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HENRY ST. JOHN BOLINGBROKE. Political Writings, ed. David Armitage. Cambridge: Cambridge, 1997. Pp. xliv + 305. $64.95; (paper) $24.95.
HENRY ST. JOHN BOLINGBROKE. Bolingbroke' s Political Writings: The Conservative Enlightenment, ed. Bernard Cottret. Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's, 1997, Pp. xi + 436. $65.
Until now, the only works by Bolingbroke available in good modern editions were the minor essays from the Craftsman (Oxford, 1982) and, in facsimile, the viscount's invective against Warburton, A Familiar Epistle to the Most Impudent Man Living (Los Angeles, 1978). Mr. Armitage's and Mr. Cottret's editions are thus timely arrivals, reproducing the works on which Bolingbroke's reputation is largely based: A Dissertation upon Parties (1733-1734) and The Idea of a Patriot King (1738; 1749).
Mr. Armitage's superb edition of the Dissertation, Patriot King, and "On the Spirit of Patriotism" (1736; 1749) is notable both for its sound texts and its erudite apparatus. The editor chooses as copy-texts the first (1749) edition of "Spirit"; Bolingbroke's 1749 revision of Patriot King (the first edition after Pope's private printing of 1738); and the Dissertation from Bolingbroke's 1754 Works. A case might have been made for the first nonserial edition of the Dissertation (1735); certainly the omission of Bolingbroke's ferocious dedication of this...