summon up all his vigour at once: and where, as] and disappointment had driven him there, many of the poet says, Animam in vulnere posuit. This inimitable piece is entitled, "A Dissertation on Parties," and of all his masterly pieces it is in general esteemed the best. his friends as well as his enemies supposed that he was once again gone over to the Pretender. Among the number who entertained this suspicion was Swift, whom Pope, in one of his letters, very roundly chides for harbouring such an unjust opinion. "You should be cautious," says he, "of censuring Having finished this, which was received with any motion or action of Lord Bolingbroke, because the utmost avidity, he resolved to take leave, not you hear it only from a shallow, envious, and ma only of his enemies and friends, but eyen of his licious reporter. What you writ to me about him, country; and in this resolution, in the year 1736, I find, to my great scandal, repeated in one of he once more retired to France, where he looked your's to another. Whatever you might hint to to his native country with a mixture of anger and me, was this for the profane? The thing, if true, pity, and upon his former professing friends with should be concealed: but it is, I assure you, absoa share of contempt and indignation. "I expect lutely untrue in every circumstance. He has little," says he, "from the principal actors that tread fixed in a very agreeable retirement near Fontainethe stage at present. They are divided, not so bleau, and makes it his whole business vacare litmuch as it seemed, and as they would have it be- teris." lieved, about measures; the true division is about] This reproof from Pope was not more friendly their different ends. Whilst the minister was not than it was true: Lord Bolingbroke was too well hard pushed, nor the prospect of succeeding to him acquainted with the forlorn state of that party, and near, they appeared to have but one end, the re- the folly of its conductors, once more to embark in formation of the government. The destruction of their desperate concerns. He now saw that he the minister was pursued only as a preliminary, but had gone as far towards reinstating himself in the of essential and indisputable necessity, to that end; | full possession of his former honours as the mere but when his destruction seemed to approach, the dint of parts and application could go, and was at object of his succession interposed to the sight of many, and the reformation of the government was no longer their point of view. They had divided the skin, at least in their thought, before they had taken the beast. The common fear of hastening his downfal for others, made them all faint in the chase. It was this, and this alone that saved him, and put off his evil day." length experimentally convinced, that the decree was absolutely irreversible, and the door of the House of Lords finally shut against him. He therefore, at Pope's suggestion, retired merely to be at leisure from the broils of opposition, for the calmer pleasures of philosophy. Thus the decline of his life, though less brilliant, became more amiable; and even his happiness was improved by age, which had rendered his passions more moderate, and his wishes more attainable. Such were his cooler reflections, after he had laid down his political pen, to employ it in a manner that was much more agreeable to his usual pro- But he was far from suffering even in solitude his fessions, and his approaching age. He had long em- hours to glide away in torpid inactivity. That acployed the few hours he could spare, on subjects of tive, restless disposition still continued to actuate his a more general and important nature to the interests pursuits; and having lost the season for gaining of mankind; but as he was frequently interrrupted power over his contemporaries, he was now reby the alarms of party, he made no great proficiency solved upon acquiring fame from posterity. He in his design. Still, however, he kept it in view, had not been long in his retreat near Fontaineand he makes frequent mention in his letters to bleau, when he began a course of "Letters on the Swift, of his intentions to give metaphysics a new study and use of history, for the use of a young and useful turn. "I know," says he, "in one of nobleman." In these he does not follow the these, how little regard you pay to writings of this methods of St. Real and others who have treatkind; but I imagine, that if you can like any, it must be those that strip metaphysics of all their bombast, keep within the sight of every well constituted eye, and never bewilder themselves, whilst they pretend to guide the reason of others." ed this subject, who make history the great fountain of all knowledge; he very wisely confines its benefits, and supposes them rather to consist in deducing general maxims from particular facts, than in illustrating maxims by the application of Having now arrived at the sixtieth year of his historical passages. In mentioning ecclesiastical age, and being blessed with a very competent share history, he gives his opinion very freely upon the of fortune, he returned into France, far from the subject of the divine original of the sacred books, noise and hurry of party; for his seat at Dawley which he supposes to have no such foundation. was too near to devote the rest of his life to retire- This new system of thinking, which he had always ment and study. Upon his going to that country, propagated in conversation, and which he now beas it was generally known that disdain, vexation, gan to adopt in his more laboured compositions, seemed no way supported either by his acuteness of the nation, principally with the regard to her or his learning. He began to reflect seriously on taxes and debts, and on the causes and consequenthese subjects too late in life, and to suppose those ces of them. This undertaking was left unfinishobjections very new and unanswerable which had ed, for death snatched the pen from the hand of been already confuted by thousands. "Lord Bo- the writer. lingbroke," says Pope, in one of his letters, "is above trifling; when he writes of any thing in this world, he is more than mortal. If ever he trifles, it must be when he turns divine." Having passed the latter part of his life in dignity and splendour, his rational faculties improved by reflection, and his ambition kept under by disappointment, his whole aim seemed to have been to In the mean time, as it was evident that a man leave the stage of life, on which he had acted such of his active ambition, in choosing retirement when various parts, with applause. He had long wished no longer able to lead in public, must be liable to to fetch his breath at Battersea, the place where he ridicule in resuming a resigned philosophical air, in was born; and fortune, that had through life order to obviate the censure, he addressed a letter seemed to trace all his aims, at last indulged him to Lord Bathurst upon the true use of retirement in this. He had long been troubled with a canand study in which he shows himself still able cer in his cheek, by which excruciating disease he and willing to undertake the cause of his country, died on the verge of fourscore years of age. He whenever its distresses should require his exertion. was consonant with himself to the last; and those "I have," says he, "renounced neither my coun- principles which he had all along avowed, he contry nor my friends; and by my friends, I mean all firmed with his dying breath, having given orders those, and those alone, who are such to their coun- that none of the clergy should be permitted to troutry. In their prosperity they shall endeavour to ble him in his latest moments. hear of me; in their distress always. In that re- His body was interred in Battersea church with treat wherein the remainder of my days shall be those of his ancestors; and a marble monument spent, I may be of some use to them, since even erected to his memory, with the following excellent thence I may advise, exhort, and warn them." Bent upon this pursuit only, and having now exchanged the gay statesman for the grave philosopher, he shone forth with distinguished lustre. His conversation took a different turn from what had been usual with him; and as we are assured by Lord Orrery, who knew him, it united the wisdom of Socrates, the dignity and ease of Pliny, and the wit of Horace. inscription: HERE LIES HENRY ST. JOHN, IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE IN THE DAYS OF KING GEORGE I. AND SOMETHING MORE AND BETTER. HIS ATTACHMENT TO QUEEN ANNE EXPOSED THE LIBERTY, AND TO RESTORE THE ANCIENT Yet still amid his resolutions to turn himself from politics, and to give himself up entirely to the calls of philosophy, he could not resist embarking once more in the debates of his country; and coming back from France, settled at Battersea, an old seat which was his father's and had been long in the possession of the family. He supposed he saw an impending calamity, and though it was not in his power to remove, he thought it his duty to retard its fall. To redeem or save the nation from perdition, he thought impossible, since national corruptions were to be purged by national calamities; but he was resolved to lend his feeble assistance to stem the torrent that was pouring in. With this spirit he wrote that excellent piece, which is entitled, "The Idea of a Patriot King;" in which In this manner lived and died Lord Bolingbroke, he describes a monarch uninfluenced by party, ever active, never depressed, ever pursuing fortune, leaning to the suggestions neither of whigs nor and as constantly disappointed by her. In whattories, but equally the friend and the father of all. ever light we view his character, we shall find him Some time after, in the year 1749, after the con- an object rather properer for our wonder than our clusion of the peace two years before, the measures imitation, more to be feared than esteemed, and taken by the administration seemed not to have gaining our admiration without our love. His ambeen repugnant to his notions of political prudence bition ever aimed at the summit of power, and nofor that juncture; in that year he wrote his last thing seemed capable of satisfying his immoderate production, containing reflections on the then state desires, but the liberty of governing all things with He died the 12th of december, 1751, out a rival. With as much ambition, as great ed: this is the Last Will and Testament of me, abilities, and more acquired knowledge than Cæsar, Henry St. John, in the reign of Queen Anne, and he wanted only his courage to be as successful: by her grace and favour, Viscount Bolingbroke. but the schemes his head dictated his heart often After more than thirty years' proscription, and refused to execute; and he lost the ability to per- after the immense losses I have sustained by unform just when the great occasion called for all his expected events in the course of it; by the injustice efforts to engage. and treachery of persons nearest to me; by the negligence of friends, and by the infidelity of servants; as my fortune is so reduced at this time, that it is impossible for me to make such disposition, and to give such ample legacies as I always intended, I content therefore to give as follows: The same ambition that prompted him to be a politician, actuated him as a philosopher. His aims were equally great and extensive in both capacities: unwilling to submit to any in the one, or any authority in the other, he entered the fields of science with a thorough contempt of all that had My debts, and the expenses of my burial in a been established before him, and seemed willing to decent and private manner at Battersea, in the think every thing wrong, that he might, show his vault where my last wife lies, being first paid, I faculty in the reformation. It might have been give to William Chetwynd, of Stafford, Esq., and better for his quiet as a man, if he had been content Joseph Taylor, of the Inner-Temple, London, to act a subordinate character in the state; and it Esq., my two assured friends, each of them one had certainly been better for his memory as a writer, hundred guineas, to be laid out by them, as to each if he had aimed at doing less than he attempted. of them shall seem best, in some memorial, as the Wisdom in morals, like every other art or science, legacy of their departed friend; and I constitute is an accumulation that numbers have contributed them executors of this my will. The diamond ring to increase; and it is not for one single man to pre- which I wear upon my finger, I give to my old and tend, that he can add more to the heap than the long approved friend the Marquis of Matignon, thousands that have gone before him. Such innova- and after his decease, to his son the Count de Gace, tions more frequently retard than promote know that I may be kept in the remembrance of a family ledge; their maxims are more agreeable to the read- whom I love and honour above all others. er, by having the gloss of novelty to recommend them, than those which are trite, only because they Item, I give to my said executors the sum of four hundred pounds in trust, to place out the same in some of the public funds, or government securities, or any other securities, as they shall think proper, and to pay the interest or income thereof to Francis Arboneau, my valet de chambre, and Ann, his wife, and the survivor of them; and after the decease of the survivor of them, if their son John Ar are true. Such men are therefore followed at first with avidity, nor is it till some time that their disciples begin to find their error. They often, though too late, perceive that they have been following a speculative inquiry, while they have been leaving a practical good: and while they have been practising the arts of doubting, they have been boneau shall be living, and under the age of eighteen losing all firmness of principle, which might tend to establish the rectitude of their private conduct. years, to pay the said interest or income to him, until he shall attain his said age, and then to pay As a moralist, therefore, Lord Bolingbroke, by the principal money, or assign the securities for the having endeavoured at too much, seems to have same, to him; but if he shall not be living at the done nothing; but as a political writer, few can decease of his father and mother, or shall afterwards equal, and none can exceed him. As he was a die before his said age of eighteen years, in either practical politician, his writings are less filled with of the said cases the said principal sum of four those speculative illusions, which are the result of hundred pounds, and the securities for the same, solitude and seclusion. He wrote them with a shall sink into my personal estate, and be accountcertainty of their being opposed, sifted, examined, ed part thereof. and reviled; he therefore took care to build them of such materials as could not be easily overthrown: they prevailed at the times in which they were written, they still continue to the admiration of the present age, and will probably last for ever. THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE LATE Item, I give to my two servants, Marianne Tribon, and Remi Charnet, commonly called Picard,' each one hundred pounds; and to every other servant living with me at the time of my decease, and who shall have lived with me two years or longer, I give one year's wages more than what shall be due to them at my death. And whereas I am the author of the several books or tracts following, viz. Remarks on the History of England, from the Minutes of Humphrey Oldcastle. In twenty-four In the name of God, whom I humbly adore, to whom I offer up perpetual thanksgiving, and to the order of whose providence I am cheerfully resign-letters. A Dissertation upon Parties. In nineteen letters to Caleb Danvers, Esq. The Occasional Writer. Numb. 1, 2, 3. In Dr. Matty's Life of Lord Chesterfield, he mentions that the earl had seen Lord Bolingbroke for several months labouring under a cruel, and to appearance incurable disorder. A cancerous hu An Answer to the London Journal of Decem- mour in his face made a daily progress; and the ber 21, 1728, by John Trot. An Answer to the Defence of the Inquiry into the Reasons of the Conduct of Great Britain. A final Answer to the Remarks on the Craftsman's Vindication. empirical treatment he submitted to not only hastened his end, but also exposed him to the most excruciating pain. He saw him, for the last time, the day before his tortures began. Though the unhappy patient, as well as his friend, did then ex All which books or tracts have been printed and pect that he should recover, and accordingly depublished; and I am also the author of Four Letters on History, etc. sired him not to come again till his cure was completed, yet he still took leave of him in a manner which have been privately printed, and not pub- which showed how much he was affected. He E lished; but I have not assigned to any person or embraced the earl with tenderness, and said, "God, persons whatsoever the copy, or the liberty of print- who placed me here, will do what he pleases with ing or reprinting any of the said books, or tracts, me hereafter, and he knows best what to do. May or letters: Now I do hereby, as far as by law I he bless you."-And in a letter from Chesterfield can, give and assign to David Mallet, of Putney, to a lady of rank at Paris, he says, "I frequently in the county of Surrey, Esquire, the copy and see our friend Bolingbroke, but I see him with copies of all and each of the before-mentioned books great concern. A humour he has long had in his or tracts, and letters, and the liberty of reprinting cheek proves to be cancerous, and has made an the same. I also give to the said David Mallet the alarming progress of late. Hitherto it is not atcopy and copies of all the manuscript books, papers, and writings, which I have written or composed, or shall write or compose, and leave at the time of my decease. And I further give to the said David Mallet, all the books which, at the time of my decease, shall be in the room called my library. HENRY SAINT JOHN, BOLINGBROKE. Signed, sealed, published, and declared by the said testator, as and for his last will and testament, in the presence of OLIVER PRICE. tended 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." All the rest and residue of my personal estate, The last scene is thus lamented, in a letter to whatsoever and wheresoever, I give to my said the same lady:-Are you not greatly shocked, but executors; and hereby revoking all former wills, II am sure you are, at the dreadful death of our declare this to be my last will and testament. In friend Bolingbroke? The remedy has hastened his witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and death, against which there was no remedy, for his seal the twenty-second day of November, in the cancer was not topical, but universal, and had so inyear of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and fected the whole mass of his blood, as to be incurfifty-one. able. What I most lament 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 Proved at London, the fifth day of March, 1752, days. The next day the great pains came on, and before the worshipful Robert Chapman, doctor of never left him till within two days of his death, laws and surrogate, by the oaths of William during which he lay insensible. What a man! Chetwynd and Joseph Taylor, Esquires, the ex-what extensive knowledge! what a memory! what Ceutors named in the will, to whom administraeloquence! 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." THOMAS HALL. tion was granted, being first sworn duly to ad minister. March, 1732. WILLIAN LEGARD, PETER ST. ELOY, Deputy Registers. THE BEE; A Select Collection of EssaYS ON THE MOST INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING SUBJECTS. [FIRST PRINTED IN 1759.] THE BEE, No. I. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1759. INTRODUCTION. I might have been left to mourn in solitude and silence in short, whichever way I turned, nothing presented but prospects of terror, despair, chandlers' shops, and waste paper. In the debate between fear and ambition, my publisher, happening to arrive, interrupted for a while my anxiety. Perceiving my embarrassment THERE is not, perhaps, a more whimsically dis- about making my first appearance, he instantly ofmal figure in nature, than a man of real modesty | fered his assistance and advice. "You must who assumes an air of impudence; who, while his know, sir," says he, "that the republic of letters is heart beats with anxiety, studies ease, and affects at present divided into three classes. One writer, good-humour. In this situation, however, a pe- for instance, excels at a plan or a title-page, another riodical writer often finds himself, upon his first works away the body of the book, and a third is a attempt to address the public in form. All his dab at an index. Thus a magazine is not the repower of pleasing is damped by solicitude, and his sult of any single man's industry, but goes through cheerfulness dashed with apprehension. Impressed as many hands as a new pin before it is fit for the with the terrors of the tribunal before which he is public. I fancy, sir," continues he, "I can progoing to appear, his natural humour turns to pert-vide an eminent hand, and upon moderate terms, ness, and for real wit he is obliged to substitute to draw up a promising plan to smooth up our vivacity. His first publication draws a crowd; they part dissatisfied; and the author, never more to be indulged with a favourable hearing, is left to condemn the indelicacy of his own address, or their He was proceeding in his advice, which, how want of discernment. ever, I thought proper to decline, by assuring him, For my part, as I was never distinguished for that as I intended to pursue no fixed method, so it address, and have often even blundered in mak-was impossible to form any regular plan; determining my bow, such bodings as these had like to ed never to be tedious in order to be logical, have totally repressed my ambition. I was at a wherever pleasure presented I was resolved to folloss whether to give the public specious promises, low. Like the Bee, which I had taken for the title or give none; whether to be merry or sad on this of my paper, I would rove from flower to flower, solemn occasion. If I should decline all merit, it with seeming inattention, but concealed choice, was too probable the hasty reader might have taken expatiate over all the beauties of the season, and me at my word. If, on the other hand, like labour-make my industry my amusement. readers a little, and pay them as Colonel Charteris paid his seraglio, at the rate of three halfpence in hand, and three shillings more in promises." ers in the magazine trade, I had, with modest im- This reply may also serve as an apology to the pudence, humbly presumed to promise an epitome of all the good things that ever were said or written, this might have disgusted those readers I most desire to please. Had I been merry, I might have been censured as vastly low; and had I been sorrowful, reader, who expects, before he sits down, a bill of his future entertainment. It would be improper to pall his curiosity by lessening his surprise, or anticipate any pleasure I am able to procure him, by saying what shall come next. Thus much, how |