In 1705, after the battle of Blenheim, Marlborough was made Prince of Mildenheim by the Emperor. Lewis XIV. succeeded to the French throne in 1643; Marlborough was born in 1650.
No. 6.
[STEELE.
From Thursday, April 21, to Saturday, April 23, 1709.
Will's Coffee-house, April 22.
I am just come from visiting Sappho,[124] a fine lady, who writes verses, sings, dances and can say and do whatever she pleases, without the imputation of anything that can injure her character; for she is so well known to have no passion but self-love, or folly, but affectation; that now upon any occasion they only cry, "'Tis her way," and "That's so like her," without further reflection. As I came into the room, she cries, "O Mr. Bickerstaff, I am utterly undone! I have broke that pretty Italian fan I showed you when you were here last, wherein were so admirably drawn our first parents in Paradise asleep in each other's arms." But there is such an affinity between painting and poetry, that I have been improving the images which were raised by that picture, by reading the same representation in two of our greatest poets. Look you, here are the passages in Milton and in Dryden. All Milton's thoughts are wonderfully just and natural, in this inimitable description which Adam makes of himself in the eighth book of "Paradise Lost." But there is none of them finer than that contained in the following lines, where he tells us his thoughts when he was falling asleep a little after his creation.
While thus I called, and strayed I know not whither,