BOLINGBROKE, bol'ing-bruk, formerly 111,11' ing-bryk, Viscount I I EN R Y Sr. JOHN ( 167S-1751 ). An English statesman. orator, and author. He was born at Battersea, October 1, 1678. lle was educated at Eton, and, it is said, at Oxford: but the only ground for this assertion is that of the honorary degree conferred upon him by the uni versity in 1702. During 1698-99 he resided on the Continent, and acquired a knowledge of the French language, which was afterwards of ser vice to him. His early manhood was notorious for extreme licentiousness, but having entered Parliament in 1701, he devoted himself to poli tics, and joining the Tory Party. soon made him self prominent as an orator. In 1704 he was made Secretary of State for War. Thisofficehe retained till 1708, when the Whigs came into power. after which he retired from polities, and gave himself up to study, but still retained great influence as the Queen's favorite counselor. On the fall of the Whig Party in 1710. he was made Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In 1712 he was called to the House of Lords with the title of Viscount Bolingbroke. and in 1713. against the wish of nearly the entire nation, concluded the Peace of Utrecht. Having previously quarreled with his old friend Harley—no* Earl of Oxford. and his most powerful rival—he contrived his dismissal in July, 1714. and immediately proceeded to form a strong Jacobite Ministry, in accordance with the well-known predilections of his royal mistress. Per death, however, a few years after, discon certed his schemes, and the accession of George 1. proved a deathblow to his prospects. On the 28th of August he was deposed from office; in March. 1715. he fled to France. and in August of the same year was attainted. For some time he held the office of Secretary of State to the Pre tender: but his restless and ambitious spirit yearned for the 'large excitement' of English politics. His efforts to obtain a pardon not prov ing in the meantime successful. he retired to a small estate which lie had purchased near Or leans. In 171S his first wife died, and in 1720 he married the rich widow of the Marquis de Vilette. A judicious use of this lady's wealth.
enabled him to return to England in keptember, 172•. His property was restored to him, but he was never permitted to take his seat in Par liament. He therefore betook himself to his villa at Dawley, near Uxbridge, where he occasionally enjoyed the society of Swift, Pope, and others of his old friends, with whom he had corresponded in his exile, and where he diversified his moral and metaphysical studies by his attacks on the Ministry in his periodical, The Craftsman, in which the letters forming his Dissertation on Parties first appeared. In 1735, finding his polit ical hopes clouded forever. he went back to France in chagrin. and continued there till 1742. During his second residence abroad he wrote his Letters on the Study of hlistory, in which, as a Deist, he violently attacked the Christian re ligion. lie is believed to have influenced the thought of Voltaire. Ile died• after a long ill in 1751. Bolingbroke has been styled 'the Alcibiades of his time.' and was admired by his contemporaries for his graceful person and charming manners. His talents were brilliant and versatile; his style of writing was polished and eloquent, and repays study to the present day: but the lack of sincerity and honest pur pose which characterized him, and the unscrupu lous ambition which made him aim for power, hindered him from looking wisely and deeply into any question. His philosophical theories are not profound, nor are his conclusions solid, while his criticism of passing history is worthless. His collected writings were published by Mallet (London, 1753-54).
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Goldsmith, Life of Lord BolingBibliography. Goldsmith, Life of Lord Boling- broke (London, 1770) ; Cooke, Memoirs of Lord Bolingbroke (London, 1835) : Brosch, Lord Bo lingbroke and die Whigs nod Tories seiner Zeit ( Frankfort, 1S83) ; Macknight, Life of Boling broke (London, 1863) ; Schlosser, History of the Eighteenth Century, Vol. III. (London, 1543-52) ; Stephen, Religious Thought in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1876) ; Parke, Bolingbroke's Letters and Correspondence (Lon don. 179S) ; Collins, Bolingbroke: A Historical Study (London. 1886).