Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/86

72 have been, with an army so full of ardour to fight? These flights of joy, upon so small an occasion, seem to me just as reasonable, as if some great conqueror should land in England, beat all our armies, and take London in one campaign; and yet reserve his triumphs and the people's acclamations for the next, only upon the taking of Islington.

Whether this action, in respect to those the duke of Marlborough has performed before deserves to be valued to that height our author carries it, may be gathered from what sir W. Temple says, in his Memoirs, p. 189. "In May 1676, the king of France sent the duke of Orleans to besiege Bouchain, with some part of his troops, being a small though strong place, considerable for its situation to the defence of the Spanish Netherlands. The king, with the strength of his army, posted himself so advantageously, as to hinder the prince of Orange from being able to relieve it, or to fight without disadvantage. The armies continued some days facing one another, and several times drawing out in order to battle, which neither of them thought fit to begin. Bouchain was surrendered the eighth day of the siege." Behold the same circumstance, attended with the same conquest, differing only in the number of days, in which the disadvantage lies, by many, on his grace's side!

I can never believe the duke of Marlborough will think himself obliged to the author of this paper, for representing him as "a mortified person, and one devested of all authority both at home and abroad;" no more than I do imagine that his grace can in his own nature be undutiful to that power that has raised him; however accidentally he might