Devereux — Complete

Namely, that Count Devereux ascertained the priest’s communications and overtures from the Chevalier. The precise extent of Bolingbroke’s secret negotiations with the exiled Prince is still one of the darkest portions of the history of that time. That negotiations were carried on, both by Harley and by St. John, very largely, and very closely, I need not say that there is no doubt.

23

Vauxhall.

24

One ought, however, to be very cautious before one condemns a philosopher. The master’s opinions are generally pure: it is the conclusions and corollaries of his disciples that “draw the honey forth that drives men mad.” Schlegel seems to have studied Spinoza de fonte, and vindicates him very earnestly from the charges brought against him,—atheism, etc.—ED.

25

A Roman consul, who, removing the most celebrated remains of Grecian antiquity to Rome, assured the persons charged with conveying them that, if they injured any, they should make others to replace them.

26

The flying squirrel.

27

In the “Gerania.”

28

“Satisfied with my little hoard, I can despise wealth, and fear not hunger.”

29

Richard Cromwell died in 1712—ED.

30

Sir Philip Sydney, who, if we may judge from the number of quotations from his works scattered in this book, seems to have been an especial favourite with Count Devereux.—ED.

31

A thing used by the Siamese for the same purpose as we now use the umbrella. A work descriptive of Siam, by M. de la Loubere, in which the Talapat is somewhat minutely described, having been translated into English, and having excited some curiosity, a few years before Count Devereux now uses the word, the allusion was probably familiar.—ED.

32

I know well that it has been said otherwise, and that Bolingbroke has been accused of timidity for not staying in England, and making Mr. Robert Walpole a present of his head. The elegant author of “De Vere” has fallen into a very great though a very hackneyed error, in lauding Oxford’s political character, and condemning Bolingbroke’s, because the former awaited a trial and the latter shunned it. A very little reflection might perhaps have taught the accomplished novelist that there could be no comparison between the two cases, because there was no comparison between the relative danger of Oxford and Bolingbroke. Oxford, as their subsequent impeachment proved, was far more numerously and powerfully supported than his illustrious enemy: and there is really no earthly cause for doubting the truth of Bolingbroke’s assertion; namely, that “He had received repeated and certain information that a resolution was taken, by those who had power to execute it, to pursue him to the scaffold.” There are certain situations in which a brave and a good man should willingly surrender life—but I humbly opine that there may sometimes exist a situation in which he should preserve it; and if ever man was placed in that latter situation, it was Lord Bolingbroke. To choose unnecessarily to put one’s head under the axe, without benefiting any but one’s enemies by the act, is, in my eyes, the proof of a fool, not a hero; and to attack a man for not placing his head in that agreeable and most useful predicament—for preferring, in short, to live for a world, rather than to perish by a faction—appears to be a mode of arguing that has a wonderful resemblance to nonsense. When Lord Bolingbroke was impeached, two men only out of those numerous retainers in the Lower House who had been wont so loudly to applaud the secretary of state, in his prosecution of those very measures for which he was now to be condemned,—two men only, General Ross and Mr. Hungerford, uttered a single syllable in defence of the minister disgraced.—ED.

33

“Vainly have you banished Cassius, if you shall suffer the rivals of the Brutuses to spread themselves and flourish.”

34

“Confident of soul and prepared for either fortune.”

35

All political opponents of Lord Bolingbroke.

36

The Delphin Classics.

37

The reader will remember that this is a description of Voltaire as a very young man. I do not know anywhere a more impressive, almost a more ghastly, contrast than that which the pictures of Voltaire, grown old, present to Largilliere’s picture of him at the age of twenty-four; and he was somewhat younger than twenty-four at the time of which the Count now speaks.—ED.

38

A remark similar to this the reader will probably remember in the “Huetiana,” and will, I hope, agree with me in thinking it showy and untrue.—ED.

39

At his death appeared the following pnnning epigram:—

“Floruit sine fructu;
Defloruit sine luctu.”

“He flowered without fruit, and faded without regret.”—ED.

40

Rigidly speaking, Corneille belongs to a period later than that of Louis XIV., though he has been included in the era formed by that reign.—ED.

41

Besides Cromwell; namely, Charles I., Charles II., James II., William and Mary, Anne, George I.

42

“Whosoever is possessed by Love may go safe and holy withersoever he likes. It becomes not him to fear snares.”

43

“Example is often but a deceitful mirror, where sometimes one destroys himself, while another comes off safe; and where one perishes, another is preserved.”

44

The term roue, now so comprehensive, was first given by the Regent to a select number of his friends; according to them, because they would be broken on the wheel for his sake, according to himself, because they deserved to be so broken.—ED.

45

The reader will remember a better version of this anecdote in one of the most popular of the English comedies.—ED.