e of Marlborough. Yet
he had already shown to the world his scanty talent for
biography in his "Life of Lord Bacon," on which Warburton so
acutely animadverted.

According to Johnson's account, the Duchess of Marlborough
assigned the task of writing the Life of the Duke to Glover
and to Mallet, with a remuneration of a thousand pounds. She
must, however, have mortified the poets by subjoining the
sarcastic prohibition that "no verses should be inserted."
Johnson adds, "Glover, _I suppose, rejected with disdain the
legacy_, and devolved the whole work upon Mallet."

The cause why Glover declined this work could not, indeed, be
known to Johnson: it arose from a far more dignified motive
than the petty disdain of the legacy, which our great literary
biographer has surmised. It can now be told in his own words,
which I derive from a very interesting extract communicated to
me by my friend Mr. Duppa, from that portion of the MS.
Memoirs of Glover not yet published.

I shall first quote the remarkable codicil from the original
will of her Grace, which Mr. Duppa took the pains to consult.
She assigns her reasons for the choice of her historians, and
discriminates between the two authors. After bequeathing the
thousand pounds for them, she adds: "I believe Mr. Glover is a
very honest man, who wishes, as I do, all the good that can
happen, to preserve the liberties and laws of England. Mr.
Mallet was recommended to me by the late Duke of Montrose,
whom I admired extremely for his great steadiness and
behaviour in all things that related to the preservation of
our laws and the public good."--Thus her Grace has expressed a
personal knowledge and confidence in Glover, distinctly marked
from her "recommended" acquaintance Mallet.

Glover refused the office of historian, not from "disdain of
the legacy," nor for any deficient zeal for the hero whom he
admired. He refused it with sorrowful disappointment; for,
besides the fantastical restrictions of "not writing any
verses;" and the cruel one of yoking such a patriot with the
servile Mallet, there was one which placed the revision of the
work in the hands of the Earl of Chesterfield: this w