whether you are at leisure or not? I have a design which I
shall open a month or two hence, with the assistance of a few like
yourself. If your thoughts are unengaged I shall explain myself
further.'

This design was the _Guardian_, which Steele was about to establish as
the successor to the _Spectator_; and here we find him at work on the
foundations of his new journal while the finishing strokes are being
given to the _Spectator_. Pope in his reply to Steele said (Nov. 16):

'I shall be very ready and glad to contribute to any design that tends
to the advantage of mankind, which, I am sure, all yours do. I wish I
had but as much capacity as leisure, for I am perfectly idle (a sign I
have not much capacity). If you will entertain the best opinion of me,
be pleased to think me your friend. Assure Mr. Addison of my most
faithful service; of every one's esteem he must be assured already.'

About a fortnight later, returning to the subject of Adrian's verses,
Pope wrote to Steele in reply to subsequent private discussion of the
subject (Nov. 29):

'I am sorry you published that notion about Adrian's verses as mine;
had I imagined you would use my name, I should have expressed my
sentiments with more modesty and diffidence. I only wrote to have your
opinion, and not to publish my own, which I distrusted.'

Then after defending his view of the poem, and commenting upon the Latin
diminutives, he adds,

'perhaps I should be much better pleased if I were told you called me
"your little friend," than if you complimented me with the title of "a
great genius," or "an eminent hand," as Jacob [Tonson] does all his
authors.'

Steele's genial reply produced from Pope, as final result of the above
letter to the _Spectator_, one of the most popular of his short pieces.
Steele wrote (Dec. 4):

'This is to desire of you that you would please to make an ode as of a
cheerful dying spirit; that is to say, the Emperor Adrian's "_animula
vagula_," put into two or three stanzas for music. If you will comply
with this, and send me word so, you will very particularly oblige
RICHARD STEELE.'

This was written two days before the appearance of the last number of
his _Spectator_. Pope answered,

'I do not send you word I will do, but have already done the thing you
desire of me,'

and sent his poem of three stanzas, called THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS
SOUL.

'Vital spark of heavenly fl