y to hurt him? "No,
sir," replied the sage; "not much; it might perhaps be mentioned at an
election." It is significant that in 1765, when Burke saw his chance
of a seat in Parliament, he thought it worth while to print a second
edition of his _Vindication_, with a preface to assure his readers
that the design of it was ironical. It has been remarked as a very
extraordinary circumstance that an author who had the greatest fame
of any man of his day as the master of a superb style, for this was
indeed Bolingbroke's position, should have been imitated to such
perfection by a mere novice, that accomplished critics like
Chesterfield and Warburton should have mistaken the copy for a
firstrate original. It is, however, to be remembered that the very
boldness and sweeping rapidity of Bolingbroke's prose rendered it more
fit for imitation than if its merits had been those of delicacy or
subtlety; and we must remember that the imitator was no pigmy, but
himself one of the giants. What is certain is that the study of
Bolingbroke which preceded this excellent imitation left a permanent
mark, and traces of Bolingbroke were never effaced from the style of
Burke.

The point of the _Vindication_ is simple enough. It is to show that
the same instruments which Bolingbroke had employed in favour of
natural against revealed religion, could be employed with equal
success in favour of natural as against, what Burke calls, artificial
society. "Show me," cries the writer, "an absurdity in religion, and
I will undertake to show you a hundred for one in political laws and
institutions.... If, after all, you should confess all these things,
yet plead the necessity of political institutions, weak and wicked as
they are, I can argue with equal, perhaps superior force, concerning
the necessity of artificial religion; and every step you advance in
your argument, you add a strength to mine. So that if we are resolved
to submit our reason and our liberty to civil usurpation, we have
nothing to do but to conform as quietly as we can to the vulgar
notions which are connected with this, and take up the theology of
the vulgar as well as their politics. But if we think this necessity
rather imaginary than real, we should renounce their dreams of
society, together with their visions of religion, and vindicate
ourselves into perfect liberty."

The most interesting fact about this spirited performance is, that it
is a satirical literary handling of the gre