Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 71, No. 436, February 1852. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of real life outstrip all that romance has figured or would venture to portray!" observes Mr Alison, (vol. i. p. 403,) in describing the pious and enthusiastic greeting given by Prince Eugene to his aged mother, whom he had not seen since his youth, having been driven into exile by the haughty Louis XIV., on whom he had since inflicted such crushing defeats, and at whose expense he had become so great a hero! This interview took place at Brussels, whither Eugene eagerly repaired, immediately after the bloody victory of Oudenarde. "The fortnight I spent with her was the happiest of my life," said her laurelled son.

3

Alison, vol. ii. p. 320.

4

Mr Alison seems to attribute this speech, or a similar one, to Lord Bolingbroke.

5

History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht to that of Aix-la-Chapelle, vol. i. p. 3.

6

Macaulay's History of England, from the Accession of James II., p. 255.

7

Alison's Marlborough, vol. i. p. 16, 17, 18.

8

"Napoleon hummed the well-known air, Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre, when he crossed the Niemen to commence the Russian campaign. The French nurses used to frighten their children with stories of Marlbrook! – as the Orientals, when their horses start, say they see the shadow of Richard Cœur-de-Lion crossing their path." —Pref., iv. v.

9

Vol. i. p. 447, 448.

10

Vol. ii. p. 298.

11

It would seem that Charles II. would have surprised him, on one occasion, in the company of the Countess; but, to save her credit with the King, he leaped through the window at the risk of his life; in return for which she presented him with £5000. With reference to this latter part of the business may be noted a diversity between two of Marlborough's biographers. Archdeacon Coxe ludicrously attempts to explain this splendid present of £5000, on the ground of Churchill's being in some way distantly related to the Duchess! "If the reverend Archdeacon," says Mr Alison – with a quaint approach to sarcasm very rare with him – "had been as well acquainted with women as he was with his books, he would have known that beautiful ladies do not, in general, bestow £5000 on distant cousins, whatever they may do on favourite lovers!"

12

Macaulay, 256, note.

13

Alison, i. 22.

14

Mahon, i. 21, 22.

15

Lectures in Modern History, delivered in the University of Cambridge, (Lecture xxiii.)

16

Alison, ii. p. 300.

17

"Even the great William," says Professor Smyth, "trained up amid a life of difficulties and war, with an intrepid heart and a sound understanding, was able only to stay the enterprises of Louis; successfully to resist, but not to humble him. It was for Marlborough to teach that unprincipled monarch the danger of ambition, and the instability of human grandeur; it was for Marlborough to disturb his dreams of pleasure and of pride, by filling them with spectres of terror and images of desolation." The lecture from which this is taken is well worthy of a careful perusal.

18

Alison, ii. p. 347.

19

In Sir James Stephen's Lectures on the History of France, just published, there is an admirable and elaborate portraiture of Louis XIV. If the rest of the work is equal to this portion, which is all that we have as yet been able to examine, Cambridge has cause to congratulate herself on the accession of so accomplished and able a professor of modern history.

20

Alison, i. p. 108.

21

Alison, i. p. 92-3.

22

Alison, i. p. 125.

23

Alison, i. p. 159.

24

Ibid. p. 187.

25

Ibid. p. 141.

26

Alison, i. 247.

27

Alison, i. 277, 278.

28

Ibid. p. 287.

29

Ibid. p. 330.

30

Alison, i. 406.

31

Ibid. p. 419.

32

Ibid. p. 423.

33

Ibid. p. 448.

34

Alison, i. 448.

35

Alison, ii. 125.

36

Alison, vol. ii. p. 185, note.

37

Ibid. vol. ii. p. 194.

38

Alison, ii. 199, 200.

39

Ibid. p. 203.

40

Ibid. p. 213.

41

Parl. Hist. vi. p. 1137.

42

Alison, ii. 263, note.

43

Ibid. p. 266.

44

Ibid. p. 303.

45

Ante, p. 146.

46

Alison, ii. p. 305.

47

Marlborough had received the sacrament with great solemnity at the midnight preceding the day of the battle of Blenheim; and shortly before, divine service had been performed at the head of every regiment and squadron in the Allied army. After the battle he said, that "he had prayed to God more frequently during its continuance than all the chaplains of both armies put together which served under his orders." —Ibid. vol. i. p. 166.

48

Ibid. ii. 100.

49

Ibid. p. 307.

50

History of England, ii. 41, 42.

51

Alison, i. 14, 15, note.

52

Alison, i. 211, note.

53

Lectures, i. 143.

54

A very happy idea is embodied in a work recently published, and which has quickly reached a second edition – Mr Creasy's Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, from Marathon to Waterloo. The idea was suggested by a remark of Mr Hallam, placed on the title-page by way of motto, "These few battles, of which a contrary event would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes." Mr Alison frequently puts such cases, in both The Life of Marlborough and his History of Europe. Mr Creasy, as a distinguished scholar and a professor of history, has acquitted himself very ably. His fifteen battles are well selected, as radiating centres of enduring influence upon human affairs in their greatest crises – as so many nuclei of historical knowledge.