’The French and Bavarians, who numbered, like their opponents, some fifty thousand men, lay behind a little stream which ran through swampy ground to the Danube . . .  It was not till midday that Eugene, who commanded on the right, succeeded in crossing the stream.  The English foot at once forded it on the left.’  They were repelled for the time.  But, in the centre, Marlborough, ’by making an artificial road across the morass which covered it,’ in two desperate charges turned the day.

A map of 1705 in the Annals of Queen Anne’s Reign, shows vast hillsides to the right of the Allies covered with wood.  This map also specifies the advance of the English in nine columns.

Only less; ‘Marlborough,’ says Lord Stanhope, ’was a humane and compassionate man.  Even in the eagerness to pursue fresh conquests he did not ever neglect the care of the wounded.’

AT HURSLEY IN MARDEN

1712

We count him wise,
Timoleon, who in Syracuse laid down
That gleaming bait of all men’s eyes,
And for his cottage changed the invidious crown;
Moving serenely through his grayhair’d day
’Mid vines and olives gray.

He also, whom
The load of double empire, half the world
His own, within a living tomb
Press’d down at Yuste,—­Spain’s great banner furl’d
His winding-sheet around him,—­while he strove
The impalpable Above

Though mortal yet,
To breathe, is blazon’d on the sages’ roll:—­
High soaring hearts, who could forget
The sceptre, to the hermitage of the soul
Retired, sweet solitudes of the musing eye,
And let the world go by!

There, if the cup
Of Time, that brims ere we can reach repose,
Fill’d slow, the soul might summon up
The strenuous heat of youth, the silenced foes;
The deeds of fame, star-bright above the throne;
The better deeds unknown.

There, when the cloud
Eased its dark breast in thunder, and the light
Ran forth, their hearts recall the loud
Hoarse onset roar, the flashing of the fight;
Those other clouds piled-up in white array
Whence deadlier lightnings play.

There, when the seas
Murmur at midnight, and the dome is clear,
And from their seats in heaven the breeze
Loosens the stars, to blaze and disappear,
And such as Glory! . . . with a sigh suppress’d
They smile, and turn to rest.

—­But he, who here
Unglorious hides, untrain’d, unwilling Lord,
The phantom king of half a year,
From England’s throne push’d by the bloodless sword,
Unheirlike heir to that colossal fame;—­
How should men name his name,

How rate his worth
With those heroic ones who, life’s labour done,
Mark’d out their six-foot couch of earth,
The laurell’d rest of manhood’s battle won? 
—­Not so with him! . . .  Yet, ere we turn away,
A still small voice will say,