The Duke of Marlborough is quite hurt in his mind
by two statements made by the Attorney-General. Sir J. Coleridge, who has read history, said the Marlborough estates were granted to the Churchills by the State, a statement which his Grace blankly denies. "They were never granted by the State," but are his own private property. As Blenheim certainly was given to the first Duke in reward for services, and was paid for out of a vote in supply, we can only imagine that the present Duke has never read the history of the only Churchill who ever had a claim upon the nation. Sir John, moreover, called his opponent a Tory, and the Duke is evidently mach annoyed by the epithet. The Attorney-General therefore with- draws it, and journalists must henceforward remember that the Duke, though he sits in Mr. Disraeli's Cabinets, and votes steadily with the Duke of Richmond, and opposes every liberal measure, is all the while at heart ashamed of the party he assists to guide. The feeling is extremely natural, but we hardly expected to see it avowed.
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