stage so corrupt and licentious as that of England after the downfall of the Puritans and the return of the Stuarts to power. Collier attacked the monstrous evil. His essay "threw the whole literary world into commotion. There is hardly any book of that time from which it would be possible to select specimens of writing so excellent and so various. He was complete master of the rhetoric of honest indignation, The spirit of the book is truly heroic." —. Macaulay. Some of the dramatists, Van brugh and others, attempted a reply, but their defence was lame. The victory was overwhelming. After fighting and floundering for some years, these indecent writers were either silenced, or were obliged to reform the character of their plays; and the English drama ever since has been of a more elevated stamp, in consequence of the terrible castigation which it then received.

Collier was almost always engaged in controversy. For the free expression of his opinion, he was imprisoned and outlawed, but he none the less spoke and wrote what he thought. Besides his controversial works, which need not here be recounted, he wrote Essays upon several moral subjects (Pride, Clothes, Duelling, General Kindness. etc., etc.,) which are highly spoken of. He wrote also an Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, 2 vols., fol., and translated Moreri's Great Historical Dictionary, 2 vols., fol.

III. THE PROSE WRITERS.

Addison.

Joseph Addison, 1672-1719, one of the greatest ornaments of English literature, excelled, as did some others to be mentioned in this section, both in prose and verse. His greatest distinction, however, was as a writer of prose. He is generally accepted as the prince of English Essayists, and his Essays in The Spectator are held to be the finest models in the language, of that style of writing.

Education. Addison had every advantage of education which the University of Oxford and the best preparatory schools in England could furnish, and he very early gave evidence of that elegant scholarship and refined taste which marked all his productions. He entered the University at the age of fifteen, and greatly distinguished himself there by his diligence and scholarship. He began his career as an author at the age of twenty-two, and he continued to write and publish, both in prose and verse, to the time of his death.

Career. - A poem addressed to King William on one of his campaigns, and written at the age of twenty-three, secured to the young author an annual pension of £300. At the age of twenty-eight he visited Italy, where he remained for two or three years. On the death of the King, and the discontinuance of the pension, Addison was obliged to look about him for some other means of subsistence. Not long after, however, he was applied to by the leaders of the Govern

ment under the new sovereign to write a poem commemorative of the celebrated battle of Blenheim. The task was undertaken by Addison, and the poem, called The Campaign, gave great satisfaction, and led to a long series of political preferments. He was married at the age of forty-four to the dowager Countess of Warwick. Johnson says: "This marriage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition to his happiness; it neither found nor made them equal. She always remembered her own rank, and thought herself entitled to treat with very little ceremony the tutor of her son." Addison died full of honors, and in great serenity of mind, when just entering his forty-eighth year.

Works. — Addison's writings, both prose and poetical, are very numerous. Only a few of them can here be named. The poems best known are The Campaign, already mentioned, and the tragedy of Cato. His principal prose writings are essays contributed to The Tatler and The Spectator. It is as an Essayist that his peculiar excellencies appear to the greatest advantage. His contributions to the papers just named, particularly those to The Spectator, of which paper he was the originator, are generally conceded to be the best specimens of essay writing to be found in the language, and they are held up by the most eminent critics, as models of style. It was in reference to these essays, especially, that Johnson uttered his oft-quoted saying: "Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the study of Addison." Says Macaulay: "It is praise enough to say of a writer, that, in a high department of literature, in which many eminent writers have distinguished themselves, he has no equal; and this may, with strict justice, be said of Addison. He is entitled to be considered, not only as the greatest of English Essayists, but as the forerunner of the great English Novelists. His best essays approach near to absolute perfection; nor is their excellence more wonderful than their variety."

Among the smaller poems of Addison are four of the nature of hymns, which seem absolutely perfect, and which have found their way into the hymn-books of nearly every Christian Church. These are "The Lord my pasture shall prepare," "When all thy mercies, O my God," "The spacious firmament on high," and "When rising from the bed of death." They were all published originally in The Spectator.

Addison had considerable celebrity in his day as a writer of Latin. His Odes in that language are highly commended by the critics.

EUSTACE BUDGELL, 1685-1736, a writer contemporary with Pope and Addison, contributed about forty papers to The Spectator, some to The Guardian and The Tatler, and published for some time a weekly magazine of his own, The Bee. He published also Memoirs of the Family of the Boyles, and some other things.

Steele.

Sir Richard Steele, 1671-1729, is the writer of this age who comes nearest to the peculiar qualities and the matchless excellence of Addison. Like Addison, too, Steele's chief distinction is as an Essayist. In the Tatler, Spectator,

and Guardian, Steele's papers rank very little below those of his great compeer. If Addison is clearly the first, Steele is with equal clearness the second, of English Essayists.

Early Career.Steele was a native of Ireland. He was educated at the Charter-house School, and afterwards at Oxford, but did not obtain his degree. He enlisted in the Horse Guards, and rose to the rank of Captain. During this period of his life, and also subsequently, though in a less degree, he was idle, dissipated, and extravagant. Through the influence of Addison, who had been his school-friend, he obtained the position of Gazetteer. He married a West India lady, who lived only a few months. In 1707, he was married again, this time to Mary Scurlock, of Wales, who figures so prominently in his correspondence. Steele continued his extravagances, and became involved more and more in debt.

Literary Undertakings. — In 1709, Steele began The Tatler, which was followed by The Spectator and The Guardian. In these several undertakings he was largely assisted by Addison, and in The Spectator the latter's share was, it is well known, the largest.

Political Course. Steele was throughout those troublous times a consistent Whig. A member of the House, he was expelled for his political pamphlet entitled The Crisis, in which he set forth freely the great dangers to which the Protestant cause was exposed. On the accession of the House of Hanover, Steele came into favor, was returned to Parliament, and made a baronet. On the occasion of the attempted passage of the notorious Peerage-Bill, limiting the power of royalty to create new peers, Steele took direct issue with his old friend Addison against the measure.

Merits as an Author. As an author Steele's reputation rests chiefly upon his essays. His comedies were comparatively unsuccessful. The Funeral, or Grief a la Mode, The Tender Husband, and The Conscious Lovers are the best. But as an essayist his fame will be lasting. To The Tatler, The Spectator, and The Guardian he contributed respectively 188, 240, and 82 papers. He and Addison may be justly regarded as the founders of the easy and graceful essay style of English prose, equally removed from the weighty and involved periods of Milton and the puerile conceits of the Restoration.

"The Essays of Steele have eclipsed his dramas. His Bickerstaff, the Spectator Club, allegories, and short tales have the true, ever-living dramatic spirit. In taste and delicate humor he was greatly inferior to Addison. But in invention and insight into human character and motives he was fully his equal. He knew the world better, and fully sympathized with almost every phase of life and character except meanness and cruelty. He seems to have considered it his special mission to reform the minor vices and absurdities of English society. Had his satire been more keen and trench

ant, or his moral lessons more formal and didactic, he could not have succeeded as he did; his essays were just adapted to the times they insinuated morality and benevolence, and supplied innocent enjoyment mingled with instruction. The lively, natural writer and companion is never lost in the teacher, nor the gay captain of horse wholly absorbed in the author."- Chambers.

Swift.

Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745, was, of all the writers of the age in which he lived, the one possessing the greatest originality and power. His peculiarities, however, both as a writer and as a man, were no less marked, and mostly not of an agreeable character. Hence he has been, deservedly, less esteemed than most of his distinguished contemporaries, by those who have been free to admit his transcendent abilities. Early Career. This unique personage in English letters was born in Dublin, of English parents, several months after the death of his father. Young Swift was supported by relatives, and sent by them to school and afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin. Here he did not improve his time after the orthodox fashion, but was chiefly occupied in writing political and personal satires. After remaining seven years at college he removed to England, and entered the service of Sir William Temple, who was a distant relative, as private secretary. He remained in this position about ten years. It was a period of wearisome, galling poverty and dependence. At Temple's death, in 1698, Swift succeeded in obtaining the vicarage of Laracor, and one or two other small appointments, in Ireland.

Life as an Author.-In 1701 Swift published a tract on The Contests and Discussions between the Nobles and Commons of Athens and Rome. This attracted the attention of Somers and Addison, then leaders of the Whig party. In 1704 he published The Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books. Swift's hopes of preferment not being gratified by the Whig party, he went over to the Tories. For nearly a year he edited The Examiner, and indulged his powers of satire in attacking Godolphin and Marlborough. He also became intimate with Bolingbroke, Oxford, and Pope. By his able pamphlet "On the Conduct of the Allies," he contributed efficiently to the adoption of the peace of Utrecht, and gained for himself the preferment of Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin, 1713.

Interest in Irish Affairs. After the downfall of the Tory ministry, Swift identified himself with Ireland and the Irish cause. In 1724

appeared the Drapier Letters, which produced great excitement, and caused the English Government to abandon its scheme of flooding Ireland with copper coinage. These Letters appeared anonymously, and the secret was preserved, in spite of the £300 reward offered by the Government for the detection of the author. In 1726 Swift revisited England, and published Gulliver's Travels.

Loss of Health. In 1727, having returned to Ireland, his health gave way and with it his mental faculties. He had some lucid intervals subsequently, during which he wrote A Rhapsody on Poetry, the Legion Club, some verses on his own death, and The Modest Proposal. This last was an ironical satire on the English government of Ireland, in which the author gravely proposes to relieve the public distress by making the children of the poor serve as food for the rich. For the last two or three years of his life he was hopelessly insane.

Love-Life. — Any sketch, however brief, of Swift's career, would be incomplete without making some mention of his love-affairs. With all his brusqueness and proneness to satire, Swift appears to have exercised considerable powers of fascination over the other sex. There are three women, however, who figure conspicuously in the record of his life-Stella, Varina, and Vanessa. Varina, the fictitious name of Miss Jane Warying, was a young lady who at first rejected Swift's offer of marriage, but subsequently repented and renewed the proposal herself. Swift replied, however, with a refusal as decided as her own. Stella, Miss Esther Johnson, had been a waiting-maid of Lady Gifford, Temple's sister, residing with him. Swift, as Temple's secretary, had opportunities of daily intercourse with Esther, then a very young girl, and directed her studies. The attachment between them was deep and lasting, it might almost be called an English version of the loves of Abelard and Eloise, and it is generally believed that they were privately married in 1716. This has been doubted, however, by some writers. She followed him in 1700 to Ireland and presided at his table when guests were present. She died in 1728. There is still much mystery hanging over this connection between Swift and Stella. The third lady, Vanessa, Miss Esther Vanhomrigh, was the daughter of a family in London where Swift was on terms of intimate friendship before his appointment to St. Patrick's. As in the case of Stella, Swift directed her studies, and the young pupil became so enamored of her master as to make a proposal of marriage. These advances Swift neither encouraged nor absolutely repelled. Consequently, on her mother's death in 1714, Vanessa removed also to Ireland, and thus Swift found himself in the awkward predicament of having two ardent admirers at once and in the same place. It is said that Stella, moved by jealousy of her rival, insisted upon a private marriage, and that Vanessa, having suspected as much, wrote to Stella. This led to a violent explosion of wrath from Swift, and Vanessa died a few weeks afterwards, in 1722, of a broken heart.

His Character hard to be Understood. —There is, throughout Swift's entire career, and especially this phase of it, much that is to us incomprehensible. His vagaries and moodiness and reckless defiance of public opinion, however, were largely due to incipient insanity, and this may dispose us to be charitable in our judgment. Swift is one of those weird, demoniacal characters that are ever reappearing under various shapes and in various countries, doomed to see their wonderful gifts emploved only in the destruction of themselves and those whom they best love.