It was at night that I re-entered Paris. I did not tarry long at my hotel, before (though it was near upon midnight) I conveyed myself to Lord Bolingbroke’s lodgings. Knowing his engagements at St. Germains, where the Chevalier (who had but a very few weeks before returned to France, after the crude and unfortunate affair of 1715), chiefly resided, I was not very sanguine in my hopes of finding him at Paris. I was, however, agreeably surprised. His servant would have ushered me into his study, but I was willing to introduce myself. I withheld the servant, and entered the room alone. The door was ajar, and Bolingbroke neither heard nor saw me. There was something in his attitude and aspect which made me pause to survey him, before I made myself known. He was sitting by a table covered with books. A large folio (it was the Casaubon edition of Polybius) was lying open before him. I recognized the work at once: it was a favourite book with Bolingbroke, and we had often discussed the merits of its author. I smiled as I saw that that book, which has to statesmen so peculiar an attraction, made still the study from which the busy, restless, ardent, and exalted spirit of the statesman before me drew its intellectual food. But at the moment in which I entered his eye was absent from the page, and turned abstractedly in an opposite though still downcast direction. His countenance was extremely pale, his lips were tightly compressed, and an air of deep thought, mingled as it seemed to me with sadness, made the ruling expression of his lordly and noble features. “It is the torpor of ambition after one of its storms,” said I, inly; and I approached, and laid my hand on his shoulder. After our mutual greetings, I said, “Have the dead so strong an attraction that at this hour they detain the courted and courtly Bolingbroke from the admiration and converse of the living?” The statesman looked at me earnestly: “Have you heard the news of the day?” said he. “How is it possible? I have but just arrived at Paris.” “You do not know, then, that I have resigned my office under the Chevalier!” “Resigned your office!” “Resigned is a wrong word: I received a dismissal. Immediately on his return the Chevalier sent for me, embraced me, desired me to prepare to follow him to Lorraine; and three days afterwards came the Duke of Ormond to me, to ask me to deliver up the seals and papers. I put the latter very carefully in a little letter-case, and behold an end to the administration of Lord Bolingbroke! The Jacobites abuse me terribly; their king accuses me of neglect, incapacity, and treachery; and Fortune pulls down the fabric she has built for me, in order to pelt me with the stones!”* * Letter to Sir W. Windham.--ED. “My dear, dear friend, I am indeed grieved for you; but I am more incensed at the infatuation of the Chevalier. Surely, surely he must already have seen his error, and solicited your return?”