Of this quarrel between the famous duchess and Vanbrugh I have only recovered several vivacious extracts from confidential letters of Vanbrugh's to Jacob Tonson. There was an equality of the genius of _invention_, as well as rancour, in her grace and the wit: whether Atossa, like Vanbrugh, could have had the patience to have composed a comedy of five acts I will not determine; but unquestionably she could have dictated many scenes with equal spirit. We have seen Vanbrugh attempting to turn the debts incurred by the building of Blenheim on the duke; we now learn, for the first time, that the duchess, with equal aptitude, contrived a counterplot to turn the debts on Vanbrugh! "I have the misfortune of losing, for I now see little hopes of ever getting it, near 2000_l._ due to me for many years' service, plague, and trouble, at Blenheim, which that wicked woman of 'Marlborough' is so far from paying me, that the duke being sued by some of the workmen for work done there, she has tried to turn the debt due to them upon me, for which I think she ought to be hanged." In 1722, on occasion of the duke's death, Vanbrugh gives an account to Tonson of the great wealth of the Marlboroughs, with a caustic touch at his illustrious victims. "The Duke of Marlborough's treasure exceeds the most extravagant guess. The grand settlement, which it was suspected her grace had broken to pieces, stands good, and hands an immense wealth to Lord Godolphin and his successors. A round million has been moving about in loans on the land-tax, &c. This the Treasury knew before he died, and this was exclusive of his 'land;' his 5000_l._ a year upon the post-office; his mortgages upon a distressed estate; his South-Sea stock; his annuities, and which were not subscribed in, and besides what is in foreign banks; and yet this man could neither pay his workmen their bills, nor his architect his salary. "He has given his widow (may a Scottish ensign get her!) 10,000_l._ a year _to spoil Blenheim her own way_; 12,000_l._ a year to keep herself clean and go to law; 2000_l._ a year to Lord Rialton for present maintenance; and Lord Godolphin only 5000_l._ a year jointure, if he outlives my lady: this last is a wretched article. The rest of the heap, for these are but snippings, goes to Lord Godolphin, and so on. She will have 40,000_l._ a year in present." Atossa, as the quarrel heated and the plot thickened, with the maliciousness of Puck, and the haughtiness of an empress of Blenheim, invented the most cruel insult that ever architect endured!--one perfectly characteristic of that extraordinary woman. Vanbrugh went to Blenheim with his lady, in a company from Castle Howard, another magnificent monument of his singular genius.