minister who is to be impeached, the wise servants who are to gain
office, the attack on corruption, the spirited foreign policy--all these
have the earmarks of a platform rather than of a philosophy. Attacks on
corruption hardly read well in the mouth of a dissolute gambler; and the
one solid evidence of deep feeling is the remark on the danger of
finance in politics. For none of the Tories save Barnard, who owed his
party influence thereto, understood the financial schemes of Walpole;
and since they were his schemes obviously they represented the triumph
of devilish ingenuity. The return of landed men to power would mean the
return of simplicity to politics; and one can imagine the country
squires, the last resort of enthusiasm for Church and King, feeling that
Bolingbroke had here emphasized the dangers of a régime which already
faintly foreshadowed their exclusion from power. The pamphlet was the
cornerstone in the education of Frederick's son; and when George III
came to the throne he proceeded to give such heed to his master as the
circumstances permitted. It is perhaps, as Mr. A.L. Smith has argued,
unfair to visit Bolingbroke with George's version of his ideal; yet they
are sufficiently connected for the one to give the meaning to the other.
Chatham, indeed, was later intrigued by this ideal of a national party;
and before Disraeli discovered that England does not love coalitions he
expended much rhetoric upon the beauties of a patriotic king. But
Chatham was a wayward genius who had nothing of that instinct for common
counsel which is of the essence of party government; while it is
necessary to draw a firm line between Disraeli's genial declamation and
his practice when in office. It is sufficient to say that the one effort
founded upon the principles of Bolingbroke ended in disaster; and that
his own last reflections express a bitter disillusion at the result of
the event which he looked to as the inauguration of the golden age.