Nor were allies from the City wanting. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, at this time Governor of the Bank and well known for his zeal in Opposition, sent down a whole array of clerks and accountants, men eager to show their true Whig principles, but as was noticed at the time, requiring considerable guidance as to what passages they ought properly to cheer, and exposed to some ridicule on that account. But several even of the Whig chiefs and leaders, men perfectly skilled in criticism, might perhaps have been the better that night for something of check and control. The callousness to shame of one of them has been with great force condemned by Lord Macaulay. "Wharton," he says, "who had the incredible effrontery to applaud the lines about flying from prosperous vice and from the power of impious men to a private station, did not escape the sarcasms of those who justly thought that he could fly from nothing more vicious or impious than himself." 4

With such precautions and such appliances the tragedy, independent of its merits, could scarcely fail to succeed. But there was one circumstance which had not been foreseen, and which, while it enhanced the triumph of the author, dimmed that of his political friends. The Tories saw no reason why they should take to themselves the passages reflecting on arbitrary power. Therefore, admiring as they did the fine lines, they began to cheer them quite as loudly as the Whigs. It was reserved for Bolingbroke, however, by a most ready retort, to parry in the completest manner the party thrust that his enemies intended. Having sum

4 Essay on Addison, first published in the Edinburgh Review, July 1843, p. 64, ed. 1852.

moned Booth to his box in the interval between two acts, he publicly presented him with a purse of fifty guineas, and thanked him for having defended the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual Dictator. This was clearly understood as referring to the attempt which had been made by Marlborough, and which I have elsewhere related, to extort from the Queen a patent creating him Captain-General for life. The Whigs, says Pope, design a second present when they can accompany it with as good a sentence.

The literary works of the Queen Anne period, both prose and verse, show a considerable approximation to the style of France. Thus the very performance which I have just now been discussing, is formed much more upon the model of the great French writers in the reigns of Louis the Thirteenth and Fourteenth than upon our own in the reign of James the First. If we compare the Cato of Addison with the Cinna of Corneille and the Julius Cæsar of Shakespeare-all three plays relating to the same people at nearly the same period-this divergence from the last-named writer becomes especially apparent. The same tendency went on increasing to the next age. As examples it may be noted that the diction of David Hume or Horace Walpole is far more French than that of Bolingbroke, although of the three Bolingbroke had resided much the longest time in France, had married a French wife, and even at almost the outset of his career had made himself, as his French despatches prove, a thorough master of that foreign idiom. In writing French he would even sign himself St. Jean instead of St. John. But he had kept pure and undefiled in his mind the well-springs of his native language; and his style in his political writings is perhaps the very highest perfection of English prose.

The men of letters of Queen Anne's reign-those above all of the Whig party-derive especial lustre from the collections of periodical essays, which in their various merits have never yet been equalled in any other country, or in any other age. Of these periodical papers Steele was the founder, but Addison was the prop and mainstay. Steele had been appointed, by the favor of Lord Sunderland, to the post of Gazetteer. As such, besides receiving a salary-very acceptable to a man of his spendthrift habits-he had early access to foreign intelligence; and it occurred to him that a paper would be certain of success which should communicate that intelligence at once to rural readers. According then to the plan of Steele, the new paper was to appear on the days on which in that age the post left London for the country, namely on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; and besides the news from abroad the paper was to contain some articles on the current topics of the day, however various in kind, as criticism, accounts both of popular sermons and of popular plays. To give unity to the whole by the name of an Editor, Steele announced that the paper would be published by "Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer," a fictitious person, already the occasion of much banter among the wits of that age. Such was the origin of "The Tatler," of which the first number appeared on the 12th of April, 1709.

Addison was then in Ireland as Secretary, with Wharton as Lord-Lieutenant-most truly an ill-assorted pair. He had not been consulted on this scheme, but no sooner was it started than he gave it his active support. Mainly through him, it was raised far above the ephemeral character which had been at first designed; and there came to be inserted a succession of essays which, afterwards collected into

volumes, have taken a permanent place in the literature of this country.

Of the essays which appeared in the Tatler, two hundred and seventy-one in number, not less than fifty were contributed by Addison. In merit these were greatly superior to the rest. It is probably no exaggeration of Lord Macaulay to declare, that any five of his writings are more valuable than all the two hundred numbers in which he had no share.

The change of Ministers from Whig to Tory, which affected so many other things, affected the Tatler also. Steele lost his place as Gazetteer. By the intercession of his personal friends he was suffered to retain another small office that he held as Commissioner of Stamps, but this was on a pledge, implied if not expressed, that he should take no active part against the new administration. Thus the Tatler ceased to retail foreign intelligence. It ceased also to discuss home affairs. Its whole character was changed. Better far, thought Steele, bring it to a close, and start another series of papers on a more consistent plan. This was done accordingly. The last number of the Tatler appeared on the second of January, 1711, and the Preface of "the Spectator" on the first of March ensuing. Unlike its predecessor this new series was to be published daily, Sundays however excepted.

The character of the Spectator was drawn by Addison -certainly not without some reference to his own. The Spectator is described as a gentleman of middle age and studious habits, with a cultivated mind improved by foreign travel, but afflicted with an invincible shyness, so that although he makes many observations on men and manners, he is almost always a mute in

society, and at his ease only with a small club of familiar friends.

In the members of this small Club, besides the Spectator himself, it was intended to delineate some of the principal classes and professions. There was Sir Roger de Coverley, the Tory baronet of Worcestershire, and Sir Andrew Freeport, the Whig merchant of London; there was Will Honeycomb, a gray-haired man of pleasure about town, conversant in all the fashionable follies of the time; there was Captain Sentry the soldier; there was also, though only in dim outline, the lawyer and the clergyman.

The first sketch of this Club, as the first design of the Tatler, was due to Steele. But Addison took at once into his hands the characters of Sir Roger de Coverley and Will Honeycomb, and moulded them with a degree of genius and skill to which Steele could make no claim. The portraiture of Sir Roger above all, and the several essays which unfold it, have taken rank among the classics of the language. So delicately is it poised, that the good-natured ridicule in many passages is never inconsistent with sincere respect, nor yet the respect with ridicule. While we smile at the stubborn prejudices of the good old Knight, we are touched by his overflowing kindliness and genial warmth of heart.

There are many things that may be gleaned from those vivid pages in regard to the manners and feelings of the time, both when the Spectator goes to visit his friend in the country, and when Sir Roger appears in town. At Coverley Hall the Spectator surveys the ancient mansion and the patriarchal household—“ the domestics all in years and grown old with their master. You trace his goodness even in the old house-dog and