most impetuously over the waves: and, at this moment, I
am impressed with a foreboding that, sooner or later, the whispers will
not only be heard, but their suggestion be obeyed; and that, far from
courts and intrigue, from dissipation and ambition, I shall learn,
in retirement, the true principles of wisdom, and the real objects of
life."

* "Spirit of Patriotism."

Thus did Bolingbroke converse, and thus did I listen, till it was
time to depart. I left him impressed with a melancholy that was rather
soothing than distasteful. Whatever were the faults of that most
extraordinary and most dazzling genius, no one was ever more candid* in
confessing his errors. A systematically bad man either ridicules what is
good or disbelieves in its existence; but no man can be hardened in vice
whose heart is still sensible of the excellence and the glory of virtue.

* It is impossible to read the letter to Sir W. Windham without being
remarkably struck with the dignified and yet open candour which it
displays. The same candour is equally visible in whatever relates _to
himself_, in all Lord Bolingbroke's writings and correspondence; and
yet candour is the last attribute usually conceded to him. But never was
there a writer whom people have talked of more and read less; and I
do not know a greater proof of this than the ever-repeated assertion
(echoed from a most incompetent authority) of the said letter to Sir W.
Windham being the finest of all Lord Bolingbroke's writings. It is an
article of great value to the history of the times; but, as to all
the higher graces and qualities of composition, it is one of the
least striking (and on the other hand it is one of the most verbally
incorrect) which he has bequeathed to us (the posthumous works always
excepted). I am not sure whether the most brilliant passages, the most
noble illustrations, the most profound reflections, and most useful
truths, to be found in all his writings, are not to be gathered from
the least popular of them,--such as that volume entitled "Political
Tracts."--ED.

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

A PORTRAIT.

MYSTERIOUS impulse at the heart, which never suffers us to be at rest,
which urges us onward as by an unseen yet irresistible law--human
planets in a petty orbit, hurried forever and forever, till our course
is run and our light is quenched--through the circle of a dark and
impenetrable destiny! art thou not some faint forecast and type of our
wa