a Loubere, in which
the Talapat is somewhat minutely described, having been translated into
English, and having excited some curiosity, a few years before Count
Devereux now uses the word, the allusion was probably familiar.--ED.

One morning, however, I received a laconic note from him, which,
notwithstanding its shortness and seeming gayety, I knew well signified
that something not calculated for laughter had occurred. I went, and
found that his new Majesty had deprived him of the seals and secured his
papers. We looked very blank at each other. At last, Bolingbroke
smiled. I must say that, culpable as he was in some points as a
politician,--culpable, not from being ambitious (for I would not
give much for the statesman who is otherwise), but from not having
inseparably linked his ambition to the welfare of his country, rather
than to that of a party; for, despite of what has been said of him, his
ambition was never selfish,--culpable as he was when glory allured him,
he was most admirable when danger assailed him!* and, by the shade of
that Tully whom he so idolized, his philosophy was the most conveniently
worn of any person's I ever met. When it would have been in the way--at
the supper of an actress, in the _levees_ of a court, in the boudoir
of a beauty, in the arena of the senate, in the intrigue of the
cabinet--you would not have observed a seam of the good old garment. But
directly it was wanted--in the hour of pain, in the day of peril, in
the suspense of exile, in (worst of all) the torpor of tranquillity--my
extraordinary friend unfolded it piece by piece, wrapped himself up
in it, sat down, defied the world, and uttered the most beautiful
sentiments upon the comfort and luxury of his raiment, that can possibly
be imagined. It used to remind me, that same philosophy of his, of the
enchanted tent in the Arabian Tale, which one moment lay wrapped in a
nut-shell, and the next covered an army.

* I know well that it has been said otherwise, and that Bolingbroke
has been accused of timidity for not staying in England, and making Mr.
Robert Walpole a present of his head. The elegant author of "De Vere"
has fallen into a very great though a very hackneyed error, in lauding
Oxford's political character, and condemning Bolingbroke's, because
the former awaited a trial and the latter shunned it. A very little
reflection might perhaps have taught the accomplished novelist that
there could be no comparison between