has remarked, Sir George's _Marlborough Despatches_ constitute a work of inestimable importance to the historian, and also to the military reader; but they will rarely, if ever, be opened by the general reader. We ourselves have turned from its pages, more than once, hopelessly, with yet a feeling that they contained matter of great interest and importance to a competent and determined military or historical reader. This is Mr Alison's first and richest mine, sunk in his own country. In quest of another he crosses the Channel, and there encounters the _Military Life of Marlborough_, in three volumes, written in France in 1807, at the instance of his mighty admirer, Napoleon:[8] "towards the composition of which," says Sir George Murray, "every facility of information was afforded which the power of the Emperor could command." This Mr Alison pronounces "the best military narrative of the Duke's exploits which has yet appeared." But Mr Alison is indebted to France for another grand source of authentic information on "the Continental side of the great wars waged by Marlborough"--General _Pelot's_ Collection of original Memoirs and Despatches, published in nine quarto volumes, and entitled, "_Mémoires Militaire Rélatifs à la Succession d'Espagne_." Again, we have the _Dutch_ account of this ever-memorable war, published at the Hague in 1721--the "magnificent work" of _Rousset_, in three volumes folio. And yet again, _Kausler's_ "admirable summary of great battles, collected from the best authorities, and annexed to his splendid military Atlas." To these must be added, Archdeacon Coxe's _Life_, in three volumes quarto--"the most authentic and valuable which exists," founded on a close examination of all the correspondence known to be in existence at the time; but liable to a serious drawback--that "it is long and expensive, and too full of long documents, and letters, _in the text_." What are all these works, exclaims the embarrassed general reader, to _me_?--having neither time, nor inclination, nor means for mastering them? You might as well place a man seeking for a richly-chased golden goblet in the midst of the Californian or Australian gold-fields, and point him with exultation to piles of sacks filled with the auriferous dust! Now Mr Alison has, in the two moderate-sized volumes before us, presented the impatient applicant with his desired goblet, and entitled himself thereby to due gratitude. He is scrupulous in owning his obligations, and also in enabling his reader at once, if disposed, to verify facts, and extend his inquiries, by placing at the end of every paragraph, as in his _History of Europe_, the authorities on which that paragraph is founded. To these are added a very carefully-prepared map of France and the Netherlands, "so arranged as to show the positions of every place, in strict accordance with the text;" and plans of the battles, accurately reduced from the great German work of Kausler,