her devoted gaze on him. So fades, so languishes, grows dim, and dies the conqueror of Blenheim, the greatest soldier England ever had since the days when kings ceased to be as a matter of right her chiefs in command. In the early days of June, 1722, Marlborough was stricken by another paralytic seizure, and this was his last. He was in full possession of his senses to the end, perfectly conscious and calm. He knew that he was dying; he had prayers read to him; he conveyed in many tender ways his feelings of affection for his wife, and of hope for his own future. At four in the morning of June 16th his life ebbed quietly away. He was in his seventy-second year when he died. None of the great deeds of his life belong to this history; none of that life's worst offences have much to do with it. Marlborough's career seems to us absolutely faultless in two of its aspects; as a commander and as a husband we can only give him praise. He was probably a greater commander than even the Duke of Wellington. If he never had to encounter a Napoleon, he had to meet and triumph over difficulties which never came in Wellington's way. It was not Wellington's fate to have to strive against political treachery of the basest kind on the part of English Ministers of State. Wellington's enemies were all in the field arrayed against him; Marlborough had to fight the foreign enemy on the battle-field, and to struggle meanwhile against the persistent treachery of the still more formidable enemy {210} at home in the council-chamber of his own sovereign. Perhaps, indeed, Wellington's nature would not have permitted him to succeed under such difficulties. Wellington could hardly have met craft with craft, and, it must be added, falsehood with falsehood, as Marlborough did. We have said in this book already that even for that age of double-dealing Marlborough was a surprising double-dealer, and there were many passages in his career which are evidences of an astounding capacity for deceit. "He was a great man," said his enemy, Lord Peterborough, "and I have forgotten his faults." Historians would gladly do the same if they could; would surely dwell with much more delight on the virtues and the greatness than on the defects. The English people were generous to Marlborough, and in the way which, it has to be confessed, was most welcome to him. But if a very treasure-house of gold could not have satisfied his love of money, let it be added that the national treasure-house itself, were it poured out at his feet, could not have overpaid the services which he had rendered to his country.