Lord Bolingbroke sank under a dreadful malady beneath which he had long lingered--a cancer in the face--which he bore with exemplary fortitude. "A fortitude," says Lord Brougham "drawn from the natural resources of his mind, and unhappily not aided by the consolation of any religion; for having cast off the belief in revelation, he had substituted in its stead a dark and gloomy naturalism, which even rejected those glimmerings of hope as to futurity not untasted by the wiser of the heathen." He used to ride out in his chariot every day, and had a black patch on his cheek, with a large wart over one of his eyebrows. He was thought to be essentially selfish; he spent little in the place and gave little away, so that he was not regarded much by the people of Battersea. A popular writer states that "Bolingbroke's talents were brilliant and versatile; his style of writing was polished and eloquent; but the fatal lack of sincerity and honest purpose which characterised him, and the low and unscrupulous ambition which made him scramble for power with a selfish indifference to national security hindered him from looking wisely and deeply into any question. His philosophical theories are not profound, nor his conclusions solid, while his criticism of passing history is worthless in the extreme. He was one of those clever unscrupulous men, unhappily too common, who forget that God has something to do with the government of this world as well as themselves, and who in spite of their ability, can never see that swift destruction treads like Nemesis on the heels of those who dare to trifle with the interests and destinies of a great people." His opposition to revealed religion drew from Johnson this severe remark: "Having loaded a blunderbuss and pointed it against Christianity he had not the courage to discharge it himself, but left a half-crown to a hungry Scotchman to pull the trigger after his death." Oliver Goldsmith in his life of Lord Bolingbroke says: "In whatever light we view his character, we shall find him an object rather more proper for our wonder than our imitation; more to be feared than esteemed, and gaining our admiration without our love. His ambition ever aimed at the summit of power, and nothing seemed capable of satisfying his immoderate desires but the liberty of governing all things without a rival."