PAGE 2
No. 139 [from The Spectator]
by
If we consider this wonderful Person, it is Perplexity to know where to begin his Encomium. Others may in a Metaphorical or Philosophick Sense be said to command themselves, but this Emperor is also literally under his own Command. How generous and how good was his entring his own Name as a private Man in the Army he raised, that none in it might expect to out-run the Steps with which he himself advanced! By such Measures this god-like Prince learned to Conquer, learned to use his Conquests. How terrible has he appeared in Battel, how gentle in Victory? Shall then the base Arts of the Frenchman be held Polite, and the honest Labours of the Russian Barbarous? No: Barbarity is the Ignorance of true Honour, or placing any thing instead of it. The unjust Prince is Ignoble and Barbarous, the good Prince only Renowned and Glorious.
Tho’ Men may impose upon themselves what they please by their corrupt Imaginations, Truth will ever keep its Station; and as Glory is nothing else but the Shadow of Virtue, it will certainly disappear at the Departure of Virtue. But how carefully ought the true Notions of it to be preserved, and how industrious should we be to encourage any Impulses towards it? The Westminster School-boy that said the other Day he could not sleep or play for the Colours in the Hall, [2] ought to be free from receiving a Blow for ever.
But let us consider what is truly Glorious according to the Author I have to day quoted in the Front of my Paper.
The Perfection of Glory, says Tully, [3] consists in these three Particulars: That the People love us; that they have Confidence in us; that being affected with a certain Admiration towards us, they think we deserve Honour.
This was spoken of Greatness in a Commonwealth: But if one were to form a Notion of Consummate Glory under our Constitution, one must add to the above-mentioned Felicities a certain necessary Inexistence, and Disrelish of all the rest, without the Prince’s Favour.
He should, methinks, have Riches, Power, Honour, Command, Glory; but Riches, Power, Honour, Command and Glory should have no Charms, but as accompanied with the Affection of his Prince. He should, methinks, be Popular because a Favourite, and a Favourite because Popular.
Were it not to make the Character too imaginary, I would give him Sovereignty over some Foreign Territory, and make him esteem that an empty Addition without the kind Regards of his own Prince.
One may merely have an Idea of a Man thus composed and circumstantiated, and if he were so made for Power without an Incapacity of giving Jealousy, he would be also Glorious, without Possibility of receiving Disgrace. This Humility and this Importance must make his Glory immortal.
These Thoughts are apt to draw me beyond the usual Length of this Paper, but if I could suppose such Rhapsodies cou’d outlive the common Fate of ordinary things, I would say these Sketches and Faint Images of Glory were drawn in August, 1711, when John Duke of Marlborough made that memorable March wherein he took the French Lines without Bloodshed.
T.
[Footnote 1: Instances]
[Footnote 2: The Colours taken at Blenheim hung in Westminster Hall.]
[Footnote 3: Towards the close of the first Philippic.]