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escape from the uncomfortable grandeur of Holland House, where he had resided since his marriage, to the ease and freedom of his favourite coffee house, Button's, there to enjoy himself in tranquil conversation with old friends, and would afterwards adjourn to a tavern, where he indulged somewhat freely in wine. In 1717 he was made one of the chief Secretaries of State; but as his constitutional timidity prevented him from being a ready or effective speaker, the office was not well suited to him, and he was soon glad to retire on a pension of £1500 a year. He died in June 1719.

In the company of one or two intimate friends, with whom he could be at freedom, Addison talked long and excellently. "He was," says Steele, "above all men in that talent called humour, and enjoyed it in such perfection, that I have often reflected, after a night spent with him apart from all the world, that I had the pleasure of conversing with an intimate acquaintance of Terence and Catullus, who had all their wit and nature, heightened with humour more exquisite and delightful than any other man ever possessed.". Pope, no partial witness, confessed that Addison's conversation had something in it more charming than was to be found in that of any other man. But it was only when with one or two old associates that Addison displayed his conversational talents: in a large company he sat silent, partly from natural bashfulness, partly from fear lest he should compromise his dignity. Alluding to his fluency of composition compared with his deficiencies as a ready talker, he used to say that he could draw bills for a thousand pounds, though he had not a guinea in his pocket.

Addison's principal political writings were a pamphlet published in 1707 on the "Present State of the War," the Whig Examiner, a periodical written in opposition to Swift's Examiner, of which only five numbers appeared, and which Johnson praises very highly, and the Freeholder, which appeared twice a week during part of 1715-16. The last contains the famous sketch of the Tory Fox-Hunter, one of his best compositions. It is sad to have to relate that before Addison's death political differences led to an estrangement between him and Steele.

Addison was one of the sort of politicians dear to party-leaders, who follow their chiefs submissively wherever they may lead them, and who have no hobbies of their own, no strong opinions which they are determined to act up to whether their colleagues are opposed to them or not. The reverse is true of Steele. He was ardent and impetuous in politics as in everything else; and when a measure was introduced of which he did not approve, he opposed it strenuously, even though it was a measure introduced by the ministry to which he owed his appointments. When, in 1719, the Whigs brought forward their Peerage Bill, by which they proposed to limit the number of the Peers, Addison supported the Ministers, while in a paper called the Plebeian Steele vehemently attacked them. This opposition led to mutual recriminations; and the death of Addison soon after prevented a reconciliation.

The leading events of Steele's life, from the foundation of the Spectator till his death, may be briefly summed up. In 1713 he began the publication of a daily periodical called the Guardian, which continued to be published during about eight months, and to which Addison contributed largely. In 1714 the publication of two violent political pamphlets, the "Englishman" and the "Crisis," led to his being expelled from the House of Commons. His numerous productions on the topics of the day it would be useless to enumerate. The "Conscious Lovers," his best comedy, appeared in 1722. 1715 he was appointed surveyor of the royal stables at Hampton Court; and about the same time received the honour of knighthood. He afterwards held other appointments, and during the latter years of his life was patentee of Drury Lane Theatre, which brought him a considerable income. He died in 1729 at Langunnor, near Carmarthen, where he had retired some time before his death. “I was told,” a friend of his related, "that he retained his cheerful sweetness of temper to the last, and would often be carried out of a summer's evening when the country lads and lasses were assembled at their rural sports, and with his pencil he gave an order on his agent, the mercer, for a new gown for the best dancer." It

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is pleasing to learn that the close of his life was so tranquil and pleasant.

Steele was described by the merciless Dennis as being "of a middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape like the picture of somebody over a farmer's chimney-a short chin, a short nose, a short forehead, a broad flat face, and a dusky countenance." The many letters which he wrote to his wife, dearest Prue," all of which that worthy and much-tried woman carefully preserved, give one an excellent idea of his genial, impulsive, hasty, affectionate, and reckless temperament. Johnson, with whom Macaulay agrees,1 praises Addison because he employed wit on the side of virtue and religion. "He not only made the proper use of wit himself, but taught it to others; and from this time it has been generally subservient to the cause of reason and of truth. He has dissipated the prejudice that had long connected gaiety with vice, and easiness of manners with laxity of principles. He has restored virtue to its dignity, and taught innocence not to be ashamed." If this praise be due to Addison, as it certainly is, it is also due to Steele. However wild his conduct may have occasionally been, in his writings he never swerved from upholding the cause of purity and goodness; and in many respects his moral precepts were of a less conventional kind, and reached a higher spiritual level than Addison's.

It was during the reign of Queen Anne that the writing of correct and polished English prose first became a general accomplishment. Many writers who flourished about this period, though of infinitely less original power than their predecessors of fifty or a hundred years ago, are much more pleasant to read, simply because they had acquired the knack of expressing themselves in clear, well-ordered sentences, free from the cumbrousness and involution which, till the time of Dryden, are usual characteristics of our prose writers. Three of these may be mentioned. Dr. John Arbuthnot

1 It is very well worth while to read Johnson's 'Life of Addison' and Macaulay's Essay on Addison' together. There is scarcely a critical idea in Macaulay's essay of which the germ is not to be found in Johnson's

(1667-1735) was a Scotchman, who, coming up to London, attained great reputation as a medical man, and was the intimate associate of many of the foremost writers of his time. His "History of John Bull," a political satire, and other writings, mostly of a controversial or satirical nature, have much the same characteristics as Swift's-clearness, force, and incisiveness. He seems to have been a most excellent man. "He has more wit than we all have," said Swift, "and his humanity is equal to his wit;" and again, "If the world had a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my 'Travels.'" Arbuthnot wrote little, and there is no collected edition of his works; but the little that he did write shows that if he had used his pen more freely he could have won for himself a very high position in literature. Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751), whose meteoric career still sheds a sort of lustre round his name, wrote, when his political life was brought to an end by the discovery of his intrigue with the Pretender, a number of works, "Letters on the Study of History," "Letter on the Spirit of Patriotism," the "Idea of a Patriot King," &c., in a style artificial and somewhat stilted, but emphatic, striking, and often epigrammatic. On the whole, it may be said that the reader who, finding how much Bolingbroke was admired by his contemporaries, is led to study his works, will not find much to reward him, except a few happy sentences, such as "Don Quixote believed, but even Sancho doubted." George Berkeley (1684-1753), Bishop of Cloyne, whose work belongs to the history of philosophy, deserves mention here as having possessed a style, simple, sweet, and melodious in an eminent degree. He could write with equal elegance on the most subtle philosophical theories and on the virtues of tar-water. Pope's well-known line, which attributes "to Berkeley every virtue under heaven," shows how he was regarded by his contemporaries.

During the early part of the eighteenth century was waged the somewhat barren "Deistical Controversy," in which a great number of writers, including nearly all the leading theologians of the day, took part. It produced one book of

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permanent value, the "Analogy of Religion" of Bishop Butler (1692-1752), a work full of weighty thought, though its style is very awkward and complex. "It came (1736) towards the end of the Deistical period. It is the result of twenty years' study the very twenty years during which the Deistical notions formed the atmosphere which educated people breathed. The objections it meets are not new and unseasoned objections, but such as had worn well, and had borne the rub of controversy, because they were genuine. And it would be equally hard to find in the 'Analogy' any topic in reply which had not been suggested in the pamphlets and sermons of the preceding half century. Like Aristotle's physical and political treatises, it is a résumé of the discussions of more than one generation."1

We now turn to the poetical literature of the beginning of the eighteenth century. This finds its highest representative in Alexander Pope. The correctness and finish which all the poets of his age were endeavouring to attain, he attained more completely than any; and though before his death new influences were beginning to be at work which ended in the overthrow of the school of which he was the accepted leader, he influenced very strongly the poets of the two generations which succeeded him. Pope was born in London in 1688. After he had risen to eminence and was taunted with the lowness of his birth, he circulated some rather fabulous stories about the exalted pedigree of his father, an honest and successful merchant, who acquired by his industry a fortune which in those days was reckoned a large one. Both his parents were Catholics, and Pope, in spite of considerable temptations to the contrary, always remained constant to the faith of his fathers. He was deformed and weakly from his birth, a dwarfish and precocious child, with a sweet voice and a quick intellect. He was taught to read at home, and early learned to write by imitating printed books. When about eight years old his

1 Mr. Mark Pattison's "Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688-1750," in "Essays and Reviews,” an essay containing an admirable account of the current of theological thought during the time with which it deals.