surp the praise of
others, or as Steele, with far greater likelihood, insinuates, that he
could not without discontent impart to others any of his own. I have
heard that his avidity did not satisfy itself with the air of renown,
but that with great eagerness he laid hold on his proportion of the
profits.

Many of these papers were written with powers truly comic, with nice
discrimination of characters, and accurate observation of natural or
accidental deviations from propriety; but it was not supposed that he
had tried a comedy on the stage, till Steele after his death declared
him the author of The Drummer. This, however, Steele did not know to
be true by any direct testimony, for when Addison put the play into his
hands, he only told him it was the work of a "gentleman in the company;"
and when it was received, as is confessed, with cold disapprobation,
he was probably less willing to claim it. Tickell omitted it in his
collection; but the testimony of Steele, and the total silence of any
other claimant, has determined the public to assign it to Addison, and
it is now printed with other poetry. Steele carried The Drummer to the
play-house, and afterwards to the press, and sold the copy for fifty
guineas.

To the opinion of Steele may be added the proof supplied by the
play itself, of which the characters are such as Addison would have
delineated, and the tendency such as Addison would have promoted. That
it should have been ill received would raise wonder, did we not daily
see the capricious distribution of theatrical praise.

He was not all this time an indifferent spectator of public affairs. He
wrote, as different exigences required (in 1707), "The Present State
of the War, and the Necessity of an Augmentation;" which, however
judicious, being written on temporary topics, and exhibiting no peculiar
powers, laid hold on no attention, and has naturally sunk by its own
weight into neglect. This cannot be said of the few papers entitled the
Whig Examiner, in which is employed all the force of gay malevolence and
humorous satire. Of this paper, which just appeared and expired, Swift
remarks, with exultation, that "it is now down among the dead men." He
might well rejoice at the death of that which he could not have killed.
Every reader of every party, since personal malice is past, and the
papers which once inflamed the nation are read only as effusions of wit,
must wish for more of the Whig Examiners; for on no occa