"So inconsistent is human nature, that there are tender spots even in seared consciences. And thus this man, [!] who had owed his rise in life to his sister's shame, who had been kept by the most profuse, imperious, and shameless of harlots, and whose public life, to those who can look steadily through the dazzling blaze of genius and glory, will appear a prodigy of turpitude, believed implicitly in the religion which he had learned [!] as a boy, and shuddered at the thought of formally abjuring it. A terrible alternative was before him. The earthly evil which he most dreaded was poverty. The one crime from which his heart recoiled was apostacy. And if the designs of the Court succeeded, he could not doubt that, between poverty and apostacy, he must soon make his choice. He therefore determined to cross those designs; and it soon appeared that there was no guilt and no disgrace which he was not ready to incur, in order to escape from the necessity of parting either with his places or with his religion."[6] [6] MACAULAY'S _History of England, from the Accession of James II._, p. 255. Such was Marlborough, according to Mr Macaulay; and when we bear in mind that he has yet to deal with thirty-four years' public life of this illustrious personage, whom he may at this moment be painting in, if possible, still darker colours than the above, we may feel excused in feeling anxiety, not only on patriotic grounds, but on Mr Macaulay's own account.