when he admired Lord Bolinbroke more than he does now.  The book by no means answered my expectation:  the style, which is his fort, is very fine:  the deduction and impossibility of drawing a consequence from what he is saying, as bad and obscure as in his famous Dissertation on Parties:  Von must know the man, to guess his meaning.  Not to mention the absurdity and impracticability of this kind of system, there is a long speculative dissertation on the origin of government, and even that greatly stolen from other writers, and that all on a sudden dropped, while he hurries into his own times, and then preaches (he of all men!) on the duty of preserving decency!  The last treatise would not impose upon an historian of five years old:  he tells Mr. Lyttelton, that he may take it from him, that there was no settled scheme at the end of the Queen’s reign to introduce the Pretender; and he gives this excellent reason:  because, if there had been, he must have known it; and another reason as ridiculous, that no traces of such a scheme have since come to light.  What, no traces in all cases of himself, Atterbury, the Duke of Ormond, Sir William Windham, and others! and is it not known that the moment the queen was expired, Atterbury proposed to go in his lawn sleeves and proclaim the Pretender at Charing-cross, but Bolinbroke’s heart failing him, Atterbury swore, “There was the best cause in Europe lost for want of spirit!” He imputes Jacobitism singly to Lord Oxford, whom he exceedingly abuses; and who, so far from being suspected, was thought to have fallen into disgrace with that faction for refusing to concur with them.  On my father he is much less severe than I expected; and in general, so obliquely, that hereafter he will not be perceived to aim at him, though at this time one knows so much what was at his heart, that it directs one to his meaning.

But there is a preface to this famous book, which makes much more noise than the work itself.  It seems, Lord Bolinbroke had originally trusted Pope with the copy, to have half-a-dozen printed for particular friends.  Pope, who loved money infinitely beyond any friend, got fifteen hundred Copies(35) printed privately, intending to outlive Bolingbroke and make great advantage of them; and not only did this, but altered the copy at his Pleasure, and even made different alterations in different copies.  Where Lord Bolingbroke had strongly flattered their common friend lyttelton, Pope suppressed the panegyric:  where, in compliment to Pope, he had softened the satire on Pope’s great friend, Lord Oxford, Pope reinstated the abuse.  The first part of this transaction is recorded in the preface; the two latter facts are reported by Lord Chesterfield and Lyttelton, the latter of whom went to Bolingbroke to ask how he had forfeited his good opinion.  In short, it is comfortable to us people of moderate virtue to hear these demigods, and patriots, and philosophers, inform the world of each other’s villanies.(36) What seems to make