of a stranger, to the colder and far less interesting, though more accurate, picture of one who has been long acquainted with his subject—a picture from which all the sharpness of first impressions has disappeared. Errors of principle, calculated to give erroneous ideas upon important points, we should have deemed it our duty to expose; but trivial mistakes, such as those in the work before us, which only practised eyes can detect, and which lead to no evil consequence, it were as useless as invidious to point out. We take our leave of Miss Roberts, with sincere good wishes that her work may meet with the success it so eminently deserves. We hope that her portfolio is not yet exhausted; but that we may look forward to the gratification of reading a fresh series of "Sketches of Hindostan."

ARTICLE IX.

Memoirs of Lord Bolingbroke. By GEORGE WINGROVE COOKE, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1835.

HENRY ST. JOHN, afterwards created Lord Bolingbroke, was born on the 1st of October, 1678, in the patrimonial mansion of his family, at Battersea. The family name was derived from a maternal ancestor, William de St. John, who distinguished himself as an officer of William I., at the battle of Hastings; and, being enriched by the munificence of the conqueror, bequeathed to his posterity estates, sufficient to maintain them in a conspicuous rank among the aristocracy of the land. His great-grandfather was an active promoter of the rebellion; and was advanced to the office of chief justice, under the Protectorate. His grandmother, to whose superintendence his early childhood was committed, took great pains to transfuse into him those political and theological principles, which she herself had imbibed from the Puritans. From her he was transferred to the care of Daniel Burgess, a rigid and fanatical preacher, in great estimation among the Presbyterians. The gloomy austerity, and the Calvinistic theology, of this zealous divine, failing to convince the judgment or engage the affections, did but excite the dis

gust of his youthful pupil, and gave a turn to his character the very reverse of that which it was designed to secure.

From Burgess he was removed to Eton, and subsequently to Christ-church, Oxford. What progress he made at these distinguished seminaries is not accurately ascertained. It is known that he affected great contempt for the studies and discipline established at these places; and, if we may take his own word, he was as assiduous to reject, as others were to gain, instruction. Judging, however, from the result, we may safely conclude that his application was greater than he was willing to confess, although not so great as either to entitle him to distinction, at the time, or to furnish him with a fund of classical or scientific erudition, adequate to his future exigencies.

Even during his residence in college, he was distinguished by his gay habits-or, more properly, by a reckless career of scandalous dissipation and extravagance. But when, having left Oxford, he returned into general society, all regard for decency and prudence seems to have been thrown aside: and he pursued his dissolute pleasures with an undisguised, and even ostentatious, impetuosity; as if his sole desire and ambition had been to build his fame upon a preeminency in profligacy. Yet we may well believe what he says of himself at an advanced period of his life

"The love of study, 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 those passions with which I was transported, yet some calmer hours there were, and in them I listened to him."

His mad career of extravagance was arrested, for a moment, by his marriage, in the year 1700, with the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Henry Winchcombe. With her he received a large accession of property; and this was the only benefit he derived-it might be all he sought-from this ill-assorted union. He did not think it worth while to control his passions, nor she her temper; and the result was an early, and final, separation.

In the same year, Bolingbroke was returned to Parliament for the borough of Wotton Bassett, in which his family exercised a paramount influence. Descended from Whig ancestors, educated in Whig principles, and surrounded by

Whig connexions, it was concluded that he would attach himself to that party, which was now also in possession of power. He soon, however, made his election in favour of the opposite party, led on by Harley; who, also, either from force of circumstances or conviction, had repudiated his Presbyterian connections, and identified himself with high-church politics. Bolingbroke might seem to have taken up his first political position very sagaciously, since he barely had found opportunity to display the splendor of his eloquence, and the vigor of his understanding, when the power of the Whigs received a severe shock, by the death of William III., in the year 1701, and the demise of the crown to the Princess of Denmark.

It was the fate, or rather infirmity, of this amiable princess, to live perpetually under the influence of some female favorite. This influence had been long exercised by the Countess, afterward Duchess, of Marlborough; and was, at this juncture, exerted in favour of her husband, to whom, therefore, the new sovereign confided the formation of her first ministry. Godolphin, an ardent Tory, was appointed premier, supported by the Earls of Nottingham and Rochester-leaders of the highchurch party. These noblemen, dissatisfied that so many Whigs should be retained in office, soon tendered their resignation. Their secession opened the way to office for Harley and Bolingbroke the former as home-secretary, the latter as secretary-at-war. In this situation-stimulated by personal ambition, as well as gratitude to the Duke of Marlborough, who admired and fostered the rising genius of the youthful secretary, encouraged, moreover, by the extraordinary success of the allied forces-Bolingbroke exhausted all the powers of his eloquence in defending the measures of the administration, and in reconciling the Commons to those enormous sacrifices, which enabled the duke to achieve that series of victories, which reared his military fame upon an imperishable basis. It was on the motion of Bolingbroke, that Parliament enabled the Queen to reward the hero of Blenheim and Ramilies, with what was dearer to him than fame itself-the magnificent estate and manors of Woodstock and Wotton.

The secession of the leading Tories had the effect of raising a powerful opposition, in Parliament, against the Godolphin

ministry. To resist this adverse force, there was no available expedient, but to recruit his cabinet from the ranks of the leading Whigs; and thus secure the co-operation of their adherents in the senate. Godolphin, although a Tory, now found himself chief of a Whig administration, and was willing to adopt their domestic policy, rather than relinquish his office. To this change, however, the Queen was never cordially reconciled. Her disgust was further exasperated by the insolent and imperious conduct of her favorite, who thought herself entitled, not only to prescribe to her sovereign the chief members of her cabinet, but even, in her private intercourse, to fail in that courtesy and respect which was due to her royal mistress. This alienation of the monarch from her ministry and favorite, did not escape the notice of Harley and Bolingbroke; and they commenced, forthwith, a secret intrigue, through the medium of Mrs. Masham, a lady of the bed-chamber, who had supplanted her relation and protectress in the affection and confidence of the Queen.

This intrigue for displacing Godolphin, and reducing the power of the Marlboroughs, was managed with great secrecy and address; but yet it was obstructed for a time, in its progress, by that popularity and power, at home and abroad, which the military triumphs of Marlborough secured for himself and colleagues. The country, however, began at last to feel the heavy pressure of the debt and taxes which the military measures of Marlborough had occasioned; and to compare the probable advantages, with the actual evils, of a protracted warfare. The French monarch, too, had been so deeply humbled by a succession of defeats, that, in the year 1707, he offered such advantageous terms of peace, as left no necessary, or even justifiable, cause for the continuance of the war. Marlborough, by his insatiable avarice, had lost much of that popularity which the just admiration of his military genius had procured for him: and the minstry, from obnoxious measures of domestic policy, had become generally as unpopular with the country, as distasteful to the Queen. Harley, therefore, concluded that the time was now arrived for exploding the mine, which he had been so long preparing for the demolition of his colleagues. It failed, however,

at the moment, through want of firmness in the Queen, who was obliged to suffer Harley to resign his office-an example which Bolingbroke naturally and necessarily followed.

Bolingbroke had now reached his thirtieth year. He had sat seven years in Parliament, and, during the chief portion of that time, as a minister. He had felt both his own strength and his own weakness. Nature had been bountiful, and almost prodigal, in her gifts; and he scarcely less prodigal in the neglect and waste of them. In splendor of eloquence, and vigor of mind, he had no equal in Parliament; in political knowledge, and sound discretion, he had many superiors. He now discovered that he could never arrive at that supremacy to which he aspired, and, short of which, his ambition could not rest satisfied, except he could compete with his rivals in knowledge and judgment, as well as in genius and eloquence. He, therefore, took the resolution, which his resignation favored, of retiring from Parliament, and devoting himself to a course of severe and methodical reading during a period of two years. It is to this resolution that we may safely ascribe that extensive, if not profound, knowledge of political history, and of general literature, upon which, rather than upon his parliamentary or ministerial efforts, his posthumous fame reposes.

In the meanwhile, the administration he had left, although supported by great majorities in the two Houses of Parliament, fell daily into more disrepute, both with the Queen and the people. In an evil hour they chose to try their strength against their opponents and the church party, by instituting a solemn impeachment against Sacheverel—an obscure, weak clergyman, who had delivered a sermon at St. Paul's, inculcating the doctrine of passive obedience, and other congenial topics. "The Whigs took it in their heads," as their historian, Burnet, expresses himself, "to roast a parson, and they did roast him; "but their zeal tempted them to make the fire so high, that "they roasted themselves." This ridiculous and intemperate proceeding proved to be critical. It furnished the impulse, and the signal, for the Tories to display all their popularity, and put forth all their strength against the ministers. The Queen took courage to dismiss one of her most obnoxious servants, and replace him by the Duke of Shrewsbury, who, although a Whig, had voted for the