s got rid of by an intrigue, the Tories, and at their head the two
celebrated statesmen, Harley and Bolingbroke, worked steadfastly in the
dark to regain power. Harley was a skilful and eloquent orator. He had
quitted the bar to enter parliament, and his suppleness as well as his
talents had rapidly carried him on to the Speakership and the Ministry.
He had specially directed his attention to finance, and passed for the
most skilful financier of his day. A man of wit and taste, he loved
books and manuscripts, and patronised the most illustrious writers of
the reign: Swift, the English Rabelais, Pope, Boileau, and Prior, the
Regnier of Great Britain. But he was not unjustly reproached for his
obstinacy of character, the changeableness of his opinions, his
proneness to descend to little means, and an unfortunate passion for
drink.[42]

[42] This habit of drinking had then invaded even the highest ranks
of English society, the Queen herself not being exempt. Walpole,
Harley's enemy, has traced a curious and tolerably accurate portrait
of him in his "Letters."

The other chief of the Tory party was Henry St. John, so well-known
under the name of Bolingbroke.[43] He descended from an old Norman
family allied to the royal house of Tudor. His grandfather, as though he
had foreseen the future, had bequeathed him the greater part of his
property, and Bolingbroke began the world under the happiest auspices of
birth and fortune. At twenty-six, after a career of youthful
licentiousness, he married and entered parliament. He had all the
necessary qualifications for playing a distinguished part therein: a
noble countenance, ready eloquence, an incredible capacity for work, a
mind which later astonished Voltaire, a memory so retentive that he
avoided reading mediocre books from the fear of retaining their
contents. At thirty, his lofty and copious oratory, unceasingly fed by
study of the ancient models, captivated both Lords and Commons. His
powerful and versatile genius embraced at once poetry and jurisprudence,
history and the _belles lettres_. He was associated, like Harley, with
the first writers in England--Pope, Prior, Swift, Dryden, even with
Addison himself, the Whig poet and essayist. He was one of those
consummate orators who, joining grace to eloquence, was the foremost
alike in pleasure or business. He was in the habit of saying that only
fools were unable to find or enjoy leisure. He possessed, in short,