here is nothing comfortable in it to the human memory otherwise.

Marechal Duc de Berwick, a cautious considerable General (Marlborough's
Nephew, on what terms is known to readers), having taken Kehl and
plundered the Swabian outskirts last Winter, had extensive plans of
operating in the heart of Germany, and ruining the Kaiser there. But
first he needs, and the Kaiser is aware of it, a "basis on the Rhine;"
free bridge over the Rhine, not by Strasburg and Kehl alone: and for
this reason, he will have to besiege and capture Philipsburg first of
all. Strong Town of Philipsburg, well down towards Speyer-and-Heidelberg
quarter on the German side of the Rhine: [See map] here will be our
bridge. Lorraine is already occupied, since the first day of the War;
Trarbach, strong-place of the Moselle and Electorate of Trier, cannot
be difficult to get? Thus were the Rhine Country, on the French side,
secure to France; and so Berwick calculates he will have a basis on the
Rhine, from which to shoot forth into the very heart of the Kaiser.

Berwick besieged Philipsburg accordingly (Summer and Autumn); Kaiser
doing his feeble best to hinder: at the Siege, Berwick lost his life,
but Philipsburg surrendered to his successor, all the same;--Kaiser
striving to hinder; but in a most paralyzed manner, and to no purpose
whatever. And--and this properly WAS the German War; the sum of all done
in it during those two years.

Seizure of Nanci (that is, of Lorraine), seizure of Kehl we already
heard of; then, prior to Philipsburg, there was siege or seizure of
Trarbach by the French; and, posterior to it, seizure of Worms by them;
and by the Germans there was "burning of a magazine in Speyer by bombs."
And, in brief, on both sides, there was marching and manoeuvring under
various generals (our old rusty Seckendorf one of them), till the end of
1735, when the Italian decision arrived, and Truce and Peace along with
it; but there was no other action worth naming, even in the Newspapers
as a wonder of nine days, The Siege of Philipsburg, and what hung
flickering round that operation, before and after, was the sum-total of
the German War.

Philipsburg, key of the Rhine in those parts, has had many sieges; nor
would this one merit the least history from us; were it not for one
circumstance: That our Crown-Prince was of the Opposing Army, and made
his first experience of arms there. A Siege of Philipsburg slightly
memorable to us, on that one accoun