at Carpi. Marshal Villeroi, who was sent to supersede Catinat in consequence of his misfortune, subsequently attacked Eugene in the neighbourhood of Brescia, but was repulsed with heavy loss, and in spite of all the efforts of the French and Spaniards, powerfully aided by the Duke of Savoy, Eugene maintained himself in Lombardy throughout the winter.

But although the emperor had drawn the sword, and Louis was in possession of the Spanish fortresses, it was still the opinion of William that a general war might be avoided. With this object he commissioned the Earl of Marlborough to negotiate a treaty with Holland and the emperor. The antecedents of Marlborough had not been such as to inspire confidence in any party. He had been enriched and ennobled by James the Second, but had deserted that prince at the most critical period of his career, and since his desertion was suspected of having carried on a secret correspondence with the exiled family. But political honesty is rare in times of revolution, and William, although doubtful hitherto of the character and objects of Marlborough, was well aware of his great abilities when he was sent on this important mission. On the 7th of September, 1701, a treaty was concluded between the emperor, the States, and England, which, so far as the latter Power was concerned, might probably have remained a dead letter but for the subsequent conduct of the French king. He not only did not reject the terms proposed by the allies, but professed in general terms his earnest desire for the restoration of peace. Within a very few days, however, after the treaty was signed an event occurred which rendered the maintenance of peace impossible.

On the 16th of September, 1701, James the Second died at St. Germains, and Louis, in direct violation of the fourth article of the treaty of Ryswick, forthwith acknowledged the son of James and of Mary of Modena

as the King of Great Britain and Ireland. It is said that Louis was induced to take this dangerous step by the solicitations of Mary and of Madame de Maintenon," and that he yielded partly from his inability to resist their entreaties, and partly from a chivalrous sentiment of compassion for the exiled family, whom it is admitted upon all hands he invariably treated with princely hospitality. If Louis had never broken any other treaty the explanation would be a plausible, perhaps even a creditable one. But he so frequently and so flagrantly violated his engagements that we are driven to the conclusion that he took this extraordinary step in the belief that the English were at this time so averse to a renewal of the war that he could take it with impunity.

But in this he was egregiously mistaken. William was in Holland at the time when the tidings reached him, and he forthwith desired his ambassador to quit Versailles without taking leave. In England the indignation was all but universal. That Louis should, in open contempt of his engagements, seek to set up, as a rival to the throne, a son, and, as many said, a supposititious son, of the exiled king, was regarded as a national affront of the most unpardonable kind; and when William reached London in the autumn of this year he was received with an amount of genuine enthusiasm which he had never before witnessed. With the eye of the experienced statesman he saw and seized his opportunity. Although the House of Commons was not a twelvemonth old, he resolved on a fresh appeal to the nation; and the result was a Parliament which readily voted all the men and money that he desired. He was once more in a position to take the field against the indefatigable enemy of European liberty and peace; but

The ministers of Louis did their utmost to dissuade him from a course so dangerous in itself and so fatal to his reputation. Fénélon, who had been preceptor to the Duke of Burgundy, the elder son of the dauphin, and was now Archbishop of Cambrai, joined in the remonstrance of the council; but nothing could shake the resolution of Louis.-Voltaire, Louis XIV., cap. xvii.; Macaulay, vol. v., cap. xxv.

his great career was fast drawing to a close, and he never left England again. A constitution never strong was worn out by incessant toil of mind and body. He died on the 8th of March, 1702, an old man at fifty-one.

Voltaire has drawn a comparison between William and Louis very much to the advantage of the latter; and it must be admitted that the English king was wholly deficient in those attractive qualities which were conspicuous in his great rival. But beyond his liberal patronage of literature and art it may well be asked what benefits Louis conferred upon the world in the fifty years during which he was absolute master of France? It cannot be denied that he cruelly persecuted his subjects on account of their religion, and that in pursuit of the phantom of universal monarchy he involved his neighbours in perpetual strife. And what was the result of all his deeply-laid intrigues, his broken treaties, and his successful and unsuccessful wars? To bring upon his country an amount of misery and disaster only to be surpassed in the history of him who in the early part of the present century followed in his footsteps, who reaped a still richer harvest of glory, and whose downfall was still more signal and decisive. At times, too, William has been compared to Cromwell; but between the great Protector and the hero of the Revolution the resemblance is faint indeed. Cromwell, in the present age, has been the object of more unbounded eulogy than he ever was before; but what real service he rendered to his country, or to the world at large, it would be hard to say. That a private individual should have rendered himself the absolute master of three kingdoms was a circumstance unprecedented in modern times, and the homage paid by foreign States to the successful leader of the great rebellion was flattering to the national vanity. To the serious errors of his foreign policy allusion has been already made-errors which it required all the heroic energy of William and all the genius of Marlborough to repair; and of his barbarous policy in Ireland we are

still reaping, and are likely to continue to reap, the bitter fruits. Nor was he more successful in his domestic policy, for all his attempts at legislation culminated at last in the establishment of a despotism far more intolerable than that which he had overthrown. To William belongs the distinction of having solved, perhaps, the most difficult of all political problems. He proved to the world, during his reign of thirteen years, that a constitutional monarchy was a practicable form of government. It must have been a hard task, for a prince of his strong will, and with his habits of command, when thwarted by opposing factions, to walk within the limits of the constitution which he had sworn to observe. We can perceive, from his confidential letters, that the effort was a painful one;1 but it was fortunate alike for his reputation and for his adopted country that he was restrained by a sense of duty, or of interest, from following the evil example of his predecessors. Yet, with all his great qualities, William was never a popular king. Although constant in his attachments, like most men of grave and earnest natures, his manner, except to intimate friends, was cold and reserved, even at times ungracious; and those who remembered the unaffected affability and ready wit of Charles were apt to draw comparisons by no means flattering to his nephew. But the defects of William were essentially of a superficial kind. The great and permanent importance of the work he accomplished must ever render him one of the most prominent characters of modern history.

To oppose the dangerous ascendency of France had been the ruling passion of William's life, and he may be said to have bequeathed to Marlborough the task of completing the work that he had left unfinished. There have been many great commanders in the world, but if we are to believe the concurring testimony of friends and enemies, none greater than that renowned

1 See his letters to Heinsius.-Ranke, vol. v., p. 190.

general. Of him it has been truly said that he never laid siege to a town or a fortress that he did not take, and that he never fought a battle that he did not win. His enemies were wont to add that he never served a prince or a cause that for an adequate consideration he was not ready to betray. to betray. But in times of revolution consistency is rare among public men; and whatever may have been the political delinquencies of Marlborough, it is universally allowed that he possessed in a pre-eminent degree every quality requisite for success in war. And this was not all; for a temper that was absolutely imperturbable, an unerring knowledge of men, and a clear and solid judg ment, rendered him no less formidable in negotiation than in the field.

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Queen Anne, on her accession, lost no time in expressing her intention of following in the footsteps of her predecessor, "who," she declared in her first speech in Parliament, "was the great support, not only of these kingdoms, but of all Europe," and she recommended two measures to their special attention: the first that every effort should be made in concert with her allies "to reduce the exorbitant power of France;" the second to consider the best means of effecting a union with Scotland-a matter which William had always considered of the first importance, and which he had recommended to the attention of Parliament only a week before his death.

War was formally declared against France and Spain by the Allied Powers on the 15th of May, 1702; and Marlborough, not without much opposition on the part of the Dutch, was appointed commander-in-chief in the Netherlands. His army, consisting of English, Dutch, Prussians, and Hanoverians, numbered about 60,000 men; and as the enemy persistently declined to risk a battle, he resolved to attack the line of fortresses on the Meuse; and he besieged and captured in succession, in

1 History of Queen Anne by Lord Stanhope, p. 39.