Sarah Jennings, wife of the great captain and hero of the time of Queen Anne, was the most remarkable woman of her own, or perhaps of any, age: for a series of years, by her wisdom, spirit, promptness, and genius, her fearlessness and acuteness, she directed the affairs of state, and conduced to the prosperity of the kingdom, which she might, in fact, be said to govern, as she was assuredly more queen than the weak sovereign who sat on the throne, and who, as long as she depended on her illustrious favourite, was crowned, through her means, with fame and glory. Queen Anne is only another instance of the caprice and ingratitude of princes; for, after a life of obligation to that chosen friend of her youth, she cast her off for a contemptible parasite, merely to indulge her mean propensity for gossip and scandal, and thus escape the thraldom which good sense and judgment oppose to obstinacy and imbecility: careless of her kingdom's weal, and selfishly bent on her own childish gratification, which could be content to

The Duchess of Marlborough's family, though not noble, were of gentle lineage, and though her numerous enemies meanly endeavoured to throw contempt upon her birth, there is no doubt of the respectable position in which both her father and mother stood.