years engaged, without giving a parting blow, in which he seemed to summon up all his vigour at once, and where, as the poet says,

Animam in vulnere posuit.

This inimitable piece is entitled, A Dissertation on Parties; and of all his masterly picces it is in general esteemed the best.

Having finished this, which was received with the utmost avidity, he resolved to take leave not only of his enemies and friends, but even of his country; and in this resolution, in the year 1736, he once more retired to France, where he looked to his native country with a his formixture of and pity, and upon anger mer professing friends with a share of contempt and indignation. I expect little, says he, from the principal actors, that tread the stage at present. They are divided not so much as it seemed, and as they would have it believed, about measures. The true division is about their different ends. While the minister was not hard pushed, nor the prospect of succeeding to him near, they appeared to gohave but one end, the reformation of the vernment. The destruction of the minister was pursued only as a preliminary, but of essential and indisputable necessity, to that

end :

end: but when his destruction seemed to approach, the 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 thoughts, before they had taken the beast. The common fear of hastening his downfal for others, made them all faint in the chace. It was this, and this alone, that saved him, and put off his evil day.

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 professions, and his approaching age. He had long employed the few hours he could spare, on subjects of a more general and important nature to the interests of mankind; but as he was frequently interrupted by the alarms of party, he made no great proficiency in his design. Sill, however, he kept it in view, and he makes frequent mention in his letters to Swift of his intentions to give metaphysicks a new and useful turn. I know, says he, in one of these, how little regard you pay to writings of this kind; but I imagine, that if you can like any, it must be those that metaphysicks of all their bombast, keep the sight of every well constituted

eye,

eye, and never bewilder themselves, while they pretend to guide the reason of others.

Having now arrived at the sixtieth year of his age, and being blessed with a very competent share of fortune, he retired into France, far from the noise and hurry of party; for his seat at Dawley was too near to devote the rest of his life to retirement and study. Upon his going to that country, as it was generally known that disdain, vexation, and disappointment had driven him there, many of 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 any motion or action "of lord Bolingbroke, because you hear "it only from a shallow, envious, and "malicious reporter. What you writ to 66 me about him, I find, to my great scandal, repeated in one of yours to another. "Whatever you might hint to me, was this "for the profane? The thing, if true, should "be concealed; but it is, I assure you, absolutely untrue in every circumstance.

66

"He

"He has fixed in a very agreeable retirement, "near Fontainbleau, and makes it his whole "business VACARE LITERIS."

This reproof from Pope was not more friendly, than it was true; lord Bolingbroke was too well acquainted with the forlorn state of that party, and the folly of it's conductors, once more to embark in their desperate concerns. He now saw, that he had gone as far toward reinstating himself in the full possession of his former honours, as the mere dint of parts and application could go; and was at 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 calmier 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.

But he was far from suffering, even litude, his hours to glide away in torpid inivity. That active restless disposition continued to actuate his pursuits; and

having lost the season for gaining power over his contemporaries, he was now resolved upon aquiring fame from posterity. He had not been long in his retreat near Fontainebleau, when he began a course of letters on the study and use of history, for the use of a young nobleman. In these he does not follow the methods of St. Real and others, who have treated on this subject, who make his、 tory the great fountain of all knowledge; he very wisely confines it's benefits, and supposes them rather to consist in deducing general maxims from particular facts, than in illustrating maxims by the application of historical passages. In mentioning ecclesiastical history, he gives his opinion very freely, upon the subject of the divine original of the sacred books, which he supposes to have no such foundation. This new system of thinking, which he had always propagated in conversation, and which he now began to adopt in his more laboured compositions, seemed not way supported either by his acuteness or his learning. He began to reflect seriously on these subjects too late in life, and to suppose those objections very new and unanswerable, which had been already confuted by thousands. "Lord Bolingbroke," says Pope, in one of his letters," is above trifling; when VOL. I. " he

f