Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, On the Idea of a Patriot King, and on the State of Parties, at the Accession of King George the First
Contributions
- Anonymous (Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke)
- author
- Andrew Millar
- publisher
Related resources
- has translation
- Lettres sur l'esprit du patriotisme, sur l'idée d'un roi patriote, et sur l'état des parties qui divisaient l'Angleterre lors de l'avènement de George 1er translation
- has translation
- Des devoirs d'un roi patriote, et portrait des ministres de tous les temps. Ouvrage traduit de l'anglois de Bolingbroke translation has paratext
Summary (extracted citations)
"Patriotism must be founded on great principles, and supported by great virtues"
Held by
Notes
Anonymous publication of three texts by Bolingbroke, the last of which was written for the attention of Frederick, Prince of Wales. On his return to France in 1739, Bolingbroke entrusted the unpublished manuscript of the three works to his friend, Alexander Pope – The Idea of a Patriot King (Dec 1738); an earlier essay on The spirit of patriotism (1736); and a paper on The state of parties at the accession of George I, also known as, A Dissertation upon Parties (1733-34).
Pope's unauthorized publication of 1500 copies of The Idea of a Patriot King was destroyed but parts of the text were serialized in the Gentleman's Magazine in January 1749. A mortified Bolingbroke was then forced to go public with the full, correct text, to which he added the other related pieces. Pope had been given express instruction to only produce a tiny edition of ten copies of this private work for the small circle of Bolingbroke's friends who sat in opposition to Robert Walpole's administration. It was reprinted in 1752, 1767, 1775 (dedicated to Edmund Burke) and 1783. A complete edition of Bolingbroke's collected Works, edited by David Mallet, was published in March 1754 and reissued in 1809.
Bolingbroke's portrait of the ideal "patriot king" was of a hero who could rise above party and defend both the constitution at home and British trade abroad. It also served as a polemical satire on the corruption of Walpole's oligarchical regime and an utopian plea for moral reform and commercial prosperity. Its lack of precise reference made it flexible enough to be used as a model and yardstick by which later princes could measure their conduct. According to David Armitage, a later editor called it a "perfect system of practical politics", while, "its prescriptions became a mainstay of patriotic rhetoric, radical polemic and conservative countercharge" (p.404). Bolingbroke's main influences were Cicero and Francis Bacon.
See David Armitage, 'A patriot for whom? The afterlives of Bolingbroke's Patriot King' (1997, Journal of British Studies).