These spiritual exercises were, it is more than probable, counteracted, or at least discouraged, by his grandfather, who, after the Restoration, conformed to the national church, and received into his family, as chaplain, the learned Dr. Patrick, afterwards Bishop of Chichester and Ely, who remained many years in his family.
Henry, the object of these well-intended cares, claimed, on his mother’s side, an alliance with the ancient and noble family of Rich, Earl of Warwick; from which loyal house he probably received those predilections for the Tory party which a mother could so easily implant; an influence which no non-conformist divine could readily counteract. But whilst thus he grew up, culling from different sources contrary opinions, it is probable that from his Presbyterian tutor he acquired that ardour for singular distinction, which is the characteristic mark of sectarianism of every description, and by which, indeed, in conjunction often with higher motives, its ramifications are extended and maintained.
It was not until after Bolingbroke had passed the period of early youth, that this love of display, not to dignify it with the name of ambition, took a higher aim than the desire of being the most lavish, the most fearless, the most eccentric, and the most profane profligate of his age. At Oxford, his powerful comprehension, his ready wit, the subtility of his reasoning, the extent of his memory, raised expectations of his career, which were soon dissipated by his mad and outrageous, rather than sensual course of pleasures. When he moved into the sphere of fashion to which his birth entitled him, it became his degrading boast that his mistress was the most expensive of her class; and that he could drink a greater quantity of wine, without intoxication, than any of his companions. Yet, in the midst of such associates as envied or extolled his supremacy, St. John never wholly lost that desire for better things, that love of knowledge, and value of intellectual excellence, which afterwards raised him from debasement, and which still ennoble his name, in spite of his unprincipled political career, and of the obliquity of his moral conduct.
It was not until the latter end of the reign of William, and after his first marriage, that Henry St. John applied himself to politics. He was then twenty-eight years of age. Unhappily for him, he consulted what he deemed expediency (his guide through life) in the first respectable connexion that he formed. He married the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Henry Winchescomb, a descendant from the famous clothier, Jack of Newbury, who entertained Henry the Eighth and his suite. The union which St. John thought proper to form might have been considered prudent by his friends, but it proved adverse to all improvement in his domestic conduct. His wife, though commended for her personal and mental accomplishments, yet failed in fixing the gay, inconstant Bolingbroke. A separation ensued; and though much of the lady’s fortune, which amounted to forty thousand pounds, became the portion of her husband, it was subsequently, with the exception of some estates, given back to her family after his attainder.
So far his worldly interests were concerned; but it was Bolingbroke’s fate, in after life, to attach himself strongly to the wife of the Marquis de Villette, the niece of Madam de Maintenon, and to be truly, passionately, and long hopelessly attached. His jealousies, his uncertainties, the sickness of hope deferred, were a retribution to his former indulgence of what are too lightly termed the pleasant vices; in which his vanity, perhaps his passions were concerned, but in which the heart participated not.
Bolingbroke entered parliament in 1700, as member for Wotton-Basset, on the Whig interest. His wife’s connexions, as well as his own, had considerable influence in the political world. But the natural and acquired attributes of the young politician were far more potent than family influence, which can place a man in the national assembly, as one may plant a tree, but cannot make it grow, nor enable it to stand the wintry blast.
It was, perhaps, not among the least of Bolingbroke’s advantages, that he was one of the handsomest men of his time. Notwithstanding the dissolute life which he had led up to the period of manhood’s prime, when he became a noted politician, St. John retained a sweetness of countenance which usually belongs to innocence alone, combined with a dignity, the outward token of a high quality of mind, and perhaps the hereditary mark of ancient blood. His manner was eminently fascinating; and the awe which his acknowledged abilities might have inspired, was dispelled by a vivacity which, strange as it may appear, has been almost invariably the accompaniment of the most profound thinkers, and of the most energetic actors on the stage of public life.
To these personal advantages, Bolingbroke, in the maturity of his intellect, added an astonishing penetration into the motives and dispositions of men. Perhaps he trusted too greatly to this faculty, for he was often deceived, where duller spirits might have perceived the truth. He possessed the art of acquiring an ascendency over all with whom he conversed. If he could not convince, he was contented to waive contention, and to gain his point by entertaining. His powers of eloquence, even in that age, when the art of rhetoric was sedulously cultivated, were supereminent. Perhaps the greatest merit of eloquence is perspicuity; and this Bolingbroke displayed in a very uncommon degree. A prodigious memory, the handmaid of oratory, did not ensnare him into the fault of pedantry, common to men so endowed. How admirably he has avoided this defect in his Letters on the Study of History, must be remembered with gratitude by those who have perhaps sat down to peruse the work with dread, but have arisen from it, not wearied, but delighted and informed.
His eloquence possessed the charm of a noble simplicity. Yet his language, although apparently only such as would be suggested to any person speaking familiarly on similar subjects, was selected with a skill the more refined that it could not be detected. Sometimes he would pause for a moment’s reflection, when in the midst of an harangue; but the pause was succeeded by a full, clear, impassioned burst of eloquence, to which all the stores of his memory, the depth of his logic, and the elegance of a mind never debased, whatever might be his immoralities, contributed, like pellucid streams flowing into the one mighty torrent.[[133]]
It was in the dawn of his political career that St. John gained the approbation, almost the affection, of Marlborough.[[134]] Until after the defection of Harley from the ministry, Marlborough and Bolingbroke were more than political allies. The great general admired the talents of the young debater, and loved his society; as men who have lived long enough to appreciate all the various sorts of excellence, love the promise of the young, and hail its progress with almost prophetic accuracy. Bolingbroke, on the other hand, whatever were the differences of after life, whatever the wrongs sustained by Marlborough, whatever his own tergiversation, reverenced, almost affectionately, the hero of Ramillies,—a victory achieved whilst he himself was in office. His eloquent tribute to the great hero’s memory is well known.[[135]]