satisfactorily done. But behold, in August and earlier, come
marvellous news from the Prag quarter, tragical to France;
and Maillebois is off, at his best speed, in the reverse direction;
on a far other errand!"--Of which readers shall soon hear enough.

"Dunkirk, therefore, is now open. With 16,000 British troops,
Hanoverians to the like number, and Hessians 6,000, together near
40,000, not to speak of Dutch at all, surely one might manage
Dunkirk, if not something still better? It is AFTER Maillebois's
departure that these dreadful exertions, coopering of water-casks,
pumping all Sunday, go on at Gravesend: 'Swift, oh, be swift, while
time is!' And Generalissimo-Plenipotentiary Stair, who has run over
beforehand, is ardent enough upon the Dutch; his eloquence fiery
and incessant: 'Magnanimous High Mightinesses, was there, will
there again be, such a chance? The Cause of Human Liberty may be
secured forever! Dunkirk--or what is Dunkirk even? Between us and
Paris, there is nothing, now that Maillebois is off on such an
errand! Why should not we play Marlborongh again, and teach them a
little what Invasion means? It is ourselves alone that can hinder
it! Now, I say, or never!'

"Stair was a pupil of Marlborough's; is otherwise a shining kind of
man; and has immense things in his eye, at this time. They say,
what is not unlikely, he proposed an Interview with Friedrich now
at Aachen; would come privately, to 'take the waters' for a day or
two,--while Maillebois was on his new errand, and such a crisis had
risen. But Friedrich, anxious to be neutral and give no offence,
politely waived such honor. Lord Stair was thought to be something
of a General, in fact as well as in costume;--and perhaps he was
so. And had there been a proper COUNTESS of Stair, or new Sarah