210

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XX.

1693 .

Middle-ton’s ac-count ofVer-sailles.

and Steinkirk; and the sight raised a generous emulationamong those who had still to win an honourable fame in arms.*In the rveek in which this celebrated order began to existMiddleton visited Versailles. A letter in w'hich he gave hisfriends in England an account of his visit has come down to us.**He W’as presented to Lewis, was most kindly received, and wasoverpowered by gratitude and admiration. Of all the wondersof the Court, —■ so Middleton wrote, — its master was thegreatest. The splendour of the great King’s personal meritthrew even the splendour of his fortunes into the shade. Thelanguage which His Most Christian Majesty held about Englishpolitics was, on the whole, highly satisfactory. Yet in onething this accomplished prince and his able and experiencedministers were strangely mistaken. They were all possessedwith the absurd notion that the Prince of Orange was a greatman. No pains had been spared to undeceive them; but theywere under an incurable delusion. They saw through a magni-fying glass of such power that the leech appeared to them aleviathan. It ought to have occurred to Middleton that possiblythe delusion might be in his own vision and not in theirs. Lewisand the counsellors who surrounded him were far indeed fromloving William. But they did not hate him with that madhatred which raged in the breasts of his English enemies.Middleton was one of the wisest and most moderate of the Jaco-bites. Yet even Middleton’s judgment was so much darkenedby malice that, on this subject, he talked nonsense unworthy ofhis capacity. He, like the rest of his party, could see in theusurper nothing but what was odious and contemptible, theheart of a fiend, the understanding and manners of a stupid,

* The edict of creation was registered by the Parliament of Paris onthe 10th of April 1693.

** The letter is dated the 19th of April 1G93. It is among the NairneMSS., and was printed by Macpherson.