The press was to be free; and there is at least a degree of generous insight in his plea for a wider commercial freedom in colonial matters.  Yet what, after all, does this mean save that he is fighting a man with the patronage at his disposal and a majority upon the committee for the settlement of disputed elections?  And what else can we see in his desire for liberty of the press save a desire to fight Walpole in the open, without fear of the penalties his former treason had incurred?

His value can be tested in another way.  His Idea of a Patriot King is the remedy for the ills he has depicted.  He was sixty years old when it appeared, and he had then been in active politics for thirty-five years, so that we are entitled to regard it as the fruit of his mature experience.  He was too convinced that the constitution was “in the strictest sense a bargain, a conditional contract between the prince and the people” to attempt again the erection of a system of prerogative.  Yet it is about the person of the monarch that the theory hinges.  He is to have no powers inconsistent with the liberties of the people; for such restraints will not shackle his virtues while they limit the evil propensities of a bad king.  What is needed is a patriot king who will destroy corruption and awaken the spirit of liberty.  His effective government will synchronize with the commencement of his reign; and he will at once dismiss the old and cunning ministers, to replace them by servants who are wise.  He will not stand upon party, but upon the State.  He will unite the forces of good counsel into a single scheme.  Complaints will be answered, the evildoers punished.  Commerce will flow on with uninterrupted prosperity, and the navy of England receive its due meed of attention.  His conduct must be dignified, and he must acquire his influence not apart from, but on account of, the affection of his people.  “Concord,” says Bolingbroke in rhapsodical prospection, “will appear breeding peace and prosperity on every hand”; though he prudently hopes also that men will look back with affection upon one “who desired life for nothing so much as to see a King of Great Britain the most powerful man in the country, and a patriot King at the head of a united people.”

Bolingbroke himself has admitted that such a monarch would be a “sort of standing miracle,” and perhaps no other comment upon his system is required.  A smile in Plato at the sight of his philosopher-King in such strange company might well be pardoned.  It is only necessary to point out that the person whom Bolingbroke designates for this high function was Frederick, Prince of Wales, to us the most meagre of a meagre generation, but to Bolingbroke, by whose grace he was captivated, “the greatest and most glorious of human beings.”  This exaltation of the monarch came at a time when a variety of circumstances had combined to show the decrease of monarchical sentiment.  It bears upon its every page the marks of a personal