l
as well as literary writings.

Of these, Addison, Swift, Bolingbroke, Bentley, Warburton, Arbuthnot,
Gay, Pope, Tickell, Halifax, Parnell, Rowe, Prior, Congreve, Steele,
and Berkeley, were the most distinguished. Dryden belonged to the
preceding age; to the period of license and gayety--the greatest but
most immoral of all the great poets of England, from the time of
Milton to that of Pope.

[Sidenote: Wits of Queen Anne's Reign.]

The wits of Queen Anne's reign were political writers as well as
poets, and their services were sought for and paid by the great
statesmen of the times, chiefly of the Tory party. Marlborough
neglected the poets, and they contributed to undermine his power.

Of these wits the most distinguished and respectable was Addison, born
1672. He was well educated, and distinguished himself at Oxford, and
was a fellow of Magdalen College. His early verses, which would now be
pronounced very inferior, however attracted the notice of Dryden, then
the great autocrat of letters, and the oracle of the literary clubs.
At the age of twenty-seven, Addison was provided with a pension from
the Whig government, and set out on his travels. He was afterwards
made secretary to Lord Halifax, and elected a member of the House of
Commons, but was never able to make a speech. He, however, made up for
his failure as an orator by his power as a writer, being a perfect
master of elegant satire. He was also charming in private
conversation, and his society was much sought by eminent statesmen,
scholars, and noblemen. In 1708, he became secretary for Ireland, and,
while he resided at Dublin, wrote those delightful papers on which his
fame chiefly rests. Not as the author of Rosamond, nor of Latin
verses, nor of the treatise on Medals, nor of Letters from Italy, nor
of the tragedy of Cato, would he now be known to us. His glory is
derived from the Tatler and Spectator--an entirely new species of
writing in his age, original, simple, and beautiful, but chiefly
marked for polished and elegant satire against the follies and bad
taste of his age. Moreover, his numbers of the Spectator are
distinguished for elevation of sentiment, and moral purity, without
harshness, and without misanthropy. He wrote three sevenths of that
immortal production, and on every variety of subject, without any
attempt to be eloquent or _intense_, without pedantry and without
affectation. The success of the work was immense, and every one who
cou