CHAP. plan of life is now a very agreeable one; in the XV. finest country of France, divided between study A. D. 1735 to 1742. and exercise, for he still reads or writes five or six hours a-day, and hunts generally twice a-week.* He has the whole forest of Fontainebleau at his command, with the king's stables and dogs. His lady's son-in-law being governor of that place, she resides most part of the year with my lord at a large house they have hired, and the rest with her daughter, who is abbess of a royal convent in the neighbourhood. I never saw him in stronger health, or in better humour with his friends, or more indifferent and dispassionate as to his enemies." + and mentions a letter, contain- * Bolingbroke's affection for Egremont papers at Petworth, but they chiefly contain commissions for pointers to be sent over to him from England, and other matters of a similar nature. This must have been a son of the Marquis de Villette by his first wife: the Marquise never had any children, for General Grimoard says of her, "Elle fut élevée à St. Cyr et épousa le Marquis de VilletteMursay, veuf avec des enfans. Il était mort en 1707 sans laisser de descendance de son second mariage." Vol. i. p. 145. This letter was the last which we have of the correspondence between Swift and XV. A. D. 1735 to 1742. To this we may add, upon the authority of CHAP. one of his letters printed among the Marchmont Papers, that he had built a pavilion in a garden belonging to the abbey of Sens, and that that little retreat was the scene of all his literary labours at this time.* Pope. It is dated May 17, 1739. From this time the dean was probably incapable of writing. Early in 1741, he was sunk into such a state of hopeless idiotcy, that his friends were obliged to appoint guardians of his person and estate. He did not die until October 1745. *There is a striking simi larity between the taste of Bo- upon both of them. The latter A.D. 1735 to 1742. CHAPTER XVI. Idea of a Patriot King.-Pope's Conduct with regard to the excess. CHAP. IT has not fallen within our province to notice the XVI. course of political events since the accession of George the First. The actor whose steps we are now tracing then left the scene, and we followed him into privacy. We need not however remind the reader, that at the time of which we are now speaking a serious misunderstanding had taken place between the King and his son Frederick Prince of Wales. When that prince withdrew himself from his father's court and threw himself into the arms of the opposition, Bolingbroke, who had been the great, the unseen leader of that opposition, of course became an object of his admiration and a sharer in his confidence. Some advances had been made by him towards cultivating the friendship and securing the support of Bolingbroke before he left England.* * The Prince was pretty active in recruiting for the opposition. After having closeted Lord Harrington, in a vain attempt to convert him, he dis missed him with, "Remember, my lord, the King is sixty-one and I am thirty-seven." Diary of Hugh Earl of Marchmont. XVI. to 1742. His five months' residence in England was not CHAP. passed without frequent interviews with the Prince, who was now identified with a party most of whom A. D. 1735 were private friends of Bolingbroke; and these interviews soon ripened into an intimacy which ever afterwards subsisted between him and the heir-ap *The conduct of Prince Frederick in this unhappy dispute is by no means deserving the censure with which the panegyrists of Walpole have visited it. His passion for the daughter of the King of Prussia was ardent, and the object was worthy of his love. His immediate submission to the will of his father was rather exemplary than common under such circumstances, and the pertinacious resentment of the King displayed an unnatural vindictiveness which his ministers were but too ready to gratify. Mr. Coxe has been too honest in his detail of the circumstances: he has furnished us with abundant grounds to reject his remarks upon them. Horace Walpole asserts that Bolingbroke suggested to the Prince a scheme as impracticable as it was base. This was no less than to obtain at his accession that the revenue should be vested in the crown for every six years without a civil list, and to have parliaments holden only every five or six years. This accusation is contained in a note to his Memoirs of the Reign of George II. and is made upon the authority of Lord Egmont. Some years afterwards Walpole met with the passage in Bolingbroke's eleventh letter of his Dissertation upon Parties, in which he imputes a project of this description to Sir Robert Walpole, and denounces it as a thing which would be considered even in those days an intolerable grievance and an unjustifiable measure, because it would alter the fundamental article of our constitution. This contradiction did not, however, startle the Earl of Orford; he prefers the hearsay account of Lord Egmont to the recorded. sentiment of Bolingbroke, and instead of drawing his pen through the original note, adds another upon the baseness which could attribute to another schemes which he had in CHAP. XVI. We need not therefore be at a loss to discover the motive which prompted his next undertaking. A.D. 1735 He had formerly a nobleman to instruct in the pur to 1742. suit of knowledge; he now had the heir to a mighty kingdom to instruct in the science of government. The miserable effects which pursued ignorance in a king of the character of the people whom he governed-the evils which resulted from his being considered as the dependant of a party; indebted to them for his crown and relying upon them for its preservation, were already before his eyes. It was worthy of the patriotism which Bolingbroke now professed and practised, to attempt to save his country from a repetition of those evils, and to implant in the breast of the man to whom he supposed her destinies about to be entrusted, principles which might not only prevent a recurrence of past misfortunes, but also ensure her future prosperity. The result of his reflections upon this subject was his "Idea of a Patriot King ;" a work which will always remain a monument of his eminent skill as a writer, and of his profound knowledge of the constitution and politics of his country. Nothing can be more injurious to the cause of truth than the mistaken zeal of violent and heedless advocates. Their unfounded assertions are disproved, and they contemplation himself. The stance in these Memoirs of the author having clung to a favourite error, after discovering the sandy foundation upon which it leant. |