ATTERBURY CONVICTED OF TREASON. 175 criminality, but the evidence against him was slight. Similarity of handwriting was a slender ground of accusation, and Atterbury would make no explanation or acknowledgment to the Privy Council. One seemingly trifling circumstance weighed against him. "There was no doubt that the letters to and from Jones and Illington were of a treasonable nature; the point was to prove that these names were designed for the bishop. Now, it so happened that Mrs. Atterbury, who died early this year, had a little before received a present from Lord Mar in France of a small spotted dog called Harlequin, and this animal having broken its leg, and being left with one Mrs. Barnes to be cured, was more than once mentioned in the correspondence of Jones and Illington. Mrs. Barnes and some other persons were examined before the Council on this subject, and they, supposing that at all events there could be no treason in a lap-dog, readily owned that Harlequin was intended for the Bishop of Rochester. There were many other collateral proofs, but it was the throwing up this little straw which decisively showed from what quarter blew the wind."-(Lord Mahon's Hist. of England.) Atterbury was committed to the Tower, and was so strictly guarded and watched that Pope said even pigeon-pies sent to him were opened. "It is the first time," adds the poet, "that dead pigeons have been suspected of conveying intelligence." A bill of pains and penalties enacting banishment and deprivation, but without forfeiture of goods, was carried against the bishop in the House of Commons without a division. On the 8th of May Atterbury was brought to the House of Lords. He had written to Pope (April 10), that he might call upon the poet to give evidence as to the manner in which he spent his time at the deanery, "which," he added, "did not seem calculated towards managing plots and conspiracies." Pope was accordingly called, but his selfpossession seems to have deserted him. He got nervous and confused, and, as he himself related, "though I had but ten words to say, and that on a plain point, how that the bishop spent his time whilst I was with him at Bromley in Kent, I made two or three blunders in it, and that, notwithstanding the first row of lords, which was all that I could see, were mostly of my acquaintance." Garrick, upon one occasion, though so much accustomed to public appearances, made as indistinct and confused a witness. On the 11th of May Atterbury entered upon his defence, and delivered an eloquent and argumentative address-in some parts highly pathetic-but without invalidating any essential part of the evidence. The tone of this speech-the bishop's complaints of the proceedings against him by so extraordinary a method as a bill of pains and penalties-the hardships he had undergone in the Tower, and the restrictions which had been put upon his only consolation, the visits of his beloved daughter -all these topics, heightened by strong feeling and artfully blended, render Atterbury's defence not dissimilar in character to the more memorable one of the Earl of Strafford before his accusers of the Long Parliament. The bill passed by a majority of 83 to 43; and His Majesty having given, though reluctantly, his assent, the bishop prepared for his departure to France. Pope had written to him shortly before (April 20), under the impression, then apparent, that the bill would pass, reminding him of the fate of Tully, Bacon, and Clarendon, the disgraced part of whose lives, he said, was now most envied, and was that which he was sure the bishop would choose to have lived. His personal affection for Atterbury was strongly expressed, and the letter concludes with this striking declaration: "Perhaps it will not be in this life only that I shall have cause to remember and acknowledge the friendship of the Bishop of Rochester." The following is Pope's farewell letter: May, 1723. Once more I write to you, as I promised, and this once, I fear, will be the last! the curtain will soon be drawn between my friend and me, and nothing left but to wish you a long good-night. May you enjoy a state of repose in this life, not unlike that sleep of the soul which some have believed is to succeed it, where we lie utterly forgetful of that world from which we are gone, and ripening for that to which we are to go. If you POPE'S FAREWELL LETTER TO ATTERBURY. 177 retain any memory of the past, let it only image to you what has pleased you best; sometimes present a dream of an absent friend, or bring you back an agreeable conversation. But upon the whole, I hope you will think less of the time past than of the future; as the former has been less kind to you than the latter infallibly will be. Do not deny the world your studies; they will tend to the benefit of men against whom you can have no complaint, I mean of all posterity; and perhaps, at your time of life, nothing else is worth your care. What is every year of a wise man's life but a censure or critic on the past? Those whose date is the shortest, live long enough to laugh at one half of it: the boy despises the infant, the man the boy, the philosopher both, and the Christian all. You may now begin to think your manhood was too much a puerility; and you'll never suffer your age to be but a second infancy. The toys and baubles of your childhood are hardly now more below you, than those toys of our riper and of our declining years, the drums and rattles of ambition, and the dirt and bubbles of avarice. At this time, when you are cut off from a little society, and made a citizen of the world at large, you should bend your talents not to serve a party, or a few, but all mankind. Your genius should mount above that mist in which its participation and neighbourhood with earth long involved it; to shine abroad and to heaven, ought to be the business and the glory of your present situation. Remember it was at such a time that the greatest lights of antiquity dazzled and blazed the most, in their retreat, in their exile, or in their death: but why do I talk of dazzling or blazing? it was then that they did good, that they gave light, and that they became guides to mankind. Those aims alone are worthy of spirits truly great, and such I therefore hope will be yours. Resentment indeed may remain, perhaps cannot be quite extinguished, in the noblest minds; but revenge never will harbour there: higher principles than those of the first, and better principles than those of the latter, will infallibly influence men whose thoughts and whose hearts are enlarged, and cause them to prefer the whole to any part of mankind, especially to so small a part as one's single self. Believe me, my Lord, I look upon you as a spirit entered into another life, as one just upon the edge of immortality; where the passions and affections must be much more exalted, and where you ought to despise all little views, and all mean retrospects. Nothing is worth your looking back; and therefore look forward, and make (as you can) the world look after you. But take care that it be not with pity, but with esteem and admiration. I am with the greatest sincerity, and passion for your fame as well as happiness, Your, &c. Atterbury went into exile the following month. On the 17th of June he took leave of his friends, and presented 86 Pope with his Bible 2. On the 18th he was embarked on board a man-of-war, and conveyed to Calais, after which he entered into the service of the Pretender, serving as his ATTERBURY PRESENTING HIS BIBLE TO P. PE, IN THE TOWER. confidential agent first at Brussels and afterwards at Paris, but ultimately, like Bolingbroke, losing favour at the exiled 2 This Bible Pope afterwards gave to Ralph Allen, of Widcomb, or Prior Park, Bath. Notwithstanding Atterbury's affection for Pope, Elijah Fenton said the bishop, speaking one day of Pope, remarked that there was mens curva in corpore curvo (a crooked mind in a crooked body). Atterbury seems to have been considered an insincere man in private as well as in public affairs. See Hughes's Letters, vol. ii. BOLINGBROKE RETURNS FROM FRANCE. 179 court. He died in France on the 15th of February, 1732 but his remains were brought to England and interred in Westminster Abbey. ment. When Atterbury went ashore at Calais, he was told that Bolingbroke had just arrived there on his way to England, having obtained the royal pardon. "Then I am exchanged," said Atterbury; and, according to Warburton, the bishop seriously entertained such an opinion; conceiving that the price agreed on for Bolingbroke's return was his banish"Sure this is a nation that is cursedly afraid of being overrun with too much politeness," said Pope; ind cannot regain one genius but at the expense of ano er!" Bolingbroke had officiated as secretary to the Prete. der in France. He became unpopular and lost his appointmentchiefly through the superannuated prejudices and imbecility of the old Chevalier and he then commenced plotting for his return to England. He accomplished his object by the aid of friends and by that influence then so potent—money. A second marriage (to an amiable French lady) had added greatly to his fortune, and a present of £12,000 to the king's favourite, the Duchess of Kendal, obtained for him the royal pardon, but without restoring to him his family inheritance, his title, or his seat in the House of Lords Two years afterwards his estate was restored to him by act of parliament, but Walpole was inflexible in his resolution to exclude him from the House of Lords, and this privation galled him into a course of active opposition. He attacked the ministry in pamphlets and newspapers for a period of ten years, until, tired with the fruitless contest, and quarrelling with his own friends of the Opposition, he again withdrew to France. What wanderer from his native shore Restless, ambitious, and insincere, Bolingbroke was always dissatisfied. He excelled, however, in those popular qualities in which Pope was deficient. His appearance was noble; his eloquence seemed like inspiration; he was of |