scope was furnished for the development of his intellect and the attainment of learning. His genius and understanding were seen and admired in both these seminaries, but his love of pleasure had so much the ascendency, that he seemed contented rather with the consciousness of his own great powers, than their exertion. However, his friends, and those who knew him most intimately, were thoroughly sensible of the extent of his mind; and when he left the university, he was considered as one who had the fairest opportunity of making a shining figure in active life. If inquiry were instituted as to the precise extent of his classical education at Eton and Oxford, it would be discovered that he there laid the foundation of one, which, as in the case of all others who have shone as scholars, he afterwards completed. But, as remarked by one of our contemporary authorities, his attention was more bestowed upon the remains of Rome than of Athens. He was extensively and thoroughly acquainted with Latin writers, as indeed his frequent quotation of passages little known may show. With Greek literature he seems not to have been familiar; nor can the reader of his works fail to perceive, that his style is not redolent of the flowers which grow in the more vigorous climate of the Attic school. (Edinburgh Review, No. CXLIII.)

Nature seemed not less kind to him in her external embellishments, than in adorning his mind. With the graces of a handsome person, and a face in which dignity was happily blended with sweetness, he had a manner of address that was very engaging. His vivacity was always awake, his apprehension quick, his wit refined, and his memory amazing: his subtlety in thinking and reasoning was profound, and all these talents were adorned with an elocution that was irresistible.

To the assemblage of so many gifts from nature, it was expected that art would soon give her finishing hand; and that a youth begun in excellence would soon arrive at perfection: but such is the perverseness of human nature, that an age which should have been employed in the acquisition of knowledge, was dissipated in pleasure; and instead of aiming to excel in praiseworthy pursuits, St. John seemed more ambitious of being thought the greatest rake about town. In this state of disorder he was not without his lucid intervals; and even while he was noted for keeping Miss Gumley, the most expensive prostitute in the kingdom, and bearing the greatest quantity of wine without intoxication, he still despised his paltry ambition. "The love of study," says he, "and desire of knowledge, were what I felt all my life; and though my genius, unlike the demon of Socrates, whispered so softly, that very often I heard him not in the hurry of these passions with which I was transported,

yet some calmer hours there were, and in them I hearkened to him." These secret admonitions were indeed very few, since his excesses were well remembered in after days. I have spoken to an old man, says Dr. Goldsmith, who assured me that he saw St. John and another of his companions run naked through the Park, in a fit of intoxication; but then it was a time when public decency might be transgressed with less danger than at present.

During this period, as all his attachments were to pleasure, so his studies only seemed to lean that way. His first attempts were in poetry, in which he discovers more wit than taste, more labor than harmony in his versification. We have a copy of his verses prefixed to Dryden's Virgil, complimenting the poet, and praising his translation. There is another not so well known, prefixed to a French work, published in Holland, by the Chevalier de St. Hyacinth, entitled, le Chef d' Euvre d'un Inconnu. This preformance is a humorous piece of criticism upon a miserable old ballad, and Bolingbroke's compliment, though written in English, is printed in Greek characters, so that at the first glance it may deceive the eye, and be mistaken for real Greek. There are two or three things more of his composition in poetry, which have appeared since his death, but which neither do honor to his parts nor his memory.

St. John travelled on the continent about this peroid, but whether this was enjoined on him with a view of enlarging his observation of men and things, and of thus completing a liberal education; or of detaching him from dissolute associates and expensive pleasures, which drew too heavily on his father's purse, we are not well informed. It is conjectured, for want of positive data, that he passed two years abroad; but it is certain, that during the period of his travels he acquired such a knowledge of the French language, as to enable him to write and speak it with perfect ease; an accomplishment which was found to be of signal service to him in his subsequent public career, and is said to have been the cause of his not losing office in one of the intrigues of Harley for that purpose. He was the only one of the ministry who understood and wrote French, and who was able to keep up the necessary correspondence in the negotiations then pending with France. Though still young, and a devotee of pleasure in all its aspects, he seems, on his return to England, to have sought more intently than before for an increase of those "calmer hours" in which he might gratify the love of study, and the desire of knowledge, that he professed, and no doubt truly, to have felt all his life. With such aspirations, St. John would the more incline to the wish of his friends that he should form a matrimonial connection: and, accordingly, a selec

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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. 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 a 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 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

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 confiremd 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 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.

The English annals scarcely produce a more trying juncture, or one that required such various abilities to regulate. He was 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