on.
In 1744 he settled finally at Battersea with his friend Hugh Hume, 3rd
earl of Marchmont, and was present at Pope's death in May. The discovery
that the poet had printed secretly 1500 copies of _The Patriot King_
caused him to publish a correct version in 1749, and stirred up a
further altercation with Warburton, who defended his friend against
Bolingbroke's bitter aspersions, the latter, whose conduct was generally
reprehended, publishing a _Familiar Epistle to the most Impudent Man
Living_. In 1744 he had been very busy assisting in the negotiations for
the establishment of the new "broad bottom" administration, and showed
no sympathy for the Jacobite expedition in 1745. He recommended the
tutor for Prince George, afterwards George III. About 1749 he wrote the
_Present State of the Nation_, an unfinished pamphlet. Lord Chesterfield
records the last words heard from him: "God who placed me here will do
what He pleases with me hereafter and He knows best what to do." He died
on the 12th of December 1751, his wife having predeceased him in 1750.
They were both buried in the parish church at Battersea, where a
monument with medallions and inscriptions composed by Bolingbroke was
erected to their memory.

The writings and career of Bolingbroke make a far weaker impression upon
posterity than they made on contemporaries. His genius and character
were superficial; his abilities were exercised upon ephemeral objects,
and not inspired by lasting or universal ideas. Bute and George III.
indeed derived their political ideas from _The Patriot King_, but the
influence which he is said to have exercised upon Voltaire, Gibbon and
Burke is very problematical. Burke wrote his _Vindication of Natural
Society_ in imitation of Bolingbroke's style, but in refutation of his
principles; and in the _Reflections on the French Revolution_ he
exclaims, "Who now reads Bolingbroke, who ever read him through?" Burke
denies that Bolingbroke's words left "any permanent impression on his
mind." Bolingbroke's conversation, described by Lord Chesterfield as
"such a flowing happiness of expression that even his most familiar
conversations if taken down in writing would have borne the press
without the least correction," his delightful companionship, his wit,
good looks, and social qualities which charmed during his lifetime and
made firm friendships with men of the most opposite character, can now
only be faintly imagined. His most brilliant gift wa