SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. It is seldom the public receives information on princes and favourites from the fountain-head. Flattery, or invective, is apt to pervert the relations of others. It is from their own pens alone, whenever they are so gracious, like the lady in question, as to have " a passion for fame and approbation "," that we learn exactly how trifling, and foolish, and ridiculous, their views and actions were, and how often the mischief they did proceeded from the most inadequate We happen to know, indeed, though he was no author, that the duke of Buckingham's repulses in very impertinent amours, involved king James and king Charles in national quarrels with Spain and France. From her grace of Marlborough we may collect, that queen Anne was driven to change her ministry3, causes. • Vide her Apology, P. 5. * [Lord Hailes observes, in his preface to a small tract before cited, that sir Robert Walpole seems to have been the principal object of the dismal meditations of the duchess of Marlborough. She sometimes hints at a personal quarrel between them; but of its real cause or nature we are ignorant. It. and, in consequence, the fate of Europe, because she dared to affect one bedchamber-woman as she had done another. The duchess could not comprehend how the cousins Sarah Jennings 4 and Abigail Hill could ever enter into competition, though the one did but kneel to gather up the clue of favour, which the other had haughtily tossed away; and which she could not recover by putting the Whole Duty of Man into the queen's hands to teach her friendship 5. This favourite duchess, who, like the proud duke of Espernon, lived to brave the successors in a court where she had domineered, wound up her capricious life, where, it seems, she had begun it, with an apology for her conduct. The piece, though weakened by the prudence of those who were to correct it, though maimed by her grace's own corrections, and though great 'evident, however, that she persuaded herself by his misconduct England would be speedily ruined, and with England her own fortune. P. xiv.] 4 [The duchess having offered a considerable reward to the person who should write the best epitaph on her martial husband, the following was penned by Dr. Evans, of Oxford: "Here lies John, duke of Marlborough, Who run the French thorough and thorough; Died at St. James's, was buried at Westminster." Webb's Epitaphs, vol. ii. p. 32.] 4 Vide her Apology, p. 26819 part of it is rather the annals of a wardrobe than of a reign, yet has still curious anecdotes, and a few of those sallies of wit which fourscore years of arrogance could not fail to produce in so fantastic an understanding. And yet, by altering her memoirs as often as her will, she disappointed the public as much as her own family. However, the chief objects remain; and one sees exactly how Europe and the back-stairs took their places in her imagination and in her narrative. The revolution left no impression on her mind, but of queen Mary turning up bedclothes; and the Protestant hero but of a selfish glutton, who devoured a dish of peas from his sister-in-law. Little circumstances, indeed, convey the most "["Thwarted ambition, great wealth, and increasing years (said lord Hailes), rendered the duchess of Marlborough more and more peevish. She hated courts over which she had no influence, and she became at length the most ferocious animal that is suffered to go loose-a violent party-woman." Mirror, No. 21. Dr. Warton relates, that in the last illness of the duke, her husband, when Dr. Mead left his chamber, the duchess disliking his advice followed him down stairs, swore at him bitterly, and was going to tear off his periwig. Essay on Pope, vol. ü. p. 201. Swift has memorized her grace in his letters with the pen of scorn; and Pope, under the character of Atossa, has depicted her with the pencil of hate.] |