Bolingbroke’s enemies and friends were alike busy, the first to injure, the latter to defend him. His foes issued, at the price of 4_d._, ‘A merry letter from Lord Bol――――ke to a certain favourite mistress near Bloomsbury Square.’ It was ‘printed and sold by the pamphlet sellers of London and Westminster.’ It was in doggrel rhyme, not witty but, emphatically, ‘beastly.’ Towards the conclusion, the following mischievous lines occur, foreshadowing invasion and his own return:―― In the meantime, I hope The mist will clear up, That the thunder you’ll hear May soon purge the air, And then that the coast May be clear at the last. [Sidenote: _BOLINGBROKE’S CHARACTER._] This unclean and menacing pamphlet offended Tories who were not altogether Jacobites. It was not answered, no one could stoop to do _that_, but it was followed by a sixpenny pamphlet, from More’s, ‘near Fleet Street,’ in which Bolingbroke was rather ill-defended by one of those friends whose precious balsam aggravates rather than heals. The writer, however, was earnest. With regard to Bolingbroke’s idle talk at table over his wine, the anonymous advocate observed:――‘My Lord, everybody knows, drank deep enough of those Draughts which generally produce Secrets, and had Enemies enough to give Air to the least unguarded Expressions in favour of the Pretender.’ To the not unnatural query of the Whigs,――‘Why did he fly?’ Bolingbroke’s champion loftily replies:――‘My Lord had too elegant a Taste of Life to part with it, to gratify only the Resentments of his Enemies! If he was a Rake, it was his nature that was to be blamed; if he was a Villain, no one could charge him with hypocritically attempting to hide it.’ ‘As to personal Frailties, his Lordship had his Share, and never strove to hide them by the sanctified cover which Men of high Stations generally affect; whose private Intrigues are carried on with as much Gravity as the Mysteries of State. His Faults and Levities were owing to his Complexion, and that Life and Humour with which he enlivened them, made them so pleasing that those who condemned the Action could not but approve the Person. A vein of Mirth and Gaiety were as inseparable from his Conversation, as an Air of Love and Dignity from his Personage, and a Greatness of Spirit from his Soul.’ Meanwhile, Lady St. John, Bolingbroke’s mother, was showing to everybody at Court a letter from her son to his father, in which he protested that he was perfectly innocent of carrying on any intrigue with the Pretender. Of which letter, says Lady Cowper, ‘I have taken a copy, but I believe it won’t serve his turn.’ [Sidenote: _POLITICS IN LIVERY._]