Next let it be observed how thoroughly he understood the British soldier. He took care to feed him well, to pay him regularly, to give him plenty of work, and to keep him under the strictest discipline; and with all this he cherished a genial feeling for the men, which showed itself not only in strict injunctions to watch over their comfort but in acts of personal kindness kindly bestowed. The magic of his personality made itself felt among his men far beyond the scope of mere military duty. His soldiers, as the Recruiting Acts can testify, were for the most part the scum of the nation. Yet they not only marched and fought with a steadiness beyond all praise, but actually became reformed characters and left the army sober, self-respecting men.[487] Marlborough, despite his lapses into treachery as a politician, was a man of peculiar sensitiveness and delicacy. He had a profound distaste for licentiousness either in language or in action, and he contrived to instil a like distaste into his army. His force did not swear terribly in Flanders, as King William's had before it, and although the annual supply of recruits brought with it necessarily an annual infusion of crime, yet the moral tone of the army was singularly high. Marlborough's nature was not of the hard, unbending temper of Wellington's. The Iron Duke had a heart so steeled by strong sense, duty, and discipline that it but rarely sought relief in a burst of passionate emotion. Marlborough was cast in a very different mould. He too, like Wellington, was endowed with a strong common sense that in itself amounted to genius, and possessed in the most trying moments a serenity and calm that was almost miraculous. But there was no coldness in his serenity, nothing impassive in his calm. He was sensitive to a fault; and though his temper might remain unchangeably sweet and his speech unalterably placid and courteous, his face would betray the anxiety and worry which his tongue had power to conceal.[488] With such a temperament there was a bond of humanity between him and his men that was lacking in Wellington. Great as Wellington was, the Iron Duke's army could never have nicknamed him the Old Corporal.

The epithet Corporal suggests comparison with the Little Corporal, who performed such marvels with the French Army. Undoubtedly the name was in both cases a mark of the boundless confidence and devotion which the two men could evoke from their troops, and which they could turn to such splendid account in their operations. Marlborough could make believe that he was meant to throw away his entire army and yet be sure of its loyalty; Napoleon could throw away whole hosts, desert them, and command the unaltered trust of a new army. In both the personal fascination was an extraordinary power; but here the resemblance ends. Napoleon, for all his theatrical tricks, had no heart nor tenderness in him, and could not bear the intoxication of success. Marlborough never suffered triumph to turn his head, to diminish his generosity towards enemies, to tempt him from the path of sound military practice, or to obscure his unerring insight into the heart of things. Twice his plans were opposed as too adventurous by Eugene, first when he wished to hasten the battle of Malplaquet, and secondly when he would have masked Lille and advanced straight into France; but even assuming, as is by no means certain, that in both instances Eugene was right, there is no parallel here to the gambling spirit which pervaded the latter enterprises of Napoleon. "Marlborough," said Wellington, "was remarkable for his clear, cool, steady understanding," and this quality was one which never deserted him. Nevertheless, if there be one attribute which should be chosen as supremely characteristic of the man, it is that which William Pitt selected as the first requisite of a statesman—patience; "patience," as the Duke himself once wrote to Godolphin, "which can overcome all things";[489] patience which, as may be seen in a hundred passages during the war, was possessed by him in such measure that it appears almost godlike. These are the qualities which mark the sanity of perfect genius, that distinguish a Milton from a Shelley, a Nelson from a Dundonald, and a Marlborough from a Peterborough; and it is in virtue of these, indicating as they do the perfect balance of transcendent ability, that Marlborough takes rank with the mightiest of England's sons, with Shakespeare, with Bacon, and with Newton, as "the greatest statesman and the greatest general that this country or any other country has produced."[490]

END OF VOL. I

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