicy of the course which ministers were now adopting.[8 - I hear, that in his conversation with the Queen, the Duke of Marlborough has spoken against what we are doing; in short, his fate hangs heavy upon him, and he has of late pursued every counsel which was worst for him. —Bolingbroke's Letters, i. 480. Nov. 24, 1711.] He adopted the same manly course in the noble speech which he made in his place in Parliament, in the debate on the address. Ministers had put into the royal speech the unworthy expression – "I am glad to tell you, that notwithstanding the arts of those who delight in war, both place and time are appointed for opening the treaty of a general peace." Lord Anglesea followed this up, by declaring, in the course of the debate, that the country might have enjoyed the blessing of peace soon after the battle of Ramilies, if it had not been deferred by some person whose interest it was to prolong the war.

Rising upon this, with inexpressible dignity, and turning to where the Queen sat, Marlborough said, "I appeal to the Queen, whether I did not constantly, while I was plenipotentiary, give her Majesty and her Council an account of all the propositions which were made; and whether I did not desire instruction for my conduct on this subject. I can declare with a good conscience, in the presence of her Majesty, of this illustrious assembly, and of God himself, who is infinitely superior to all the powers of the earth, and before whom, by the ordinary course of nature, I shall soon appear to render account of my actions, that I was very desirous of a safe, honourable, and lasting peace, and was very far from wishing to prolong the war for my own private advantage, as several libels and discourses have most falsely insinuated. My great age, and my numerous fatigues in war, make me ardently wish for the power to enjoy a quiet repose, in order to think of eternity. As to other matters, I have not the least inducement, on any account, to desire the continuance of the war for my own interest, since my services have been so generously rewarded by her Majesty and her parliament; but I think myself obliged to make such an acknowledgment to her Majesty and my country, that I am always ready to serve them, whenever my duty may require, to obtain an honourable and lasting peace. Yet I can by no means acquiesce in the measures that have been taken to enter into a negotiation of peace with France, upon the foot of some pretended preliminaries, which are now circulated; since my opinion is the same as that of most of the Allies, that to leave Spain and the West Indies to the House of Bourbon, will be the entire ruin of Europe, which I have with all fidelity and humility declared to her Majesty, when I had the honour to wait upon her after my arrival from Holland."[9 - Parl. Hist., 10th December 1711.]

This manly declaration, delivered in the most emphatic manner, produced a great impression; and a resolution against ministers was carried in the House of Peers by a majority of twelve. In the Commons, however, they had large majority, and an address containing expressions similar to those used by Lord Anglesea, reflecting on Marlborough, was introduced and carried there. The Whig majority, however, continued firm in the Upper House; and the leaders of that party began to entertain sanguine hopes of success. The Queen had let fall some peevish expressions in regard to her ministers. She had given her hand, in retiring from the House of Peers on the 15th December, to the Duke of Somerset, instead of her own Lord Treasurer; it was apprehended her old partiality for Marlborough was about to return; Mrs Masham was in the greatest alarm; and St John declared to Swift that the Queen was false.[10 - Swift's Journal to Stella, Dec. 8, 1711. – Swift said to the Lord Treasurer, in his usual ironical style, "If there is no remedy, your lordship will lose your head; but I shall only be hung, and so carry my body entire to the grave." – Coxe, vi. 148, 157.] The ministers of the whole alliance seconded the efforts of the Whigs, and strongly represented the injurious effects which would ensue to the cause of European independence in general, and the interests of England in particular, if the preliminaries which had been agreed to should be made the basis of a general peace. The Dutch made strong and repeated representations on the subject; and the Elector of Hanover delivered a memorial strongly urging the danger which would ensue if Spain and the Indies were allowed to remain in the hands of a Bourbon prince.

Deeming themselves pushed to extremities, and having failed in all attempts to detach Marlborough from the Whigs, Bolingbroke and the ministers resolved on the desperate measure of bringing forward the accusation against him, of fraud and peculation in the management of the public monies entrusted to his management in the Flemish campaign. The charges were founded on the report of certain commissioners to whom the matter had been remitted; and which charged the Duke with having appropriated L.63,319 of the public monies destined for the use of the English troops, and L.282,366, as a per-centage of two per cent on the sum paid to foreign ambassadors during the ten years of the war. In reply to these abominable insinuations, the letter of the Duke to the commissioners was published on the 27th December, in which he entirely refuted the charges, and showed that he had never received any sums or perquisites, not sanctioned by previous and uniform usage, and far less than had been received by the general in the reign of William III. And in regard to the L.282,000 of per-centage on foreign subsidies, this was proved to have been a voluntary gift from those powers to the English general, authorised by their signatures and sanctioned by warrants from the Queen. This answer made a great impression; but ministers had gone too far to retreat, and they ventured on a step which, for the honour of the country, has never, even in the worst times, been since repeated. Trusting to their majority in the Commons, they dismissed the Duke from all his situations on the 31st December; and in order to stifle the voice of justice in the Upper House, on the following day patents were issued calling twelve new peers to the Upper House. On the following day they were introduced amidst the groans of the House: the Whig noblemen, says a contemporary annalist, "cast their eyes on the ground as if they had been invited to the funeral of the peerage."[11 - Cunningham, ii. 367.]

Unbounded was the joy diffused among the enemies of England by these unparalleled measures. On hearing of Marlborough's fall, Louis XIV. said with triumph, "The dismission of Marlborough will do all we can desire." The Court of St Germains was in exultation; and the general joy of the Jacobites, both at home and abroad, was sufficient to demonstrate how formidable an enemy to their cause they regarded the Duke; and how destitute of truth were the attempts to show that he had been engaged in a secret design to restore the exiled family. Marlborough disdained to make any defence of himself in Parliament; but an able answer on his part was prepared and circulated, which entirely refuted the whole charges against the illustrious general. So convinced were ministers of this, that, contenting themselves with resolutions against him in the House of Commons, where their influence was predominant, they declined to prefer any impeachment or accusation, even in the Upper House swamped by their recent creations. In the midst of this disgraceful scene of passion, envy, and ingratitude, Prince Eugene arrived in London to endeavour to stem the torrent and, if possible, prevent the secession of England from the confederacy. He was lodged with the Lord Treasurer; and the generous prince omitted no opportunity of testifying his undiminished respect for his illustrious rival in the day of his tribulation. The Treasurer having said to him at a great dinner, "I consider this day as the happiest of my life, since I have the honour to see in my house the greatest captain of the age." "If it be so," replied Eugene, "I owe it to your lordship;" alluding to his dismissal of Marlborough. On another occasion, some one having pointed out a passage in one of the libels against Marlborough, in which he was said to have been "perhaps once fortunate." "It is true," said Eugene; "he was once fortunate; and it is the greatest praise which can be bestowed on him; for, as he was always successful – that implies that all his other successes were owing to his own conduct."[12 - Burnet's History of his Own Times, vi. 116.]

Alarmed at the weight which Marlborough might derive from the presence and support of so great a commander, and the natural sympathy of all generous minds with the cordial admiration which these two great men entertained for each other, the ministers had recourse to a pretended conspiracy, which it was alleged had been discovered on the part of Marlborough and Eugene to seize the government and dethrone the Queen, on the 17th November. St John and Oxford had too much sense to publish such a ridiculous statement; but it was made the subject of several secret examinations before the Privy Council, in order to augment the apprehensions and secure the concurrence of the Queen in their measures. Such as it was, the tale was treated as a mere malicious invention, even by the contemporary foreign annalists,[13 - Mém. de Torcy, iii. 268, 269.] though it has since been repeated as true by more than one party native historian.[14 - Swift's Four Last Years of Queen Anne, 59; Continuation of Rapin, xviii. 468. 8vo edit.] This ridiculous calumny, and the atrocious libels as to the embezzlement of the public money, however, produced the desired effect. They inflamed the mind of the Queen, and removed that vacillation in regard to the measures of government, from which so much danger was apprehended by the Tory administration. Having answered the desired end, they were allowed quietly to go to sleep. No proceedings in the House of Peers, or elsewhere, followed the resolutions of the Commons condemnatory of Marlborough's financial administration in the Low Countries. His defence, published in the newspapers, though abundantly vigorous, was neither answered nor prosecuted as a libel on the Commissioners or House of Commons; and the alleged Stuart conspiracy was never more heard of, till it was long after drawn from its slumber by the malice of English party spirit.

Meanwhile the negotiations at Utrecht for a general peace continued, and St John and Oxford soon found themselves embarrassed by the extravagant pretensions which their own conduct had revived in the plenipotentiaries of Louis. So great was the general indignation excited by the publication of the preliminaries at Utrecht, that St John felt the necessity of discontinuing any general negotiation, and converting it into a private correspondence between the plenipotentiaries of the English and French crowns.[15 - "The French will see that there is a possibility of reviving the love of war in our people, by the indignation that has been expressed at the plan given in at Utrecht." —Mr Secretary St John to British Plenipotentiary, Dec. 28, 1711. – Bolingbroke's Correspondence, ii. 93.] Great difficulty was experienced in coming to an accommodation, in consequence of the rising demands of the French plenipotentiaries, who, deeming themselves secure of support from the English ministry, not only positively refused to abandon Spain and the Indies, but now demanded the Netherlands for the Elector of Bavaria, and the cession of Lille and Tournay in return for the seizure of Dunkirk. The sudden death, however, first of the Dauphiness of France, and then of the Dauphin, the former of whom was carried off by a malignant fever on the 12th, the latter on the 18th February 1712, followed by the death of their eldest son on the 23d, produced feelings of commiseration for the aged monarch, now in his seventy-third year and broken down by misfortunes, which rendered the progress of the separate negotiation more easy. England agreed to abandon its allies, and the main object of the war, on condition that a guarantee should be obtained against the crowns of France and Spain being united on the same head. On this frail security, the English ministry agreed to withdraw their contingent from the Allied army; and to induce the Dutch to follow their example, Ipres was offered to them on the same terms as Dunkirk had been to Great Britain.[16 - Coxe, vi. 189, 184.]

The disastrous effects of this secret and dishonourable secession, on the part of England, from the confederacy, were soon apparent. Great had been the preparations of the continental Allies for continuing the contest; and while the English contingent remained with them, their force was irresistible. Prince Eugene was at the head of the army in Flanders, and, including the British forces under the Duke of Ormond, it amounted to the immense force of 122,000 effective men, with 120 guns, sixteen howitzers, and an ample pontoon train. To oppose this, by far the largest army he had yet had to confront in the Low Countries, Villars had scarcely at his command 100,000 men, and they were ill equipped, imperfectly supplied with artillery, and grievously depressed in spirit by their long series of disasters. Eugene commanded the army of the confederates; for although the English ministry had been lavish in their promises of unqualified support, the Dutch had begun to entertain serious suspicions of their sincerity, and bestowed the command on that tried officer instead of the Duke of Ormond, who had succeeded Marlborough in the command of the English contingent. But Marlborough's soul still directed the movements of the army; and Eugene's plan of the campaign was precisely that which that great commander had chalked out at the close of the preceding one. This was to besiege Quesnoy and Landrecies, the last of the iron barrier of France which in this quarter protected the frontier, and immediately after to inundate the open country, and advance as rapidly as possible to Paris. It was calculated they might reach it in ten marches from Landrecies; and it was well known that there was neither a defensible position nor fortress of any sort to arrest the invaders' march. The Court of Versailles were in despair: the general opinion was, that the King should leave Paris, and retire to Blois; and although the proud spirit of Louis recoiled at such a proposal, yet, in taking leave of Marshal Villars, he declared – "Should a disaster occur, I will go to Peronne or St Quentin, collect all my troops, and with you risk a last effort, determined to perish, or save the State."[17 - Mém. de Villars, ii. 197.]

But the French monarch was spared this last desperate alternative. The defection of the British Cabinet saved his throne, when all his means of defence were exhausted. Eugene, on opening the campaign on the 1st May, anxiously inquired of the Duke of Ormond whether he had authority to act vigorously in the campaign, and received an answer that he had the same authority as the Duke of Marlborough, and was prepared to join in attacking the enemy. Preparations were immediately made for forcing the enemy's lines, which covered Quesnoy, previous to an attack on that fortress. But, at the very time that this was going on, the work of perfidious defection was consummated. On May 10, Mr Secretary St John sent positive orders to Ormond to take no part in any general engagement, as the questions at issue between the contending parties were on the point of adjustment.[18 - "Her Majesty, my lord, has reason to believe that we shall come to an agreement upon the great article of the union of the monarchies, as soon as a courier sent from Versailles to Madrid can return. It is, therefore, the Queen's positive command to your Grace that you avoid engaging in any siege, or hazarding a battle, till you have further orders from her Majesty. I am, at the same time, directed to let your Grace know, that you are to disguise the receipt of this order; and her Majesty thinks you cannot want pretences for conducting yourself, without owning that which might at present have an ill effect if it was publicly known. P.S. I had almost forgot to tell your Grace that communication is made of this order to the Court of France, so that if the Marshal de Villars takes, in any private way, notice of it to you, your Grace will answer it accordingly." —Mr Secretary St John to the Duke of Ormond, May 10, 1712. Bolingbroke's Correspondence, ii. 320.] Intimation of this secret order was sent to the Court of France, but it was directed to be kept a positive secret from the Allied generals. Ormond, upon the receipt of these orders, opened a private correspondence with Villars, informing him that their troops were no longer enemies, and that the future movements of the troops under his command were only to get forage and provisions. This correspondence was unknown to Eugene; but circumstances soon brought the defection of England to light. In the middle of it, the Allied forces had passed the Scheldt, and taken post between Noyeller and the Boiase, close to Villars's position. To bring the sincerity of the English to a test, Eugene proposed a general attack on the enemy's line, which was open and exposed, on the 28th May. But Ormond declined, requesting the operation might be delayed for a few days. The defection was now apparent, and the Dutch deputies loudly condemned such dishonorable conduct; but Eugene, anxious to make the most of the presence of the British troops, though their co-operation could no longer be relied on, proposed to besiege Quesnoy, which was laid open by Villars's retreat. Ormond, who felt acutely the painful and discreditable situation in which, without any fault of his own, he was placed, could not refuse, and the investment took place that very day. The operations were conducted by the Dutch and Imperial troops alone; and the town was taken, after a siege of six weeks, on the 10th July.[19 - Eugene to Marlborough, June 9, 1712. – Coxe vi. 199.]

This disgraceful defection on the part of the English government excited, as well it might, the utmost indignation among the Allies, and produced mingled feelings of shame and mortification among all real patriots or men of honour in this country. By abandoning the contest in this manner, when it was on the very point of being crowned with success, the English lost the fruit of TEN costly and bloody campaigns, and suffered the war to terminate without attaining the main object for which it had been undertaken. Louis XIV., defeated, and all but ruined, was permitted to retain for his grandson the Spanish succession; and England, victorious, and within sight, as it were, of Paris, was content to halt in the career of victory, and lost the opportunity, never to be regained for a century to come, of permanently restraining the ambition of France. It was the same as if, a few days after the battle of Waterloo, England had concluded a separate peace, guaranteeing the throne of Spain to Joseph Buonaparte, and providing only for its not being held also by the Emperor of France. Lord Halifax gave vent to the general indignation of all generous and patriotic men, when he said, in the debate on the address, on 28th May, after enumerating the proud list of victories which, since the commencement of the war, had attended the arms of England, – "But all this pleasing prospect is totally effaced by the orders given to the Queen's general, not to act offensively against the enemy. I pity that heroic and gallant general, who, on other occasions, took delight to charge the most formidable corps and strongest squadrons, and cannot but be uneasy at his being fettered with shackles, and thereby prevented from reaping the glory which he might well expect from leading on troops so long accustomed to conquer. I pity the Allies, who have relied upon the aid and friendship of the British nation, perceiving that what they had done at so great an expense of blood and treasure is of no effect, as they will be exposed to the revenge of that power against whom they have been so active. I pity the Queen, her royal successors, and the present and future generations of Britain, when they shall find the nation deeply involved in debt, and that the common enemy who occasioned it, though once near being sufficiently humbled, does still triumph, and design their ruin; and are informed that this proceeds from the conduct of the British cabinet, in neglecting to make a right use of those advantages and happy occasions which their own courage and God's blessing had put into their hands."[20 - Parl. Hist., May 28, 1712. Lockhart Papers, i, 392]

Marlborough seconded the motion of Halifax, in a speech of peculiar interest, as the last which he made on the conduct of this eventful war. "Although," said he, "the negotiations for peace may be far advanced, yet I can see no reason which should induce the Allies or ourselves to remain inactive, and not push on the war with the utmost vigour, as we have incurred the expense of recruiting the army for the service of another year. That army is now in the field; and it has often occurred that a victory or a siege produced good effects and manifold advantages, when treaties were still further advanced than in the present negotiation. And as I am of opinion that we should make the most we can for ourselves, the only infallible way to force France to an entire submission, is to besiege and occupy Cambray or Arras, and to carry the war into the heart of the kingdom. But as the troops of the enemy are now encamped, it is impossible to execute that design, unless they are withdrawn from their position; and as they cannot be reduced to retire for want of provisions, they must be attacked and forced. For the truth of what I say I appeal to a noble duke (Argyle) whom I rejoice to see in this house, because he knows the country, and is as good a judge of these matters as any person now alive." Argyle, though a bitter personal enemy of Marlborough, thus appealed to, said, – "I do indeed know that country, and the situation of the enemy in their present camp, and I agree with the noble duke, that it is impossible to remove them without attacking and driving them away; and, until that is effected, neither of the two sieges alluded to can be undertaken. I likewise agree that the capture of these two towns is the most effectual way to carry on the war with advantage, and would be a fatal blow to France."[21 - Coxe, vi. 192, 193.]

Notwithstanding the creation of twelve peers to swamp the Upper House, it is doubtful how the division would have gone, had not Lord Strafford, a cabinet minister, observed, in reply to the charge, that the British government was about to conclude a separate peace, – "Nothing of that nature has ever been intended; for such a peace would be so foolish, villanous, and knavish, that every servant of the Queen must answer for it with his head to the nation. The Allies are acquainted with our proceedings, and satisfied with our terms." This statement was made by a British minister, in his place in Parliament, on the 28th May, eighteen days after the private letter from Mr Secretary St John to the Duke of Ormond, already quoted, mentioning the private treaty with Louis, enjoining him to keep it secret from the Allies, and communicate clandestinely with Villars. But such a declaration, coming from an accredited minister of the crown, produced a great impression, and ministers prevailed by a majority of sixty-eight to forty. In the course of the debate, Earl Poulett let fall such cutting expressions against Marlborough for having, as he alleged, led his troops to certain destruction, in order to profit by the sale of the officers' commissions,[22 - "No one can doubt the Duke of Ormond's bravery; but he is not like a certain general who led troops to the slaughter, to cause a great number of officers to be knocked on the head in a battle, or against stone walls, in order to fill his pockets by the sale of their commissions." – Coxe, vi. 196.] that the Duke, without deigning a reply, sent him a challenge on leaving the house. The agitation, however, of the Earl, who was less cool than the iron veteran on the prospect of such a meeting, revealed what was going forward, and by an order of the Queen, the affair was terminated without bloodshed.[23 - Lockhart Papers, i. 392; Coxe, vi. 196, 199.]

It soon appeared how much foundation there was for the assertion of the Queen's ministers, that England was engaged in no separate negotiation for a peace. On the 6th June were promulgated the outlines of the treaty which afterwards became so famous as the Peace of Utrecht. The Duke of Anjou was to renounce for ever, for himself and his descendants, all claim to the French crown; and the crown of Spain was to descend, by the male line only, to the Duke of Anjou, and failing them to certain princes of the Bourbon line by male descent, always excluding him who was possessed of the French crown.[24 - The words of the treaty, which subsequent events have rendered of importance, on this point, were these: – Philippe V. King of Spain renounced "à toutes pretentions, droits, et tîtres que lui et sa postérité avaient ou pourraient avoir à l'avenir à la couronne de France. Il consentit pour lui et sa postérité que ce droit fût tenu et considéré comme passé au Duc de Berry son frère et à ses descendans et postérité male; et en defaut de ce prince, et de sa postérité male, au Duc de Bourbon son cousin et à ses héritiers, et aussi successivement à tous les princes du sang de France." The Duke of Saxony and his male heirs were called to the succession, failing Philippe V. and his male heirs. This act of renunciation and entail of the crown of Spain on male heirs, was ratified by the Cortes of Castile and Arragon; by the parliament of Paris, by Great Britain and France in the sixth article of the Treaty of Utrecht. —Vide Schoell, Hist. de Trait., ii. 99, 105, and Dumont, Corp. Dipl., tom. viii. p. 1. p. 339.] Gibraltar and Minorca remained to England; Dunkirk was to be demolished; the Spanish Netherlands were to be ceded to Austria, with Naples, Milan, and Sardinia; the barrier towns were to be ceded to the Dutch, as required in 1709, with the exception of two or three places. Spain and her Indian colonies remained with the Duke of Anjou and his male heirs, as King of Spain. And thus, at the conclusion of the most glorious and successful war recorded in English history, did the English cabinet leave to France the great object of the contest, – the crown of Spain, and its magnificent Indian colonies, placed on the head of a prince of the Bourbon race. With truth did Marlborough observe, in the debate on the preliminaries – "The measures pursued in England for the last year are directly contrary to her Majesty's engagements with the Allies, sully the triumphs and glories of her reign, and will render the English name odious to all other nations."[25 - Coxe, vi. 205.] It was all in vain. The people loudly clamoured for peace; the Tory ministry was seconded by a vast numerical majority throughout the country. The peace was approved of by large majorities in both houses. Parliament was soon after prorogued; and Marlborough, seeing his public career terminated, solicited and obtained passports to go abroad, which he soon afterwards did.

Great was the mourning, and loud the lamentations, both in the British and Allied troops, when the fatal day arrived that the former were to separate from their old companions in arms. On the 10th July, the very day on which Quesnoy surrendered, the last of their long line of triumphs, Ormond, having exhausted every sort of procrastination to postpone the dreaded hour, was compelled to order the English troops to march. He in vain, however, gave a similar order to the auxiliaries in British pay; the hereditary Prince of Cassel replied – "The Hessians would gladly march, if it were to fight the French." Another, "We do not serve for pay, but fame." The native British, however, were compelled to obey the order of their sovereign, and they set out, twelve thousand strong, from the camp at Cambresis. Of all the Germans in British pay, only one battalion of Holstein men, and a regiment of dragoons from Liege, accompanied them. Silent and dejected they took their way; the men kept their eyes on the ground, the officers did not venture to return the parting salute of the comrades who had so long fought and conquered by their side. Not a word was spoken on either side, the hearts of all were too big for utterance; but the averted eye, the mournful air, the tear often trickling down the cheek, told the deep dejection which was every where felt. It seemed as if the Allies were following to the grave, with profound affection, the whole body of their British comrades. But when the troops reached their resting-place for the night, and the suspension of arms was proclaimed at the head of each regiment, the general indignation became so vehement, that even the bonds of military discipline were unable to restrain it. A universal cry, succeeded by a loud murmur, was heard through the camp. The British soldiers were seen tearing their hair, casting their muskets on the ground, and rending their clothes, uttering all the while furious exclamations against the government which had so shamefully betrayed them. The officers were so overwhelmed with vexation, that they sat apart in their tents looking on the ground, through very shame; and for several days shrunk from the sight even of their fellow-soldiers. Many left their colours to serve with the Allies, others withdrew, and whenever they thought of Marlborough and their days of glory, tears filled their eyes.[26 - Cunningham, ii. 432; Milner, 356.]

It soon appeared that it was not without reason that these gloomy presentiments prevailed on both sides, as to the consequences of the British withdrawing from the contest. So elated were the French by their secession, that they speedily lost all sense of gratitude and even honesty, and refused to give up Dunkirk to the British, which was only effected with great difficulty on the earnest entreaties of the British government. So great were the difficulties which beset the negotiation, that St John was obliged to repair in person to Paris, where he remained incognito for a considerable time, and effected a compromise of the objects still in dispute between the parties. The secession of England from the confederacy was now openly announced; and, as the Allies refused to abide by her preliminaries, the separate negotiation continued between the two countries, and lingered on for nearly a year after the suspension of arms.

Meanwhile Eugene, after the departure of the British, continued his operations, and laid siege to Landrecies, the last of the barrier fortresses on the road to Paris, in the end of July. But it soon appeared that England had been the soul of the confederacy; and that it was the tutelary arm of Marlborough which had so long averted disaster, and chained victory to its standard. Nothing but defeat and misfortune attended the Allies after her secession. Even the great and tried abilities of Eugene were inadequate to procure for them one single success, after the colours of England no longer waved in their ranks. During the investment of Landrecies, Villars drew together the garrisons from the neighbouring towns, no longer threatened by the English troops, and surprised at Denain a body of eight thousand men, stationed there for the purpose of facilitating the passage of convoys to the besieging army. This disaster rendered it necessary to raise the siege of Landrecies, and Villars immediately resumed the offensive. Douay was speedily invested: a fruitless effort of Eugene to retain it only exposed him to the mortification of witnessing its surrender. Not expecting so sudden a reverse of fortune, the fortresses recently taken were not provided with provisions or ammunition, and were in no condition to make any effectual resistance. Quesnoy soon fell from this cause; and Bouchain, the last trophy of Marlborough's victories, opened its gates on the 10th October. The coalition was paralysed; and Louis, who so lately trembled for his capital, found his armies advancing from conquest to conquest, and tearing from the Allies the fruits of all their victories.[27 - Mém. de Villars, ii. 396, 421.]

These disasters, and the evident inability of the Allied armies, without the aid of the English, to keep their ground in Flanders, in a manner compelled the Dutch, how unwilling soever, to follow the example of Great Britain, in treating separately with France. They became parties, accordingly, to the pacification at Utrecht; and Savoy also concluded peace there. But the barrier for which they had so ardently contended was, by the desertion of England, so much reduced, that it ceased to afford any effectual security against the encroachments of France. That power held the most important fortresses in Flanders which had been conquered by Louis XIV. – Cambray, Valenciennes, and Arras. Lille, the conquest on which Marlborough most prided himself, was restored by the Allies, and with it Bethune, Aire, St Venant, and many other places. The Dutch felt, in the strongest manner, the evil consequences of a treaty which thus, in a manner, left the enemy at their gates; and the irritation consequently produced against England was so violent that it continued through the greater part of the eighteenth century. Austria, indignant at being thus deserted by all her Allies, continued the contest alone through another campaign. But she was overmatched in the contest; her resources were exhausted; and, by the advice of Eugene, conferences were opened at Rastadt, from which, as a just reward for her perfidy, England was excluded. A treaty was soon concluded on the basis of the Treaty of Ryswick. It left Charles the Low Countries, and all the Spanish territories in Italy, except Sicily; but, with Sardinia, Bavaria was restored. France retained Landau, but restored New Brisach, Fribourg, and Kehl. Thus was that great power left in possession of the whole conquests ceded to Louis XIV. by the treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle, Nimeguen, and Ryswick, with the vast addition of the family alliance with a Bourbon prince, possessing Spain and the Indies. A century of repeated wars on the part of England and the European powers, with France, followed by the dreadful struggle of the Revolutionary contest, and the costly campaigns of Wellington, were the legacy bequeathed to the nation by Bolingbroke and Harley, in arresting the course of Marlborough's victories, and restoring France to preponderance, when it was on the eve of being reduced to a level consistent with the independence of other states. Well might Mr Pitt style the Treaty of Utrecht "the indelible reproach of the age!"[28 - Mr Pitt to Sir Benjamin Keene. —Memoirs of the Spanish Kings, c. 57.]

Marlborough's public career was now terminated; and the dissensions which had cast him down from power had so completely extinguished his political influence, that during the remaining years of his life, he rarely appeared at all in public life. On landing on the Continent, at Brille, on the 24th November, he was received with such demonstrations of gratitude and respect, as showed how deeply his public services had sunk into the hearts of men, and how warmly they appreciated his efforts to avert from England and the Coalition, the evils likely to flow from the Treaty of Utrecht. At Maestricht he was welcomed with the honours usually reserved for sovereign princes; and although he did his utmost, on the journey to Aix-la-Chapelle, to avoid attracting the public attention, and to slip unobserved through byways, yet the eagerness of the public, or the gratitude of his old soldiers, discovered him wherever he went. Wherever he passed, crowds of all ranks were waiting to see him, could they only get a glimpse of the hero who had saved the empire, and filled the world with his renown. All were struck with his noble air and demeanour, softened, though not weakened, by the approach of age. They declared that his appearance was not less conquering than his sword. Many burst into tears when they recollected what he had been, and what he was, and how unaccountably the great nation to which he belonged had fallen from the height of glory to such degradation. Yet was the manner of Marlborough so courteous and yet animated, his conversation so simple and yet cheerful, that it was commonly said at the time, "that the only things he had forgotten were his own deeds, and the only things he remembered were the misfortunes of others." Crowds of all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, hastened to attend his levee at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 17th January 1713, and the Duke de Lesdeguières, on leaving it, said, with equal justice and felicity, – "I can now say that I have seen the man who is equal to the Maréchal de Turenne in conduct, to the Prince of Condé in courage, and superior to the Maréchal de Luxembourg in success."[29 - Life of Marlborough, 175.]

But if the veteran hero found some compensation, in the unanimous admiration of foreign nations, for the ingratitude with which he had been treated by the government of his own, he was soon destined to find that gratitude for past services was not to be looked for among foreign nations any more than his own countrymen. Upon the restoration of the Elector, by the treaty of Rastadt, the principality of Mendleheim, which had been bestowed upon Marlborough after the battle of Blenheim by the Emperor Joseph, was resumed by the Elector. No stipulation in his favour was made either by the British government or the Imperial court, and therefore the estate, which yielded a clear revenue of £2000 a-year, was lost to Marlborough. He transmitted, through Prince Eugene, a memorial to the Emperor, claiming an indemnity for his loss; but though it was earnestly supported by that generous prince, yet being unaided by any efforts on the part of the English ministry, it was allowed to fall asleep. An indemnity was often promised, even by the Emperor in writing,[30 - "At the future congress, his Imperial Majesty will do all that is possible to sustain my Lord Duke in the principality of Mendleheim, but if it should so happen that any invincible difficulty should occur in that affair, his Imperial Highness will give his Highness an equivalent out of his own hereditary dominions." —Emperor Charles VI. to Duchess of Marlborough, August 8, 1712. – Coxe, vi. 248.] but performance of the promise was always evaded. The Duke was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire, but obtained nothing but empty honours for his services; and at this moment, these high-sounding titles are all that remain in the Marlborough family to testify the gratitude of the Cæsars to the hero who saved their Imperial and Royal thrones.[31 - Coxe, vi. 249, 251.]

The same oblivion of past and inappreciable services, when they were no longer required, pursued the illustrious general in his declining years, on the part of his own countrymen. The got-up stories about embezzlement and dilapidation of the public money, in Flanders, were allowed to go to sleep, when they had answered their destined purpose of bringing about his fall from political power. No grounds were found for a prosecution which could afford a chance of success, even in the swamped and now subservient House of Peers. But every thing that malice could suggest, or party bitterness effect, was done to fill the last days of the immortal hero with anxiety and disquiet. Additional charges were brought against him by the commissioners, founded on the allegation that he had drawn a pistole per troop, and ten shillings a company, for mustering the soldiers, though, in the foreign auxiliaries, it was often not done. Marlborough at once transmitted a refutation of those fresh charges, so clear and decisive, that it entirely silenced those accusations.[32 - Duke of Marlborough's Answer, June 2, 1713.] But his enemies, though driven from this ground, still persecuted him with unrelenting malice. The noble pile of Blenheim, standing, as it did, an enduring monument at once of the Duke's services and the nation's gratitude, was a grievous eyesore to the dominant majority in England, and they did all in their power to prevent its completion.

Orders were first given to the Treasury, on June 1, 1712, to suspend any further payments from the royal exchequer; and commissioners were appointed to investigate the claims of the creditors and expense of the work. They recommended the payment of a third to each claimant, which was accordingly made; but as many years elapsed, and no further payments to account were made, the principal creditors brought an action in the Court of Exchequer against the Duke, as personally liable for the amount, and the court pronounced decree in favour of the plaintiffs, which was affirmed, after a long litigation, in the House of Lords. Meanwhile the works, for want of any paymaster, were at a stand; and this noble pile, this proud monument of a nation's gratitude, would have remained a modern ruin to this day, had it not been completed from the private funds of the hero whose services it was intended to commemorate. But the Duke of Marlborough, as well as the Duchess, were too much interested in the work to allow it to remain unfinished. He left by his will fifty thousand pounds to complete the building, which was still in very unfinished state at the time of his death, and the duty was faithfully performed by the Duchess after his decease. From the accounts of the total expense, preserved at Blenheim, it appears, that out of three hundred thousand pounds, which the whole edifice cost, no less than sixty thousand pounds was provided from the private funds of the Duke of Marlborough.[33 - Coxe, vi. 369, 373.]

It may readily be believed that so long-continued and unrelenting a persecution of so great a man and distinguished benefactor of his country, proceeded from something more than mere envy at greatness, powerful as that principle ever is in little minds. In truth, it was part of the deep-laid plan for the restoration of the Stuart line, which the declining state of the Queen's health, and the probable unpopularity of the Hanover family, now revived in greater vigour than ever. During this critical period, Marlborough, who was still on the Continent, remained perfectly firm to the Act of Settlement, and the Protestant cause. Convinced that England was threatened with a counter-revolution, he used his endeavours to secure the fidelity of the garrison of Dunkirk, and offered to embark at its head in support of the Protestant succession. He sent General Cadogan to make the necessary arrangements with General Stanhope for transporting troops to England, to support the Hanoverian succession, and offered to lend the Elector of Hanover £20,000 to aid him in his endeavour to secure the succession. So sensible was the Electoral house of the magnitude of his services, and his zeal in their behalf, that the Electress Sophia entrusted him with a blank warrant, appointing him commander-in-chief of her troops and garrisons, on her accession to the crown.[34 - Coxe, vi. 263.]

On the death of Queen Anne, on August 1, 1714, Marlborough returned to England, and was soon after appointed captain-general and master-general of the ordnance. Bolingbroke and Oxford were shortly after impeached, and the former then threw off the mask, by flying to France, where he openly entered into the service of the Pretender at St Germains. Marlborough's great popularity with the army was soon after the means of enabling him to appease a mutiny in the guards, which at first threatened to be alarming. During the rebellion in 1715, he directed, in a great degree, the operations against the rebels, though he did not actually take the field; and to his exertions, its rapid suppression was in a great measure to be ascribed.