d, indeed, I have too much impartiality in my
nature to care, if I could, to give the world a history, collected
solely from the person himself of whom I should write. With the utmost
veneration for his truth, I can easily conceive, that a man who had
lived a life of party, and who had undergone such persecution from
party, should have had greater bias than he himself could be sensible
of. The last, and that a reason which must be admitted, if all the
others are not--his papers are lost. Between the confusion of his
affairs, and the indifference of my elder brother to things of that
sort, they were either lost, burnt, or what we rather think, were stolen
by a favourite servant of my brother, who proved a great rogue, and was
dismissed in my brother's life; and the papers were not discovered to be
missing till after my brother's death. Thus, Sir, I should want vouchers
for many things I could say of much importance. I have another personal
reason that discourages me from attempting this task, or any other,
besides the great reluctance that I have to being a voluminous author.
Though I am by no means the learned man you are so good as to call me in
compliment; though, on the contrary, nothing can be more superficial
than my knowledge, or more trifling than my reading,--yet, I have so
much strained my eyes, that it is often painful to me to read even a
newspaper by daylight. In short, Sir, having led a very dissipated life,
in all the hurry of the world of pleasure, I scarce ever read but by
candlelight, after I have come home late at nights. As my eyes have
never had the least inflammation or humour, I am assured I may still
recover them by care and repose. I own I prefer my eyes to anything I
could ever read, much more to anything I could write. However, after
all I have said, perhaps I may now and then, by degrees, throw together
some short anecdotes of my father's private life and particular story,
and leave his public history to more proper and more able hands, if such
will undertake it. Before I finish on this chapter, I can assure you he
did forgive my Lord Bolingbroke[1]--his nature was forgiving: after all
was over, and he had nothing to fear or disguise, I can say with truth,
that there were not _three_ men of whom he ever dropped a word with
rancour. What I meant of the clergy not forgiving Lord Bolingbroke,
alluded not to his doctrines, but to the direct attack and war he made
on the whole body. And now, Sir, I w