From the moment of this discovery, and of the further facts that the marriage had taken place under Anne’s auspices, and that Abigail had already taken advantage of her favor to bring Harley into close relations with the queen, the duchess gave her mistress little peace. Fiery letters were showered daily upon the queen. She let nothing pass without a hasty visit, or a long epistle. If it were not for the pertinacity with which she returns again and again to one subject, these letters have so much force of character in them that it would be impossible not to enter with sympathetic excitement into the fray. The reader is carried along by the passionate absorption of the writer’s mind as she pours forth page upon page, flying to her desk at every new incident, transmitting copies of every epistle to Godolphin to secure his coöperation, and to Marlborough, though so much farther off, to show him how she had confuted all his adversaries. And then there follows a record of stormy scenes, remonstrances, and appeals that lose their effect by repetition. The duchess would never accept defeat. Every new affront, every symptom of failure in the policy which she supported with so much zeal, made her rush, if possible, to the presence of the queen, with a storm of reproaches and invectives, with tears of fury and outcries of wrath,--or to the pen, with which she reiterated the same burning story of her wrongs. Anne is represented to us throughout in an attitude of stolid and passive resistance, which increases our sympathy with the weeping, raging, passionate woman, whose eloquence, whose arguments, whose appeals and entreaties all dash unheeded against the rock of tranquil obstinacy which is no more moved by them than the cliff is moved by the petulance of the rising tide; although, on the other hand, a similar sympathy is not [Illustration: THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. ENGRAVED BY R. G. TIETZE, FROM MEZZOTINT AFTER PAINTING BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER.] wanting for the dull and placid soul which could get no peace, and which longed above all things for tranquillity, for gentle attentions and soft voices, and the privilege of nominating bishops and playing basset in peace. Poor lady! on the whole it is Queen Anne who is most to be pitied. She was often ill, always unwieldly and uncomfortable. She had nobody but a soft, gliding, smooth-tongued Abigail to fall back upon, while the duchess had half the great men of the time fawning upon her, putting themselves at her feet: her husband prizing a word of kindness from her more than anything in the world; her daughters describing her as the dearest mother that ever was; money--which she loved--accumulating in her coffers; and great Blenheim still a-building, and all kinds of noble hangings, cut velvets and satins, pictures, and every fine thing that could be conceived, getting collected for the adornment of that great house.