Yet how pleasing would it be to those who shall read the surprising Revolutions in your Story, to be made acquainted with your ordinary Life and Deportment?  How pleasing would it be to hear that the same Man who had carried Fire and Sword into the Countries of all that had opposed the Cause of Liberty, and struck a Terrour into the Armies of France, had, in the midst of His high Station, a Behaviour as gentle as is usual in the first Steps towards Greatness?  And if it were possible to express that easie Grandeur, which did at once perswade and command; it would appear as clearly to those to come, as it does to his Contemporaries, that all the great Events which were brought to pass under the Conduct of so well-govern’d a Spirit, were the Blessings of Heaven upon Wisdom and Valour:  and all which seem adverse fell out by divine Permission, which we are not to search into.

You have pass’d that Year of Life wherein the most able and fortunate Captain, before Your Time, declared he had lived enough both to Nature and to Glory; [2] and Your Grace may make that Reflection with much more Justice.  He spoke it after he had arrived at Empire, by an Usurpation upon those whom he had enslaved; but the Prince of Mindleheim may rejoice in a Sovereignty which was the Gift of Him whose Dominions he had preserved.

Glory established upon the uninterrupted Success of honourable Designs and Actions is not subject to Diminution; nor can any Attempts prevail against it, but in the Proportion which the narrow Circuit of Rumour bears to the unlimited Extent of Fame.

We may congratulate Your Grace not only upon your high Atchievements, but likewise upon the happy Expiration of Your Command, by which your Glory is put out of the Power of Fortune:  And when your Person shall be so too, that the Author and Disposer of all things may place You in that higher Mansion of Bliss and Immortality which is prepared for good Princes, Lawgivers, and Heroes, when HE in HIS due Time removes them from the Envy of Mankind, is the hearty Prayer of,

My LORD,
Your Graces
Most Obedient,
Most Devoted
Humble Servant,
THE SPECTATOR.

[Footnote 1:  John Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, was at this time 62 years old, and past the zenith of his fame.  He was born at Ashe, in Devonshire, in 1650, the son of Sir Winston Churchill, an adherent of Charles I. At the age of twelve John Churchill was placed as page in the household of the Duke of York.  He first distinguished himself as a soldier in the defence of Tangier against the Moors.  Between 1672 and 1677 he served in the auxiliary force sent by our King Charles II. to his master, Louis XIV.  In 1672, after the siege of Maestricht, Churchill was praised by Louis at the head of his army, and made Lieutenant-colonel.  Continuing in the service of the Duke of York, Churchill, about 1680, married Sarah Jennings, favourite of the Princess Anne.