About this Item
8vo. 5.25 x 8.25 inches. xxxvi + 243 pp. [4] A8, a8, B-Q8, R2. Illustrated with one plate, engraving of author, serving as frontispiece. Contemporary calf; spine divided into compartments by raised bands and gilt rules with red morocco label, gilt. Extremities worn but overall a fine copy. Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678 1751) played a prominent role in English politics in the turbulent period of the early eighteenth century, which saw the end of the Stuart line and the accession of the House of Hanover. Mercurial in temperament, he was a man of great learning and a notable orator, suffering a 'lifelong conflict: a struggle between his reason and his passions'. A landowning Tory who accepted the settlement of 1688, he held high office as Secretary at War (supporting Marlborough's campaigns) and later as Secretary of State, but fell out of favour after the death of Queen Anne in 1714 and fled to France to join James Stewart, the Old Pretender. He abandoned the Jacobite cause following the failure of 1715 and did not return to England for another ten years, after he had received a full legal pardon. These three writings of the 1730s are a product of his continued opposition to the Whig ministry dominated by Walpole and are also based on his study of history and philosophy in exile. This edition reprints three of Bolingbroke's works. He addressed his 'Letter on the Spirit of Patriotism' to Lord Cornbury in 1736 as a plea to all honest politicians to abandon their Whig or Tory principles and unite against corruption. 'The Idea of a Patriot King', circulating in manuscript form by late 1738, appealed for the monarch to rule in the interests of the nation as a whole and to chose as ministers, men of property, probity and public virtue. The three pamphlets, including 'The State of Parties at the Accession of George I', were privately reprinted by Alexander Pope in 1739 and in a revised form with an attack on Pope, by Bolingbroke, in 1749 (included in the Advertisement to the present edition). This new edition of 1775 includes a dedication to Edmund Burke by the publisher, an introduction to the reader, accounts of the character of Bolingbroke by Lord Chesterfield and Lord Orrerey and a reprint of Pope's 'Address to Lord Bolingbroke in the Conclusion of his Essay on Man'. HISTORY/THEOLOGY 18th CENTURY HISTORY 18TH CENTURY HISTORY/THEOLOGY. Seller Inventory # 19730
Contact seller
Report this item
