Bolingbroke returned to England, Walpole ceased to be prime minister. We have already intimated the probable share which the former had in the downfall of his rival, and need not recur to the subject. But, although his revenge may have been gratified by this occurrence, he gained little personally. Time was hardly allowed to ascertain how far he would have been willing to accept, or his old associates in the opposition who were become the dominant party, to offer office to him, or additional title, before they lost their own popularity and influence by a mixed display of selfishness and timidity. Walpole was dead, and Pulteney soon became politically so, by allowing himself to be removed from the House of Commons to that of the Peers, with the title of the Earl of Bath. Of him Walpole used to say, that he feared his tongue more than another man's sword. But far different were the emotions of the ex-minister, now Earl of Oxford, when he first met his once formidable rival in the upper house; and truly might he say, as far as Pulteney was concerned: "My lord of Bath, you and I are now the two most insignificant men in the kingdom." It was in reference to Pulteney, who, at the instance of Walpole was compelled to take out a patent for the earldom, which had been promised him at the formation of the new ministry, that the latter used the expression, of his having turned the key upon his rival; intimating thereby, that the door of the cabinet was never to be unlatched for him. The result verified the prediction, or rather was in harmony with the intention.

Bolingbroke now in possession of the old family seat at Battersea, resolved, according to some accounts of his life, to spend the remainder of his days in philosophical retirement. But, however sincere he may have been in such often announced resolutions, he had not yet reached the time when he could abstain from manifesting a lively interest, and taking, moreover, an active part in public questions, and political intrigues connected with them. In the summer of 1743 we find him writing from France, a visit to which country was said to be connected with some pecuniary difficulties at home. Pope seems ever to have had a poor opinion of the domestic economy and management of his noble friend, who, the poet said, would never be worth three thousand pounds.

In the letters from Argeville, the politician and the agriculturist, says Mr. Cooke, are strangely mingled. The notice of the battle of Dettingen, and some dark observations upon a political intrigue which we are now unable to explain, are directly succeeded by an earnest request for a consignment of a quantity of acorns, and for the necessary instructions as to their culture. The evacuation of Germany, and the designs of the Queen of Hungary, are discussed in almost the same sentence with the excellences of the red Virginia oak. After a visit to Aix la

Chapelle, for the relief of the rheumatism, he returned to England. In the summer of the following year he again visited France, where he had still kept up an establishment. This was now broken up, and he took a final leave of the country in which so large a portion of his life had been spent.

His first production after his settlement at Battersea, written with political views and for political effect, was the "Idea of a Patriot King." It was composed ostensibly for the instruction of Frederick, Prince of Wales, heir apparent of George II, but who was fated never to reach the throne. It is not probable that, if he had lived, he would have conferred either credit upon his political teacher, or lustre on his reign. He was weak, vicious and false. According to Lord Brougham, (Edin. Rev.), Bolingbroke's "Idea of a Patriot King," certainly differed from his idea of a patriot subject. The duty of the former, according to the author, required a constant sacrifice of his own interests to the good of his country, the duty of the latter he considered to be a constant sacrifice of his country to himself. The one was bound on no account ever to regard either his feelings or his tastes, the interests of his family or the powers of his station; the other was justified in regarding his own gratification, whether of caprice or revenge, or ambition, as the only object of his life. Between the ruler and his subjects there was in this view no kind of reciprocity; for all the life of real sacrifice spent by the one was to be repaid by a life of undisturbed and undisguised self-seeking in the other." The remainder of the critique is in the same spirit.

It would appear, from the biographers of Bolingbroke, as if after the year 1744, when he quitted France for ever, that he really practised the secluded life which he had so often affected. His advanced age, and increasing infirmities, his disappointment at the turn of his own fortunes, and loss of confidence in the integrity, if he ever gave them credit for it, and at any rate in the ability of his political associates and coadjutors, to purify the corruption in government, and renovate the decayed state, might all be supposed adequate causes for his seclusion and determined abstinence from interfering any more in public life. But from the temperament of the man, and the very constitution of his mind, he was ever impelled to continue his former courses as a political manager-advising and exhorting where he could no longer lead, and aiding to pull down, though without the power of rebuilding after his own fashion, and according to his own views and theory. He was still, as is shown by the Marchmont Papers, "busy and deep in all the intrigues of that most intriguing period," the six or seven years preceding his death. On the sixth of November, 1744, we find him "conferring with Mr. Pitt for maintaining and extending a coalition of parties, and stating

to Lord Marchmont, that he found Mr. Pitt so haughty and impracticable that he was obliged to remind him, that as to the existing coalition, neither Lord Chesterfield nor Mr. Pitt had formed it, but he (Bolingbroke) himself.""-Murchmont Papers, I. 72. Nor was it in domestic intrigues alone that he busied himself." Dec. 25th, 1744-Lord Bolingbroke told me (Marchmont) that Lord Chesterfield had been with him this morning, and had talked to him of our situation as to foreign affairs, and that he wanted to see me about them."-Ibid. 93.

"Again, in February, 1746, (and indeed passim,) we find Bolingbroke very busy about the short-lived Carteret ministry, (Ibid. 173,) and we have in the same work an important letter from him so late as July, 1746,-(to a passage of which we have already referred for another purpose)-in which he says: "I did not leave England in 1735, till some schemes, which were then in the loom-though they never came to effect-made me one too many even to my most intimate friends; and I have not left off, since I came to resettle here, advising and extending, till long after you saw it was to no purpose."-Marchmont Papers, II. 356.

"And though of course a man at seventy would every year rapidly lose some of his vivacity and eagerness in public affairs, we have letters of his down to the eve of his decease, which prove that he still took a lively interest in the business of the political world."-Quart. Rev., No. cviii.

The peace of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748, was made an occasion by Bolingbroke for his resuming his pen, and giving to the public, in the following year, his last work, "Some Reflections upon the Present State of the Nation, principally with regard to her Taxes and her Debts, and on the Causes and Consequences of them." The subject so ably discussed in this treatise has lost none of its interest since that time, indeed must be regarded as of increased importance, even though we might not estimate it in the ratio of the increase of the main topic-the national debt. The language which the author held at that time was certainly not prophetic, although both the political economist and the patriot may wish that the warning it conveyed had been since attended to; as where he says: "Nothing but the speedy diminution of our national debts, can secure us effectually against contingent effects, that may be of fatal consequence. Upon this the future prosperity and safety of this country depend." This work, however, was never finished. Its completion, at first interrupted by the death of Lady Bolingbroke, was prevented subsequently by the increasing infirmities, and the painful malady which terminated the life of the author himself.

In February, 1750, Bolingbroke writes from London, to his

friend Lord Marchmont, "It is true that I have been these two months in the town, much out of order myself, and yet not on my own account, but on that of a poor woman, who is come, I think, to die here. It is impossible to describe the torment she has endured these many months, and the weakness to which she is reduced by a slow but almost continual fever at this time. A man who thinks and feels as I do, can find no satisfaction in the present scene; and I am about to lose one who has been the comfort of my life, in all the melancholy scenes of it, just at a time when the present is most likely to continue and to grow daily worse."

In the following month he writes to the same correspondent: "You are very good to take any share in this affliction, which has lain upon me so long, and which still continues, with the fear of being increased by a catastrophe I am little able to bear.

"Resignation, my lord, is a principal duty in my system of religion. Reason shows that it ought to be willing, if not cheerful, but there are passions and habitudes in human nature which reason cannot entirely subdue. I should be even ashamed not to feel them in the present case, though I am resigned to the conditions of humanity and the usual course of things.

"I shall never retire so as to deny myself to my friends, however useless they may be to me, and I much more so to them. But there are few whom I esteem such, and I have been long saying to myself what I told you once old Victor said to me, 'Je deviens tous les ans de plus en plus isolé dans ce monde.' From your lordship I hope I never shall be separated: by my affection I never shall.

"You will forgive me, my lord, if I make use of another hand, rather than to defer my answer to you: a strong affection which rheumatic pains have left on the nerves deprives me often of the power to exert it in writing."

This, except a letter of mere compliment dictated upon the birth of an heir to the Earl of Marchmont, is the last letter, according to Mr. Cooke, we have of Bolingbroke's. It would be manifest injustice to the subject of this memoir, if, in giving a slight sketch, from his biographer, of the wife of Bolingbroke, who died on the 18th March, 1750, we were to omit to mention that, on the testimony of all his friends, his tenderness and affection to her were exemplary. Among the illustrious persons who sought the society of her husband, she was equally celebrated for her conversational talents, and the ease and elegance of her manners. No violence of temper embittered their union. Lady Bolingbroke was as amiable as she was graceful, and the husband found those failings treated as subjects of repartee by her which he had before heard urged in a tone of angry reproach. Many specimens are recorded of her vivacity; and although she never

acquired sufficient skill in the English language to speak it habitually, yet she perfectly understood it when spoken by others. Her remarks were generally in French; but their justice and smartness when called forth by the peculiarities of her husband's friends, caused them to be frequently repeated or translated.

Lady Bolingbroke was buried in the family vault of the St. Johns, in Battersea church, where the following inscription, written by her husband, may yet be seen.

In this vault

Are interred the Remains of

MARY CLARA DES CHAMPS DE MARSILLY;
Marchioness of Villette and Viscountess of Bolingbroke.
Born of a noble family,

Bred in the Court of Louis XIV,
She reflected a lustre on the former
By the superior accomplishments of her mind:
She was an ornament to the latter

By the amiable dignity and grace of her behaviour.
She lived

The honor of her own sex,

The delight and admiration of ours.
She died

An object of imitation to both,
With all the firmness that Reason,
With all the resignation that Religion
Can inspire.

In addition to the solitariness and privation caused by the death of his wife, this event subjected him to vexatious annoyances, involving questions relating both to her property and character. Her nearest kindred in France commenced a suit in the French courts for the recovery of the property she had possessed, as a widow, under the plea that no marriage had taken place between her and Bolingbroke. The result of the first trial was unfavorable to him; but ultimately, through the exertions of his friend and the friend of his wife, the Marquis de Martignon, an appeal made to the parliament of Paris resulted in a reversal of the former sentence, and a restoration of the money which had been seized in consequence of it by Montmorier, the original claimant. This last event did not occur till after Bolingbroke's death; and it was not, therefore, reserved for him to see the fair fame of his lady, which had been aspersed by the first suit, vindicated to the satisfaction of their common friends and the world at large.

His own mortal career was now drawing to a close; the even