may be called their country's modern history, are Oliver Cromwell,
Marlborough, and Wellington. Cromwell was in his forty-fourth year when
he received the baptism of fire at Edgehill, as a captain; and he was in
his fifty-third year when he fought, as lord-general, his last battle,
at Worcester, which closed a campaign, as well as an active military
career, that had been conducted with great energy. It was as a military
man that he subsequently ruled the British islands, and to the day of
his death there was no abatement in ability. Marlborough had a good
military education, served under Turenne when he was but twenty-two, and
attracted his commander's admiration; but he never had an independent
command until he was forty, when he led an expedition to Ireland, and
captured Cork and Kinsale. He was fifty-two when he assumed command of
the armies of the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV., and in his
fifty-fifth year when he won the Battle of Blenheim. At fifty-six he
gained the victory of Ramillies, and at fifty-eight that of Oudenarde.
His last great battle, Malplaquet, was fought when he was in his
sixtieth year; and after that the French never durst meet him in the
field. He never knew what defeat meant, from experience, and was the
most successful even of those commanders who have never failed. He left
his command at sixty-two, with no one to dispute his title of the first
of living soldiers; and with him victory left the Alliance. Subsequently
he was employed by George I., and to his measures the defeat of the
rebels of 1715 was due, he having predicted that they would be
overthrown precisely where they were overthrown. The story that he
survived his mental powers is without foundation, and he continued to
perform his official duties to the last, the King having refused to
accept his proffered resignation. Wellington had a thorough military
training, received his first commission at eighteen, and was a
lieutenant-colonel in his twenty-fifth year. After showing that he was a
good soldier in 1794-5, against the French, he went to India, where he