[47] Marlborough had received the sacrament with great solemnity at the midnight preceding the day of the battle of Blenheim; and shortly before, divine service had been performed at the head of every regiment and squadron in the Allied army. After the battle he said, that "he had prayed to God more frequently during its continuance than all the chaplains of both armies put together which served under his orders."—Ibid. vol. i. p. 166.
[48] Ibid. ii. 100.
[49] Ibid. p. 307.
[50] History of England, ii. 41, 42.
[51] Alison, i. 14, 15, note.
[52] Alison, i. 211, note.
[53] Lectures, i. 143.
[54] A very happy idea is embodied in a work recently published, and which has quickly reached a second edition—Mr Creasy's Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, from Marathon to Waterloo. The idea was suggested by a remark of Mr Hallam, placed on the title-page by way of motto, "These few battles, of which a contrary event would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes." Mr Alison frequently puts such cases, in both The Life of Marlborough and his History of Europe. Mr Creasy, as a distinguished scholar and a professor of history, has acquitted himself very ably. His fifteen battles are well selected, as radiating centres of enduring influence upon human affairs in their greatest crises—as so many nuclei of historical knowledge.
[55] As there have been so many revolutions in France, it may be convenient to suggest that, according to the dates of this story, Harley no doubt alludes to that revolution which exiled Charles X. and placed Louis Philippe on the throne.
[56] Have you fifty friends?—it is not enough.—Have you one enemy?—it is too much.