Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches
HENRY ST. JOHN, who became Viscount Bolingbroke in 1712, was born on the 1st of October, 1678, at the family manor of Battersea, then a country village. His grandfather, Sir Walter St. John, lived there with his wife Johanna,—daughter to Cromwell’s Chief Justice, Oliver St. Jo...
In short, what by the indiscretion of people here, what by the rebound which came often back from London, what by the private interests and ambitious views of persons in the Fre...
7. Chapter 7In the summer endeavours had been used to prevail on the King of Sweden to transport from Gottenburg the troops he had in that neighbourhood into Scotland or into the North of E...
4. Chapter 4In the King’s first Speech from the Throne all the inflaming hints were given, and all the methods of violence were chalked out to the two Houses. The first steps in both were p...
8. Chapter 8But to finish all that I intend to say on a subject which has tired me, and perhaps you; the Jacobites affirm that the indirect assistances which they desired, might have been o...
9. Chapter 9When the draft of a declaration and other papers which were to be dispersed in Great Britain came to be settled, it appeared that my apprehension and distrust were but too well...
1. Chapter 1HENRY ST. JOHN, who became Viscount Bolingbroke in 1712, was born on the 1st of October, 1678, at the family manor of Battersea, then a country village. His grandfather, Sir Wal...
11. Chapter 11The second example is this axiom, “That the destruction of things is prevented by the reduction of them to their first principles.” This rule is said to hold in religion, in phy...
10. Chapter 10You have begun your ethic epistles in a masterly manner. You have copied no other writer, nor will you, I think, be copied by any one. It is with genius as it is with beauty; th...
2. Chapter 2We looked on the political principles which had generally prevailed in our government from the Revolution in 1688 to be destructive of our true interest, to have mingled us too...
3. Chapter 3He pretended to have discovered intrigues which were set on foot against him, and particularly he complained of the advantage which was taken of his absence during the journey h...
6. Chapter 6You must agree that this was not the answer of men who knew what they were about. A little more precision was necessary in dictating a message which was to have such consequence...
12. Chapter 12Will you tell me that even such a private examination of the Christian system as I propose that every man who is able to make it should make for himself, is unlawful; and that,...