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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MAP I.End of Vol. I.
MAP II.End of Vol. I.