Among the rising politicians from the Tory camp that Godolphin and Marlborough had introduced to office in 1704, were Henry St John and Robert Harley, the former a very young man of shining abilities, as Secretaryat-War; and the latter a man of practical talents, and of such tact that he had been twice chosen Speaker, as Secretary of State. Mr Harley happened to be related in the same degree as the Duchess to the new favourite, Mrs Masham; and though he had not formerly troubled himself much with the connexion, he was not slow to recognise it now, when he met her in the course of his frequent audiences with the Queen in his official capacity. If Mrs Masham was cunning, Mr Harley was no less so. He affected a sort of frank playfulness, and by means of this, and flattering the prejudices of the Queen, he succeeded in insinuating himself into her good graces. His efforts were seconded by Mrs Masham, whom he had made his friend, and both were sanguine of promoting their ambitious views by this union of their interest.

Mr Harley seemed to see his way to rising to power on the ruins of the present administration. There was an increasing peace party in the House. The drain of the war was beginning to be felt in the scarcity of specie; complaints were loudly made of the conduct of the allies, and of their being the only parties benefited. These considerations, with the usual amount of exaggeration, had produced considerable effect. At the same time it was complained that the war was so feebly prosecuted in Spain as to result in failure; whilst in the Low Countries, where Marlborough commanded, it was conducted on a great scale, for his benefit and that of the allies. The Queen, moreover,

was becoming ardently desirous of its termination, not merely on these, but, in addition, on higher grounds, from the natural tenderness of her sex, on those of humanity.

Harley was now admitted to frequent clandestine conferences with the Queen, which were arranged by Mrs Masham. At the same time, he was making the most obsequious professions to Marlborough, to whom he was under great obligations.

Whilst the opponents of the ministry were attacking them with vigour, they of course were not without making reprisals. They branded their antagonists with the epithet of the French faction, and insinuations were made of their maintaining a correspondence with the exiled court. A rumour now also got afloat of an intended invasion of Scotland by the Pretender. The intrigues of Harley meantime had got wind, and Godolphin and Marlborough demanded his immediate dismissal. The Queen hesitated. In this critical state of affairs, a letter written by one Gregg, a clerk in Mr Harley's office, discovering to the court of France the designs of the ministry in relation to the war, was intercepted by the Duke of Marlborough. Though the most rigid investigation failed in tracing any complicity to the secretary, and Gregg himself exonerated him in the most emphatic manner, yet the affair was so damaging in public estimation that, taken in connexion with his recent duplicity and intrigue, now fully discovered, he found himself called upon to resign, (Feb. 11, 1708.) As he had assiduously cultivated a party to aid in the designs he had been maturing, they had sufficient faith in his prospects to follow his fortunes, leaving the Whigs for the present in undisputed possession of power, and the

Queen to chafe in her bonds, all the more rankling from the triumph obtained over her by those from whose sway she had been seeking to break loose. Nor can it be considered an unfitting termination of a scene of double duplicity, ingratitude, and disloyalty (to their patrons) in the agents she had employed.

Such is an outline bringing the events of public interest up to the period at which we have arrived.

To return to Steele: Since the relinquishment of his dramatic pursuits he had not attempted anything further than a little trifling dalliance with the Muses.* But though his then trivial appointments perhaps occupied him sufficiently to fritter away his time, he had too active a mind and too strong a motive for the exercise of his talents to continue so permanently. He was now, in fact, concerting a fresh literary campaign, destined to be more memorable than any of the preceding. The supper to which he alludes as given by Addison in honour of his new appointment, at which he was to assist in doing the honours, was not a farewell one, as he remained in London for some months after, and it was but two days preceding the appearance of the first result of his new literary labours that

"In the Muses' Mercury for January 1706-7 are some humorous lines by Steele to a young lady who had married an old man; and in that for February is the following lively song by him :"

"Me Cupid made a willing slave,

A merry wretched man;

I slight the nymphs I cannot have,
Nor dote on those I can.

"This constant maxim still I hold,
To baffle all despair-

The absent ugly are and old,

The present young and fair.'"

his friend started for the scene of his new official ones. That he did not communicate his design to Addison we may believe was not from any want of friendship, but doubtless that he might test the success of his experiment previously, and give him an agreeable surprise.

CHAPTER V.

THE PERIODICAL ESSAYIST AND DELINEATOR OF CHARACTER1709-1710.

Steele projects the Tatler, forming a new literary era-State of society at the period-A glance at preceding kindred writings-Origin of the assumed name of Isaac Bickerstaff-Adopted from a recent pamphlet in which Swift had foretold the death of Partridge, an almanacmaker and pretender in physic and astrology --The jeu d'esprit, which had been joined in by the other wits of the time, taken up by Steele in the Tatler-Partridge publishes a disclaimer-Extraordinary success of the Tatler-Swift one of its earliest contributors-Notice of the other contributors, Addison, Congreve, &c.-Dedications of the different volumes, and the subjects of them-Its close-General regret caused by its discontinuance-The good it accomplished.

SHORTLY after the date of the last of the foregoing letters, namely, on the 12th of April (o.s.) following, Steele commenced the first of that celebrated series of periodical papers of which the delineation of character, life, and manners, combined with literature and criticism, was the leading characteristic. For this task his previous experience as a dramatic writer rendered him peculiarly well qualified, and on these works his literary fame for the most part rests. They formed a new era, and added an additional department to the national literature, which has commonly been designated by the title of the British Classics, or Essayists. They produced such important effects for good in their own age, have had such a beneficial influence in