Bolingbroke, a Political Study and Criticism (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884. Excerpt: ... ing--" is it not manifest that two or three men have been labouring some years to turn a virtuous defence of the constitution into a dirty intrigue of low ambition, that they are only waiting the opportunity of pursuing the old system, and that the sole object of their pretended Patriotism is to deliver over the government of their country from faction to faction?" It is no imputation on Bolingbroke's public spirit that he desired, by a formal and ostentatious retreat from active politics, to disavow all complicity in these designs, and to mark his indignation at such treachery. On the whole, it is most reasonable to conclude that Bolingbroke's withdrawal to France was due neither to the expostulations of his friends nor to the menaces of his foes, but to those mixed motives, all personal to himself, which generally determine a man's conduct--pecuniary embarrassments from which, whilst his father lived, he was never free, and which now made the sale of Dawley inevitable; vexation at the complete failure of efforts from which he had anticipated so much; the determination to be no longer the catspaw of the discontented Whigs, and the consciousness that neither in his political nor in his personal views had he anything to hope from their triumph. III. He retired to Chanteloup, in Touraine. In this historic chateau, built by the Princess Orsini as a retreat for her declining years, or at the smaller hunting-lodge of Argeville near Fontainebleau, where the official post held by Lady Bolingbroke's son-in-law enabled him to use at his pleasure the forest and royal stables, Bolingbroke lived, with only occasional visits to England, till the death of his father, Bolingbroke to Marchmont, January 1 and 25, 1740. Lord St. John, the fall of Walpole, the failure and...