lingbroke set his whole soul at work to destroy the influence of Walpole with the King. As yet the only boon that he had obtained since his return to England was the passing of an Act of Parliament in 1725, which restored him to his family inheritance, and enabled him to make purchases of any real or personal estate within the kingdom. The bill in question was supported by Sir Robert Walpole in the House of Commons; but the minister has himself informed us, that it was entirely against his own inclination that the measure was introduced into Parliament, and that nothing but the express commands of his sovereign would have induced him to give it his sanction or support.

On this occasion, as on a former one, Bolingbroke was indebted to the good offices of the Duchess of Kendal. The imperial courtezan, indeed, appears to have conceived a personal dislike to Walpole, and, either influenced by this feeling, or grateful for the magnificent bribe which she had received at the hands of his enemy, she lost no opportunity of advancing the interests of the latter. She even privately presented to the King a memorial, drawn up by Bolingbroke, in which he insisted on the incapacity of the minister; attributing to him all the presumed misfortunes with which the country was afflicted, and concluding by demanding a personal interview. This interview the King thought proper to grant, though, at the same time, he showed his confidence in Walpole, by handing to him the offensive memorial.

Whatever may have occurred at the singular meeting between George the First and Bolingbroke, so little does the King appear to have been affected by the polished address and insinuating eloquence of the wily statesman; that, when afterwards interrogated as to the substance of their conversation, he indifferently replied," Bagatelles, bagatelles!" During the whole time, indeed, that Bolingbroke was closeted with the King, Walpole, it is said, was waiting, quietly and unconcernedly, in the anti-chamber, till the interview should be at an end.

It is to be regretted that the memorial presented by Bolingbroke to George the First, should no longer be in existence. A short time before the death of Sir Robert Walpole, he observed to his son, "Horace, when I am gone, you will find many curious papers in the drawer of this table." Among these papers was the memorial in question; but, after the death of the minister, it was, unfortunately, nowhere to be found. It was believed by Horace Walpole, either that his elder brother had inadvertently destroyed it, or that it had been abstracted by a steward who was either a virtuoso or a thief.*

It has generally been presumed, that, in the later struggles which took place between Bolingbroke and Walpole, the former had never in reality the remotest chance of expelling his rival, or of installing himself in his room. Etough, in detailing the minutes of a curious conversation

* Coxe's Life of Sir R. Walpole, Preface, p. 23.

serves:

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which he held with Sir Robert Walpole, obSeptember 13, 1737, I had an opportunity for full conversation with Sir Robert Walpole. I mentioned then, to him, Bolingbroke's reports of his often attending the late King at supper, and of his interest being so prevailing, that it was with the utmost importunity and address he persuaded the King to defer the making him prime minister, till he returned from Hanover. He condescended to give me this explanation. He said lying was so natural to St. John, that it was impossible for him to keep within the bounds of truth. He might truly boast of his prospects, for they were very great ; though things were not so fixed and near as he pretended. He had the entire interest of the Duchess of Kendal, and having this, what consequences time would probably have produced, required no explanation. St. John, he averred, had only been once with the King, which was owing to his importunity."

On this occasion, Etough contents himself with merely repeating the minutes of his conversation with Sir Robert Walpole, but on the other hand, in an unpublished letter to Dr. Birch, we find him expressing himself, fully satisfied of the probability of St. John's ultimate success. "Bolingbroke," he writes, “ would have prevailed had the King lived. What fully amounts to this I am sure I had from the late Earl of Oxford. Mr. H. Walpole has warmly rebuked me for this report, but offered nothing solid in the way of contradic

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tion." The subject, indeed, is more than once adverted to by Horace Walpole in his letters, but so absorbing was his attachment to his father, and so great was his admiration of his talents, that he could be induced to regard it in no other light than as a fantastical chimera.

To

That Bolingbroke, indeed, trod closely in the steps of his enemy, and that his success at one period, was extremely probable, we cannot for a moment question. In the year 1727, he was openly spoken of as the future minister; the adversaries of Walpole rallied confidently round him; and Bolingbroke himself insisted, that, immediately after the King's return from Hanover, the world would see him first minister. quote Sir Robert Walpole's own words, "As St. John had the Duchess entirely on his side, I need not add what must, or might, in time, have been the consequence." Swift, in one of his letters to Dr. Sheridan, expresses his belief that Bolingbroke's triumph was at hand; Atterbury, also, in a memorial addressed to Cardinal Fleury, treats the downfal of Sir Robert as certain; and, moreover, Henry Pelham assured Speaker Onslow, that so convinced was Walpole himself of Bolingbroke's approaching triumph, that it was only owing to the earnest remonstrances of the Duke of Devonshire and the Princess of Wales, that he was prevented from tendering his resignation, and accepting a peerage.

The decease of George the First, however, and

* Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 4326. B.

the entire confidence extended to Walpole, by the new monarch, were fatal to the expectations and ambitious projects of Bolingbroke. He, accordingly, retired to a seat which he had purchased at Dawley, near Uxbridge, where, affecting the utmost contempt for politics and party, he endeavoured to cheat himself into a belief that he was a very contented philosopher, and that the world and its vanities were beneath his interest or regard.

With Bolingbroke, however, ambition constituted the vital principle of existence, and it was only on occasions when the star of his genius was obscured in the political horizon, that he fell back into the regions of philosophy, and, affecting to be wholly absorbed in the cultivation of letters and the quiet enjoyments of a country life, spoke of retirement as the only source of happiness and the panacea for all human ills. Not that, in his professions of philosophical indifference, and in the glowing pictures which he draws of his classical seclusion, we can accuse him of a strained attempt at dramatic effect, for we find him expatiating on these subjects, not merely in those finished essays which were intended to win the applause of the public, but also in his confidential letters to his most intimate friends. It could only, however, have been in the seclusion of his own closet; in particular moments of self-approbation; or when thwarted in his ambitious views; that he flattered himself he was superior to the common weaknesses of mankind, and that the honours and rewards to be gained by a communion with his fel