interest. 'It would be no small misfortune,' he says, 'to a
sovereign, though he had all the male part of the nation on his side, if
he did not find himself king of the most beautiful half of his subjects.
Ladies are always of great use to the party they espouse, and never fail
to win over numbers to it. Lovers, according to Sir William Petty's
computation, make at least the third part of the sensible men of the
British nation, and it has been an uncontroverted maxim in all ages,
that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn sort of a creature, a
lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means it lies
in the power of every fine woman to secure at least half-a-dozen
able-bodied men to his Majesty's service. The female world are likewise
indispensably necessary in the best causes to manage the controversial
part of them, in which no man of tolerable breeding is ever able to
refute them. Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.'

The essayist thinks it fortunate for the Whigs 'that their very enemies
acknowledge the finest women of Great Britain to be of that party;' and
in an amusing but rather absurd way he discourses to maids, wives, and
widows on the advantages of adhering to the Hanoverian Government. It is
characteristic of Addison that a political paper like the _Freeholder_
should be flavoured with the humour and badinage he found so effective
in the _Spectator_. To the ladies he appeals again and again, but not to
their reason. He gives them mirth instead of argument, and thinks it
more likely to prevail with the 'Fair Sex.' The _Freeholder_ has several
papers worthy of the author in his best moods, the best of them,
perhaps, being the 'Tory Fox-hunter,' with which, to quote Johnson's
words, 'bigotry itself must be delighted.' In the year which gave birth
to the _Freeholder_, _The Drummer_, a comedy, was acted at Drury Lane,
and ran three nights. The play was not acknowledged by Addison, neither
was it printed in Tickell's edition of his works; but Steele, who
published an edition of the play, with a dedication to Congreve, never
doubted, and there is no reason to doubt, that Addison was the author.
'The piece,' Mr. Courthope writes, 'is like _Cato_, a standing proof of
Addison's deficiency in dramatic genius. The plot is poor and trivial,
nor does the dialogue, though it shows in many passages traces of its
author's peculiar vein of humour, make amends by its brilliancy for the
tameness of