The highest act of the mind of man, is to possess itself with tranquillity in imminent danger, and to have its thoughts so free, as to act at that time without perplexity.  The ancient poets have compared this sedate courage to a rock that remains immovable amidst the rage of winds and waves; but that is too stupid and inanimate a similitude, and could do no credit to the hero.  At other times they are all of them wonderfully obliged to a Lybian lion, which may give indeed very agreeable terrors to a description; but is no compliment to the person to whom it is applied:  eagles, tigers, and wolves, are made use of on the same occasion, and very often with much beauty; but this is still an honour done to the brute, rather than the hero.  Mars, Pallas, Bacchus, and Hercules, have each of them furnished very good similes in their time, and made, doubtless, a greater impression on the mind of a heathen, than they have on that of a modern reader.  But the sublime image that I am talking of, and which I really think as great as ever entered into the thought of man, is in the poem called, ’The Campaign’;[422] where the simile of a ministering angel sets forth the most sedate and the most active courage, engaged in an uproar of nature, a confusion of elements, and a scene of divine vengeance.  Add to all, that these lines compliment the General and his Queen at the same time, and have all the natural horrors, heightened by the image that was still fresh in the mind of every reader.[423]

“’Twas then great Marlborough’s mighty soul was proved, That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved, Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, Examined all the dreadful scenes of war; In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed, To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid, Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, And taught the doubtful battle where to rage.  So when an angel by divine command, With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, Such as of late o’er pale Britannia past, Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; And, pleased the Almighty’s orders to perform, Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.

“The whole poem is so exquisitely noble and poetic, that I think it an honour to our nation and language.”  The gentleman concluded his critique on this work, by saying, that he esteemed it wholly new, and a wonderful attempt to keep up the ordinary ideas of a march of an army, just as they happened in so warm and great a style, and yet be at once familiar and heroic.  Such a performance is a chronicle as well as a poem, and will preserve the memory of our hero, when all the edifices and statues erected to his honour are blended with common dust.

St. James’s Coffee-house, July 18.