tion was made for him, in the person of the daughter and coheiress of Sir Henry Winchescomb. This lady was a descendant from the famous Jack of Newbury, who, though but a clothier in the reign of Henry VIII, was able to entertain the king and all his retinue in the most splendid manner. The marriage took place in 1700, when St. John was but twenty-two years of age. It was one of mere convenience, and, like all such arrangements was attended with little happiness. The most substantial result was the accession of a large fortune, estimated at forty thousand pounds, to his own patrimony. Indifference could not well be converted into love, or, in its place, permanent esteem, when the husband was imperious and inconstant, and the wife obstinate and jealous: his indiscretions, perhaps vices, could not be arrested by her outbreaks of temper and bitter reproaches. They parted by mutual consent, both equally displeased; he complaining of the obstinacy of her temper, she of the shamelessness of his infidelity. A great part of her fortune some time after this event, on the occasion of his attainder, was given back to her; but as the family estates were settled upon him, he enjoyed them after her death, when his attainder was reversed.

But, however determined the lady was, not to submit to the infidelities of her husband, there is good reason for believing that their separation was not followed by enduring resentment on either side; and that the reconciliation was of such a nature as to admit of forgiveness, if not a return of affection. In 1716, two years after the first disgrace and exile of St. John, (then Lord Bolingbroke,) we find his lady corresponding with Swift, to whose acquaintance she was probably introduced by her husband, and using this remarkable expression. "As to my temper, if it is possible, I am more insipid and dull than ever, except in some places, and there I am a little fury, especially if they dare mention my dear lord without respect, which sometimes happens. I have not yet seen her grace, [the Duchess of Ormond] but design it in a day or two; we have kept a constant correspondence, ever since our misfortunes, and her grace is pleased to call me sister." The Duke of Ormond had also been obliged to fly his country, and was then under an act of attainder for conspiracy to bring in the Pretender, as successor to Queen Anne, and to the exclusion of the Elector of Hanover. In another letter dated August 4th of the same year, Lady Bolingbroke says, "I hope one time or other his majesty [George I.] will find my lord has been misrepresented, and by that means he may be restored to his country once more with honor; or else, however harsh it may sound out of my mouth, I had rather wear black. These are my real sentiments."

Having taken a resolution to quit the allurements of pleasure

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for the stronger attractions of ambition, soon after his marriage he procured a seat in the house of commons, in being elected for the borough of Wotton-Basset, in Wiltshire. His father had served several times for the same place. Besides his natural endowments and his large fortune, he had other very considerable advantages that gave him weight in the senate, and seconded his views of preferment. His grandfather Sir Walter St. John was still alive, and that gentleman's interest was so great in his own county of Wilts, that he represented it in two parliaments in a former reign. His father, also, was then the representative for the same, and the interest of his wife's family in the house was very extensive. Thus St. John took his seat with many accidental helps, but his chief and great resource lay in his own extensive abilities.

At that time the whig and the tory parties were strongly opposed in the house, and pretty nearly balanced. In the latter years of King William, the tories, who from every motive were opposed to the court, had been gaining popularity, and now began to make a public stand against their competitors. Robert Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, a staunch and confirmed tory, was in the year 1700 chosen speaker of the house of commons, and was continued in the same upon the accession of Queen Anne, the year ensuing. Bolingbroke had all along been bred up, as was before observed, among the dissenters, his friends leaned to that persuasion, and all his connections, including his grandfather and father, were of the whig interest. However, either from principle, or from perceiving the tory party to be gaining ground, while the whigs were declining, he soon changed his connections, and joined himself to Harley, for whom he then had the greatest esteem: nor did he bring him his vote alone, but his opinion; which even before the end of his first session he rendered very considerable, the house perceiving even in so young a speaker the greatest eloquence, united with the profoundest discernment. The year following he was again chosen for the same borough, and persevering in his former attachments, he gained such an authority and influence in the house, that it was thought proper to reward his merit; accordingly, on the 10th of April, 1704, he was appointed Secretary at War, and of the marines, his friend Harley having a little before been made Secretary of State.

The tory party being thus established in power, it may easily be supposed that every method would be used to depress the whig interest, and to prevent it from rising; yet so much justice was done even to merit in an enemy, that the Duke of Marlborough, who might be considered as at the head of the opposite party, was supplied with all the necessaries for carrying on the

war in Flanders with vigor; and it is remarkable, that the greatest events of his campaigns, such as the battles of Blenheim and Ramillies, and several glorious attempts made by the duke to shorten the war by some decisive action, fell out while St. John was secretary at war. In fact, he was a sincere admirer of that great general, and avowed it upon all occasions to the last moment of his life: he knew his faults, he admired his virtues, and had the boast of being instrumental in giving lustre to those triumphs, by which his own power was in a manner overthrown.

As the affairs of the nation were then in as fluctuating a state as at present, Harley, after maintaining the lead for above three years, was in his turn obliged to submit to the whigs, who once more became the prevailing party, and he was compelled to resign the seals. The friendship between him and Bolingbroke seems at this time to have been sincere and disinterested; for the latter chose to follow his fortune, and the next day resigned his employments in the administration, following his friend's course and setting an example at once of integrity and moderation. As an instance of this, when his coadjutors, the tories, were carrying a violent measure in the house of commons, in order to bring the princess Sophia into England, Bolingbroke so artfully opposed it, that it dropped without a debate. For this his moderation was praised, but perhaps at the expense of his sagacity.

For some time the whigs seemed to have gained a complete triumph, and upon the election of a new parliament, in the year 1708, St. John was not returned. The interval which followed of above two years, he employed in the severest study; and this recluse period he ever after used to consider as the most active and serviceable of his whole life. But his retirement was soon interrupted, by the prevailing of his party once more; for the whig parliament being dissolved in the year 1710, he was again chosen, and Harley being made chancellor, and under-treasurer of the exchequer, the important post of Secretary of State was given to our author, in which he discovered a degree of genius and assiduity, that perhaps have never been known to be united in one person to the same degree.

He was

The English annals scarcely produce a more trying juncture, or one that required such various abilities to regulate. then placed in a sphere, where he was obliged to conduct the machine of state, struggling with a thousand various calamities: a desperate and enraged party, whose characteristic it is said to be to bear none in power but themselves; a war conducted by an able general, his professed opponent, and whose victories only tended to render him every day more formidable; a foreign enemy, possessed of endless resources, and seeming to gather strength from every defeat; an insidious alliance, that wanted

only to gain the advantages of victory, without contributing to the expenses of the combat; a weak declining mistress, who was led by every report, and seemed ready to listen to whatever was said against him; still more, a gloomy, indolent, and suspicious colleague, who envied his power, and hated him for his abilities: these were a part of the difficulties, that St. John had to struggle with in office, and under which he was to conduct the treaty of peace of Utrecht, which was considered as one of the most complicated negotiations that history can afford. But nothing seemed too great for his abilities and industry: he set himself to the undertaking with spirit; and began to pave the way to the intended treaty, by making the people discontented at the continuance of the war. For this purpose he employed himself in drawing up accurate computations of the numbers of our own men, and that of foreigners employed in its destructive progress. He even wrote in the Examiner and other periodical papers of the times, showing how much of the burden rested upon England, and how little was sustained by those who falsely boasted their alliance. By these means, and after much debate in the house of commons, the queen received a petition from parliament, showing the hardships the allies had put upon England in carrying on this war, and consequently how necessary it was to apply relief to so ill-judged a connection. It may be easily supposed that the Dutch, against whom this petition was chiefly levelled, did all that was in their power to oppose it; many of the foreign courts also, with which England had any transactions, were continually at work to defeat the minister's intentions. Memorial was delivered after memorial; the people of England, the parliament, and all Europe were made acquainted with the injustice and the dangers of such a proceeding. Notwithstanding all this, Bolingbroke went on with steadiness and resolution, and although the attacks of his enemies at home might have been deemed sufficient to employ his attention, yet he was obliged at the same time that he furnished materials to the press in London, to prepare instructions to all the ministers and ambassadors abroad, who would do nothing but in pursuance of his directions. As an orator, in the senate he exerted all his eloquence; he stated all the great points that were brought before the house; he answered the objections that were made by the leaders of the opposition; and all this with such success, that even his enemies while they opposed his power, acknowledged his abilities. Indeed, such were the difficulties he had to encounter, that we find him acknowledging, himself, some years after, that he never looked back on this great event passed as it was, without a secret emotion of mind; when he compared the vastness of the undertaking and the importance of the success, with the means em

ployed to bring it about, and with those which were enlisted to frustrate his intentions.

While he was thus industriously employed, he was not without the rewards that deserved to follow such abilities, joined to so much assiduity. In July, 1712, he was created Baron St. John, of Lidyard Tregoze, in Wiltshire, and Viscount Bolingbroke, by the last of which titles he is now generally known, and is likely to be talked of by posterity: he was also the same year appointed lord lieutenant of the county of Essex. By the titles of Tregoze and Bolingbroke, he united the honors of the elder and younger branches of his family; and thus transmitted into one channel, the opposing interests of two races, which had been distinguished, one for their loyalty to king Charles I, the other for their attachment to the parliament that opposed him. It was afterwards his boast, that he steered clear of the extremes for which his ancestors had been distinguished, having kept the spirit of freedom of the one, and acknowledged the subordination characteristic of the other.

Here we shall suspend, for a while, the narrative of his life, in order to convey, on competent authority, some ideas of the peculiar and shining merits of Bolingbroke, additional to those furnished in the last few pages by the pen of Goldsmith. We cannot, for this purpose, do better than borrow the description of the man, the minister, and the orator, as given by his friend Swift, in the following language: "It happens to very few men in any age or country to come into the world with so many advantages of nature and fortune as the late secretary Bolingbroke: descended from the best families in England, heir to a great patrimonial estate, of a sound constitution, and a most graceful, amiable person: but all these, had they been of equal value, were infinitely inferior in degree to the accomplishments of his mind, which was adorned with the choicest gifts that God has yet thought fit to bestow upon the children of men, a strong memory, a clear judgment, a vast range of wit and fancy, a thorough comprehension, an invincible eloquence, with a most agreeable elocution. He had well cultivated all these talents by travel and study; the latter of which he seldom omitted, even in the midst of his pleasures, of which he had indeed been too great and criminal a pursuer; for, although he was persuaded to leave off intemperance in wine, which he did for some time to such a degree that he seemed rather abstemious; yet he was said to allow himself other liberties, which can by no means he reconciled to religion or morals; whereof I have reason to believe he began to be sensible. But he was fond of mixing pleasure and business, and of being esteemed excellent at both, upon which account he had a great respect for the characters of Alci