Recalled, at sundry times, to the duties of a court life, the hero who surpassed the generals under whom he served, surpassed also the courtiers with whom he came into frequent collision. He was endowed with personal beauty, height of stature, (being above the middle size,) activity, and sweetness of expression: in short, the perfection of the species, high intellect combined with perfect grace, was exhibited in this great, and, when chastened by the course of events, subsequently good man. His countenance was mild, thoughtful, commanding; his brow lofty, his features regular but flexible. His deportment was dignified, and, at the same time, winning. “No one,” said one who knew him personally, “ever said a pert thing to the Duke of Marlborough.”[22] The same consummate judge even attributed the great success of the Duke “to the Graces, who protected and promoted him.” “His manner,” Lord Chesterfield declares, “was irresistible, either by man or woman.” Like most young men destined to the profession of arms, the education of Churchill was limited. Lord Chesterfield, indeed, declares that the great Marlborough was “eminently illiterate, wrote bad English, and spelt it worse;” and he goes so far as to assert, that “he had no share of what is commonly called parts; he had no brightness, nothing shining in his genius.” But with this opinion, however backed by high authority, it is impossible for those who trace the career of Marlborough to agree. That he was not a man of extensive intellectual cultivation, as far as the learning to be acquired from books was concerned—that he was not calculated to harangue in the senate with peculiar distinction, nor addicted deeply to the study of the closet—may readily be admitted. It may even be allowed that he was deficient in the science of orthography—in those days less carefully instilled in youth than in the present time.[23] But that he was absolutely illiterate, or even of mediocre parts moderately cultivated, his private letters sufficiently disprove. They are all admirably expressed; clear, emphatic, and in well-constructed sentences. His father was a man of letters, the author of an historical work,[24] and by Sir Winston was the education of Churchill superintended, until he was placed at St. Paul’s school, London.[25]