Bolingbroke, HENRY ST JOHN, VISCOUNT

Bolingbroke, HENRY ST JOHN, VISCOUNT, one of the most gifted of English statesmen and orators, was born at Battersea, on October 1, 1678. He belonged to a good family, and was educated at Eton. The statement which his various biographers have repeated of his having matriculated at Christ College, Oxford, has been disproved by recent research. After travelling on the Continent, he entered parliament in 1701 as member for Wootton Bassett. There were at the time three political parties, the Jacobites, the Tories, and the Whigs. Bolingbroke joined the Tories, and gained immediate distinction by his vigorous and polished eloquence. From 1704 to 1708 he was Secretary for War in the Godolphin ministry; in 1710 he became Foreign Secretary, and shared the leadership of the party with Harley. He was called to the House of Lords in 1712, and in 1713 he negotiated the Peace of Utrecht. This was the one act of his political career which was of benefit to his country. It did not, however, bring him popularity as a statesman, and he estranged his followers by his morbid love of secret scheming, his desire to do everything alone and in the dark. After plotting successfully for Harley's downfall, he set to work to form a Jacobite ministry in July 1714. A week afterwards his designs were shattered by the death of Queen Anne. George I. came to the throne, and Bolingbroke, who had intrigued on behalf of the Stuart cause, fled to France. He was attainted in 1715, and acted for some time as Secretary of State to the Pretender. While living abroad he wrote his Reflections on Exile, and addressed a letter to Sir William Wyndham, in vindication of his political career. His first wife, a daughter of Sir Henry Winchcomb, having died in 1718, he married in 1720 the rich widow of the Marquis de Vilette. By the shrewd use which he made of this lady's wealth, he obtained permission to return to England, where he was not allowed, however, to sit in the House of Lords. He then settled at Dawley, near Uxbridge, and became the associate of Pope, Swift, and other men of letters. It was his ambition to be ranked among philosophers, but the ethical studies in which he engaged could not wean his attention from politics. He intrigued in London for an office which he never obtained, and attacked Walpole with the utmost bitterness in a series of letters which appeared in the Craftsman, and were reprinted as A Dissertation on Parties. Disappointed in his hopes of readmission to political life, he returned to France, where he remained from 1735 to 1742. During these years he produced A Letter on the True Use of Retirement, and his most important contribution to literature—the Letters on the Study of History. The precepts which he laid down for the historian's guidance were indorsed by Voltaire and carried into practice by Macaulay. Bolingbroke's last years were spent at Battersea, where he wrote his Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, and his Idea of a Patriot King. He died, after a long illness, on the 12th December 1751. 'The Alcibiades of his time,' Bolingbroke is one of the most interesting and brilliant figures in English history. He was idolised by his contemporaries for the grace of his person, the charm of his manner, and the splendour of his talents. An admirable speaker and writer, he was not a great statesman—hardly a skilful party leader. He was the arch-intriguer of his time; as a politician he was thoroughly selfish and insincere. In his writings he preached a double morality; while he considered Christianity a fable, he held that a statesman ought to profess the doctrines of the Church of England. His philosophy is sensational; and as a cynical critic of revealed religion, he was accounted one of the notable English deists. His works, philosophical and political, are written in an oratorical strain. They are models of polished, pointed, declamatory prose. They deserve to be studied if only for the merit of the style; their matter is of less interest, but their wit retains its edge, and their eloquence its glow. Bolingbroke's collected works were published by David Mallet in 1753-54. See Brosch, Lord Bolingbroke und die Whigs und Tories seiner Zeit (1883), and Bolingbroke, a Historical Study, by John Churton Collins (1886).