The Sun.
London, England, 1852-01-26 00:00:00

wilfully overlooked by Mr. Macaulay in his perverse
determination to falsify history and to distort the
memory of this unfortunate sovereign into that of a
very monster of meanness and brutality. Thereupon
we come to the beginning of the war between Louis
and William, by the campaign of 1702, remarkable
for the siege and fall successively of Venloo and
Liege. Marlborough next appears before us in the
splendour of the great campaigns of 1703 and 1704,
rendered for ever remarkable by the victory of Blen-
heim. The campaigns of 1705 and 1706 develope the
narrative of those times through the medium of the
battle of Ramifies and the conquest of Flanders.
Simultaneously with the account of the campaign of
1707, distinguished by the failure before Toulon and
the battle of Altnanza, comes the first inkling of the
commencement of the intrigues against Marlborough.
Notwithstanding which intrigues he contrives to win
new renown with his flaming sword in the campaign
of 1708, where, after the surprise of Ghent arid
Bruges by the French, he fights the great battle of
Oudenarde. During that campaign, moreover, occurs
the siege and fall of Lille, together with the recovery
of Gheat and Bruges by Marlborough. Matters
becoming after that more complicated, the biographer,
we might rather say, perhaps, more correctly, the
historian, leads us through the other events connected
with the war in 1708, thee conference of the Hague,
the siege of Tourney, the battle of Malplaquet, and
the fall of Mons. Arriving at the invasion of Russia
by Charles XII., we watch successively his defeat at
Paltowa by the Czar Peter, and the
well-
renmenabered events of the campaigns of 1709
and 1710, the first in Savoy and Spain,
and the second in Flanders. After the
former occur the conferences at Gertruydenberg,
leading to the latter. Here Marlborough passes the
lines of Villars, and shortly afeerwards Douai, Be-
thune, St. Venant, and Aire, are, in turn, besieged.
Meanwhile political changes of importance are trans-
piring at home. Harley's iefitience increases and of
course the influence also of Toryiarn. 'i hereupon
follow the disini:sal of Godolphin, the change of the
Ministry, and the consequent increase of entangle-
ment in the situation of Marlborough. The campaign
in Spain. in 1710, is then described down to the battle
of Villa Viciosa : and, having turned our glance for
an instant towards Germany, on the death of Joseph
and the accession of Charles VI. as Emperor, we
watch the landing of Marlborough in Holland, and
the inauguration of the campaign of 1711, the cam-
paign marked by the famous seige and fall of Boa-
chain. After several additional disasters in Spain,
and some secret negotiations between Louis XIV. and
the English Ministry, comes Oxford's very memorable
dismissal of Marlborough. His condemnation of the
treaty of -Utrecht brings down upon him a shameless
and invidious persecution : the disasters in Flanders
lead to the treaty of Rastadt, and the ingratitude with
which the discomfited victor in so many battles is
treated in his own country drives him back to the
continent, where he is honoured with a most brilliant
reception. The lucidity with which these involved
events are recounted by Mr. Alison is not the least
conspicuous merit of the performance under our con-
sideration. His narrative from that critical epoch in
the life of his hero flows on, with unabated eloquence,
describing his loss of the principality of Min-
desheim, and his ultimate appointment as com-
mander-in-chief by George 1., in consideration
of his powerful and effectual advocacy of the Han°

verian succession in opposition to the-scheme for re-
storing the Stuarts adopted by Bolingbroke. The
wise measures suggested by Marlborough for the
defeat of the invaders in 1715 were the last evidences
of his genius as a military commander, for soon after-
wards he was stricken with the palsy and thereby
driven into the necessity of retirement. On the 16th
of June, 1722, in the seventy-second year of his age
he expired, and a few days afterwards the funeral
obsequies of the illustrious conqueror were celebrated
' with uncommon magnificence. The summing up of
the character of the Duke of Marlborough, is, as
might have been expected, one among the most mas-
terly passages in these volumes. 'De biographer
having there brought his record of the hero. to a con-
clusion, pauses first in consideration of the treaty of
Utrecht, and subsequently in a series of splendid
parallels between the great captains of modern times,
adopting the ingenious example of Plutarch, and
delineating the respective merits and demerits of such
military commanders as Marlborough, Eugene,
Frederick, Napoleon, and Wellington. It would be
unfair, before closing our notice of this very splendid
production, to omit any allusion to the peculiarities
of its form of publication. Besides some admirable
charts of the battles " bound-in " with the work, and
adroitly connected with its cover, each of the two
volumes is embellished with a beautifully engraved
frontispiece, one a likeness of Louis XIV., the other
one of Marlborough. Altogether the typography of
the work is as creditable to the publishers as its con-
tents are honourable to the biographer.

ESSAYS POLITICAL, HISTORICAL, AND
MISCELLANEOUS. 3 Vols. By Archibald
Alison. William Blackwood and Sons.
During the last twenty years, in addition to his
other literary occupations, Mr. Alison has been in
dustriously contributing, month after month, a va-
riety of papers, of a most diversified character, to the
pages of Blackwood's Magazine. These, in accordance
with a custom long since pursued in regard to the more
remarkable articles in the Edinburgh, have been col-
lected together, and issued again in the form of a separate
and most substantial publication. Having, upon the
occasion of their original appearance in the old, fami-
liar, two-columned pages of Maga, been separately,
and sometimes at no inconsiderable length, referred to
in this journal, the Essays of Mr. Alison cannot here,
without something like an appearance of tediousness
and supererogation, be spoken of otherwise than in a
way at once the most cursory and comprehensive.
But for this consideration, it would be agreeable to
expatiate upon contributions so discursive in theme,
and very often so elevating in tendency. Among the
Political Essays are several relating respectively to
the Parliamentary Reform Bill, to the Navigation-
laws, to Free Trade, to the Colonial System, to
Changes in the Currency, to Negro Emancipation,
to the increase of Crime and Transportation—in
short, to most of those important questions which,
during the last twenty years, have agitated the
public mind of England, and very materially af-
fected the development of its system of administra-
tion. Besides these, the first volume, dedicated ex-
clusively to the Political Essays, comprises papers
written at the time on the French Revolutions of
1830 and 1848, on the memorable battles of the three
days, the first of which elevated on the barricades the
Orleans dynasty, and the second the Provisional
Government. Among the Historical Essays there are
perceptible still greater variety and discursiveness.
Monteequieu is considered in his life, death, and
character, that Montesquieu who has been happily
designated by Mr. Alison, "the founder of the philo-
sophy of history," and as such, one who has discovered
in him an appropriate celebrant. Mirabeau, in his genius
and his errors, in his eloquence and his profligacy, in
his daring and his weakness, has been analysed with
scrupulous attention by the essayist. His judgment
and
has in like manner passed under review Hannibal
Napoleon, Bruce and Lamartine. Delineatinghin
a.
one contribution " The Roman Republic," he
described in another "The Athenian Democracy."
He He has an eye now to " The Tyrol," au d
" The Crusades." In looking at the progress of
events in Spain, he can pronounce upon th_e_Carlist
struggle, and can muse over the decline Tofurkey
when turning his,regard to Constantinople. The poet
will find interest in his criticisms on the
Greek Drama, while the artist will turn with
curiosity to his disssertation on. the Er
momenteem, the,
the moat strongly
ofultdhe
fiStcfhuoloalndofunPaacicnotuinngt.ableohperyoimngp,tinitgew
he appears to have tounhed upon
commenting
ghanistan Expedition, and at
contrasted subjects with
_equal facility,
at one period on the.
another,on the peculiarities of the Old
Not the least interesting paper
Par-
liament.
to us in the second volume
--the volume devoted en-
tirely
to the Historical Essay that Essays—isin which the
•
sublime intellects of Homer, Dante and Michael
Angelo are brought into comparison.
miscellaneous essay s Among the
are numbered reviews upon the
writings of Chateaubriand, upon the annals of
Macaulay, upon the travels of Humboldt, upon the
opinions of Wellington, upon the studies of Sismondi,
upon the lectures• f G
uizot, upon the genius of De
Stael, and upon the talents of De Tocqueville. Again,
as in the preceding
papers in volume, one of the most thedelight-
ful third—the volume restricted to the Miscellaneous Essays—is'one presenting to us anin-
genious
Virgil, comparisont this time however, between
T asso and Raphael. Historical publications
have not failed of course to attract the especial
Scrutiny of the annalist of Europe, and therefore
it is we find him in one instance passing
under review the France of M. Michelet,
and at another the Russia of Karamsin.
Two contributions in particular will be found of
value to those interested in the histrionic profession,
now unhappily in its decadence, one relating to it
more peculiarly in its intellectual phase, and another
referring to it especially in its character as an art—the
first an essay on the Romantic Drama, and the second
a paper upon the British Theatre, and its present con-
dition. From what we have already observed, it must
be apparent at a glance that the collected writings of
Mr. Alison as a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine
are of a kind sufficiently various, and of a character
sufficiently popular to command for them the atten-
tion of the most dissimilar tastes and of the most con-
tradictory predilections. They cannot fail to form an
agreeable and entertaining, because always readable
e
and instructive, addition even to the most valuable
and fastidiously-selected library. Coming, moreover,
in the name of a writer so accomplished end so, justly
celebrated as Mr. Alison, they will not fail to com-
mand their own deserved share of admiration.