think so meanly of a kingdom as not to be pleased that every creature in it, who hath one grain of worth, has a veneration for you ?" In his Journal to Stella he says,

under date of October 12, 1710: "Mr. Addison's election has passed easy and undisputed; and I believe if he had a mind to be chosen king he would hardly be refused." On his side Addison's feelings were equally warm. He presented Swift with a copy of his Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, inscribing it-"To the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of his age."

This friendship, founded on mutual respect, was destined to be impaired by political differences. In 1710 the credit of the Whig Ministry had been greatly undermined by the combined craft of Harley and Mrs. Masham, and Swift, who was anxious as to his position, on coming over to England to press his claims on Somers and Halifax, found that they were unable to help him. He appears to have considered that their want of power proceeded from want of will; at any rate, he made advances to Harley, which were of course gladly received. The Ministry were at this time being hard pressed by the Examiner, under the conduct of Prior, and at their instance Addison started the Whig Examiner in their defence. Though this paper was written effectively and with admirable temper, party polemics were little to the taste of its author, and, after five numbers, it ceased to exist on the 8th of October. Swift, now eager for the triumph of the Tories, expresses his delight to Stella by informing her, in the words of a Tory song, that "it was down among the dead men." He himself wrote the first of his Examiners on the 2d of the following Novem

ber, and the crushing blows with which he followed it up did much to hasten the downfall of the Ministry. As was natural, Addison was somewhat displeased at his friend's defection. In December Swift writes to Stella:-"Mr. Addison and I are as different as black and white, and I believe our friendship will go off by this d- business of party. He cannot bear seeing me fall in so with the Ministry; but I love him still as much as ever, though we seldom meet." In January 1710-11, he says: "I called at the coffee-house, where I had not been in a week, and talked coldly awhile with Mr. Addison; all our friendship and dearness are off; we are civil acquaintance, talk words of course, of when we shall meet, and that's all. Is it not odd?" Many similar entries follow; but on June 26, 1711, the record is :-" Mr. Addison and I talked as usual, and as if we had seen one another yesterday." And on September 14, he observes: "This evening I met Addison and pastoral Philips in the Park, and supped with them in Addison's lodgings. We were very good company, and I yet know no man half so agreeable to me as he is. I sat with them till twelve."

It was perhaps through the influence of Swift, who spoke warmly with the Tory Ministry on behalf of Addison, that the latter, on the downfall of the Whigs in the autumn of 1710, was for some time suffered to retain the Keepership of the Records in Bermingham's Tower, an Irish place which had been bestowed upon him by the Queen as a special mark of the esteem with which she regarded him, and which appears to have been worth £400 a year.1 In other respects his fortunes were greatly

1 Fourth Drapier's Letter.

altered by the change of Ministry. "I have within this twelvemonth," he writes to Wortley on the 21st of July 1711, "lost a place of £2000 per ann., an estate in the Indies worth £14,000, and, what is worse than all the rest, my mistress.1 Hear this and wonder at my philosophy! I find they are going to take away my Irish place from me too; to which I must add that I have just resigned my fellowship, and that stocks sink every day." In spite of these losses his circumstances were materially different from those in which he found himself after the fall of the previous Whig Ministry in 1702. Before the close of the year 1711 he was able to buy the estate of Bilton, near Rugby, for £10,000. Part of the purchase money was probably provided from what he had saved while he was Irish Secretary and had invested in the funds; and part was, no doubt, made up from the profits of the Tatler and the Spectator. Miss Aikin says that a portion was advanced by his brother Gulston; but this seems to be an error. Two years before, the Governor of Fort St. George, had died, leaving him his executor and residuary legatee. This is no doubt "the estate in the Indies" to which he refers in his letter to Wortley, but he had as yet derived no benefit from it. His brother had left his affairs in great confusion; the trustees were careless or dishonest; and though about £600 was remitted to him in the shape of diamonds in 1713, the liquidation was not complete till 1716, when only a small moiety of the sum bequeathed to him came into his hands.2

1 Who the "mistress" was cannot be certainly ascertained. See, however, p. 154.

2 Egerton MSS., British Museum (1972).

CHAPTER V.

THE TATLER AND SPECTATOR.

THE career of Addison, as described in the preceding chapters, has exemplified the great change effected in the position of men of letters in England by the Restoration and the Revolution; it is now time to exhibit him in his most characteristic light, and to show the remarkable service the eighteenth century essayists performed for English society in creating an organised public opinion. It is difficult for ourselves, who look on the action of the periodical press as part of the regular machinery of life, to appreciate the magnitude of the task accomplished by Addison and Steele in the pages of the Tatler and Spectator. Every day, week, month, and quarter, now sees the issue of a vast number of journals and magazines intended to form the opinion of every order and section of society. But in the reign of Queen Anne the only centres of society that existed were the Court, with the aristocracy that revolved about it, and the clubs and coffee-houses, in which the commercial and professional classes met to discuss matters of general interest. The Tatler and Spectator were the first organs in which an attempt was made to give form and consistency to the opinion arising out of this social

G

contact.

But we should form a very erroneous idea of the character of these publications if we regarded them as the sudden productions of individual genius, written in satisfaction of a mere temporary taste. Like all masterpieces in art and literature, they mark the final stage of a long and painful journey, and the merit of their inventors consists largely in the judgment with which they profited by the experience of many predecessors.

The first newspaper published in Europe was the Gazzetta of Venice, which was written in manuscript, and read aloud at certain places in the city to supply information to the people during the war with the Turks in 1536. In England it was not till the reign of Elizabeth that the increased facilities of communication and the growth of wealth caused the purveyance of news to become a profitable employment. Towards the end of the sixteenth century newsmongers began to issue little pamphlets reporting extraordinary intelligence, but not issued at regular periods. The titles of these publications, which are all of them that survive, show that the arts with which the framers of the placards of our own newspapers endeavour to attract attention are of venerable antiquity: "Wonderful and Strange newes out of Suffolke and Essex, where it rained wheat the space of six or seven miles," 1583; "Lamentable newes out of Monmouthshire, containinge the wonderfull and fearfull accounts of the great overflowing of the waters in the said countrye," 1607.1

In 1622 one Nathaniel Butter began to publish a newspaper bearing a fixed title and appearing at stated intervals. It was called the Weekly Newes from Italy and 1 Andrews' History of British Journalism.