Lord Chesterfield, who knew him well, said that he was a man of excellent parts, and strong good sense, but of no very shining genius. The uninterrupted success of his campaigns, however, joined to the unexampled address with which he allayed the jealousies and stilled the discords of the confederacy whose armies he led, decisively demonstrates that the polished earl's opinion was not just; and that his partiality for the graces led him to ascribe an undue influence in the great duke's career to the inimitable suavity and courtesy of his manner. His enterprises and stratagems, his devices to deceive the enemy, and counterbalance inferiority of force by superiority of conduct; the eagle eye which, in the decisive moment, he brought to bear on the field of battle, and the rapidity with which in person he struck the final blow from which the enemy never recovered, bespeak the intuitive genius of war. It was the admirable _balance_ of his mental qualities which caused his originality to be under-valued;--no one power stood out in such bold relief as to overshadow all the others, and rivet the eye by the magnitude of its proportions. Thus his consummate judgment made the world overlook his invention; his uniform prudence caused his daring to be forgotten; his incomparable combinations often concealed the capacious mind which had put the whole in motion. He was so uniformly successful, that men forgot how difficult it is always to succeed in war. It was not till he was withdrawn from the conduct of the campaign, and disaster immediately attended the Allied arms, and France resumed the ascendant over the coalition, that Europe became sensible who had been the soul of the war, and how much had been lost when his mighty understanding was no longer at the head of affairs.