powers were to become subservient to his interests. Naturally Louis represented everything that was hostile to England's future growth and her present cherished convictions and hopes. He was the great Roman Catholic prince, heading the Anti-Protestant party in Europe. He was an absolute monarch, like the Stuarts she had just turned out, the support and example of all the princely tyrants of his day and long after. Moreover, he was a dangerous monarch. He had created a military despotism of almost irresistible power. He was served by the best soldiers and the most cunning diplomats of his time. Even the genuine glory of his reign, the graceful culture, that æsthetic superiority of French society which extended French ideals irresistibly over the life and literature of all Europe, became too tyrannical in the end to be wholesome. To make head against all this tyranny, then, merely to save the life of the other races of Europe, vigorous resistance was demanded. The world needed an alliance of all who represented any human hope not included in the conceptions of life in vogue at the French court. When, therefore, on the decay of the Spanish reigning house, Louis seemed likely to get control of the resources of Spain, all Europe, with England at the head, rose against him. This was the meaning of Queen Anne's French war, which Marlborough was waging as Captain-General of the English forces, in alliance with the Dutch, Prince Eugene, the House of Savoy, and the Imperial German houses; this gave the great value to Marlborough's victories of Blenheim, Ramillies, and Oudenarde. This made it impossible even for the Jacobites. and Tories of England to avoid seeking support from the Whig party against France, even though France supported the Pretender to the English throne. But the results of this confusion of purposes in the court and cabinet of Queen Anne produced a series of vacillations and crosscurrents in her own policy. The changes of ministry in

her reign, though not regular, may be summarized as follows: (a) From 1702–1708 (drift toward the Whigs). She leaned at her accession first to the Tory party, making the Tory leaders, Harley and Godolphin, her chief ministers and refusing to appoint Whigs. But the war and the influence of Marlborough, the Captain-General, working largely through the curious submissive friendship of the Queen for the Duchess of Marlborough, drove them all slowly over to the Whig party. As the victories of Blenheim and Ramillies made England glorious, and the Whigs powerful, the Queen dismissed her Tories and appointed Whigs. She did it with reluctance. Of the "Junto," as the Whig leaders were called (Somers, Halifax, Oxford, Wharton, and Sunderland), she hated the last two personally, as much as she liked Harley. But she put Somers, Cowper, and even Sunderland and Wharton into power, and dismissed Harley. This movement brought Addison into office, first under Godolphin, and then under Wharton. Godolphin and Marlborough identified themselves with the Whigs, scandalizing the high Tories, but escaping dismissal. (b) From 1708-1710 (the Whigs in power; Tory reaction). The Queen's policy drifted back to the Tory side. She transferred her personal affections to Mrs. Masham, a cousin of Harley, who represented the Tory intrigue. The feelings of her subjects also turned against the costly war and the statesmen who carried it on. Then, in an unlucky moment, Godolphin undertook to prosecute a clergyman, Dr. Sacheverell, for preaching a sermon against the war and the ministers. The prosecution failed; and the Queen, who was a high-church woman, supported by the general feeling of the nation, treated the injured divine as a martyr. She dismissed Godolphin and one after another of the Whigs. In 1710 a new election gave a Tory majority in Parliament, and Harley came back to power as Lord Treasurer. (c) From 1710-1714 (the Tories in power). Then the fear of a

Stuart restoration restored the Whigs. Once more, when George I. was made King, the Whig party became again all powerful, holding office steadily till the accession of George III., and representing the Protestant principles and the Hanoverian succession.

24. Addison's fortunes carried him deep into these partypolitics of the reign of Anne. Like Milton, in the altered conditions of this new world, he played, in a sense, the useful part of modern editors in great contests of national politics. The needs of the Whig cause, bound "to own no force but argument," required, as Macaulay shows, the help of clever pens; and the Whig leaders were lucky to find one in Addison. It is an interesting story to read, and Macaulay tells it well,-how the young Fellow of Magdalen, by the extremely characteristic eighteenth century method of writing Latin verse, first came to the notice of the University men, who then as now were forward in the councils of the English state and church; how he became under their patronage at first a writer of what might be called. "Government poetry" for the Whigs; and then, with his friend Steele, discovered and mastered the great new form of literature, the periodical magazine, producing the immortal Tatler and Spectator, and their less known competitors. Not even Roman satire is more characteristic of its national origin than these essays. The papers of the Tatler are living pictures of the Englishmen who invented them. Even when they do not contain political "leading-articles' in the strict sense, they are filled with the soul of the English Whigs of Queen Anne's reign. Human life in them is a practical problem, like the problems of politics. To live it well society must argue and debate its questions, decide them for good and sufficient reasons, and abide by the decision. But under this fundamental notion of an argumentative criticism of life in calm and unimpassioned debate, the essayist continually introduces, in the guise of

evidence and testimony upon questions at issue, vivid pictures of contemporary life based upon his observation of human nature. His propositions and the testimony to them are carefully stated in clear and graceful English prose; the air of a quiet speaker to an intelligent assembly is maintained; though it is but a dull hearer who cannot recognize, in spite of some characteristic conventionalities of form, an expression of some of the deepest and tenderest experiences of the English nature. Even if we cannot now take these writings at their best value, at least we still can trace in them the undoubted origin of such forms of literature as at present do mean the most to all of us. The Tatler essays are the true ancestors of the modern novel, the modern magazine, and the modern newspaper. Everything that has been accomplished by English literature in these three great departments was lying in the path that Steele and Addison "blazed out" at the beginning of the eighteenth century with their pioneer periodicals, which they intended to be mirrors of contemporary life and thought.

25. Among the statesmen who, fortunately for English literature, discovered Addison, the most interesting person was his first patron, Charles Montague, also known in the essay as Halifax, from his title. Montague began, like Addison, as a scholar and a writer of Latin verse. He was intended, like Addison, to be a clergyman. But he left literature and divinity and entered Parliament. There he became one of the Whig leaders and helped not a little to bring about the Revolution of 1689. He displayed a wonderful ability as Lord Treasurer of King William, and will always be remembered, not for discovering Addison, the founder of modern English prose, but for initiating the three characteristic features of modern English financethe Bank of England, the national debt, and the sterling and stable currency. His interesting life may be read in Macaulay's "History of England."

1

26. Another of Addison's early patrons was Lord Chancellor Somers, to whom he dedicated his "Travels in Italy," the great lawyer, worker, and Whig politician, famous as John Locke's patron, not less than for the help he gave Addison. Another patron of later date was Lord Cowper, first Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. He is famous not only as a great Whig lawyer, but for actions transcending partisanship, such as his opposing Marlborough's desire to be made captain-general for life. In fact, Addison's path in life brought him in contact with the foremost Englishmen of his time. Another public man of great interest is Sidney Godolphin, the Lord Treasurer of Anne, who gave Addison the commission to write the " Campaign." He was the faithful servant said by Charles II. to be "never in the way and never out of the way," afterwards minister of James II. and favorite counsellor of Anne, who though a Tory in feeling, knew how to co-operate with the Whigs, as the "October Club" did not. Until Sacheverell attacked him he was ever the judicious adviser and calm counsellor of the Cabinet. Through his fatal impeachment of that divine, he ruined his own life and the Whig cause. Nor should the student of Addison forget Harley, Earl of Oxford. Though head of the Tory party in Anne's reign, he rose from the humblest beginnings through a history far more characteristic of the Whig politician, by tact, brains, and debating-power, to be one of the greatest nobles of England and the favored minister of Queen Anne. His immense aptitude for the business of government, his indifference to principle, and talent for intrigue, made him, within the limits of his situation,

1 For his connection with important events in King William's reign, see Macaulay's History of England.

2 It will be well for the student to look up, for example, in the index to Macaulay's History, the names of Sunderland, Shrewsbury, Cowper, and Wharton.