correction either as to method or style. If his conduct in the former part of his life had been equal to all his natural and acquired talents, he would most justly have merited the epithet of 'all-accomplished.' He is himself sensible of his past errors; those violent passions which seduced him in his youth, have now subsided by age; and take him as he is now, the character of 'allaccomplished' is more his due than any man's I ever knew in my life." Such is the light in which Lord Chesterfield places the character of Bolingbroke at the close of his memorable career. Lord Chesterfield was too acute an observer of human nature to be deceived by mere empty professions of philosophical content, and, moreover, as these flattering eulogiums were never intended to meet the public eye, the truth of the picture may confidently be relied upon.

But the misfortune which seems to have principally weighed on the spirits of Bolingbroke, was the declining health of his lady; a calamity which apparently affected him far more deeply than any sufferings of his own. For many years her existence had been a precarious one, but now, broken down by repeated attacks of indisposition, it was evident that the catastrophe so long dreaded by her husband was at hand. The affection with which Bolingbroke never failed to regard his second wife, and the tender solicitude with which he watched over her sufferings, cannot but be regarded as redeeming traits in his character. To the Earl of Marchmont he writes from Lon

don, in February, 1750, about a month before his wife's decease," It is true that I have been these two months in this 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 continued 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 is 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. Lady Bolingbroke died on the 18th of March, 1750, and was buried in the vault of the St. Johns at Battersea, where a tribute paid by

* Horace Walpole, who detested the very name of Bolingbroke, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, dated April 2, 1750, thus heartlessly refers to Bolingbroke's bereavement:"My Lord Bolingbroke has lost his wife. When she was dying he acted grief; flung himself upon her bed and asked her if she could forgive him." This passage is strongly characteristic of the cold heart and envenomed pen of Horace Walpole; for that the grief of Bolingbroke was sincere, there can be no question. Walpole, however, at the same time that he stigmatizes the husband, records a pleasing anecdote of the wife;-"I never saw her, but have heard her wit and parts excessively commended. Dr. Middleton told me a compliment she made him two years ago, which I thought pretty. She said she was persuaded that he was a very great writer, for she understood his works better than any other English book, and that she had observed that the best writers were always the most intelligible."— Walpole's Letters, vol. ii. pp. 327, 328.

her husband to her many virtues may still be seen within the walls of the church.

Bolingbroke, in addition to other bodily ailments, had recently been attacked by a new and formidable disorder, a cancerous humour in his face. Like his enemy, Walpole, who died by a disorder almost as terrible, he had called in an ignorant empiric to his aid, and it is remarkable that in the cases of both these eminent statesmen, the improper remedies to which they were subjected hastened their ends. Lord Chesterfield, writes, about this period, to a lady in Paris :— "I frequently see our friend Bolingbroke, but I see him with great concern. A humour he has long had in his cheek proves to be cancerous and has made an alarming progress of late. Hitherto, it is not attended with pain, which is all he wishes, for as to the rest he is resigned. Truly a mind like his, so far superior to the generality, would have well deserved that nature should have made an effort in his favour as to the body, and given him an uncommon share of health and duration."

The excruciating agonies to which he was subsequently subjected, are said to have been endured by him with the most admirable calmness and resignation. "God who placed me here," he said to Lord Chesterfield, "will do what he pleases with me hereafter, and he knows best what to do; may he bless you!" Finding that his disorder was making rapid progress, he expressed a wish to draw his last breath at Batter

sea, where he was removed a short time before his dissolution. To the end, he adhered to those principles which he had unfortunately advocated through life, giving orders that none of the clergy should be admitted to him in his last moments. Lord Chesterfield, after observing that the remedies to which he was subjected hastened his end, touches slightly on the closing scenes of his friend's life: "What I most lament," he says, "is that the medicines put him to exquisite pain

-an evil I dread much more than death, both for my friends and myself. I lose a warm, an amiable, and instructive friend. I saw him a fortnight before his death, when he depended upon a cure, and so did I; and he desired I would not come any more till he was quite well, which he expected would be in ten or twelve days. The next day the great pains came on, and never left him till within two days of his death, during which he lay insensible. What a man! What extensive knowledge! What eloquence! His passions, which were strong, were injurious to the delicacy of his sentiments; they were apt to be confounded together, and often wilfully. The world will do him more justice now, than in his lifetime."

Bolingbroke expired at his seat at Battersea* on the 12th of December, 1751, in his seventy

* The residence of Bolingbroke at Battersea, part of which is still standing, is perhaps the most classical spot in the neighbourhood of London, and, in any other country would be regarded as an object of interest and respect. It was long the

fourth year.

He was interred by the side of his second wife, in Battersea Church, where a monument, with an inscription, was sometime afterwards erected to his memory. The original draft of the epitaph, in his own hand-writing, is still preserved in the British Museum.

Of the character of Lord Bolingbroke, a better insight may be obtained by a review of his actions, and a perusal of his writings, than if volumes were written on the subject. The very mention of his name by his contemporaries is usually accompanied either by exulting panegyric or the most violent abuse; nor would it be easy to decide whether he was most deservedly admired by his friends or disliked by his enemies. As a specimen of the enthusiasm which his genius, his social suavity, and the magic of his conversation excited in his own immediate circle, we may transcribe the character drawn of him by Lord Orrery. "Lord Bolingbroke," he says, "had early made himself master of men and books; but in his first career of life, being immersed at once in business and pleasure, he ran through a variety of scenes in a surprising and eccentric manner. When his pas

manorial residence of the ancient family of the St. Johns; it was frequented, in the reign of Queen Anne, by the celebrated statesmen and poets of that period; in one of the rooms Pope wrote his "Essay on Man," and in another Bolingbroke expired. The author recently attempted to visit a house consecrated by so many interesting associations, but he had the misfortune to be refused admittance by the owner.