144 



Swindon and its Neighbourhood. 



and Viscount Bolingbroke, but owing to the course ho had taken 

 in Queen Anne's reign he was, upon the accession of George I., in 

 1714, attainted of high treason, and deprived both of his estates 

 and titles. lie escaped to France, where he entered the service of 

 the Pretender, but was again unsuccessful. In 1723 he contrived 

 to make his peace at home, and was restored to his estates, but 

 never to his titles. After several years of able hostility to Walpole, 

 he renounced politics, and again retired to France ; but upon his 

 father's death came back and lived at Battersea. The " lethalis 

 arundo," the poisoned arrow that rankled in his heart, was his de- 

 gradation from the House of Lords. His political disappointments 

 embittered his mind against everything else. 



During the latter part of his life he employed his great abilities 

 in preparing a grand attack upon Religion. He was looked upon 

 as the Goliath of his party, and great were the vaunts of the 

 wonderful feat he was about to perform. But there was lying in 

 wait for him a champion, of whom he had already had some slight 

 experience, enough to make him hesitate. So he delayed his work : 

 and, in fact, it was not published until 1753, two years after his 

 own death. Bishop Warburton then placed Lord Bolingbroke's 

 philosophy and reputation in the light in which it has since stood, 

 which is this. That though there is much in his works to mislead 

 the people, there is nothing in them to alarm the scholar. And 

 others who have also studied them deeply tell us, that (unlike the 

 case of Lord Bacon, Newton, and others) there is nothing really 

 original in Bolingbroke. "With all his transitory splendour, his 

 knowledge was that of other men which he had mastered. He is 

 not the author of a single new discovery in Nature. 



Lord Bolingbroke admits the existence of a Deity, but he denies 

 God's moral superintendence. This was anything but new doctrine ; 

 but in his hands it was revived with every attraction that language 

 could supply. If he was really anxious for his principles to be 

 adopted and acted upon, then he must have been anxious to destroy 

 in men's minds all checks to conscience, and all the consolations of 

 religion. The world may regard such men as prodigies, but it has 

 no reason to remember them as its benefactors. 



