There are four reasons why we regard Mr Alison's new work as specially well-timed; and we believe that our readers will, without difficulty, concur in these reasons. First, _a full_, _fair_, and _popular_ biography, personal, political, and military, of the great Duke of Marlborough, has recently become a matter of mere justice, because of the blighting disparagement of his conduct and character which Mr Macaulay has so recently exhibited in his widely-circulated volumes, and is doubtless at this moment engaged, _totis viribus_, in enhancing. Secondly, because a great store of invaluable materials for such a biography is in existence, the principal portion having only recently become so, continuing, however, in a state which renders the whole but a sealed book to the public at large. Thirdly, Mr Alison is peculiarly qualified to deal with this state of things, by his unbiassed faithfulness, and the multifarious qualifications which he has acquired in the preparation of his _magnum opus_, the _History of Europe during the French Revolution_. Lastly, because of the course of public events, now daily becoming the source of greater anxiety to those who look beneath the surface, and would apply effectually the experience of the past, in order to comprehend our present position, and provide against our dark and--as to some eyes it may well appear--blood-red future. Let us recur for a moment to the second of these reasons, in order to give the reader a just idea of his obligations to Mr Alison. He may be said to have sunk shafts into five mines. First, the _Marlborough Despatches_, which had lain buried in an unaccountable manner till the month of October 1842, when they were accidentally discovered, under a mass of old military accounts, and other waste paper, by Mr Whately, the solicitor of the present Duke of Marlborough. In the lumber-room of a house for a long series of years used as the steward's residence, there lay, one upon another, three large boxes; and it was in the undermost one that Mr Whately made the fortunate discovery, with which his name will ever be deservedly associated, of eighteen folio books, bound in vellum--inestimable documents! "being," says that gentleman, "manuscript copies of despatches and letters of John Duke of Marlborough, in English, French, and some few in Latin,"--extending over the resplendent _decennium_ from 1702-1712. These had been, to that moment, totally unknown to any one living; and, what is exceedingly singular, had also escaped the watchful and anxious eye of Archdeacon Coxe, the author of the compendious, elaborate, and authentic "Life" of the great Duke. These precious documents were placed in the hands of an eminent and accomplished military authority, the late Sir George Murray, who published at intervals, beginning in 1845, a selection from the _Despatches_, in five large octavo volumes, most ably edited, with copious historical and military notes. As Mr Alison