It was with no little interest that we saw the announcement of Mr Alison's being engaged upon an elaborate Life of Marlborough, who would now be depicted by the same brilliant and faithful pencil which has delineated Wellington. These are two of the names which glitter brightest in the rolls of fame, and Mr Alison is able thoroughly to appreciate each. Let us ask, in passing, what if these two heroes had changed times and places? Each was thrown on troubled and terrible times; each possessed great intellect, and resplendent military genius. Would Marlborough have played Wellington's, or he Marlborough's part, on the scene of moral and political action? As far as the illustrious living hero is concerned, the question admits of an instant answer. We have now, however, the character of Marlborough fairly delivered into the hands of Mr Alison, to be dealt with according to truth and honour. Will he concur with Mr Hallam and Mr Macaulay? If he do, Marlborough must, we suppose, be henceforth regarded as a sort of splendid fiend--revelling in his defiance of the precepts of honour, morality, and religion; prostituting transcendent powers for the basest purposes, and exhibiting the vices of our nature in colossal proportions.--Can Mr Alison vindicate his hero against the sorrowful censures of his noble brother historian? No: he does not attempt it. On the contrary, he is even more emphatic in denouncing the faithlessness of Marlborough than Lord Mahon, placing his treachery to James II., "in a moral point of view," even deeper in infamy than that of Marshal Ney. "And yet," says he, "such is often the inequality of crimes and punishments in this world, that Churchill was raised to the pinnacle of greatness by the very treachery which consigned Ney, with justice, so far as his conduct is concerned, to an ignominious death. History forgets its first and noblest duty when it fails, by its distribution of praise and blame, to counterbalance, as far as its verdict can, this inequality, which, for inscrutable, but doubtless wise purposes, Providence has permitted, in this transient scene. Charity forbids us to scrutinise such conduct too closely."[7] This is conceived in a spirit at once generous and just; and the acknowledgment thus early and pointedly, of Marlborough's great fault, is marked by signal discretion, such as is likely to carry the reader cheerfully along with his author, and induce a hearty concurrence in his ultimate conclusion. We rejoice, then, that Marlborough has fallen into such hands; and shall proceed, as briefly as is consistent with our space, and the importance of the subject--for it is of importance, and great importance too, and Mr Alison's is a very _timely_ biography, as we shall soon show--to give such an account of the contents of these two volumes as will, unless we are mistaken, induce our readers to become his. [7] ALISON'S _Marlborough_, vol. i. p. 16, 17, 18.