BOLINGBROKE, Henry St. John, 1st Viscount (1678-1751). Four autograph letters (including one signed with initial, 'B'), to an unidentified friend ('My dear Lord'), Chanteloup, 15 and 26 August 1735, and n.p. [Argeville], 4 March 1736 and 13 January 1737, strenuously denying any wish to return to England or that he gives it much thought, 'I will not regret the ten laborious years that I passed at a house that was no home to me, in y. strict sense of the word, and the agreeable circumstances of y. thing, but you will give me leave to rejoice y. I am under no obligation to lead that life any longer, that I may point like Anaxagoras, with my fingure to y. sky whenever I am asked of what country I am, and that I may live like a citizen of y. world, whether in Britain or out of it', reminiscing about his political life, and that if the Prince [George I] and Party he served had treated him with 'y. decency, y. Prudence, to say nothing of Justice, required' he would have remained, declaring that he has returned 'with inexpressible pleasure to those habits of study, of retreat and mediocrity which began to grow strong upon me in the Hermitage I chose formerly in this country', and continuing to philosophise and to expound on the advantages of his present life, 12½ pages, 4to (letters of 15 August 1735 and 4 March 1736 incomplete, lacking final leaf). Bolingbroke, having finally given up his contest with Walpole, left England in 1735. He let his house at Dawley to the Duke of Norfolk, and joined his wife (Marie Claire, widow of the Marquis de Villette) in France, reaching Le Chantelou, near Amboise, in June. In 1736 they purchased a house at Argeville, close to Fontainebleau. In his self-imposed exile, Bolingbroke kept up a stream of correspondence with his aristocratic friends, notably with the Lords Bathurst and Lytellton, and the Earl of Marchmont. (4)