nts of recreation after his old
fashion, he indulged in amour after amour, intrigue after intrigue.
Lord Chesterfield said of him, that "though nobody spoke and wrote
better upon philosophy than Lord Bolingbroke, no man in the world had
less share of philosophy than himself. The least trifle, such as the
overroasting of a leg of mutton, would strangely disturb and ruffle his
temper." On the other hand, a glance from a pretty woman, or a glimpse
of her ankle, would send all Bolingbroke's political combinations and
philosophical speculations flying into the air, and convert him in a
moment from the statesman or the philosopher into the merest _petit
maitre_, macaroni, and gallant.

Louis the Fourteenth refused to give open assistance to the cause of
the Stuarts, but he was willing enough to lend any help that he could
in private to Bolingbroke and to them. His death was the first severe
blow to the cause which Bolingbroke now represented. Louis the
Fourteenth was, according to Bolingbroke himself, the best friend James
then had. "When I engaged," says Bolingbroke, "in this business, my
principal dependence was on his personal character; my hopes sank as he
declined, and died when he expired." The Regent, Duke of Orleans, was
a man who, with all his coarse and unrestricted dissipation, had some
political capacity and even statesmanship. He saw that the Stuart was
a sinking, the Hanoverian a rising cause. Even when the two seemed
{118} most nearly balanced it yet appeared to Orleans, if we may quote
a phrase more often used in our days than in his, that the one cause
was only half alive, but the other was half dead. Orleans, moreover,
had a good deal of that feeling which was more strongly marked still in
a Duke of Orleans of a later day. He had a liking for England and for
English ways; he was, indeed, rather inclined to affect the political
manners of an English statesman. He therefore leaned to the side of
the Government established in England; and, at the urgent request of
the English Ambassador in Paris, he acted with some energy in
preventing the sailing of vessels intended for the uses of an
expedition to the English coast.

[Sidenote: 1715--"Mischief, thou art afoot."]

James Stuart seemed as if he were determined still further to imperil
the chances of his family, and to embarrass his adherents. The right
moment for a movement in his favor had been allowed to pass away, and
now, with characteristic b