LORD  BOLINGBKOKE  25

By  the  aid  of  his  own  wits  and  a
cunning  wife,  and  assisted  by  the
growing  hatred  of  corruption,  Boling-
broke,  towards  the  close  of  his  long
life,  nearly  succeeded  in  securing
some  measure  of  oblivion  of  his
double-dyed  treachery.  He  managed
to  inflame  the  *  Young  England '  of
the  period  with  his  picture  of  a
'  Patriot  King,'  and  if  he  had  only
put  into  the  fire  his  lucubrations
about  Christianity  he  might  have
accomplished  his  exit  from  a  world
he  had  made  worse  for  seventy-five
years  with  a  show  of  decency.  But
he  did  not  do  so;  the  'cur  Mallet'
was  soon  ready  with  his  volumes,  and
then  the  memory  of  Bolingbroke
was  exposed  to  the  obloquy  which  in
this  country  is  (or  was)  the  heritage
of  the  heterodox.
Horace  Walpole,  who  hated
Bolingbroke,  as  he  was  in  special
duty  bound  to  do,  felt  this  keenly.
26  LORD  BOLINGBROKE

He  was  glad  Bolingbroke  was  gib-
beted, but  regretted  that  he  should
swing  on  a  wrong  count  in  the  in-
dictment.
Writing  to  Sir  Horace  Mann,
Walpole  says:

'  You  say  you  have  made  my  Lord
Cork  give  up  my  Lord  Bolingbroke.
It  is  comical  to  see  how  he  is  given
up  here  since  the  best  of  his  writings,
his  metaphysical  divinity,  has  been
published.  While  he  betrayed  and
abused  every  man  who  trusted  him,
or  who  had  forgiven  him,  or  to  whom
he  was  obliged,  he  was  a  hero,  a
patriot,  a  philosopher,  and  the
greatest  genius  of  the  age  ;  the  mo-
ment his  "  Craftsmen"  against  Moses
and  St.  Paul  are  published  we  have
discovered  he  was  the  worst  man
and  the  worst  writer  in  the  world.
