1 which required classification and discrimination from men of greater speculative ability or more fortunate culture. But Bolingbroke characteristically begins by depriving himself of the necessary materials for research.es, because it would have required too much labour to turn them to account. He manages with curious infelicity to repudiate the true historical method before it has come into being, and condemns himself to a merely empirical system of guesswork. He adopts, indeed, the old saw, that history is philosophy teaching by examples, and states, with some force, the advantage of widening our mental horizon and providing ourselves with concrete examples instead of abstract dogmas. The events of our own lives appear to us, he says, to be 'unrelative' or 'isolés' (the English 'isolated' being apparently still unknown), whereas history enables us to trace the series of causes and effects, and witness the evolution of the great drama. But when we interpret these generalities by the special instances alleged, we see that Bolingbroke had not, as indeed he could. hardly have, even a crude conception of the unity and continuity of history. 50. The knowledge which he contemplates is but an extension of that vague body of empirical generalisations which is called knowledge of the world. He regards events in the spirit of a shrewd diplomatist of the old-fashioned school. He is not a Montesquieu, and far less a Comte. He does not aim at detecting the working of general laws, but at accumulating a number of precedents. A story from classical or mediæval times will serve his purpose, without any allowance made for the change of time and thought, as well as an anecdote from the Court of the Pretender or Queen Anne. History, indeed, is not a mere collection of unconnected anecdotes, but the connection which does exist is of the superficial kind; he would desire a narrative of ministerial intrigues, not a theory of the deeper causes of organic changes. Would you understand the Revolution of 1688? Few men, he supposes, have gone further in their search after the causes of it' than the extravagant attempts of James II.3 We must look deeper, he says; but he is not thinking of the character of the English 'Bolingbroke's Works, ii. 266, 'Letters on History.' Ib. ii. 279. * Ib. ii. 280. race, of the long series of causes which determined the relations between the king and the aristocracy, of the growth of free speculation and the origin of Protestantism, or of the social changes which made old theories inapplicable. We must, he says, look back to the maladministration of James I., who produced the Great Rebellion, which made our princes exiles, which brought them back with unsuitable ideas of their position. Nay, we must, perhaps, go back further, ‘even to the beginning of James I.'s reign, to render this event a complete example, and to develop all the wise, honest, and salutary precepts with which it is pregnant, both to king and subject.' We do not rise beyond the backstairs theory of politics, though we must apply it with more than the ordinary acuteness. Nor, in fact, could any other theory commend itself to men who were constitutionally incapable of recognising the greatest spiritual forces. Here is the theory of the Reformation in a nutshell. Henry VIII divided with the secular clergy and his people the spoil of the Pope and his satellites the monks; Francis I. divided with the Pope the spoil of his clergy, secular and regular, and of his people.' 2 The ultimate source of all great events is a petty personal. intrigue, and the moving force in all intrigues is greed or lust of power. 51. Upon such foundations it is not to be supposed that any sound system of politics could be erected. Bolingbroke's practical conclusions are reduced, for the most part, to a beggarly account of those popular cries, which, having had some meaning in previous generations, had now subsided into mere substitutes for meaning. He declaims against standing armies; 3 advocates triennial or even annual parliaments; and denounces corruption. The evil, indeed, was serious, though Bolingbroke's zeal might have declined had he been the corrupter. The corruption was the symptom of an era of stagnation; when the only effective sense of responsibility amongst the governing classes was of their responsibility to their own families. The ancient party issues, as Bolingbroke truly says, had disappeared. The contest be'Bolingbroke's Works, ii. 281, 'Letters on History.' 2 Ib. ii. 363. Ib. i. 354, 'Remarks on History of England.' Ib. ii. 151, 156, Dissertation on Parties.' tween the advocates of popular sovereignty and of divine right, of passive obedience and of parliamentary authority, had died out; all men of sense were ready to accept the principles which had triumphed in 1688.1 In this absence of political passion, interest became supreme, and as Bolingbroke delighted to assert, for it is pleasant to call your antagonist fool as well as knave, the dullest might govern by such means as easily as the wisest. A chambermaid may slip a banknote into a griping paw as well as the most subtle demon of hell.' 2 Bolingbroke's avowed purpose was to meet the evil by reviving the 'doctrines of old Whiggism.' 3 And yet, according to him, the triumph of those doctrines was secure, and had been coincident with the introduction of the evil. Where was the true source of the evil, and how was it to be interpreted? 52. The most explicit answer to these questions is given in the Idea of a Patriot King;' the most laboured, and certainly not the least palpably hollow, of all Bolingbroke's writings. We half wonder that the experienced statesman, now sixty-six years old, who had seen many fortunes, and long guided in secret the plans of an active party, could preserve the gravity with which he enunciates his solution of the riddle. With much solemnity he slays once more the dead theory of a right divine. God himself, 'with reverence be it spoken,' is not an arbitrary, but a limited monarch, for his power is limited by his wisdom. Yet Bolingbroke's monarch is to be neither the burlesque Jupiter of the Tories nor the powerless scarecrow of the Whigs. He will be in his right place, when once the principle is accepted 'that limitations on the Crown ought to be carried as far as is necessary to secure the liberties of the people, and that all such limitations may subsist without weakening or endangering monarchy.' Cynics may doubt whether the reconciliation can be effected, but Bolingbroke believes in human nature enough to hold that barriers may be devised which will restrain a bad prince without shackling a good one. Admirable, we admit; but what is the secret? The secret, replies Bolingbroke, with due solemnity and references to Locke and Machiavelli, is to have • Ib. ii. 36. 1 Bolingbroke's Works, ii. 32, 'Dissertation on Parties.' • Ib. iii. 54, ib. 2 a Patriot King. He, and he alone, can save a country when its ruin is so far advanced' as (so we may interpret his language) is implied by the rule of a Walpole and a George II.' Corruption will cease when the patriot reaches the throne, and the 'panacea is applied.' The spirit of liberty will revive, and the devil be exorcised. For, and the reason is slightly discouraging, a patriot king is 'a sort of standing miracle,'' so rarely seen and so little understood that his appearance will encourage the innocent, astonish the guilty, and secure universal acquiescence. Bolingbroke tells us how the ideal monarch is to begin his reformation. He is to begin 'to govern as soon as he begins to reign,'' and first (and here we may be sure that Bolingbroke is sincere) to dismiss the old ministers, leaving some to be punished, and employ new, who are to be wise, instead of cunning. He is to be for a state, not for a party; to unite instead of dividing; to uphold the constitution where it does not admit of improvement; to redress grievances and punish guilty officials; to gain the hearts of his people by withdrawing favour from evildoers and satisfying just complaints; and thus, though he cannot alter human nature, he may stem the corrupt course of human affairs. He is to encourage commerce, on which power depends, and to cherish the navy, for England is an island. And, finally, the patriot king is not to have a pedantic regard for chastity (so Bolingbroke appears to insinuate in a long and involved passage), but to have a strict regard for decorum. When these expectations are realised, 'concord will appear, brooding peace and prosperity on the happy land ;' joy sitting in 'every face, content in every breast;' and, in short, England will be honoured and prosperous. In those blessed days, people will remember,' with some tenderness of sentiment,' a man who, in all sincerity, 'contributed his mite to carry on so good a work,' and 'who desired life for nothing so much as to see a king of Great Britain the most powerful man in the country, and a patriot king at the head of a united people.'' The unconscious irony is not complete unless we remember that this consummation was to arrive when Bolingbroke should 'Bolingbroke's Works, iii. 73, 'Patriot King.' Ib. iii. 77. Ib. iii. 125. be Prime Minister of that greatest and most glorious of human beings' (such was to be the patriot king) the poor Prince Fred who was alive and is dead.' All will be well, so Bolingbroke tells us, when we have an angelic ruler, who, by some undefined method, is to provide perfect laws, and carry out an unerring policy at the head of a wise and virtuous people. Bolingbroke's last paper, some unfinished reflections on the present (1749) state of the nation, records his final disappointment, and the meagre results of the downfall of Walpole, 3 53. Perhaps in this mass of insincere platitudes one genuine vein of sentiment may be detected. The disappearance of party, which he professed to desire, meant the advent to power of the 'country party.' The phrase is ambiguous, as country is opposed to party or to court. Bolingbroke, in fact, adopts the theory long held by reformers, which regarded the independent members as the sound part of the constitution, and which prompted Chatham's plan for reforming parliament by adding to the representation of the counties. 'The landed men,' he says in his last reflections, 'are the true owners of our political vessel; the moneyed men, as such, are but passengers in it.' 2 In his earlier days he told Sir William Windham that the Tories represented the bulk of the landed interest.' In fact, the moneyed men were regarded as a kind of excrescence, in spite of the recognised and even exaggerated value of trade; and the prevalent corruption was supposed to have its root in the machinations of the growing class. The 'great source of corruption' introduced by the revolution was the public debt; and it was by dexterously manipulating those mysterious creations-the Funds-that Walpole worked his nefarious schemes. The whole art 'of stockjobbing, the whole mystery of iniquity,' arose from the debt, and 'the mainsprings that turn, or may turn, the artificial wheel of credit, and make the paper estates that are fastened to it rise and fall, work behind the veil of the treasury.' A new power was making itself felt in politics, and Walpole's supposed intimacy with its secrets, and skill in turning them to account, was one great source of his power. The phenomenon, like other novelties, seemed strange and portentous, and the * Ib. iii. 174. 'Bolingbroke's Works, iii. 123, 'Patriot King.' 4 Ib. ii. 243, 'Dissertation on Parties.' 5 3 Ib. i. 9. Ib. ii. 245. |