upon account of that very restoration? Now, the same impious humour, (which is the very essence of fanaticism, let it be in what church it will,) can do with a thousand times smaller matters. A fire, not to be named with that; a mortality amongst our cattle, which all Europe hath felt much more grievously: these are not only declared to be God's judgments; (as without doubt they are ;) but it is sufficiently and plainly insinuated, that they are judgments, (not for their own sins, their own private enormities, or public ingratitude to heaven for their security; for they never think of themselves in this view; but) for something at court, which should not be there: which all the world knows how to interpret.

Thus hath fanaticism its vicissitudes, like the other things of this world: sometimes reigning in the Church, and sometimes out of it; sometimes against it, and sometimes for it. And thus is it come to pass amongst us, that preaching their own passions, and indignation, and resentment, under their disappointed expectations, is called, by too many, preaching the Gospel, and delivering messages from heaven.

(From Dedication to Pope Clement XI.)

UPON POLITICAL JEALOUSIES

THE misery of it is, that men, in their reproaches upon others, are very apt to forget the condition they themselves are in. It is not only he that is a tool, who blindly does what he is directed to do, either by a courtier or an anti-courtier: but every man is a tool likewise, who is a slave to his own passion, ill-nature, discontent, personal resentment, ambition, pride, or to any distemper of mind, which is his master, and leads and governs him in all he does. There may be tools to these dispositions within men, as well as to courts, or leaders of parties, without them: and these are as dangerous tools to the public, as well as infamous in themselves, as any of the other sort can possibly be. For these, and the like distempers of mind, are of that force, that they can absolutely hinder men from at all regarding, or even seeing, what is the interest of the public; nay, can make them take those good words in their mouths, to carry on those purposes of their hearts, in which the love of their country, the very essence of patriotism,

has but little part. Yet, how common as well as pleasant is it, to see the tool of passion insulting over the tool (as he calls him) of a court; and the man whose public spirit bears date from some known points of disappointment and anger, exalting himself above the other; appropriating to himself the name of patriot, and setting himself out as the very pattern of all patriotism: whilst he either does not feel the bias which his own resentment struck upon his soul; or hopes that it may be hid from all other eyes, and the view or remembrance of it lost in that cloud of smoke and dust which he raises all around him. But if many of the strongest oppositions have been manifestly begun upon these principles, and are always, in part, carried on upon them; there is but little reason for those to be casting the infamous name of tools in the teeth of others, who may find so much place for it amongst themselves. All this is no argument (nor is it so designed) to any one, against being always upon his guard, or for a blind compliance with any ministry: but it may, and ought to show us effectually, that virtue and public-spiritedness are not necessarily there, where the noise of them is most heard; and that true patriotism does not depend upon names and sounds; but often is not where it is most pretended to be; and as often is, where the prejudices of men, and their mistaken notions of things, will not allow us to suppose it so much as possible to be.

(From Letters signed "Britannicus.")

BOLINGBROKE

[Henry St. John was born in 1678, and belonged to a family which had for the most part adhered to the Parliamentary side in the Civil War. After a childhood passed under the stern supervision of a Puritan grandmother, he went to Eton and then to Christ Church and after some foreign travel, and an experience of scandalous debauchery, he entered Parliament in 1700. He joined the Tories, and was in office as Secretary of War from 1704 to 1708, when he was dismissed with Harley. In 1710 he became Secretary of State, with Harley as Lord Treasurer. He was created Viscount Bolingbroke in 1711, and for four years he and Harley maintained their power. Ultimately they quarrelled, and the death of Queen Anne brought about Bolingbroke's fall. Under suspicion of Jacobite intrigues he fled to France, and for a short time took office with the Pretender. In 1723 he was enabled to return to England, and in 1725 was restored to his estates, but never recovered his rights as a peer. He became the heart and soul of the opposition to Walpole, whose fall he survived. He died in 1751.

In

Few of Bolingbroke's works were published until after his death, when his dependent, David Malet, in accordance with his instructions issued them. 1716 he wrote the Letter to Sir W. Windham, which is an Apologia for his political conduct. In 1735 he wrote Letters on the Study of History (addressed to Lord Cornbury) which were published in 1753. The letters On the Spirit of Patriotism, The Idea of a Patriot King, and The State of Parties, were printed in 1749. In the later years of his life he contributed largely to the Craftsman, the journal started to oppose Walpole; and these contributions were afterwards brought together and published. His views on religion, which amounted to a very superficial scepticism, which attacked at once metaphysical speculation and revealed religion, were given forth chiefly in certain letters to Pouilly, written in 1720, and in others written to Pope, late in his life.]

BOLINGBROKE is one of the few men whose literary reputation has probably been enhanced by the fact that he is rarely read. The saying is not so absurd as, at first sight, it looks. Few figures in history have come down to us with more of a halo— detractors might say of a glamour-of romance than his. His pre-eminence in many gifts is familiar to us. He was one of a small and brilliant galaxy, whose combined gifts threw lustre on

each member of the group. The tradition of his social fascination, of the charm of his conversation, of his eminently handsome person, of his prowess as a Lothario, of his stately eloquence, of his rare versatility, of the marvellous rapidity of his genius; his attainment of great office while as yet little more than a boy; his masterly conduct of difficult negotiations; his grasp of a commercial policy which later ages brought to full ripeness only after slow stages and tedious struggles; the striking vicissitudes of his fortunes; the great place he occupies at once on the stage of politics and on that of literature-all these have given him an entrancing interest for us even in an age of distinguished personalities. Swift's description is, by itself, enough to immortalise him, "His mind, . . . 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" (Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's Last Ministry). But Swift was not blind to the weaker points in his character. "He was fond of mixing business and pleasure, and of being esteemed excellent at both. . . . His detractors charged him with some degree of affectation, and perhaps not altogether without grounds." The defects are here hinted at rather than clearly stated, as was proper in a treatise written in defence of the ministry of which Bolingbroke was a leading member; and it is rather in scattered expressions that we have to look for Swift's distrust of Bolingbroke's moral and intellectual sincerity. To most of his contemporaries St. John's genius was the subject of even more unqualified adulation; but the exaggeration is often so absurd as to force us to be sceptical. When Orrery-the type of fribbles writes that "his conversation united the wisdom of Socrates, the dignity and ease of Pliny, and the wit of Horace," we see the exaggeration to which glamour could prompt flattery. The more degrading traits in St. John's character were partly the result of his training and experience. Brought up under the chilling influence of a home in which a rigid Puritanism was the prevailing atmosphere, St. John threw himself in early manhood with the abandonment of a thoroughly vain and selfish nature into a profligacy bred of arrogance and affectation as much as of passion. When he first touched politics he found himself in a hotbed of selfish struggle, and possessed