HE Dutch and the Germans perceiving that the King of France had "got no friends," felt that the time had arrived for hitting him, and echoed the English declaration of war, though their puny voices came upon the French monarch's ear like the penny whistle after the full-blown ophicleide. Marlborough was appointed generalissimo of the allied army, and he certainly proved himself worthy of the confidence reposed in him. He made the Low Countries lower than they had ever been before, and subsequently throwing himself upon Bavaria, he swept the independent elector before him, leaving that unhappy individual to make his election between flight and compromise.

On the 12th of August, 1704, Marlborough observed the enemy marking out a camp near Blenheim, and merely muttering to himself, "So so, my fine fellows; that's what you're after, is it?" he resolved on their instant discomforture. He determined to give battle, and on the 13th, notwithstanding a swampy country, which greatly tested his determination to stick at nothing, he commenced an attack in three columns, each of which behaved so gallantly as to have deserved a supplementary column to its memory. The contest was exceedingly fierce on both sides; but the superior skill of Marlborough rendered the English victorious. The general was rewarded by the grant of an estate, upon which was built a magnificent mansion called Blenheim, after the place near which the battle was fought; and future Dukes of Marlborough have turned many an honest, though not a very honourable shilling, by sharing with the housekeeper and other servants the gratuities received from the visitors to this splendid monument of a country's generosity.

England could not rest satisfied without interfering in the disputes of other states, and had lent a helping hand to the Archduke Charles of Austria, who was playing a sort of game at bob-cherry with the Spanish crown, which hung suspended over his head in a very tempting manner. A fleet was sent under Admiral Sir George Booke to convey the archduke to Lisbon; and Booke, who was as cunning as an old crow, proceeded towards Barcelona, which would have been nuts for him had he succeeded in taking it. In this attempt, however, he failed; but putting his vessel astern, and altering her gib towards Gibraltar, he made an attack on the fortress, which he took with the utmost facility. For this service the conqueror was rewarded with an empty vote of thanks, and he had no sooner got the copy of the resolution than he put it in his pipe and smoked it—according to some; or, as others say, he merely lighted his pipe with the valueless document.

Domestic affairs did not progress very pleasantly, and the English began to quarrel with the Scotch, who evinced their national propensity to come to the scratch in a very annoying manner. The Parliaments of the two countries came into decided collision and the English legislature having prohibited the importation of Scotch heifers, "there arose," says Swindle, "a heffervescence of the most deplorable character." The queen proposed that there should be an immediate union of the two Parliaments; but the little matter could not be arranged; and as the two negatives could hot be induced to make an affirmative, Anne put an end to both by a dissolution.

In the summer of 1705, Marlborough, who had been waiting on the banks of the Blue Moselle, forced the French lines, and very hard lines they proved both to the vanquished and the victors.

We must here be permitted to introduce the beautiful episode of Sir Isaac Newton, and turn from the turmoils of war to the peaceful pursuits of science. We are sure we shall not be accused of irrelevancy if we step aside from the rushing stream of history which, like a cataract, is hurrying us rapidly along, and enjoy a few moments of calm reflection on the life and merits of the great philosopher.

Isaac Newton was born in 1642, and came as unusually little into the world as he went greatly, and indeed gigantically, out of it. His mother declared he might have been put into a quart pot at his birth, and therefore, had he been always judged by the rule of "measures not men," he would never have attained the elevation he has arrived at. In early boyhood he displayed a great mechanical turn, and buying a box of carpenter's tools, he got perhaps the first insight into plane geometry, and deduced from a few wise saws, a variety of modern instances. He was very fond of measuring time, but not by its loss alone, for he constructed a wooden clock, and ascertained the position of the sun by driving nails into the wall—hitting, no doubt, the right one on the head very readily. Having a shrewd suspicion that there was something in the wind, he would occupy himself in leaping with it and against it, to ascertain its power. These pranks did not elevate him much in his class, of which he was generally at the bottom; for the routine of his school education did not include trials of strength with old Boreas, and the other exciting pursuits in which Master Isaac Newton indulged himself. In course of time he was removed to Cambridge, where the works of Des-Cartes fell into his hands, and where those ponderous volumes, from their soporific effect upon youth, often fall out of the hands they have fallen into. Young Newton grasped them with energy, and he soon profited amazingly by their contents, which set his own mind at work to add to the stock of discovery already in existence. During the great plague in 1665, he was compelled to leave Cambridge for a rural retirement, though the rustication was not of the ordinary kind: and while sitting in an orchard, "his custom sometimes of an afternoon," an apple fell upon his head with considerable violence.

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Beginning to reason from this "argumentum ad hominem," he asked himself why every other object did not at once fall to the earth; and he even speculated on the possibility of the moon alighting heavily, and leaving him in a literally moon-struck condition. It was some time before he discovered the laws of gravitation by which the apple had been carried to his head; and it is not true, as is commonly believed, that he was struck all of a heap with the great truths that he has given to posterity. They were published in 1687, at the expense of the Royal Society, under the title of the "Principia;" and it is a curious fact, that the critics of the day were not altogether pleased with it. Some few pronounced it "a work that ought to be on every gentleman's sideboard," and our old friend, the evening paper, patronised it as a production that might "repay perusal;" * but some very learned, very cold, very dull, and very stupid, "gentlemen of the press" "regretted that Mr. Newton should have wasted so much time upon a work of such a description." They were angry with him for what they considered his levity in popularising serious matters, and advised him to keep his hands off the moon, which was far too lofty a subject for him to meddle with.

It has been noticed as a very unaccountable circumstance, that Newton never made any important addition to scientific discovery after he had completed his forty-fifth year; though he lived to be eighty-four, and had therefore got beyond the period at which the poet's apostrophe, "O Vir be-eighty," might have been addressed to him. He was exceedingly fond of tobacco, and it is believed that he felt more at home in his astronomical reflections when he could envelop himself in a cloud of his own blowing. The old saying, that "There is no smoke without fire," received an apt confirmation from the fact that Newton was scarcely ever without a pipe in his mouth during the most brilliant and blazing period of his genius.

We now return to Anne, who, anno 1705, went to Cambridge, where she knighted Mr. Newton, who was the Mathematical Professor at Trinity College. We feel we ought not to pass over in silence a piece of wonderful self-denial on the part of a lawyer, which gives to this reign a peculiarity that ought to make it stand apart from all that have preceded or followed it. There had been formerly an old custom of making a present to the Lord Chancellor on New Year's Day, at the cost of the practitioners, who usually contributed about £1500, which previous keepers of the royal conscience had most unconscientiously pocketed. To the great honour of Lord Chancellor Cowper be it spoken, he declined the proffered bonus, which appeared to him to resemble somewhat too closely a bribe, and thus set an early example of disinterestedness, by which the tone of judicial morality was improved, and has at last reached the perfection we have at the present day the satisfaction of witnessing.

The subject of the Union between England and Scotland, which had from time to time been discussed, was at length taken into serious consideration at a place called the Cockpit, from which the reader must not infer that it was considered as a sporting event, and that the betting men were chiefly interested in promoting it. After a great deal of disagreement, the preliminaries were ultimately settled, and on the 6th of March, 1707, the royal assent was given to the Act of Union. There were no less than twenty-five articles, by the majority of which the Scotch had been cunning enough to make the best bargain for themselves; and they had taken care that if the British Lion got the lion's share, they would at least secure the fox's perquisites. The Union took effect from the 1st of May, and the queen went in state to St. Paul's, to celebrate the event with due solemnity.

The 22nd of October, in the same year, derives a mournful interest from the loss of poor Shovel, whose ship got scuttled on the rocks of Scilly, and though Shovel himself went at it "poker and tongs" to save the vessel, his own and two others were involved in the same* calamity.

On the 28th of October, 1708, the queen lost her husband, Prince George of Denmark, who died of asthma at Kensington. His malady of course prevented him from having a voice in public affairs; but, if he had had one, he would certainly have been afraid of using it. He combined the mildness of the moonbeam with the stupidity of the jackass, and not only had he been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he had become one entire spoon—fiddle-head and all—in his excessive pliability. He was, however, one of those spoons that made very little stir, and his removal from the busy scene of life left a gap that was scarcely perceptible. Within little better than three months, both Houses of Parliament addressed the queen, imploring her to marry again, which shows that they did not estimate very highly her grief at the loss of her first husband. Her majesty's reply contained no specific answer to the petition, but intimated her belief that a decided response was not expected by the applicants.

On the 5th of November in the same year a political parson, named Dr. Sacheverel, began to raise the since famous cry of "Church in danger," which, like that of "Wolf," has been since so frequently and foolishly set up, that it stands a chance of being neglected when it really may require attention. The object of all the rant in which this noisy churchman indulged, was to obtain popularity, flavoured with a spice of martyrdom, and his opponents being silly enough to fall into the trap, they kept up the ball for him with a vivacity that must have equalled his most sanguine desire. Like a shuttlecock, that must drop to the ground if its elevation is not secured by frequent blows, Sacheverel would have tumbled irredeemably to the earth, if he had not been kept aloft by the knocks he experienced. He was ultimately exalted into the position of a delinquent standing to take his trial at the bar of the House of Lords; and when he was found guilty of having preached a sermon, warning the public of danger to the Church, he had reached the highest point of glory in the estimation of the large mass of people who are under the influence of bigotry and prejudice. He was condemned to forbear from preaching for three years; but his sentence not excluding him from accepting a good living, one was placed at his disposal immediately afterwards. The reverend sufferer for conscience' sake eventually got something still better, in the form of the living of St. Andrew's, Holbom, where, finding it no longer worth his while to quarrel with the Government, he sought a vent for his turbulent disposition in repeated rows with his parishioners. His first sermon after his new appointment sold forty thousand copies, and a little calculation will give some idea of what the reverend gentleman's martyrdom brought him in from first to last in the shape of livings, copyrights, and other contingencies that arise out of a well-managed popularity.

In the latter end of 1711, some very disreputable disclosures, in which the Duke of Marlborough and Mr. Walpole were chiefly involved, were brought before the House of Commons. Marlborough, not satisfied with his pay, pensions, and other emoluments, had been taking a percentage on every transaction in which he had been confidentially concerned; while Walpole, in his capacity of Secretary at War, had been playing the same game as the illustrious soldier. Marlborough and his wife were in the enjoyment of upwards of £60,000 a year, so that there was no excuse for them on the score of poverty; and even if they had been in want of cash, they might have done what, as we have already hinted, their successors have done since, namely, shown Blenheim to the public, and shared with their own domestics the daily proceeds. The duke and duchess were deprived of their offices, while Mr. Walpole was expelled from the House of Commons, amid a chorus of "Serve him right!" from nearly the whole of his fellow-countrymen.

Marlborough was further accused by Lord Paulet of having knocked his own officers on the head, in order to be enabled to sell their commissions; but this would seem to have been a most superfluous piece of atrocity, for he might have easily got their heads knocked off in a more regular and reputable manner, by exposing them to the blows of the enemy. The duke challenged Lord Paulet for having made this assertion; but after an interchange of hostile messages, the seconds contrived so to complicate the business as to lose sight of the real matter of dispute, and the duel was prevented. The reputation of Marlborough was so damaged by what had taken place, that he obtained permission of the queen to go abroad, and he crossed over to Ostend, in the vague hope that a sea voyage might have the same effect it is said to produce on a bottle of Madeira, and cause an improvement of his quality.

The disgrace of the British general had been fortunately delayed till the period when his services were no longer required, for the treaty of Utrecht, which was signed on the 30th of March, 1713, secured the peace of Europe. By this celebrated arrangement the Protestant succession in England was formally recognised; the crowns of France and Spain were split into two, giving those countries one apiece; the harbour of Dunkirk was demolished, and other little matters of difference settled to the satisfaction of all parties, except the Emperor of Germany, who stood aside in a corner by himself, objecting to everything.

Just before the close of the year, while political matters of importance were on foot, the gout laid Queen Anne by the heels, at Windsor, and the funds suffered in sympathy with the toe of royalty. There was a rapid run upon the bank; but the gout abating so far as to enable her majesty to bear the weight of a shoe, the pressure was relieved immediately and the country stood much as before, which may also be said of the sovereign.

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On the 2nd of March, 1714, the queen came down in a sedan to open Parliament. Her use of the chair arose from her being very chary of her foot, which retained some of the effects of the havoc that gout had performed upon it. In the course of her speech she took the opportunity of assuring the House that the Protestant succession was not in danger, and the House of Commons subsequently assured itself of the same fact—as far as words could go—in a resolution that was carried by a large majority. These repeated assurances proved more than anything else that the Protestant succession was not quite so safe as the queen and the Parliament could have desired, and a number of precautionary measures directed against the Pretender and the Jacobites furnished still stronger proofs that the Government really entertained the fears it seemed so very anxious to repudiate.

On the 29th of July, 1714, the queen, who was almost tired out by the disputes of her ministers, fell into a lethargy, and the Council, who had been quarrelling in the Cockpit, adjourned to Kensington.

At this critical juncture, an individual of the name of Mr. Craggs suddenly started on to the canvas of history as a writer of a letter to the Elector of Brunswick, apprising him of the perilous condition of the queen, and telling him that his succession would be quietly provided for. On the 1st of August, poor Anne expired of dropsy, in the fiftieth year of her age, the thirteenth of her reign, the third of her gout, and the first of her lethargy.

In person, Anne was of the middle size, as far as height was concerned; but if we look at her as a piece of measurement goods, and take her by her bulk, we shall have to put upon her a very different estimate. It cannot be said that she was one of Nature's favourites, though Nature had certainly made much of her, and perhaps more than the queen herself would have desired. Her hair was dark brown, and her complexion a sort of clear mahogany, while her nose standing prominently out from a very round face, gave her something the appearance of a perpendicular sun-dial. Her voice was as clear as a bell, and her tongue as active as the clapper. Her capacity was good, but her acquirements miserably few, and her mind therefore presented a resemblance to a fine site for building, which had remained uncovered for want of the necessary capital. She was very fond of hunting, but she had a very odd way of showing her fondness, for she used to follow the hounds in a pony chaise, which of course became a vehicle for a good deal of merriment. All historians concur in saying that she lived very fast, but whether it was in eating or in drinking that her weakness, or rather her strength, was shown, the various authorities are not yet agreed upon. She was a mother to her people, a master to her husband, a pattern to her own sex, and a terror to ours. She was obstinately attached to her own way, and it was only the fortunate feebleness of her intellect that prevented her from developing herself into that gigantic nuisance, a strong-minded woman. Though her own mental powers were not sufficient to throw lustre on her reign, it was rendered glorious by numerous men of learning and genius who were the contemporaries of her majesty. We have already enjoyed a paragraph or two with Newton, and we must not forget Locke, who furnished so many keys to the understanding and the difficult arts of government.

Considering the fuss that has lately been made about the merit of having originated penny and twopenny publications, we ought not to forget that the modern claimants to the honour of the idea did but steal it from Steele, whose "Tatler," started in 1709, was followed by the "Spectator" and the "Guardian." To the more recent projectors of cheap periodicals we are quite ready to allow the originality of their assertion, that their speculations are not intended for their own profit, but to fulfil exclusively the great purpose of benefiting the community. In compliance with these large hearted and benevolent intentions, we may, we suppose, look with confidence to the day when the produce will be paid over for the benefit of the people, whom the existing race of cheap periodical proprietors love so very much better than they do themselves, if we are to believe their protestations and their prospectuses.

We may at all events say for the reign of Anne, that it was much freer than the reign of Victoria from these wondrous professions of disinterestedness, which we have been waiting in vain, for the last ten years, to see carried into practice.