as the
_circumstance_ at which the dignified genius of Glover
revolted. Chesterfield's mean political character had excited
his indignation; and he has drawn a lively picture of this
polished nobleman's "eager prostitution," in his printed
Memoirs, recently published under the title of "Memoirs of a
celebrated Literary and Political Character," p. 24.

In the following passage, this great-minded man, for such he
was, "unburthens his heart in a melancholy digression from his
plain narrative."

"Composing such a narrative (alluding to his own Memoirs)
and endeavouring to establish such a temper of mind, I
cannot at intervals refrain from regret that the _capricious
restrictions_ in the Duchess of Marlborough's will,
appointing me to write the life of her illustrious husband,
compelled me to reject the undertaking. There, conduct,
valour, and success abroad; prudence, perseverance,
learning, and science, at home; would have shed some portion
of their graces on their historian's page: a mediocrity of
talent would have felt an unwonted elevation in the bare
attempt of transmitting so splendid a period to succeeding
ages." Such was the dignified regret of Glover!

Doubtless, he disdained, too, his colleague; but Mallet reaped
the whole legacy, and still more, a pension: pretending to be
always occupied on the Life of Marlborough, and every day
talking of the great discoveries he had made, he contrived to
make this nonentity serve his own purposes. Once hinting to
Garrick, that, in spite of chronology, by some secret device
of anticipation, he had reserved a niche in this great work
for the Roscius of his own times, the gratitude of Garrick was
instant. He recollected that Mallet was a tragedy-writer; and
it also appeared that our dramatic bardling had one ready. As
for the pretended Life of Marlborough, not a line appears ever
to have been written!

Such was the end of the ardent solicitude and caprice of the
Duchess of Marlborough, exemplified in the last solemn act of
life, where she betrayed the same warmth of passion, and the
same arrogant caprice she had always indulged, at the cost of
her judgment, in what Pope empha