853. BOLINGBROKE, Writings of Lord.—
Lord Bolingbroke and Thomas Paine
were alike in making bitter enemies of the
priests and pharisees of their day. Both
were honest men; both advocates for human
liberty. Paine wrote for a country which permitted
him to push his reasoning to whatever
length it would go. Lord Bolingbroke in one
restrained by a constitution, and by public opinion.
He was called indeed a tory; but his
writings prove him a stronger advocate for liberty
than any of his countrymen, the whigs of
the present day. Irritated by his exile, he committed
one act unworthy of him, in connecting
himself momentarily with a prince rejected by
his country. But he redeemed that single act
by his establishment of the principles which
proved it to be wrong. These two persons differed
remarkably in the style of their writing,
each leaving a model of what is most perfect
in both extremes of the simple and sublime.
No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity
of style, in perspicuity of expression,
happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming
language. In this he may be compared
with Dr. Franklin; and indeed his Common
Sense was, for awhile, believed to have
been written by Dr. Franklin, and published
under the borrowed name of Paine, who had
come over with him from England. Lord
Bolingbroke's, on the other hand, is a style of
the highest order. The lofty, rythmical, fullflowing
eloquence of Cicero; periods of just
measure their members proportioned, their
close full and round. His conceptions, too, are
bold and strong, his diction copious, polished
and commanding as his subject. His writings
are certainly the finest samples in the English
language of the eloquence proper for the senate.
His political tracts are safe reading for
the most timid religionist, his philosophical, for
those who are not afraid to trust their reason
with discussions of right and wrong.—
To Francis Eppes. Washington ed. vii, 197.
Ford ed., x, 183.
(M.
1821)
