le of Oudenarde three years after, describing Webb,
says:--

To noble danger Webb conducts the way,
His great example all his troops obey;
Before the front the general sternly rides,
With such an air as Mars to battle strides:
Propitious Heaven must sure a hero save,
Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave.

Mr. Webb thought these verses quite as fine as Mr. Addison's on the
Blenheim campaign, and, indeed, to be Hector _a la mode de Paris_, was
part of this gallant gentleman's ambition. It would have been difficult to
find an officer in the whole army, or amongst the splendid courtiers and
cavaliers of the Maison-du-Roy, that fought under Vendosme and Villeroy in
the army opposed to ours, who was a more accomplished soldier and perfect
gentleman, and either braver or better-looking. And, if Mr. Webb believed
of himself what the world said of him, and was deeply convinced of his own
indisputable genius, beauty, and valour, who has a right to quarrel with
him very much? This self-content of his kept him in general good humour,
of which his friends and dependants got the benefit.

He came of a very ancient Wiltshire family, which he respected above all
families in the world: he could prove a lineal descent from King Edward
the First, and his first ancestor, Roaldus de Richmond, rode by William
the Conqueror's side on Hastings field. "We were gentlemen, Esmond," he
used to say, "when the Churchills were horseboys." He was a very tall man,
standing in his pumps six feet three inches (in his great jack-boots, with
his tall, fair periwig, and hat and feather, he could not have been less
than eight feet high). "I am taller than Churchill," he would say,
surveying himself in the glass, "and I am a better made man; and if the
women won't like a man that hasn't a wart on his nose, faith, I can't help
myself, and Churchill has the better of me there." Indeed, he was always
measuring himself with the duke, and always asking his friends to measure
them. And talking in this frank way, as he would do, over his cups, wags
would laugh and encourage him; friends would be sorry for him; schemers
and flatterers would egg him on, and tale-bearers carry the stories to
head quarters, and widen the difference which already existed there
between the great captain and one of the ablest and bravest lieutenants he
ever had.

His rancour against the duke was so apparent, that one saw it in the first
half-hour's co