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 THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE
 
 PRINCESS ANNE OF DENMARK. 
 
 ENGRAVED BY H. DAVIDSON, FROM MEZZOTINT liY JOHN SMITH, AFTER THE PAINTING 
 BY W. WISSING AND I. VANDERVAART.
 
 Historical Characters 
 
 OF THE Reign of 
 
 Queen Anne 
 
 BY 
 
 Mrs. M. O. W. OLIPHANT 
 
 
 i 
 
 I'G^i 
 
 '3it 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1894
 
 Copyright, 1893, 1894, 
 By The Century Co. 
 
 The DeVinne Press.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Princess Anne i 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 The Queen and the Duchess 43 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 The Author of " Gulliver " 83 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Author of "Robinson Crusoe" 129 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Addison, the Humorist 167
 
 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Princess Anne of Denmark frontispiece 
 
 Engraved by H. Davidson, from mezzotint by John Smith, after the 
 painting by W. WissiNG and I. Vandervaart. 
 
 ^ ° ■' FACING PAGE 
 
 Anne Hyde, Duchess of York ^ 4 
 
 Engraved by T. Johnson, after the painting by Sir Peter Lely, in pos- 
 session of Earl Spencer. 
 
 John Evelyn . ^ 
 
 Engraved by E. Heinemann, after copperplate by F. Bartolozzi in the 
 British Museum. 
 
 Prince George of Denmark 12 
 
 Engraved by R. A. Muller, from mezzotint in the British Museum by 
 John Smith, after the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller. 
 
 Charles II 16 
 
 Engraved by T. Johnson, after original painting by Samuel Cooper, in 
 the gallery of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon. 
 
 Henry Compton, Bishop of London 20 
 
 Engraved from hfe by David Loggan, from print in the British Museum. 
 Engraved by E. Heinemann. 
 
 James II. in his Coronation Robes 24 
 
 Engraved by T. Johnson, after the painting by Sir Peter Lely, in posses- 
 sion of the Duke of Northumberland. 
 
 Mary, Princess of Orange 28 
 
 Engraved by C. A. Powell, after the painting by Sir Peter Lely, in pos- 
 session of the Earl of Crawford. 
 
 OuEEN Mary of Modena 32 
 
 Engraved by Charles State, after the painting by Sir Peter Lely, in 
 possession of Earl Spencer. 
 
 William III 40 
 
 From copperplate engraving by Cornelis Vermeulen, after the painting 
 by Adriaan Vander Werff. 
 
 vu
 
 vili Index of Illustrations 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 The Duke of Gloucester 44 
 
 Engraved by R. G. Tietze, from mezzotint by John Smith, after the paint- 
 ing by Sir Godfrey Kneller. 
 
 Garden Front, Hampton Court 48 
 
 Drawn by Joseph Pennell. Engraved by J. F. Jungling. 
 
 The Duke of Gloucester 52 
 
 Engraved by R. A. Muller, from miniature by Lewis Crosse, in the col- 
 lection at Windsor Castle ; by special permission of Queen Victoria. 
 
 Queen Anne 56 
 
 From copperplate engraving by Pieter Van Gunst, after the painting by 
 Sir Godfrey Kneller. 
 
 Windsor Terrace, Looking Westward 60 
 
 Engraved by J. W. Evans, after aquatint by P. Sandby. 
 
 The Duke of Marlborough 64 
 
 Engraved by J. H. E. Whitney, from an engraving by Pieter Van Gunst, 
 after painting by Adriaan Vander Werff. 
 
 The Duchess of Marlborough 72 
 
 Engraved by R. G. Tietze, from mezzotint after painting by Sir Godfrey 
 Kneller. 
 
 Bishop Gilbert Burnet 80 
 
 Engraved by R. A. Muller, from mezzotint in the British Museum by 
 John Smith, after the painting by John Riley. 
 
 Jonathan Swift 84 
 
 From photograph of original Marble Bust of Swift by Roubilliac 
 (1695-1762), now in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 Moor Park, Residence of Sir William Temple and of 
 Swift 88 
 
 Drawn by Charles Herbert Woodbury. Engraved by R. Varley. 
 
 Dean Swift 92 
 
 From copperplate engraving by Pierre Fourdrinier, after a painting by 
 Charles Jervas. 
 
 Stella's Cottage, on the Boundary of the Moor Park 
 Estate 96 
 
 Drawn by Charles Herbert Woodbury. Engraved by S. Davis. 
 
 Hester Johnson, Swift's " Stella," painted from Life by 
 Mrs. Delany, on the Wall of the Temple at Delville, 
 
 AND accidentally DESTROYED 100 
 
 Engraved by M. Haider, from copy of the original by Henry MacManus, 
 R. H. A., now in possession of Professor Dowden.
 
 Index of Illustrations ix 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Sir William Temple 104 
 
 Engraved by R. A. Muller, from an engraving in the British Museum, after 
 a painting by Sir Peter Lely. 
 
 Delany's House at Delville, where Swift stayed ... 108 
 
 Drawn by Harry Fenn. Engraved by C. A. Powell. 
 
 Marley Abbey, the Residence of Vanessa, now called 
 Selbridge Abbey 112 
 
 Drawn by Harry Fenn. Engraved by R. C. Collins. 
 
 George, Earl of Berkeley 120 
 
 From an unfinished engraving, in the British Museum, attributed to David 
 
 LOGGAN. 
 
 St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin 124 
 
 Drawn by Harry Fenn. Engraved by C. A. Powell. 
 
 Daniel Defoe 136 
 
 Engraved by C. A. Powell, after copperplate by M. Van der Gucht, in 
 the British Museum, 
 
 Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, where Defoe is sup- 
 posed TO HAVE been BAPTIZED 144 
 
 Drawn by Harry Fenn. Engraved by H. E. Sylvester. 
 
 Robert Harley, Earl OF Oxford 152 
 
 Engraved by John P. Davis, after the original painting by Sir Godfrey 
 Kneller, in the British Museum. 
 
 Joseph Addison 176 
 
 Engraved by T. Johnson, from mezzotint by Jean Simon, after painting by 
 Sir Godfrey Kneller. 
 
 Sidney, Earl of Godolphin 192 
 
 Engraved by Peter Aitken, from mezzotint by John Smith, in British 
 Museum. Painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller.
 
 THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE
 
 THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 THE PRINCESS ANNE 
 
 THE reign of Queen Anne is one of the most illustrious 
 in English history. In literature it has been common 
 to call it the Augustan age. In politics it has all the 
 interest of a transition period, less agitating, but not less im- 
 portant, than the actual era of revolution. In war, it is, with 
 the exception of the great European wars of the beginning of 
 this century, the most glorious for the English arms of any 
 that have elapsed since Henry V. set up his rights of conquest 
 over France. Opinions change as to the advantage of such 
 superiorities ; and, still more, as to the glory which is purchased 
 by bloodshed ; yet, according to the received nomenclature, and 
 in the language of all the ages, the time of Marlborough can- 
 not be characterized as anything but glorious. A great gen- 
 eral, statesmen of eminence, great poets, men of letters of the 
 first distinction — these are points in which this period can- 
 not easily be excelled. It pleases the fancy to step historically 
 from queen to queen, and to find in each a center of national 
 greatness knitting together the loose threads of the great web. 
 " The spacious times of great Elizabeth " bulk larger and more 
 magnificently in history than those of Anne, but the two eras 
 bear a certain balance which is agreeable to the imagination.
 
 2 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 And we can scarcely help regretting that the great age of 
 Wordsworth and Scott, Byron and Wellington, should not have 
 been deferred long enough to make the reign of Victoria the 
 third noblest period of modern English history. But time has 
 here balked us. This age is not without its own greatness, but 
 it is not the next in national sequence to that of Anne, as 
 Anne's was to that of Elizabeth, 
 
 In the reigns of both these queens this country was trem- 
 bling between two dynasties, scarcely yet removed from the 
 convulsion of great political changes, and feeling that nothing 
 but the life of the sovereign on the throne stood between it and 
 unknown rulers and dangers to come. The deluge, in both 
 cases, was ready to be let loose after the termination of the 
 life of the central personage in the state. And thus the reign 
 of Anne, like that of Elizabeth, was to her contemporaries the 
 only piece of solid ground amid a sea of evil chances. What 
 was to come after was clear to none. 
 
 But in the midst of its agitations and all its exuberant life 
 — the wars abroad, the intrigues at home, the secret corre- 
 spondences, the plots, the breathless hopes and fears — it is 
 half ludicrous, half pathetic, to turn to the harmless figure of 
 Queen Anne in the center of the scene — a fat, placid, middle- 
 aged woman full of infirmities, with little about her of the 
 picturesque yet artificial brightness of her time, and no gleam 
 of reflection to answer to the wit and genius which have made 
 her age illustrious. A monarch has the strangest fate in this 
 respect : as long as she or he lives, the conscious center of 
 everything whose notice elates and elevates the greatest; but 
 as soon as his day is over, a mere image of state visible among 
 his courtiers only as some unthought-of lackey or faded gentle- 
 man usher throws from his little literary lantern a ray of passing 
 illumination upon him. The good things of their lives are thus 
 almost counterbalanced by the insignificance of their historical
 
 The Princess Anne 3 
 
 position. Anne was one of the sovereigns who may, without 
 too great a strain of hyperbole, be allowed to have been be- 
 loved in her day. She did nothing to repel the popular devo- 
 tion. She was the best of wives, the most sadly disappointed 
 of childless mothers. She made pecuniary sacrifices to the 
 weal of her kingdom such as few kings or queens have 
 thought of making. And she was a Stuart, Protestant, and 
 safe, combining all the rights of the family with those of or- 
 thodoxy and constitutionalism, without even so much offense 
 as lay in a foreign accent. There was indeed nothing foreign 
 about her, a circumstance in her favor which she shared with 
 the other great English queen regnant, who, like her, was 
 English on both sides of the lineage. 
 
 All these points made her popular and, it might be per- 
 missible to say, beloved. If she had been indifferent to her 
 father's deprivation, she had not at least shocked popular feel- 
 ing by any immediate triumph in succeeding him, as Mary had 
 done ; and her mild Englishism was delightful to the people 
 after grim William with his Dutch accent and likings. But the 
 historians have not been kind to Anne. They have lavished 
 ill names upon her : a stupid woman, — " a very weak woman, 
 always governed blindly by some female favorite," — nobody 
 has a civil word to say for her. Yet there is a mixture of the 
 amusing and the tragic in the appearance of this passive 
 figure seated on high, presiding over all the great events of 
 the epoch, with her humble feminine history, her long anguish 
 of motherhood, her hopes so often raised and so often shattered, 
 her stifled family feeling, her profound and helpless sense of 
 misfortune. 
 
 There is one high light in the picture, however, though but 
 one, and it comes from one of the rarest and highest sentiments 
 of humanity: the passion of friendship, of which women are popu- 
 larly supposed to be incapable, but which never existed in more
 
 4 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 complete and disinterested exhibition than in the bosom of this 
 poor queen. It is sad that it should have ended in disloyalty 
 and estrangement; but, curiously enough, it is not the breach of 
 this close union, but the union itself, which has exposed Anne to 
 the censure and contempt of all her biographers and historians. 
 To an impartial mind we think few things can be more interest- 
 ing than the position of these two female figures in the fore- 
 ground of English life. Their friendship brought with it no 
 harm to England ; no scandal, such as lurks about the ante- 
 chamber of kings, and which has made the name of a favorite 
 one of the most odious titles of reproach, could attach in any 
 way to such a relationship. And nothing could be better adapted 
 to enhance the dramatic features of the scene than the contrast 
 between the two friends whose union for many years was so 
 intimate and so complete. 
 
 Yet her friend was as like to call forth such devotion as ever 
 woman was. Seldom has there been a more brilliant figure in 
 history than that of the great duchess, a woman beloved and 
 hated as few have ever been; holding on one side in absolute 
 devotion to her the s^reatest hero of the time, and on the other 
 rousing to the height of adoration the mild and obtuse nature 
 of her mistress ; keeping her place on no ground but that of 
 her own sense and spirit, amid all intrigues and opposition, for 
 many of the most remarkable years of English history, and de- 
 fending herself with such fire and eloquence when attacked, 
 that her plea is as interesting and vivid as any controversy of 
 to-day, and it is impossible to read it without taking a side, 
 with more or less vehemence, in the exciting quarrel. Such a 
 woman, standing like a beautiful Ishmael with every man's 
 hand against her, yet fearing no man, and ready to meet every 
 assailant, makes a welcome variety amid the historical scenes 
 which so seldom exhibit anything so living, so imperious, so 
 bold and free. That she has got litde mercy and no indul-
 
 ANNE HYDE, DUCHESS OF YORK. 
 
 ENGRAVED BY T. JOHNSON, AFTER THE PAINTING BY SIR PETER I.ELY. 
 IN POSSESSION OF EARL SPENCER.
 
 The Princess Anne 5 
 
 gence, that all chivalrous sentiment has been mute in respect to 
 her, and an angry ill-temper takes possession of every historian 
 who names her name, rather adds to the interest than takes 
 from it. Women in history, strangely enough, seem always to 
 import into the chronicle a certain heat of personal feeling 
 unusual and undesirable in that region of calm. Whether it is 
 that the historian is impatient at finding himself arrested by the 
 troublesome personalities of a woman, and that a certain resent- 
 ment of her intrusion colors his appreciation of her, or that her 
 appearance naturally possesses an individuality which breaks 
 the line, it is difficult to tell; but the calmest chronicler becomes 
 a partizan when he treats of Mary and Elizabeth, and no man 
 can name Sarah of Marlborough without a heat of indignation 
 or scorn, almost ridiculous, as being so long after date. 
 
 To us the unfailing vivacity and spirit of the woman, the 
 dauntless stand she makes, her determination not to be over- 
 come, make her appearance always enlivening; and art could 
 not have designed a more complete contrast than that of the 
 homely figure by her side, with appealing eyes fixed upon her, a 
 little bewildered, not always quick to understand — a woman 
 born for other uses, but exposed all her harmless life to the 
 fierce light that beats upon a throne. For her part, she has no 
 defense to make, no word to say ; let them spend all their jibes 
 upon her, Anne knows no reply. Her slow understanding and 
 want of perception give her a certain composure which in a' 
 queen answers very well for dignity ; yet there is something 
 whimsically pathetic, pitiful, incongruous in the fate Avhich has 
 placed her there, which can scarcely fail to soften the heart of 
 the spectators. 
 
 The tragedy of Anne's life, unlike that of her friend, had no 
 utterance, and there was nothing romantic in her appearance 
 or surroundings to attract the lovers of the picturesque. Yet 
 in the blank of her humble intellect she discharged not amiss
 
 6 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 the duties that were so much too great for her; and if she was 
 disloyal to her friend in the end, that betrayal only adds an- 
 other touch of pathos to the spectacle of helplessness and 
 human weakness. It is only the favored few of mankind who 
 are wiser and better, not feebler and less noble, as life draws 
 toward its end. 
 
 Anne was, like Elizabeth, the daughter of a subject. Her 
 mother, Anne Hyde, the daughter of the great Clarendon, 
 though naturally subjected to the hot criticism of the moment 
 on account of that virtue which refused anything less from her 
 prince than the position of wife, was not a woman of much in- 
 dividual character, nor did she live long enough to influence 
 much the training of her daughters. Historians have not hesi- 
 tated to sneer at the prudence with which this young lady 
 secured herself by marriage, when so many fairer than she 
 were less scrupulous — a reproach which is somewhat unfair, 
 considering what would certainly have been said of her had 
 she not done so. Curiously enough, her own father, whether in 
 sincerity or pretense, seems at the moment to have been her 
 most severe critic, exculpating himself with unnecessary energy 
 from all participation in the matter, and declaring that if it were 
 true "the king should Immediately cause the woman to be 
 sent to the Tower" till Parliament should have time to pass 
 an act cutting off her head. It would appear, however, from 
 the contemporary narratives of Pepys and Evelyn that he was 
 not so bad as his words, for he seems to have supported and 
 shielded his daughter during the period of uncertainty which 
 preceded the acknowledgment of her marriage, and to have 
 shared in the general satisfaction afterward. But this great 
 marriage was not of much advantage to her family. It did not 
 hinder Clarendon's disgrace and banishment, nor were his sons 
 after him anything advantaged by their close relationship to 
 two queens.
 
 The Princess Anne 7 
 
 The Duchess of York does not seem to have been remark- 
 able in any way. She is said to have governed her husband ; 
 and she died a Roman Catholic, — the first of the royal family 
 to lead the way in that fatal particular : but did not live long 
 enough to affect the belief or training of her children. 
 
 There was an interval of three years in age between 
 Mary and Anne. The eldest, Mary, was like the Stuarts, 
 with something of their natural grace of manner ; the younger 
 was a fair English child, rosy and plump and blooming; in 
 later life they became more like each other. But the chief 
 thing they inherited from their mother was what is called in fine 
 language, " a tendency to embonpoint," with, it is said, a love 
 of good eating, which helped to produce the other peculiarity. 
 
 The religious training of the princesses is the first thing we 
 hear of them. They were put under the charge of a most ortho- 
 dox tutor, Compton, Bishop of London, with much haste and 
 ostentation — their uncle, Charles II,, probably feeling with his 
 usual cynicism that the sop of two extra- Protestant princesses 
 would please the people, and that the souls of a couple of girls 
 could not be of much importance one way or another. How 
 they fared in respect to the other features of education is not 
 recorded. Lord Dartmouth, in his notes on Bishop Burnet's 
 history, informs us that King Charles IL, struck by the melodi- 
 ous voice of the little Lady Anne, had her trained in elocution 
 by Mrs. Barry, an actress ; while Colley Cibber adds that she 
 and her sister were instructed by the well-known Mrs. Betterton 
 to take their parts in a little court performance when Anne was 
 but ten and Mary thirteen ; but whether these are two accounts 
 of the same incident, or refer to distinct events, seems doubtful. 
 
 The residence of the girls was chiefly at Richmond, where 
 they were under the charge of Lady Frances Villiers, who had 
 a number of daughters of her own, one of whom, Elizabeth, 
 went with Mary to Holland, and was, in some respects, her
 
 8 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 evil genius. We have, unfortunately, no court chronicle to 
 throw any light upon the lively scene at Richmond, where this 
 little bevy of girls grew up together, conning their divinity, 
 whatever other lessons might be neglected; taking the air upon 
 the river in their barges; following the hounds in the colder 
 season, for this robust exercise seems to have been part of 
 their training. When their youthful seclusion was broken by 
 such a great event as the court mask, in which they played 
 their little parts, — Mrs. Blogge, the saintly beauty, John Eve- 
 lyn's friend, Godolphin's wife, acting the chief character, in a 
 blaze of diamonds, — or tha;t state visit to the city when King 
 Charles in all his glory took the girls, his heirs, with him, 
 no doubt the old withdrawing-rooms and galleries of Rich- 
 mond rang with the story for weeks after. Princess Mary, her 
 mind perhaps beginning to own a little agitation as to royal 
 suitors, would have other distractions ; but as to the Lady Anne, 
 it soon came to be her chief holiday when the young Duchess 
 of York, her stepmother, came from town in her chariot, or by 
 water, in a great gilded barge breasting up the stream, to pay 
 the young ladies a visit. For in the train of that princess was 
 the young maid of honor, a delightful, brilliant espiegle, full of 
 spirit and wilfulness, who bore the undistinguished name of 
 Sarah Jennings, and brought with her such life and stir and 
 movement as dispersed the dullness wherever she went. 
 
 There is no such love as a young girl's adoration for a beau- 
 tiful young woman, a little older than herself, whom she can 
 admire and imitate and cling to, and dream of with visionary 
 passion. This was the kind of sentiment with which the little 
 princess regarded the bright and animated creature in her 
 young stepmother's train. Mary of Modena was herself only a 
 few years older than her stepchildren. They were all young 
 together, accustomed to the perpetual gaiety of the court of 
 Charles II., though, let us hope, kept apart from its license, and
 
 JOHN EVELYN. 
 
 ENGRAVED BY E. HEINEMANN, AFTER COPPERPLATE BY F. BARTOLOZZI 
 IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
 
 The Princess Anne 9 
 
 no shadow of fate seems to have fallen upon the group of girls 
 in their early peaceful days. Anne in particular would seem to 
 have been left to hang upon the arm and bask in the smiles of 
 her stepmother's young lady in waiting at her pleasure — with 
 many a laugh at premature favoritism. " We had used to play 
 together when she was a child," said the great duchess long 
 after. " She even then expressed a particular fondness for me ; 
 this inclination increased with our years. I was often at court, 
 and the princess always distinguished me by the pleasure she 
 took to honor me preferably to others with her conversation 
 and confidence. In all her parties for amusement, I was sure 
 by her choice to be one." 
 
 Mistress Sarah was one of the actors in the mask above 
 referred to ; she was in the most intimate circle of the Duke 
 of York's household, closely linked to all its members, in that 
 relationship, almost as close as kindred, which binds a court 
 together. 
 
 And no doubt it added greatly to the attractions which 
 the bright and animated girl exercised over her playmates and 
 companions, that she had already a romantic love-story, and, at a 
 period when matches were everywhere arranged, as at present 
 in continental countries, by the parents, made a secret marriage, 
 under the most romantic circumstances, with a young hero al- 
 ready a soldier of distinction. He was not an irreproachable 
 hero. Court scandal had not spared him. He was said to have 
 founded his fortune upon the bounty of one of the shameless 
 women of Charles's court. But the imagination of the period 
 was not over-delicate, and probably had he not become so 
 great a man, and acquired so many enemies, we should have 
 heard little of John Churchill's early vices. About his sister, 
 Arabella Churchill, unfortunately there could not be any doubt; 
 and it is a curious instance of the sudden efflorescence now 
 and then of a race which neither before nor after is of particular
 
 lo The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 note, that Marlborough's sister should have been the mother 
 of that one illustrious Stuart who might, had he been legiti- 
 mate, have changed the fortunes of the house — the Duke 
 of Berwick. Had she, instead of Anne Hyde, been James's 
 duchess, what a difference might have been made in his- 
 tory ! Nobody had heard of the Churchills before — they 
 have not been a distinguished race since. It is curious that 
 they should have produced, all unawares, without preparation 
 or warning, the two greatest soldiers of the age. 
 
 Young Churchill was attached to the Duke of York's service, 
 as Sarah Jennings was to that of the duchess. He had served 
 abroad with distinction. In 1672, when France and England for 
 once, in a way, were allies against Holland, he had served under 
 the great Turenne, who called him "my handsome Englishman," 
 and vaunted his gallantry. He was but twenty-two when he 
 thus gave proofs of his future greatness. When he returned, 
 after various other exploits, and resumed his court service, the 
 brilliant maid of honor, whom the little princess adored, at- 
 tained a complete dominion over the spirit of the young soldier. 
 There were difficulties about the marriage, for he had no for- 
 tune, and his provident parents had secured an heiress for him. 
 But it was at length accomplished so secretly that even the bride 
 was never quite certain of the date, in the presence and with the 
 favor of Mary of Modena herself Sarah, if the dates are 
 correct, must have been eighteen at this period, and her little 
 princess fourteen. What a delightful interruption to the dull- 
 ness of Richmond to hear all about it when the Duchess of 
 York came with her train and the two girls could wander 
 away together in some green avenue till Lady Frances sent 
 a page or an usher after them ! 
 
 Mary of Modena must have been a lover of romances, and 
 true love also, though her youth had fallen to such a gruesome 
 bridegroom as James Stuart; for not only Sarah Jennings
 
 The Princess Amie ii 
 
 and her great general, who were to have so great a hand in 
 keeping that poor lady's son from his kingdom, but Mary 
 Blogge and her statesman, who was to rule England so wisely 
 in the interest of the opposing side, were both secretly married 
 under the young duchess's wing, she helping, planning, and 
 sanctioning the secret. How many additional bitternesses must 
 this have put into her cup when she was sitting, a shadow 
 queen, at St. -Germain, and all those people whom she had 
 loved and caressed were swaying the fortunes of England ! 
 And who "can tell what tender recollections of his secret wed- 
 ding and the sweet and saintly prude whom King James's 
 young wife gave him, may have touched the soul of Godolphin 
 in those hankerings after his old master — if it were not, as 
 scandal said, to his old mistress — which moved him from time 
 to time, great minister as he was, almost to the verge of treach- 
 ery ! The Churchills, it must be owned, showed little gratitude 
 to their royal patrons. 
 
 When the Princess Mary married and went to Holland with 
 her husband, the position of her sister at home became a more 
 important one. Anne was not without some experience of 
 travel and those educational advantages which the sight of 
 foreign countries are said to bring. She went to The Hague 
 to visit her sister. She accompanied her father, sturdy little 
 Protestant as she was, when he was in disgfrace for his relieious 
 views, and spent some time in Brussels, from which place she 
 wrote to one of the ladies about the court a letter which has 
 been preserved, — with just as much and as little reason as any 
 other letter of a fifteen-year-old girl with her eyes about her, at 
 a distance of two hundred years, — in which the young lady 
 describes a ball she had seen, herself hicognita, at which some 
 gentlemen "danced extremely well — as well if not better 
 than the Duke of Monmouth or Sir E. Villiers, which I think 
 is very extraordinary," says the girl, no doubt sincerely believ-
 
 1 2 The Reign of Qtteen Anne 
 
 ing that the best of all things was to be found at home. She 
 had little difficulties about her spelling, but that was common 
 enough. "As for the town," says the Princess Anne, " me- 
 thinks tho' the streets are not so clean as in Holland, yet they 
 are not so dirty as ours ; they are very well paved and very 
 easy — they only have od smells." This is a peculiarity which 
 has outlived her day, and it would seem to imply that England, 
 even before the invention of sanitary science, was superior in 
 this respect at least to the towns of the Continent. 
 
 After these unusual dissipations Anne remained in the shade 
 until she married, in 1683, George, Prince of Denmark, a per- 
 fectly inoffensive and insignificant person, to whom she gave, 
 during the rest of her life, a faithful, humdrum, but unbroken 
 attachment, such as shows to little advantage in print, but 
 makes the happiness of many a home. This marriage was 
 another sacrifice to the Protestantism of England, and in that 
 point of view pleased the people much. King Charles, glad to 
 satisfy the country by any act which cost him nothing, thought 
 it "very convenient and suitable." James, unwilling, but pow- 
 erless, grumbled to himself that "he had little encouragement 
 in the conduct of the Prince of Orange to marry another 
 daughter in the same interest," but made no effort against it. 
 The prince himself produced no very great impression, one 
 way or another, as indeed he was little fitted to do. " He has 
 the Danish countenance, blonde," says Evelyn, in his diary; 
 "of few words; spoke French but ill ; seemed somewhat heavy, 
 but is reported to be valiant." He had never any occasion to 
 show his valor during his long residence in England, but many 
 to prove the former quality, — the heaviness, — which was only too 
 evident ; but Anne herself was not brilliant, and she was made 
 for friendship, not for passion in the ordinary sense of the word. 
 She never seems to have been in the smallest way dissatisfied 
 with her heavy, honest goodman. He was fond of eating and
 
 PRINCE GEORGE OF DENMARK. 
 
 HNGRAVED BY R. A. MULLER, FROM MEZZOTINT IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 BY JOHN S^^TH, AFTER THE PAINTING BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER.
 
 The Princess Anne 13 
 
 drinking, but of no more dangerous pleasures. Her peace of 
 mind was fluttered by no rival, nor her feminine pride touched. 
 Her attendants might be as seductive as they pleased, this 
 steady, stolid husband was immovable, and there is no doubt 
 that the princess appreciated the advantages of this immunity 
 from one of the thorns which were planted in every other royal 
 pillow. 
 
 Her marriage had another advantage of giving her a house- 
 hold and court of her own, and enabled her at once to secure 
 for herself the companionship of her always beloved friend. 
 " So desirous was she," says Duchess Sarah, "of having me 
 always near her, that upon her marriage with the Prince of 
 Denmark, in 1683, it was at her own earnest request to her 
 father I was made one of the ladies of her bedchamber. What 
 conduced to make me the more agreeable to her in this station 
 was, doubtless," she adds with candor, "the dislike she con- 
 ceived to most of the other persons about her, and particularly 
 for her first lady of the bedchamber — the Countess of Claren- 
 don, a lady whose discourse and manner could not possibly 
 recommend her to so young a mistress ; for she looked like a 
 mad-woman and talked like a scholar. Indeed, her highness's 
 court was so oddly composed that I think it would be making 
 myself no great compliment if I should say her choosing to 
 spend more of her time with me than with any of her other 
 servants did no discredit to her taste." 
 
 Lady Clarendon was the wife of the great chancellor's son, 
 and was thus the aunt, by marriage, of the princess — not always 
 a very endearing relationship. She was not a great lady by 
 birth, and though a friend of Evelyn's and a highly educated 
 woman, might easily be supposed to be a little oppressive in 
 a young household where her relationship gave her a certain 
 authority. 
 
 The prince was dull, the princess had not many resources.
 
 14 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 They settled down in homely virtue, close to the court with all 
 its scandals and gaieties, but not quite of it; and nothing could 
 be more natural than that Anne should eagerly avail herself of 
 the always amusing, always lively companion who had been 
 the friend of her youth. The Cockpit, which was Anne's resi- 
 dence, had been built as a royal playhouse, first for the sport 
 indicated by its name, then for the more refined amusements of 
 the theater, but had been afterward turned into a private resi- 
 dence, and bought by Charles II. for his niece on her marriage. 
 It formed part of the old palace of Whitehall, and must have 
 been within sight and sound of the constant gaieties going on 
 in that lawless household, in the best of which the princess and 
 her attendant would have their natural share. No doubt to 
 hear Lady Churchill's lively satirical remarks upon all this, and 
 the flow of her brilliant malice, must have kept the household 
 lively, and brightened the dull days and tedious waitings of 
 maternity, into which Anne was immediately plunged, drawing 
 a laugh even from stupid George in the chimney-corner. And 
 there was this peculiarity to make the whole more piquant; that 
 it was virtue, irreproachable, and no doubt pleasantly self-con- 
 scious of its superiority, which thus got its fun out of vice. The 
 two young couples on the other side of the way were immacu- 
 late, devoted exclusively to each other, thinking of neither man 
 nor woman save their lawful mates. Probably neither the prin- 
 cess nor her lady in waiting were disgusted by gossip about 
 the Portsmouths and Castlemaines, but took these ladies to 
 pieces with indignant zest and spared no jibe. And though 
 the remarks might be too broad for modern liking, and the 
 fun somewhat unsavory, we cannot but think that amidst the 
 noisy and picturesque life of that wild Restoration era, full 
 of corruption, yet so gay and sparkling to the spectator, this 
 little household of the Cockpit is not without its claims upon 
 our attention. There was not in all Charles's court so splendid a
 
 The Princess Anne 15 
 
 couple as the young Churchills: he already one of the most 
 distinguished soldiers of the age, she a beautiful young woman 
 overflowing with wit and energy. And Princess Anne was 
 very young ; in full possession of that beaute de diablc which, 
 so long as it lasts, has its own charm, the beauty of color and 
 freshness and youthful contour. She had a beautiful voice, the 
 prettiest hands, and the most affectionate heart. If she were 
 not clever, that matters but little to a girl of twenty, taught by 
 love to be receptive, and called upon for no effort of genius. 
 Honest George behind backs was not much more than a piece 
 of still life, but an inoffensive and amiable one, taking nothing 
 upon him. If there was calculation in the steadfastness with 
 which the abler pair possessed themselves of the confidence, 
 and held fast to the service of their royal friends, it would be 
 hard to assert that there was not some affection too, at least on 
 the part of Sarah, who had known every thought of her little 
 princess's heart since she was a child, and could not but be flat- 
 tered and pleased by the love showered upon her. At all events, 
 in Anne there was no unworthy sentiment ; everything about her 
 appeals to our tenderness. When she attained what seems to 
 have been the summit of her desires and secured her type of ex- 
 cellence, the admired and adored paragon of her childhood, for 
 her daily companion, the formal tides and addresses which her 
 rank made necessary became irksome beyond measure to the 
 simple-hearted young woman whose hard fate it was to have 
 been born a princess. The impetuosity of her affection, her 
 rush, so to speak, into the arms of her friend, her pretty 
 youthful sentiment, so fresh and natural, her humility and sim- 
 plicity, are all pleasant to contemplate. Litde more than a 
 year after her marriage, after the closer union had begun, she 
 writes thus: 
 
 If you will let me have the satisfaction of hearing from you again 
 before I see you, let me beg of you not to call me " your highness " at
 
 1 6 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 every word, but to be as free with me as one friend ought to be with 
 another. And you can never give me any greater proof of your friend- 
 ship than in telHng me your mind freely in all things, which I do beg 
 of you to do : and if it ever were in my power to serve you, nobody 
 would be more ready than myself I am all impatience for Wednes- 
 day. Till then farewell. 
 
 Upon this there ensued a little sentimental bargain between 
 the two young women. It was not according to the manners 
 of the time that they should call each other Anne and Sarah, 
 and the fashion of the Aramintas and Dorindas had not yet 
 arrived from Paris. They managed the transformation neces- 
 sary in a curiously matter-of-fact and English way : 
 
 She grew uneasy to be treated by me with the form and ceremony due 
 to her rank ; nor could she bear from me the sound of words which im- 
 plied in them distance and superiority. It was this turn of mind which 
 made her one day propose to me that whenever I should happen to be 
 absent from her we might in all our letters write ourselves by feigned 
 names, such as would import nothing of distinction of rank between us. 
 Morley and Freeman were the names her fancy hit upon, and she left 
 me to choose by which of them I should be called. My frank open 
 temper led me naturally to pitch upon Freeman, and so the princess 
 took the other ; and from this time Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman be- 
 gan to converse as equals, made so by affection and friendship. 
 
 Very likely these were the names in some young lady's book 
 which had been in the princess's childish library, — something a 
 generation before the " Spectator," — in which rural virtues and 
 the claims of friendship were the chief subjects. Morley is one 
 of the typical names of sentimental literature in the eighteenth 
 century, and might be originally introduced by some precursor 
 of those proper little romances which have in all ages been con- 
 sidered the proper reading for "the fair." 
 
 Mrs. Morley could be no other than the gentle ingenue, the 
 type of modest virtue, and Freeman was of all others the title 
 most suitable for Sarah, the bright and brave. Historians have 
 not been able to contain themselves for angry ridicule of this
 
 CHARLHS II. 
 
 ENGRAVED BY T. JOHNSON, AFTER ORK.INAL PAINTING BY SAMUEL COOPER, 
 IN THE GALI,ERY OF THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AM) (,ORDON.
 
 The Princess Anne 17 
 
 little friendly treaty. To us it seems a pretty incident. The 
 princess was twenty, the bedchamber woman twenty-four. 
 Their friendly traffic had not to their own consciousness at- 
 tained the importance of a historical fact. 
 
 The locality in which the royal houses in London stood was 
 very different then from its appearance now. Whitehall at 
 present is a great thoroughfare, full of life and movement, with 
 but one remnant of the old palace, — once the banqueting-hall, 
 now the chapel royal, where the window out of which Charles I. 
 is supposed to have passed to the scaffold is pointed out to 
 strangers, — and still presenting a bit of gloomy, stately front 
 to the street. 
 
 St. James's Park opposite is screened off and separated now 
 by the Horse Guards and other public buildings, a long and 
 heavy line which forms one side of the way. But in those 
 days there were neither public buildings nor busy street. The 
 palace, straggling and irregular, with walls and roofs on many 
 different levels, stood like a sort of royal village between the 
 river and the park, with the turrets of St. James twinkling in 
 the distance, in the sunshine, over the trees of the Mall, where 
 King Charles with all his dogs and gentlemen would stream 
 forth daily for his saunter or his game. The Cockpit was one 
 of the outlying portions of Whitehall upon the edge of the 
 park. 
 
 Anne had been but two years married when King Charles 
 died. And then the aspect of affairs changed. The mass in 
 the private chapel, and the presence here and there of some- 
 body who looked like a priest, at once started into prominence 
 and began to alarm the gazers more than the dissolute amuse- 
 ments of the court had ever done. James was not virtuous any 
 more than his brother. One of the first acts which the excellent 
 Evelyn, one of the best of men, had to do as commissioner of 
 the privy seal, was to affix that imperial stamp to a patent by
 
 1 8 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 which one of the new king's favorites was made Countess of Dor- 
 chester ; but James's immoraHties were not his chief character- 
 istics. He was a more dangerous king than Charles, who was 
 merely selfish, dissolute, and pleasure-loving. James was more ; 
 he was a bigoted Roman Catholic, eager to raise his faith to its 
 old supremacy, and the mere thought that the door which had 
 been so bolted and barred against popery was now set open 
 filled all England with the wildest panic. The nation felt itself 
 caught by the torrent which must carry it to destruction. Men 
 saw the dungeons of the Inquisition, the fires of Smithfield, be- 
 fore them as soon as the proscribed priest was readmitted and 
 mass once more openly said at an unconcealed altar. Never 
 was there a more universal or all-influential sentiment. The 
 terror, the unanimity, are things to wonder at. Sancroft and his 
 bishops were not constitutionalists. The personal rule of the 
 king had nothing in it that alarmed them ; but the idea of the 
 reintroduction of popery awoke such a panic in their bosoms as 
 drove them, in spite of their own tenets, into resistance ; and, 
 for the first time absolutely unanimous, England was at their 
 back. When we take history piecemeal, and read it through 
 the individual lives of the chief actors, we perceive with the 
 strangest sensations of surprise that at these great crises not 
 one of the leaders of the nation was sure what he wanted or 
 what he feared, or was even entirely sincere in his adherence to 
 one party against another. They were the courtiers of James, 
 and invited William; they were William's ministers, and kept 
 up a correspondence with James. The best of them was not 
 without a treacherous side. They were never certain which 
 was safest, which would last; always liable to lend an ear to 
 temptations from the other party, never sure that they might 
 not to-morrow morning find themselves in open rebellion against 
 the master of to-day. Yet, while almost every individual of 
 note was subject to this strange uncertainty, this confused
 
 The Princess Anne 19 
 
 and troubled vacillation, there was such a sweep of national 
 conviction, so strong a current of the general will, that the 
 supposed leaders of opinion were carried away by it, and com- 
 pelled to assume and act upon a conviction which was Eng- 
 land's, but which individually they did not possess. Nothing 
 can be made more remarkable, more unexplainable under any 
 other interpretations, than the way in which his entire court, 
 statesmen, soldiers, all who were worth counting, and so many 
 who were not, abandoned King James — some with a sort of 
 consternation, not knowing why they did it, driven by a force 
 they could not resist. No example of this can be more remark- 
 able than that of Clarendon, who received the news of his son's 
 defection to the Prince of Orange with what seems to be a 
 heartbroken cry : " O God ! that my son should be a rebel ! " 
 yet, presently, ten days afterward, is drawn away himself in a 
 kind of extraordinary confusion, like a man in a dream, like a 
 subject of mesmeric influence, although in all the following 
 negotiations he maintained James's cause as far as a man could 
 who did not accept ruin as a consequence. Scarcely one of 
 these men was whole-hearted or had any determined principle 
 in the matter. But in the mass of the nation behind them 
 was a force of conviction, of panic, of determination, that car- 
 ried them off their feet. The chief names of England appear 
 little more than straws upon the current, indicating its course, 
 but forced along by its fierce sweep and impetus, and not by 
 any impulse of their own. , 
 
 The Princess Anne occupied a very different position from 
 that of these bewildered statesmen. She had been brought up 
 in the strictest sect of her religion, Protestant almost more than 
 Christian, a churchwoman above all. To those who are capa- 
 ble of thinking about their faith it is always possible to believe 
 in the thoughts of other people, and conceive the likelihood, at 
 least, that they, in their own esteem, if not in any one else's,
 
 20 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 may be right — which is the only true foundation of toleration. 
 But it is the people who believe without thinking, who receive 
 what they are taught without exercising any judgment of their 
 own upon the subject, and cling to it in exactly the same 
 form in which they received it, with a conviction that its least 
 important detail is as necessary as its first principle, who furnish 
 that sancta simplicitas which makes the cruelest persecution 
 possible without turning the persecutors into fiends and barba- 
 rians. Though her mother had been a Roman Catholic, and 
 her father was one, and though many of her relations belonged 
 to the old church, Anne was a Protestant of the most unyielding 
 kind. She was in herself as good a type of the England of her 
 time as could have been found, far better than her abler and 
 larger-minded advisers. The narrowness of her mind and the 
 rigidity of her faith were above all reassurances of reason, all 
 guarantees of possibility. She was as much dismayed by her 
 father's determination to liberate and tolerate popery as the 
 least enlightened of his subjects. " Methinks it has a very dis- 
 mal prospect," she wrote as early as 1686, only the year after 
 James's accession. "Attempts," Lady Marlborough tells us, 
 " were made to draw his daughter into his designs. The king, 
 indeed, used no harshness with her ; he only discovered his 
 wishes by putting into her hands some books and papers 
 which he hoped might induce her to a change of religion, and 
 had she had any inclination that way the chaplains about 
 were such divines as could have said but little in defense of 
 their own religion or to secure her against the pretenses of Po- 
 pery recommended to her by a father and a king." This low 
 estimate of the princess's spiritual advisers is whimsically sup- 
 ported by Evelyn's opinion of Anne's first religious preceptor, — 
 Bishop Compton, — of whom the courtly philosopher declared 
 after hearing a sermon from him that " this worthy person's 
 talent is not preaching."
 
 HENRY COMPTON, BISHOP OF LONDON. 
 
 ENGRAVED FROM LIFE BY DAVID LOGGAN, FROM PRINT IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 ENGRAVED BY E. HEINEMANN.
 
 The Princess Anne 21 
 
 But Anne required no persuading to stimulate her in the fear 
 of popery and narrow devotion to the church, outside of which 
 she knew of no salvation. No doubt her father's popish tracts, 
 thino-s which in that age were held to possess many of the prop- 
 erties of the dynamite of to-day, scared the inflexible and un- 
 imaginative churchwoman as much as if they had been capable 
 of exploding and doing her actual damage. Her training, so 
 wisely adapted to please the Protestant party, had probably been 
 thought by her father and uncle to be a matter of complete in- 
 difference on any other ground ; but in this way they reckoned 
 altogether without their princess. With both James's daughters 
 the process was too successful. They feared popery more than 
 they loved their father. There seems not the slightest reason to 
 suppose that Anne was insincere in her anxiety for the church, 
 or that the panic which she shared with the whole country was af- 
 fected or unreal. It is impossible that she could expect her own 
 position to be improved by the substitution of her sister and her 
 sister's husband for the father who had always been kind to her. 
 The Churchills, whose church principles were not perhaps so 
 undeniable, and whose regard for their own interest was great, 
 are more difficult to divine ; and yet it appears an unnecessary 
 thing to refer their action to unworthy motives. It is asserted 
 by some that they had some visionary plan after they had over- 
 turned the existing economy by the help of William, of bring- 
 ing in their princess by a side wind and reigning through her 
 over the startled and subjugated nation. But granting that such 
 an imagination might have been conceived in the fertile and 
 restless brain of a young and sanguine woman, it seems impos- 
 sible to imagine that Churchill — a man of some experience in 
 the world, and some knowledge of William — could even for a 
 moment have believed that the grave and ambitious prince, who 
 was so near the throne, could have been persuaded or forced to 
 waive his wife's claims, and those still more imperative ones
 
 22 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 which his position of DeHverer gave him, in order to advance 
 the fortunes of any one else, least of all of the sister-in-law 
 whom he despised. 
 
 It is half ludicrous, half pathetic, in the midst of all the tu- 
 mult and confusion of the time, to note the constant allusions to 
 the princess's condition, which recurs whenever she is men- 
 tioned. There were always reasons why it should be especially 
 cruel to disturb her, and her state had constantly to be taken 
 into account. It was very natural in such circumstances that 
 she should more and more cling to her stronger friend, and find 
 no comfort out of her presence. "Whatever changes there are 
 in the world, I hope you will never forsake me, and I shall be 
 happy," she writes during this period of excitement and distress. 
 She herself was weak and not very wise. In a sudden emer- 
 gency neither she nor her husband were good for much. They 
 could carry on the routine of life well enough, but when unfore- 
 seen necessities came they stood helpless and bewildered ; but 
 Lady Churchill was quick of wit and full of inexhaustible re- 
 source. To her it was always given to know what to do. 
 
 It is unnecessary here to enter into the history of what 
 is called the Great Revolution. It is the great modern turning- 
 point of English history, and no doubt it is one of the reasons 
 why we have been exempted in later days from the agitations 
 of desperate and bloody revolutions which have shaken all 
 neighboring nations. Glorious and happy, however, scarcely 
 seem to be fit words to describe this extraordinary event. A 
 more painful era does not exist in history. There is scarcely an 
 individual in the front of affairs who was not guilty of treachery 
 at one time or another. They betrayed one another on every 
 hand ; they were perplexed, uncertain, full of continual alarms. 
 The king who went away was a gloomy bigot ; the king who 
 came was a cold and melancholy alien. Enthusiasm there was 
 none, nor even conviction, except of the necessity of doing some-
 
 The Princess Anne 23 
 
 thing of a wide-reaching and undeniable change. The part 
 which the ladies at the Cockpit played brings the hurry and ex- 
 citement of the movement to its crisis. Both in their way were 
 anxious for their respective husbands, absent in the suite of 
 James, and still in his power. When the report came that Lord 
 Feversham had begged of James "on his knees two hours " to or- 
 der the arrest of Churchill, Mrs. Freeman must have needed all 
 her courage ; while the faithful Morley wept, yet tried to emu- 
 late the braver woman, wondering in her excitement what her 
 own heavy prince was doing, and eager for William's advance, 
 which, somehow or other, was to bring peace and quiet. That 
 heavy prince meanwhile was mooning about with the perplexed 
 and unhappy king, uttering out of his blond mustache with an 
 atrocious accent his dull wonder, " Est il possible ? " as every 
 new desertion was announced, till mounting heavily one evening 
 after dinner, warmed and encouraged by a good deal of King 
 James's wine, and riding through the cold and dark, in his turn 
 he deserted too. Wlien this event happened, the excitement at 
 the Cockpit was overwhelming. The princess was "in a great 
 fright." " She sent for me," says Lady Churchill, " told me her 
 distress, and declared that rather than see her father, she would 
 jump out of window." King James was coming back to Lon- 
 don, sad and wroth, and perhaps the rumor that he would 
 have her arrested lent additional terrors to the idea of encoun- 
 tering his angry countenance. Lady Churchill went immedi- 
 ately to Bishop Compton, the princess's early tutor and con- 
 fidential adviser, and instant means were taken to secure her 
 flight. That very night, after her attendants were in bed, Anne 
 rose in the dark, and with her beloved Sarah's arm and support 
 stole down the back stairs to where the bishop, in a hackney 
 coach, was waiting for her. Other princesses in similar situa- 
 tions have owned to a thrill of pleasure in such an adventure. 
 No doubt at least she breathed the freer when she was out of
 
 24 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 the palace where King James with his dark countenance might 
 have come any day to demand from her an account of her hus- 
 band's behavior, or to upbraid her with her own want of affec- 
 tion. Anyhow, the sweep of the current had now reached her 
 tremulous feet, and she had no power any more than stronger 
 persons of resisting it. 
 
 Anne's position was very much changed by the Revolution. 
 If any ambitious hopes had been entertained or plans formed by 
 her household, they were speedily and very completely brought 
 to an end. The dull royal pair with their two brilliant guides 
 and counselors now found themselves confronted by another 
 couple of very different mark : the serious, somewhat gloomy, de- 
 termined, and self-concentrated Dutchman, and the new queen, 
 Mary, a person far more attractive and imposing than Anne; 
 two people full of character and power. We have no space 
 here, however, to appropriate to these remarkable persons. 
 William, in particular, belongs to larger annals and a history 
 more important than these sketches. Mary has left an epitome 
 of herself in her letters which is among the most wonderful of 
 individual revelations ; but this cannot now be our theme, 
 though the subject is a most attractive one. 
 
 Two persons so remarkable threw into the shade even 
 Churchill and Sarah, much more good Anne and George. 
 We have no reason to suppose that Mary entertained any 
 particular sentiment whatever toward her sister, from whom she 
 had been entirely separated for the greater part of her life, and 
 the history of their relations is a painful one from beginning 
 to end. No doubt the queen regarded the household of the 
 princess with the contempt which a woman with so entirely dif- 
 ferent a code would naturally entertain for a family in which 
 the heads were so lax and secondary, the counselors so promi- 
 nent. There was nothing in Mary which would help her to 
 understand the feeling with which Anne regarded her friend
 
 JAMES II. IN HIS CORONATION ROBES. 
 
 ENGRAVHI) I!Y T. JOHNSON, Al-TER THE PAINTING BY SIR PETER LELY, 
 IN POSSESSION OE THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND.
 
 The Princess Anne 25 
 
 Mary. She had herself made use of their influence in the time 
 when it was all important to secure every power in England 
 for William's service, but a proud distaste for the woman whom 
 the princess trusted as her equal soon awoke in the bosom of the 
 queen. The Churchills, however, served the new sovereigns 
 signally by persuading the princess to yield her own rights, and 
 consent to the conjoint reign, and to William's life sovereignty — 
 no small concession on the part of the next heir, and one which 
 only the passive character of Anne could have made to appear 
 insignificant. 
 
 Had she been a stronger and more intellectual woman, this 
 act would have borne the aspect of a magnanimous and noble 
 sacrifice to the good of the country, of her own interests, and 
 that of her children. As it was, her self-renunciation has got 
 her very little credit, either then or now, and it has been con- 
 sidered rather an evidence of the discretion of the Churchills 
 than of the generosity and patriotism of the princess. These, 
 perhaps, are rather large words to use in speaking of Anne, 
 but it must be remembered that a narrow mind is usually not 
 less, but more, tenacious of personal honor and advantage than 
 a great one, and that the dimmer an understanding may be, the 
 less it is- accessible to high reason and noble motive. This 
 sacrifice accomplished, however, there commenced a petty war 
 between Whitehall and the Cockpit, in which perhaps Mary 
 and Lady Churchill (now Marlborough) were the chief comba- 
 tants, but which from henceforward until her sister's death be- 
 came the principal feature in Anne's life. Continued squabbling 
 is never lovely even when it is between queens and princesses, 
 but in this case the injured person has had no little injustice, 
 and the offender so many partizans that it may not be amiss to 
 make Anne's side of the question a litde more apparent. 
 
 If her friend was to blame for embroiling Anne with the 
 queen, it can scarcely be believed that the princess's case would
 
 26 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 have been more satisfactory had she been left in her helplessness 
 to the tender mercies of William, and entirely dependent upon 
 his kindness, which must have happened had there been no bold 
 and strong adviser in the matter. There was no generosity in 
 the treatment which Anne received from the royal pair. She 
 had made a sacrifice to the security of their throne which 
 deserved some grace in return. But her innocent fancy for the 
 palace at Richmond, where the sisters had been brought up 
 together, was not indulged, nor would there be much excuse 
 even if she were in the wrong for the squabblings about her 
 lodging at Whitehall. But she cannot be said to have been in 
 the wrong in the next question which occurred, which was the 
 settlement of her own income. This she had previously drawn 
 from her father, according to the existing custom in the royal 
 family, and James had been always liberal and kind to her. 
 But it was a different thing to depend upon the somewhat 
 grudging hand of an economical brother-in-law, who had a 
 number of foreign dependents to provide for, and a great deal 
 to do with the money granted to him. He alarmed her friends 
 on this point at once by a remark made to Clarendon as to 
 what the princess could want with so large an income as thirty 
 thousand a year ; and he does not seem at any time or in any 
 particular to have shown consideration for her. Perhaps the 
 Churchills were afraid that their mistress would be less able 
 than usual to help and further their own fortunes, as is univer- 
 sally alleged against them ; but, had they been the most disinter- 
 ested couple in the world, it would still have been their duty to 
 do what they could to secure her against any caprice of the 
 new king, who had no right to be the arbiter of her fate. Lady 
 Marlborough's strenuous action to bring the question to the 
 decision of Parliament was nothing less than her mistress's 
 interests demanded. And the sense of the country was so far 
 with them that the princess's income was setded with very little
 
 The Princess Anne 27 
 
 difficulty upon a more liberal basis than her father's allowance; 
 which, considering that she, and the children of whom she 
 was every year becoming the mother, were the only acknow- 
 ledo-ed heirs of the throne, was a perfecdy natural and just 
 arrangement. 
 
 But the king and queen did not see it in this light. "Friends ! 
 what friends have you but the king and me ? " Queen Mary 
 asked with indignation. It is not to be supposed that she 
 meant any harm to her sister, but with also a sufficiently nat- 
 ural sentiment could not see what Anne's objection was to 
 dependence upon herself. 
 
 The position on both sides is so clearly comprehensible that 
 the strength of party feeling which makes Lord Macaulay de- 
 fend the somewhat petty attitude of his favorite monarch on 
 the occasion is very extraordinary. It requires no very subde 
 penetration to see the difference between an allowance that 
 comes from a father and that which depends upon the doubtful 
 friendship of a brother-in-law. Anne had fully proved her 
 capacity to consider the public weal above her own, and it 
 was unworthy of William even to wish to keep in the posidon 
 of a hanger-on a woman who had so gready promoted the 
 harmony of his own settlement. 
 
 Parliament finally voted her a revenue of fifty thousand 
 pounds a year, as a sort of compromise between the thirty 
 thousand pounds which King William grudged her and the 
 unreasonably large sum which some of her supporters hoped 
 to obtain ; but the king and queen never forgave her, and still 
 less her advisers, for what they chose to consider a want of 
 confidence tin themselves. 
 
 But William was always impatient of the incapable, and the 
 permission was absolutely denied to him. In all these claims 
 and refusals the position of Lady Marlborough as the princess's 
 right hand had been completely acknowledged by Queen Mary
 
 28 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 and her husband, who indeed attempted secret negotiations 
 with her on more than one occasion to induce her to moderate 
 Anne's claims and to persuade her into comphance with their 
 wishes. " She [the queen] sent a great lord to me to desire I 
 would persuade the Princess to keep the Prince from going to 
 sea; and this I was to compass without letting the Princess 
 know it was the Queen's desire . . . after this the Queen sent 
 Lord Rochester to me to desire much the same thing. The 
 Prince was not to go to sea, and this not going was to appear 
 his own choice." 
 
 Similar attempts were made in the matter of the allowance. 
 And it is scarcely possible to believe that Mary, a queen who 
 was not without some of the absolutism of the Stuart mind, 
 should have failed to feel a certain exasperation with the bold 
 woman who thus upheld her sister's little separate court and in- 
 terest, and was neither to be flattered nor frightened into sub- 
 servience. And very likely this little separate court was a 
 thorn in the side of the royal pair, keeping constant watch up- 
 on all their actions, maintaining a perpetual criticism, no doubt 
 leveling many a jibe at the Dutch retainers, and still more at 
 the Dutch master. Good-natured friends, even in the capacity 
 of courtiers, were no doubt found to whisper in the presence- 
 chamber the witticisms with which Sarah of Marlborough would 
 entertain her mistress — utterances not very brilliant, perhaps, 
 but sharp enough. It would not sweeten the temper of the 
 queen if she found out, for instance, that her great William 
 was known as Caliban in the correspondence of Mrs. Morley 
 and Mrs. Freeman. A hundred petty irritations always come 
 in in such circumstances to increase a breach. What the precise 
 occurrence was which brought about the final explosion is not 
 known, but one day after a stormy scene, in which the queen had 
 in vain demanded from her sister the dismissal of Lady Marl- 
 borough, an event occurred which took away everybody's breath.
 
 MARY, PRINCESS OF ORANGE. 
 
 ENGRAVED BY C. A. PO\Vi;i 1., AITER THE PAINTINr, BY SIR PETER LELY. 
 IN POSSESSION OE THE EARL OF CRAW loRD.
 
 The Princess Anne 29 
 
 This was the sudden dismissal, without reason assigned, at 
 least so far as the public knew, of Lord Marlborough from all 
 his offices. He was lieutenant-general of the army, and he was 
 a gentleman of the king's bedchamber. Up to this time there 
 had been nothing to find fault with in his conduct. William 
 was too good a soldier himself not to appreciate Marlborouo-h's 
 military talents, and he had behaved, if not with any enthusiasm 
 for the new order of affairs, with good taste at least in very 
 difficult circumstances. His desertion of James and his power- 
 ful presence and influence on the opposite side had contributed 
 much to the bloodless victory of the* Prince of Orano-e ; but 
 except so far as this went, Marlborough had shown no hostility 
 to his old master. In the convention he had voted for a 
 regency, and when it became evident that William's terms 
 must be accepted unconditionally or not at all, he had refrained 
 from voting altogether ; so that his support might be considered 
 lukewarm. But, on the other hand, he had served with o-reat 
 distinction abroad, acting with perfect loyalty to his new chief 
 while in command of the English forces. In short, his public 
 aspect up to this time would seem on the face of it to have 
 been irreproachable. 
 
 This being the case, his sudden dismissal from court filled his 
 friends with astonishment and dismay. Nobody understood its 
 why or wherefore. " An incident happened which I unwillingly 
 mention," says Bishop Burnet, "because it cannot be told with- 
 out some reflection on the memory of the queen, whom I always 
 honored beyond all the persons whom I have ever known." 
 This regretful preface affords an excellent guarantee of the 
 bishop's sincerity; but Lord Macaulay omits his statement of 
 the case altogether while quoting passages from the then un- 
 published manuscript which seemed to support his own views. 
 "The Earl of Nottingham," Burnet continues, "came to the 
 Earl of Marlborough with a message from the King telling him
 
 30 The Reign of Qtieen Anne 
 
 that he had no more use for his services, and therefore he 
 demanded all his commissions. What drew so sudden and 
 hard a message was not known, for he had been with the King 
 that morning and had parted with him in the ordinary manner. 
 It seemed some letter was intercepted that gave suspicions : it 
 is certain that he thought he was too little considered, and that 
 he had upon many occasions censured the King's conduct and 
 reflected on the Dutch." Lord Macaulay, on the other hand, ig- 
 noring this statement, assures his readers that the real ground 
 of the dismissal had been communicated to Anne on the pre- 
 vious night (notwithstanding that the great general had been 
 privileged to put on the king's shirt next morning as if nothing 
 had happened), and that it was in reality the discovery of a 
 plot for James's restoration, conceived by Marlborough, and in 
 which the princess herself was implicated. It was reported 
 to be Marlborough's intention to move in the House of Lords 
 an address to William, requesting him to dismiss the foreign 
 servants who surrounded him, and of whom the English were 
 bitterly jealous. Such a scheme of reprisals would have 
 had a certain humor in its summary reversal of the position, 
 and no doubt must Sarah herself have had some hand in its 
 construction, if it ever existed. William was as little likely 
 to give up Bentinck and Keppel as Anne was to sacrifice the 
 friends whom she loved, and a breach between the Parliament 
 and the king would have been, it was hoped, the natural result 
 — to be followed by a coup d'etat, in which James might be re- 
 placed under stringent conditions upon the throne. The sole 
 evidence for this plot is King James himself, who describes it in 
 his diary. Lord Macaulay adds that it is strongly confirmed 
 by Burnet, but this, we take leave to think, is not the case. At 
 the same time there seems no reason to doubt King James, 
 who adds that the plan was defeated by the indiscreet zeal of 
 some of his own Jideles, who feared that Marlborough, were he
 
 The Princess Aitne 31 
 
 once master of the situation, would put Anne on the throne 
 instead of her father. 
 
 Whether, however, this supposed proposal was, or was not, 
 the reason of Marlborough's dismissal, it is clear enough that he 
 had resumed a secret correspondence with the banished king at 
 St. -Germain, whom, not very long before, he had deserted. But 
 so had most of the statesmen who surrounded William, even 
 the admiral in whose hands the English reputation at sea was 
 soon to be placed. The sins of the others were winked at while 
 Marlborough was thus made an example of: perhaps because 
 he was the most dangerous ; perhaps because he had involved 
 the princess in his treachery, persuading her to send a letter 
 and make affectionate overtures to her father. Is it possible 
 that it was this very letter which Burnet says was intercepted, 
 inclosed most likely in one from Marlborough more distinct in 
 its offers? Here is Anne's simple performance, a thing not 
 calculated to do either harm or good : 
 
 I have been very desirous of some safe opportunity to make you a 
 sincere and humble offer of my duty and submission, and to beg you 
 will be assured that I am both truly concerned for the misfortunes of 
 your condition, and sensible as I ought to be of my own unhappiness : 
 as to what you may think I have contributed to it, if wishes could recall 
 what is past, I had long since redeemed my fault. I am sensible that 
 it would have been a great relief to me if I could have found means to 
 have acquainted you earlier with my repentant thoughts, but I hope 
 they may find the advantage of coming late — of being less suspected 
 of insincerity than perhaps they would have been at any time before. 
 It will be a great addition to the ease I propose to my own mind by 
 this plain confession, if I am so happy as to find that it brings any real 
 satisfaction to yours, and that you are as indulgent and easy to receive 
 my humble submissions as I am to make them in a free disinterested 
 acknowledgment of my fault, for no other end but to deserve and 
 receive your pardon. 
 
 These involved and halting sentences by themselves could 
 afford but little satisfaction to the anxious banished court at
 
 32 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 St. -Germain. To say so much, yet to say so little, though easy 
 to a confused intelligence, not knowing very well what it meant, 
 is a thing which would have taxed the powers of the most astute 
 conspirators. But there could be little doubt that a penitent 
 princess thus ready to implore her father's pardon, would be a 
 powerful auxiliary, with the country just then in the stage of 
 natural disappointment which is prone to follow a great crisis, 
 and that Marlborough was doubly dangerous with such a card in 
 his hands to play. 
 
 A little pause occurred after his dismissal. The court by 
 this time had gone to Kensington, out of sight and hearing of 
 the Cockpit, Whitehall having been burned in the previous year. 
 The princess continued, no doubt in no very friendly mood, to 
 take her way to the suburban palace in the evenings and make 
 one at her sister's game of basset, showing by her abstraction, 
 and the traces of tears about her eyes, her state of depression 
 yet revolt. But about three weeks after that great event, some- 
 thing suggested to Lady Marlborough the idea of accompanying 
 her princess to the royal presence. It was strictly within her 
 right to do so, in attendance on her mistress, and perhaps it was 
 considered in the family council at the Cockpit that the existing 
 state of affairs could not go on, and that it was best to end it 
 one way or another. One can imagine the stir in the ante- 
 chambers, the suppressed excitement in the drawing-room, when 
 the princess, less subdued than for some weeks past, her eyes 
 no longer red, nor the corners of her mouth drooping, came sud- 
 denly in out of the night, with the well-known buoyant figure 
 after her, proud head erect and eyes aflame, her mistress's train 
 upon her arm, but the air of a triumphant queen on her counte- 
 nance. There would be a pause of consternation — and for a 
 moment it would seem as if Mary, thus defied, must burst forth 
 in wrath upon the culprit. What glances must have passed be- 
 tween the court ladies behind their fans ! What whispers in the
 
 QUEEN MARY OF MODENA. 
 
 HNGRAVED BY CHARLES STATE, AFTER THE PAINTING BY SIR PETER LELY, 
 IN POSSESSION OF EARL SPENCER.
 
 The Princess Anne 33 
 
 corners ! The queen, in the midst, pale with anger, restraining 
 herself with difficulty; the princess, perhaps beginning to quake ; 
 but Sarah, undaunted, knowing no reason why she should not 
 be there — "since to attend the princess was only paying her 
 duty where it was owing." 
 
 But next morning brought, as they must have foreseen it 
 would bring, a royal missive, meant to carry dismay and terror, 
 in which Mary commanded her sister to dismiss her friend and 
 make instant submission. " I tell you plainly Lady Marlborough 
 must not continue with you in the circumstances in which her 
 lord is," the queen wrote ; "never anybody was suffered to live 
 at court in my Lord Marlborough's circumstances." There is 
 nothing undignified in Mary's letter. She was in all respects 
 more capable of expressing herself than her sister, and she had 
 so far right on her side that Lady Marlborough's appearance at 
 court was little less than a deliberate insult to her. " I have all 
 the reason imaginable to look upon you bringing her here as 
 the strangest thing that ever was done, nor could all my kind- 
 ness for you have hindered me showing you that moment, but I 
 considered your condition, and that made me master of myself 
 so far as not to take notice of it there," the queen said. The 
 princess's condition had often to be taken into consideration, 
 and perhaps she was not unwilling that her superiority in this 
 respect to her childless sister should be fully evident. She was 
 then within a few weeks of her confinement — not a moment 
 when an affectionate and very dependent woman could lightly 
 be parted from her bosom friend. 
 
 Thus the situation was brought to a climax. It was not to 
 be expected, however, that Anne could have submitted to a 
 mandate which in reality would have taken from her all power to 
 choose her own friends ; and her affections were so firmly fixed 
 upon her beloved companion that it is evident life without Sarah 
 would have been a blank to her. She answered in a letter stu-
 
 34 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 diously compiled in defense both of herself and her retainer. 
 " I am satisfied she cannot have been guilty of any fault to you, 
 and it would be extremely to her advantage if I could here 
 repeat every word that ever she had said to me of you in her 
 whole life," says the princess ; and she ends entreating her sis- 
 ter to "recall your severe command," and declaring that there 
 is no misery "that I cannot readily resolve to suffer rather than 
 the thought of parting with her." But things had gone too far to 
 be stopped by any such appeal. The letter was answered by 
 the lord chamberlain in person with a message forbidding 
 Lady Marlborough to continue at the Cockpit. This was arbi- 
 trary in the highest degree, for the house was Anne's private 
 property, bought for and settled upon her by Charles III.; and 
 it was unreasonable, for Whitehall was lying in ruins, and 
 Queen Mary's sight at Kensington could not be offended by the 
 spectacle of the couple who had so annoyed her. The princess's 
 spirit was roused. She wrote to her sister that she herself 
 would be "obliged to retire," since such were the terms of her 
 continuance, and sent immediately to the Duke of Somerset to 
 ask for a lease of Sion House. It is said that William so far in- 
 terfered in the squabble — in which indeed he had been influen- 
 tial all along — as to ask the duke to refuse this trifling favor. 
 But of all English noble houses the proud Somersets were the 
 last to be dictated to ; and Anne established herself triumph- 
 antly in her banishment on the banks of the Thames with her 
 favorite at her side. 
 
 A child was born a litde later, and the queen paid Anne an 
 angry visit of ceremony a day or two after the event, saying 
 nothing to her but on the vexed subject. " I have made the first 
 step by coming to you," Mary said, approaching the bed where 
 the poor princess lay, sad and suffering, for her baby had died 
 soon after its birth, " and I now expect you should make the 
 next by removing Lady Marlborough." The princess, "tremb-
 
 The Princess Anne 35 
 
 Hngr, and as white as her sheet," stammered forth her plaintive 
 protest that this was the only thing in which she had disobliged 
 her sister, and that " it was unreasonable to ask it of her," 
 whereupon Mary, without another word, left the room and the 
 house. It was the last time they ever met, unlikely as such a 
 thing seemed. Anne made various overtures of reconciliation, 
 but as unconditional obedience was promised in none, Mary's 
 heart was not softened. 
 
 The only justification that can be offered for the queen's be- 
 havior was that they had been long separated and had little but 
 the formal tie of relationship to bind them to each other. Anne 
 had been but a child when Mary left England. They were both 
 married and surrounded by other affections when they met 
 again. They had so much resemblance of nature that each seems 
 to have been capable of but one passion. It was Mary's good 
 fortune to love her husband with all her heart — but to all ap- 
 pearance no one else. She had not a friend among all the ladies 
 who had shared her life for years — no intimate or companion 
 who could give her any solace when he was absent. Natural 
 affection was not strong in their family. They had no mother, 
 nor bond of common relationship except the father whom they 
 both superseded. All this explains to a certain extent her cold- 
 ness to Anne, and it is very likely she thought she was doing 
 the best thing possible for her sister in endeavoring to separate 
 her from an evil influence, an inferior who was her mistress. But 
 this does not excuse the paltry and cruel persecution to which 
 the younger sister was henceforward exposed. Every honor 
 that belonged to her rank was taken from her, from the sentry 
 at her door to the text upon her cushion at church. She was 
 allowed no guard ; when she went into the country the rural 
 mayors were forbidden to present addresses to her and pay the 
 usual honors which mayors delight to pay. The great court 
 ladies were given to understand that whoever visited her would
 
 36 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 not be received by the queen. A more irritating and miser- 
 able persecution could not be, nor one more lowering to the 
 character of the chief performer in it. 
 
 Anne was but recovering from the illness that followed her 
 confinement, and with which her sister's angry visit was sup- 
 posed to have something to do, when another blow fell upon the 
 band of friends. Marlborough was suddenly arrested and sent 
 to the Tower. There was reason enough perhaps for his pre- 
 vious disgrace in the secret relations with St. -Germain which 
 he was known to have resumed ; but the charge afterward 
 made was a purely fictitious one, and he and the other great 
 personages involved had little difficulty in proving this inno- 
 cence. The correspondence which took place while Lady Marl- 
 borough was in town with her husband on this occasion reveals 
 Anne very clearly in her affectionate simplicity. 
 
 I hear Lord Marlborough is sent to the Tower ; and though I am 
 certain they have nothing against him, and expected by your letter 
 it would be so, yet I was struck when I was told it ; for methinks it is a 
 dismal thing to have one's friends sent to that place. I have a thou- 
 sand melancholy thoughts, and cannot help fearing they hinder you 
 from coming to me ; though how they can do that without making you 
 a prisoner, I cannot imagine. I am just told by pretty good hands that 
 as soon as the wind turns westerly there will be a guard set upon the 
 prince and me. If you hear there is any such thing designed and that 
 'tis easy to you, pray let me see you before the wind changes: for after- 
 ward one does not know whether they will let one have opportunities of 
 speaking to one another. But let them do what they please, nothing 
 shall ever vex me, so I can have the satisfaction of seeing dear Mrs. 
 Freeman ; and I swear I would live on bread and water between four 
 walls with her without repining ; for so long as you continue kind, noth- 
 ing can ever be a real mortification to your faithful Mrs. Morley, who 
 wishes she may never enjoy a moment's happiness in this world or the 
 next if ever she proves false to you. 
 
 Whether the wind proving "westerly" was a phrase under- 
 stood between the correspondents, or if it had anything to do
 
 The Princess Anne 2)7 
 
 with the event of the impending battle on which the fate of 
 England was hanging, it is difficult to tell. If it was used in 
 the latter sense, the victorious battle of La Hogue, by which all 
 recent discomfitures were redeemed, soon restored the govern- 
 ment to calm and the consciousness of triumph, and made 
 conspiracy comparatively insignificant. Before this great de- 
 liverance was known, Anne had written a submissive letter 
 to her sister, informing her that she had now recovered her 
 strength "well enough to go abroad," and asking leave to pay 
 her respects to the queen. To which Mary returned a stern 
 answer declaring that such civilities were unnecessary as long 
 as her sister declined to do the thing required of her. Anne 
 sent a copy of this letter to Lady Marlborough, announcing, as 
 she was now "at liberty to go where I please by the queen 
 refusing to see me," her intention of coming to London to see 
 her friend, but this intention does not seem to have been 
 carried out. " I am very sensibly touched with the misfortune 
 that my dear Mrs. Freeman has had in losing her son, knowing 
 very well what it is to lose a child," the princess writes, "but 
 she, knowing my heart so well and how great a share I have 
 in all her concerns, I will not say any more on this subject for 
 fear of renewing her passion too much." Throughout this 
 separation these little billets were continually coming and 
 going, and we cannot do better than transcribe for the reader 
 some of those innocent letters, so natural and full of the 
 writer's heart. 
 
 Though I have nothing to say to my dear Mrs. Freeman I cannot 
 help inquiring how she and her Lord does. If it be not convenient for 
 you to write when you receive this, either keep the bearer till it is, or 
 let me have a word from you by the next opportunity when it is easy 
 to you, for I would not be a constraint to you at any time, much less 
 now when you have so many things to do and think of All I desire to 
 hear from you at such a time is that you and yours are well, which 
 next to having my Lord Marlborough out of his enemies' power, is the
 
 38 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 best news that can come to her, who to the last moment of her Hfe will 
 be dear to Mrs. Freeman's. . . . 
 
 I give dear Mrs. Freeman a thousand thanks for her letter which 
 gives me an account of her concerns ; and that is what I desire more 
 to know than other news. I shall reckon the days and hours and think 
 it very long till the time is out, both for your sake and my Lord Marl- 
 borough's, and that he may be at liberty and your mind at ease. And, 
 dear Mrs. Freeman, don't say when I can see you if I come to town, 
 therefore I ask which day will be most convenient for you. I confess I 
 long to see you, but am not so unreasonable to desire that satisfaction 
 till it is easy to you. I wish with all my soul that you may not be a 
 true prophetess, and that it may soon be in our power to enjoy one 
 another's company more than it has been of late, which is all I covet in 
 this M^orld. ... 
 
 I am sorry with all my heart Mrs. Freeman meets with so many 
 delays, but it is a comfort they cannot keep my Lord Marlborough in 
 the Tower longer than the end of the term, and I hope when the 
 Parliament sits care will be taken that people may not be clapt up for 
 nothing, or else there will be no living in quiet for anybody but inso- 
 lent Dutch and sneaking mercenary Englishmen. Dear Mrs. Freeman, 
 farewell — be assured your faithful Mrs. Morley can never change, and 
 I hope you do not in the least doubt of her kindness, which, if it be 
 possible, increases every day, and that can never have an end but with 
 her life. Mrs. Morley hopes her dear Mrs. Freeman will let her have 
 the satisfaction of hearing again from her to-morrow. . . . 
 
 Dear Mrs. Freeman may easily imagine I cannot have much to say 
 since I saw her. However, I must write two words, for though I 
 believe she does not doubt of my constancy, feeling how base and false 
 all the world is, I am of that temper I think I can never say enough to 
 assure you of it. Therefore give me leave to assure you they can 
 never change me. And there is no misery I cannot readily resolve to 
 suffer rather than the thoughts of parting from you. And I do swear I 
 would sooner be torn in pieces than alter this my resolution. My dear 
 Mrs. Freeman, I long to hear from you. 
 
 This pretty correspondence changed a little, but only to 
 grow more impassioned, when the princess had gone to Bath 
 and the friends were less near each other. 
 
 Anne was, however, pursued by the royal displeasure even 
 in her invalid journey to Bath, and no less a person than
 
 The Princess Anne 39 
 
 Lord Nottingham, the lord chamberlain, was employed to 
 warn the mayor of that city that his civilities to the princess 
 were ill-timed. Such a disclosure of the family quarrel evinced 
 a determination and bitterness which perhaps frightened even 
 Lady Marlborough, courageous as she was ; and she seems to 
 have offered and even pressed her resignation as a means 
 of making peace. But nothing altered the devotion of her 
 faithful princess. 
 
 I really long to know how my dear Mrs. Freeman got home, and now 
 I have this opportunity of writing she must give me leave to tell her if 
 she should ever be so cruel as to leave her faithful Mrs. Morley she will 
 rob her of all the joy and quiet of her life ; for if that day should come, 
 I could never enjoy a happy minute, and I swear to you I would shut 
 myself up and never see a creature. If you do but remember what the 
 queen said to me the night before your lord was turned out of all ; then 
 she began to pick quarrels; and if they should take off twenty or thirty 
 thousand pounds, have I not lived upon as little before ? When I was 
 first married we had but twenty (it is true indeed the king was so kind 
 to pay my debts) and if it should come to that again what retrenchment 
 is there in my family I would not willingly make and be glad of that 
 pretence to do it ? Never fancy, my dear Mrs. Freeman, if what you 
 fear should happen, that you are the occasion ; no, I am very well sat- 
 isfied, and so is the prince, too, that it would have been so however, for 
 Caliban is capable of doing nothing but injustice ; therefore rest satisfied 
 you are noways the cause, and let me beg once more for God's sake that 
 you would not mention parting more, no, not so much as think of it, and 
 if you should ever leave me, be assured it would break your faithful 
 Mrs. Morley's heart. 
 
 A still stronger expression of the same sentiment, with a 
 little gleam of self-assertion and sense of injured dignity, fol- 
 lows, after the princess had, as would seem, taken counsel 
 with her George. That heavy prince fully acquiesced at 
 least, if nothing more, in his wife's devotion. 
 
 In obedience to dear Mrs. Freeman I have told the prince all she 
 desired me, and he is so far from being of another opinion, if there had 
 been occasion, he would have strengthened me in my resolutions, and
 
 40 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 we both beg you would never mention so cruel a thing again. Can you 
 think either of us so wretched that for the sake of twenty thousand 
 pounds, and to be tormented from morning to night with flattering 
 knaves and fools, we should forsake those we have such obligations to, 
 and that we are so certain we are the occasion of all their misfortunes ? 
 Besides, will you believe we will truckle to Caliban, who from the first 
 moment of his coming has used us at that rate as we are sensible he 
 has done, and that all the world can witness that will not let their 
 interest weigh more with them than their reason? But suppose I did 
 submit, and that the king could change his nature so much as to use 
 me with humanity, how would all reasonable people despise me ? How 
 would that Dutch monster laugh at me, and please himself with having 
 got the better ! and which is much more, how would my conscience 
 reproach me for having sacrificed it^ — my honor, reputation, and all the 
 substantial comforts of this life — for transitory interest, which even to 
 those who make it their idol, can never afford any real satisfaction, 
 much less to a virtuous mind? No, my dear Mrs. Freeman, never 
 believe that your faithful Mrs. Morley will ever submit. She can wait 
 with patience for a sunshine day, and if she does not live to see it, yet 
 she hopes England will flourish again. Once more give me leave to 
 beg you would be so kind never to speak of parting more, for, let what 
 will happen, that is the only thing that can make me miserable. 
 
 Such are the letters which Lord Macaulay describes as 
 expressing " the sentiments of a fury in the style of a fish- 
 woman." It was not indeed pretty to call great William Cali- 
 ban, but Anne was fond of nicknames, and the king's personal 
 appearance was not his strong point. To us the above outburst 
 of indignation seems both natural and allowable. She had been 
 subject to an inveterate and petty persecution — her little magna- 
 nimities had been answered by exactions. We are all so ready 
 to believe that when a woman is involved she must be the of- 
 fender, that most readers will have set down the insults to which 
 Anne was subject to the account of Mary. But it is curious to 
 note that in these letters all the blame is thrown upon the harsh 
 brother-in-law, the Dutch monster, the alien, who had made so 
 many strangers into English noblemen, and who identified 
 Marlborough, among all the other courtiers who had been as
 
 WILLIAM IIL 
 
 l-ROM COPPERPLATE ENGRAVING BY CORNELIS \ERMEULEN, AFTER THE PAINTING 
 BY ADRIAAN VANDER VVERFF.
 
 The Princess Anne 41 
 
 little steadfast to him, as the object of a pertinacious persecution. 
 The princess says nothing of her sister. It is Caliban who is 
 capable of nothing but injustice. It is he who will laugh if he 
 gets the better of her. Anne's style is perhaps not quite worthy 
 of the Augustan age, but it is at least very intelligible and full 
 of litde individual turns which are more characteristic than the 
 smoother graces. That she loved her friend with her whole 
 heart, that she had a generous contempt for interested motives, 
 and, humble as she was, a just sense of her own dignity, are all 
 abundantly and very simply manifest in them. They will give 
 to the impartial reader the impression of a natural and ardess 
 character, with much generous feeling and much tender affec- 
 tionateness : tenacious of her rank and its observances, yet will- 
 ing to throw all these trifles down at the feet of her friend. 
 Poor young lady ! When we recollect how constandy the 
 princess's "condition" had to be thought of, how her long 
 patience and many pains ended constantly in the litde waxen 
 image of a dead baby and nothing more, who can wonder that 
 the world seemed falling to pieces about her when she was 
 threatened with the loss of the one strong sustaining prop upon 
 which she had hung from her childhood — the friend who had 
 helped her through all the first experiences of life, the com- 
 panion who had amused so many w^eary days and made the 
 time pass as no one else could do ! 
 
 All these miserable disputes, however, were ended in a 
 moment when brought into the cold twilight of a. death-cham- 
 ber, where even kings and queens are constrained to see things 
 at their true value. Of all the royal personages in the king- 
 dom, Mary's would have seemed to any outside spectator the 
 soundest and safest life. William had never been healthy, and 
 was consumed by the responsibilities and troubles into which he 
 had plunged. Anne had these ever-succeeding maternities to 
 keep her at a low level ; but Mary was young, vigorous, and
 
 42 The Reign of Qtteefi An7te 
 
 happy — happy at least in her devotion to her husband and his 
 love for her. It was she, however, who, to the awe and con- 
 sternation of the world, was cut down in her prime after a few 
 days' illness, in the midst of her greatness. Such a catastrophe 
 no one could behold without the profoundest impulse of pity. 
 Whatever she had done a week before, there she lay now help- 
 less, all her splendors gone from her, the promise of a long career 
 ended, and her partner left heartbroken upon the solitary throne 
 to which she had given him the first right. 
 
 The sight of so forlorn a man, — so powerful, yet as impotent 
 when his happiness was concerned as the meanest, — left thus 
 heartbroken without courage or strength, his sole companion 
 gone, and nothing but strangers, alien minds, and doubtful coun- 
 selors round, is enough to touch any heart. Anne, like the rest 
 of the world, was shocked and startled by the sudden calamity. 
 She sent anxious messages asking to be admitted to her sister's 
 bedside ; and, when all was over, partly no doubt from policy, 
 but we may be at least permitted to believe partly from good 
 feeling, presented herself at Kensington Palace to show at least 
 that rancor was not in her heart. Unfortunately, there was no 
 reconciliation between the sisters : the breach continued to the 
 end of the queen's life, Burnet informs us. But when the forlorn 
 and solitary king was roused in his misery to receive his sister- 
 in-law's message, a sort of peace was patched up between them 
 over that unthought-of grave. There was no longer any pub- 
 lic quarrel or manifestation of animosity — and with this melan- 
 choly event the first half of Anne's history may be brought 
 to an end.
 
 Chapter II 
 
 THE QUEEN AND THE DUCHESS 
 
 A YEAR after the accession of William and Mary, and before 
 / \ any of the bitternesses and conflicts above recorded had 
 J, Ik openly begun, the only child of Anne on whose life any 
 hopes could be built was born. Her many babies had died at 
 birth or immediately after, and their quick and constant succes- 
 sion, as has been said, was the distinguishing feature of her per- 
 sonal life. But after the Revolution, when everything was settling 
 out of the confusion of the crisis, and when as yet no further 
 family troubles had disclosed the family rancors and disagree- 
 ments, in the country air of Hampton Court, where the new king 
 and queen were living, a little prince was born. Though he was 
 sickly at first, like all the rest, he survived the dangers of infancy, 
 and, called William after the king, and bearing from the first day 
 of his life the title of Duke of Gloucester, was received joyfully 
 by the nation at large and everybody concerned as the authentic 
 heir to the crown. This child kept, it would seem, a little hold 
 on the affections of the childless Mary during the whole course 
 of the quarrel with his mother, bitter as it was, and continued an 
 object of interest and kindness to William as long as he lived. 
 The interposition of the quaint and precocious boy, with his big 
 head, his premature enlightenment as to what it was and was not 
 prudent to say, his sparkle of childish ambition, and all his old- 
 fashioned ways, made a curious and welcome diversion in the 
 troubled scene where nothing was happy, not even the child. 
 
 43
 
 44 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 He was the chief occupation of Anne's Hfe when comparative 
 peace followed the warlike interval above related, and a cold 
 and forced civility replaced the active hostilities which for years 
 had been raging between the court and the household of the 
 princess. 
 
 Anne has never got much credit for her forbearance and 
 self-effacement at the critical moments of her career. But it is 
 certain that she might have given William a great deal of 
 trouble had she asserted her rights as Mary's successor, as she 
 might also have done at the time of the first settlement. No 
 doubt he would on both occasions have carried the day, and 
 with this certainty the historians have been satisfied, without 
 considering that a woman who was not of a lofty character, and 
 who was a Stuart, must have felt it doubly bitter to find herself 
 the subject of a gloomy brother-in-law who slighted her, and 
 who, her rasher partizans did not hesitate to say, ought to have 
 been her subject so long as he remained in England after her 
 sister's death, and not she his. The absence of any attempt on 
 her part to disturb or molest, nay, her little advances, her letters 
 of condolence, and of congratulation the first time that a victory 
 gave occasion for it, showed no inconsiderable magnanimity 
 on the part of the prosaic princess — all the more that she had 
 not been in the habit, as is usual among women, of putting the 
 scorns she had suffered to another woman's account, and hold- 
 ing Mary responsible, but had uniformly attributed to the 
 " Dutch monster," the Caliban of her correspondence, all the 
 slights that were put on her — all the more that William did 
 very little to encourage any overtures of friendship. He re- 
 ceived her after his wife's death, and they are said by one of her 
 attendants to have wept together when the unwieldy princess, 
 then unable to walk, was carried in her chair into the very 
 presence-chamber. But if a common emotion drew them to- 
 gether at this moment, it did not last; and in the diminished
 
 THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER. 
 
 ENGRAVED BY R. G. TIETZE. FROM MEZZOTINT KY JOHN SMITH, AFTER THE PAINTINC 
 
 BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER.
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 45 
 
 ceremonial of the bereaved court, Anne had but scant respect 
 and no welcome. But she made no further complaint, and did 
 what she could to keep on terms of civility at least with her 
 brother-in-law, writing to him little letters of politeness, not- 
 withstanding the disapproval of Lady Marlborough, who was 
 of no such gentle temper, and the absence of all response from 
 William. He, with all his foreign wars and home troubles, soli- 
 tary, sad, broken in health and in life, had little heart, we may 
 suppose, for those commonplace advances from a woman he had 
 never been able to tolerate. But though Anne's relations with 
 the king were scarcely improved, her position in respect to the 
 courtiers who had abandoned her in her sister's lifetime was 
 different indeed. Lady Marlborough describes this with her 
 usual force. 
 
 And now it being quickly known that the quarrel was made up, 
 nothing was to be seen but crowds of people of all sorts flocking to 
 Berkeley House to pay their respects to the prince and princess ; a sud- 
 den alteration which I remember occasioned the half-witted Lord Car- 
 narvon to say one night to the princess as he stood close by her in the 
 circle, " I hope your highness will remember that I came to wait upon 
 you when none of this company did," which caused a great deal of mirth. 
 
 Meanwhile, the litde boy, the heir of England, interposes 
 his quaint little figure with that touch of nature which always 
 belongs to a child, in the midst of all the excitement and dull- 
 ness, awakening a certain interest even in the solitary and 
 bereaved life of William, and filling his mother's house with 
 tender anxieties and pleasures. He was sickly and feeble from 
 his childhood, but early learned the royal lesson of self-conceal- 
 ment, and was cuffed and hustled by the anxious cruelty of love 
 into the use of his poor litde legs years after his contempora- 
 ries had been in full enjoyment of their liberty. It is character- 
 istic of the self-absorbed and belligerent chronicler of the 
 princess's household, whose narrative of all the quarrels and
 
 46 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 struggles of royal personages is so vivid, that she has very little 
 to say about either the living or dying of the only child who 
 was of such importance both to her mistress and to the country. 
 His little existence is pushed aside in Lady Marlborough's rec- 
 ord, and but for a little squabble over the appointment of the 
 duke's " family," which she gives with great detail, we should 
 scarcely have known from her that Anne had tasted that happi- 
 ness of maternity which is so largely weighted with pains and 
 cares. But the story of little Gloucester's life, as found in the 
 more familiar record of his waiting-gentleman, Lewis Jenkins, 
 is both attractive and entertaining. The little fellow seems to 
 have been full of lively spirit and observation, active and restless 
 in spite of his feebleness, full of a child's interest in everything 
 about him, and of precocious judgment and criticism. Some 
 of the stories that are told of him put these gifts in a startling 
 light. "Who has taught you to say such words?" his mother 
 asks him when the child has been betrayed into innocent repeti- 
 tion of the oaths he had heard from his attendants. The boy 
 pauses before he replies. "If I say Dick Dewey," he whispers 
 to a favorite lady, "he will be sent down-stairs. Mama, I in- 
 vented them myself," he adds aloud. The little being moving 
 among worlds not realized, learning to play his little part, tak- 
 ing his cue from the countenances round him, forming his little 
 policy in the twinkling of an eye, could not have had a better 
 representative. His careless indifference to his chaplain's reli- 
 gious services, but happy learning of little prayers and verses 
 with the old lady to whom he takes a fancy, his weariness of 
 lessons, yet eager interest in the diagrams that drop from Lewis 
 Jenkins's pocket-book, and in all the bits of history he can induce 
 his Welsh usher to tell him, and all the rest of his innocent 
 childlike perversities, awaken in us an amused yet pathetic 
 interest. A troublesome, lovable, perverse, delightful child, not 
 always easy to manage, constantly asking the most awkward
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 47 
 
 questions, full of ambition and energy and spirit and foolish- 
 ness, the dull prince's somewhat tedious house brightens into 
 hope and sweetness so long as he is there. 
 
 In every respect this was the brightest moment of Anne's 
 life. There was no longer any possibility of treating the next 
 heir to the crown, the mother of the only prince in whom the 
 imagination of England could take pleasure, with slighting or 
 contumely. She was permitted to have her share of the honors 
 and comforts of English royalty. St. James's old red-brick pal- 
 ace was given over to her as became her position ; and, what 
 was more wonderful, Windsor Castle, one of the noblest of 
 royal dwellings, became the country-house of Anne and her boy. 
 King William preferred Hampton Court, with its Dutch gardens, 
 in which he could imagine himself at home : the great feudal cas- 
 tle, erecting its massive towers from the crest of the gentle hill 
 which has the value of a much greater eminence in the midst of 
 the broad plain that sweeps forth in every direction round, was 
 not, apparently, to his taste. And few prettier or more inno- 
 cent scenes have been associated with its long history than those 
 in which little Gloucester was the chief actor. He had a little 
 regiment of boys of his own age whom it was his delight to 
 drill and lead through a hundred mock battles and rapid skir- 
 mishings, mischievous little urchins who called themselves the 
 Duke of Gloucester's men, and played their little pranks like their 
 elders, as favorites will. When he went to Windsor, four Eton 
 boys were sent for to be his playmates, one of them being youno- 
 Churchill, the son of Lady Marlborough. The litde prince chose 
 St. George's Hall for the scene of his mimic battles, and there 
 the litde army stormed and besieged one another to their hearts' 
 content. When his mother's marriage-day was celebrated, he re- 
 ceived his parents with salvos of his small artillery, and, stepping 
 forth in his litde birthday-suit, paid them his compliment: " Papa, 
 I wish you and Mama unity, peace, and concord, not for a time,
 
 48 The Reign of Queen A^tne 
 
 but forever," said the serious little hero. One can fancy Anne, 
 smiling and triumphant in her joy of motherhood, with her beau- 
 tiful chestnut curls and sweet complexion and placid roundness, 
 leaning on good George's arm, — her peaceful companion, with 
 whom she had never a quarrel, — and admiring her son's infant 
 wisdom. It was their happy time: no cares of state upon their 
 heads, no quarrels on hand, Sarah of Marlborough, let us hope, 
 smiling too, and at peace with everybody, her own boy taking 
 part in the ceremonial. 
 
 The little smoke and whiff of gunpowder, the little gunners 
 at their toy artillery, the great hall still slightly athrill with the 
 mimic salute, add something still to the boundless hopefulness 
 of the scene ; for why should not this little English William 
 grow up as great a soldier and more fortunate than his grim 
 godfather, and subdue France under the feet of England, and 
 be the conqueror of the world ? All this was possible in those 
 pleasant days. 
 
 On another occasion there was a great chapter of Knights 
 of the Garter to witness the installation of little Gloucester in 
 knightly state as one of the order. The little figure, seven 
 years old, seated under the noble canopywork in St. George's 
 beautiful chapel, scarcely visible over the desk upon which his 
 prayer-book was spread out, gazing with blue eyes intent, in 
 all the gravity of a child, upon the great English nobles in their 
 stalls around him, listening to the voices of the choristers pealing 
 high into space, makes another touching picture. King William 
 himself had buckled the garter round the child's knee and hung 
 the jewel about his neck, — St. George slaying his dragon, that 
 immemorial emblem of the victory over evil ; and no doubt in 
 the vague grandeur of childish anticipation, the boy felt himself 
 ready to emulate the feat of the patron saint. He was a little 
 patriot too, eager to lend the aid of his small squadron to his 
 uncle when William went away to the wars, and bringing a
 
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 The Queen and the Duchess 49 
 
 smile even upon that worn and melancholy face as he manoeu- 
 vered his little company and showed how they would fight in 
 Flanders when the moment came. When William was threat- 
 ened with assassination and the country woke up to feel that 
 though she did not love him it would be much amiss to lose him, 
 little Gloucester, at eight, was one of the most loyal. Taking 
 counsel with his little regiment, he drew up a memorial, written 
 out, no doubt, by the best master of the pen among them, with 
 much shedding of ink, if not of more precious fluid. " We, your 
 Majesty's subjects, will stand by you while we have a drop of 
 blood," was the address to which the Duke of Gloucester's men 
 set all their tiny fists. The little duke himself, not content with 
 this, added to it another address of his own : 
 
 I, your Majesty's most dutiful subject, had rather lose my life in your 
 Majesty's cause than in any man's else ; and I hope it will not be long 
 ere you conquer France. GLOUCESTER, 
 
 Heroic little prince ! — a Protestant William, yet a gallant 
 and gentle Stuart. With this heart of enthusiasm and generous 
 valor in him, what might he not have done had he ever lived 
 to be king ? These marred possibilities, which are so common 
 in life, are almost the saddest things in it, and that must be a 
 heart very strong in faith that is not struck dumb by the with- 
 drawal from earth's extreme need of so much faculty that 
 seemed created for her help and succor. It certainly awoke a 
 smile, and might have drawn an iron tear down William's cheek, 
 to see this faithful little warrior ready to " lose his life " in his 
 defense. And the good pair behind, George and Anne, who 
 had evidently suffered no treacherous suggestion to get to the 
 ear of the boy, — no hint that William was a usurper, and little 
 Gloucester had more right than he to be uppermost, — how 
 radiant they stand in the light of their happiness and hope! The 
 spectator is reluctant to turn the page to the coming gloom.
 
 50 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 "When the Duke of Gloucester was arrived at an age to be 
 put into men's hands," WilHam's relenting and change of mind 
 was proved by the fact that Marlborough, who had been in dis- 
 grace all these years, and whom only the constant favor of Anne 
 had kept out of entire obscurity, was recalled into the front of 
 affairs in order to be made " governor " of the young prince. It 
 is true that this gracious act was partially neutralized by the 
 appointment of Bishop Burnet as little Gloucester's tutor, a 
 choice which was supposed to be as disagreeable to Anne as the 
 other was happy. No distinct reason appears for this sudden and 
 extraordinary change. Marlborough's connection with the family 
 of the princess made him indeed peculiarly suitable to have the 
 charge of her son, but William had not hitherto shown any de- 
 sire to honor her likings ; and this was not reason enough for 
 all the other marks of favor bestowed upon him, bringing him 
 back at once from private life and political disgrace to a posi- 
 tion as high as any in the kingdom. Burnet himself did by 
 no means relish the honor thus thrust upon him. He was al- 
 most disposed, he tells us, "to retire from the court and town," 
 much as that would have cost him, rather than take upon him 
 such a charge. But the pleasure of believing that " the king 
 would trust that care only to me," and also an unexpected 
 " encouragement " received from the princess, decided him to 
 make the experiment. The little pupil was about nine when 
 he came into the bishop's hands, and he gives the following 
 account of his charge : 
 
 I had been trusted with his education now for two years, and he had 
 made amazing progress. I had read over the Psalms, Proverbs, and 
 Gospels with him, and had explained things that fell in my way very 
 copiously ; and was often surprised with the questions that he put to 
 me, and the reflections that he made. He came to understand things 
 relating to religion beyond imagination. I went through geography so 
 often with him that he knew all the maps very particularly. I ex- 
 plained to him the forms of government in every country, with the in-
 
 The Qvieen and the Duchess 51 
 
 terests and trades of that country, and what was both bad and good in 
 it. I acquainted him with all the great revolutions that had been in the 
 world, and gave him a copious account of the Greek and Roman histories 
 of Plutarch's lives ; the last thing I explained to him was the Gothic 
 constitution and the beneficiary and feudal laws : I talked of these 
 things at different times more than three hours a day ; this was both 
 easy and delighting to him. The king ordered five of his chief ministers 
 to come once a quarter and examine the progress he made ; they seemed 
 amazed both at his knowledge and the good understanding that appeared 
 in him; he had a wonderful memory and a very good judgment. 
 
 Poor little Gloucester ! The genial bishop breaking down 
 all this knowledge into pleasant talks so that it should be "both 
 easy and delighting," and his lessons in fortification, which were 
 more delightful still, and his own little private princelike observa- 
 tion of men's faces and minds, were all to come to naught. On 
 his eleventh birthday, amid the feastings and joy, a sudden illness 
 seized him, and, a few days after, the promising boy had ended 
 his bright little career. As a matter of course, blame was at- 
 tached to the doctor who attended him, and who had bled him 
 in the beginning of a fever; but this was almost universally the 
 case in the then state of medical science. " He was the only 
 remaining child," the bishop says, " of seventeen the princess 
 had borne, some to the full time and the rest before it. She 
 attended on him during his sickness with great tenderness, but 
 with a grave composedness that amazed all who saw it. She 
 bore his death with a resignation and piety that were indeed 
 very singular." It would be small wonder indeed if Anne had 
 been altogether crushed by such a calamity. It is said by 
 some historians of the Jacobite party that her mind was over- 
 whelmed by a sense of her guilt toward her own father, and of 
 just judgment executed upon her in the loss of her child, and 
 that she immediately wrote to James, pouring out her whole 
 heart in penitence, and pledging herself to support the claims 
 of her brother should she ever come to the throne. This letter,
 
 52 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 however, was never found, and does not seem to be vouched for 
 by witnesses beyond suspicion. But for the fact that Anne was 
 stricken to the dust, no parent will need any further evidence. 
 Her good days and hopes were over ; henceforward, when she 
 wrote to her dearest friend in the old confidential strain, it was 
 as "your poor unfortunate Morley " that the bereaved mother 
 signed herself Nothing altered these sad adjectives. She felt 
 herself as poor and unfortunate in her unutterable loss when 
 she was queen as if she had been the humblest woman that 
 ever lost an only child. 
 
 Marlborough was absent when his little pupil fell ill, but 
 hurried back to Windsor in time to see him die. It was eti- 
 quette in those days that in case of a death the survivors should 
 instantly leave the place in which it had happened, leaving the 
 dead in possession, to lie in state there and receive the homage 
 of curious or interested spectators. But Anne would not be per- 
 suaded to leave the place where her child was, and, four or five 
 days after, the little prince was carried solemnly by torchlight 
 through the summer woods, through Windsor Park, and by the 
 river, and under the trees of Richmond, to Westminster: a si- 
 lent procession pouring slowly through the odorous August 
 night. His little body lay in state in Westminster Hall — a 
 noble chamber for such a tiny sleeper — for five days more, 
 when it was laid with the kings in the great abbey which holds 
 all the greatest of England. A more heartrending episode is 
 not in history. 
 
 William did not take any notice of the announcement of the 
 death for a considerable time, which embarrassed the ambas- 
 sador at Paris greatly on the subject of mourning, and has given 
 occasion for much denunciation of his hardness and heartless- 
 ness. When he answered at last, however — though this was 
 not till more than two months after, in a letter to Marlborough 
 — it was with much subdued feeling. " I do not think it neces-
 
 THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER 
 
 ENGRAVED BY R. A. MULLER, FROM MINIATURE BY LEWIS CROSSE 
 
 IN THE COLLECTION AT WINDSOR CASTLE; BY SPECIAL 
 
 PERMISSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA.
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 53 
 
 sary to employ many words," he writes, " in expressing my sur- 
 prise and grief at the death of the Duke of Gloucester. It is 
 so great a loss to me as well as to all England, that it pierces 
 my heart with affliction." It seems impossible that the loss of a 
 child who had shown so touching an allegiance to himself should 
 not have moved him; but perhaps there was in him, too, a 
 touch of satisfaction that the rival pair who had been thorns in 
 his flesh since ever he came to England, were not to have the 
 satisfaction of founding a new line. At St. -Germain the satisfac- 
 tion was more marked still, and it was supposed that the most 
 dangerous obstacle in the way of the young James Stuart was re- 
 moved by the death of his sister's heir. We know now how futile 
 that anticipation was ; but at the time this was not so clear, and 
 the anxiety of the English parliament to secure before William's 
 death a formal abjuration of the so-called Prince of Wales shows 
 that the hope was not without foundation. 
 
 This and the new and exciting combination of European af- 
 fairs produced by what is called the " Spanish Succession," occu- 
 pied all minds during the two years that remained of William's 
 suffering life. It was a moment of great excitement and uncer- 
 tainty. Louis XIV., into whose hands, as seemed likely, a sort 
 of universal power must fall if his grandson were permitted to 
 succeed to the throne of Spain, had just vowed at the death-bed 
 of James his determination to support the claims of the exile's 
 son, and, on James's death, had proclaimed the boy King of Eng- 
 land. Thus England had every reason of personal irritation and 
 even alarm for joining in the alliance against the threatening 
 supremacy of France, whose power — had she been allowed 
 to place one of her princes peaceably on the Spanish throne, to 
 w^hich the rich Netherlands still belonged — would have been 
 paramount in Europe. It was on the eve of the great struggle 
 that William died. W^ith a determination equal to that with 
 which he had made head against failing fortune in many a bat- 
 
 4*
 
 54 X The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 tie-field, he fought for his life, which, at such a crisis, was doubly 
 important to the countries of his birth and of his crown, and to 
 the cause of the Protestant religion and all that we have been 
 taught to consider as freedom throughout Europe. There is 
 something pathetic in the struggle, in the statement of his case, 
 under one name or another as a private individual, that there 
 might be no doubt as to the frankness of the opinions which he 
 caused to be made among the great physicians of Europe. 
 His life in itself could not have been a very happy or desirable 
 one. He had no longer his popular and beloved Mary to leave 
 behind him in England as his representative when he set out 
 for the wars, and there were few in England whom he trusted 
 fully, or who trusted him. To die at the beginning of a 
 great European struggle, leaving the dull people whom he 
 disliked to take his place in England, and the soldier whom 
 he had crushed and subdued and sternly held in the shade as 
 long as he was able, to assume his baton, and win the victories 
 it had never been William's fortune to gain, must have been 
 bitter indeed. It would appear even that he had entertained 
 some idea of disturbing the natural order of events to prevent 
 this, and that it had been suggested to the Electress Sophia, 
 after poor little Gloucester's death, that her family should 
 at once be nominated as his immediate successors, to the 
 exclusion of Anne, a proposal which the prudent electress 
 evaded with great skill and ingenuity by representing that 
 the Prince of Wales — who must surely have learned, he and 
 his counselors, wisdom from the failure of his father — was the 
 natural heir, and would, no doubt, do well enough on a trial. 
 Bishop Burnet denies that such a design was ever entertained, 
 but Lord Dartmouth, in his notes upon Burnet, gives the follow- 
 ing very distinct evidence on the subject : 
 
 I do not know how far the Whig party would trust a secret of that 
 consequence to such a blab as the bishop was known to be : but the
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 55 
 
 Dukes of Bolton and Newcastle both proposed it to me, and used the 
 strongest arguments to induce me to come into it; which was that it 
 would be making Lord Marlborough King at least for the time if the 
 Princess succeeded ; and that I had reason to expect nothing but ill- 
 usage during such a reign. Lord Marlborough asked me afterward in 
 the House of Lords if I had ever heard of such a design. I told him 
 Yes, but did not think it very likely. He said it was very true : but by 
 God if ever they attempted it we would walk over their bellies. 
 
 Thus until the last moment Anne's position would seem to 
 have been menaced ; but a more impossible scheme was never 
 suggested, for even the idea of Marlborough's triumph was un- 
 able to raise the smallest party against the princess, and to the 
 country in general she was the object of a kind of enthusiasm. 
 The people loved everything in her, even the fact that she was 
 not clever, which of itself is often highly ingratiating with the 
 masses. William, it is said, with a magnanimity which was 
 infinitely to his credit, named Marlborough as his most fit 
 successor in the command of the allied armies before he died. 
 The formal abjuration of the Prince of Wales was made by Par- 
 liament only just in time to have his assent, and then all obsta- 
 cles were removed out of the princess's way. It was thought 
 by the populace that everything brightened for the new reign. 
 There had been an unexampled continuance of gloomy weather, 
 bad harvests, and clouds and storms. But to great Queen 
 Anne the sun burst forth, the gloom dispelled, the country 
 broke out into gaiety and rejoicing. A new reign full of new 
 possibilities has always something exhilarating in it. William's 
 greatness was marred by externals and never heartily acknow- 
 ledged by the mass of the people, but Anne had many claims 
 upon the popular favor. She was a woman, and a kind and 
 simple one. That desertion of her father which some historical 
 writers have condemned so bitterly, had no great efTect upon 
 the contemporary imagination, nor, so far as can be judged, 
 upon her own ; and It was the only offense that could be alleged
 
 56 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 against her. She had been unkindly treated and threatened 
 with wrong, which naturally made the multitude strenuous in her 
 cause ; and everything conspired to make her accession happy. 
 She was only thirty-seven, and though somewhat unwieldy in 
 person, still preserved her English comeliness, her abundant, 
 beautiful hair, and, above all, the melodious voice by which even 
 statesmen and politicians were impressed. *' She pronounced 
 this," says Bishop Burnet, describing her address to the Privy 
 Council when they first presented themselves before her, " as 
 she did all her other speeches, with great weight and authority, 
 and with a softness of voice and sweetness in the pronunciation 
 that added much life to all she spoke." The commentators 
 who criticize so sorely the bishop's chronicles are in entire 
 agreement with him on this subject. " It was a real pleasure 
 to hear her," says Lord Dartmouth, "though she had a bashful- 
 ness that made it very uneasy to herself to say much in public." 
 Speaker Onslow unites in the same testimony: " I have heard 
 the queen speak from the throne, and she had all the author 
 says here. I never saw an audience more affected ; it was a 
 sort of charm. She received all that came to her in so gracious 
 a manner that they went from her highly satisfied with her 
 goodness and her obliging deportment ; for she hearkened 
 with attention to everything that was said to her." Thus all 
 smiled upon Anne in the morning of her reign. Her corona- 
 tion was marked with unusual splendor and enthusiasm, and 
 though the queen herself had to be carried in a chair to the 
 Abbey, her state of health being such that she could not walk, 
 this did not affect the splendid ceremonial in which even to the 
 Jacobites themselves there was little to complain of, since their 
 hopes that Anne's influence might advance her father's young 
 son to the succession after her were still high, notwithstanding 
 that the settlement of the crown upon Sophia of Brunswick 
 and her heirs had already been made.
 
 QUEEN ANNE. 
 
 FROM CUPPERPLATH ENGRAVING BY PIETER VAN GUNST, AFTER THE PAINTING 
 BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER.
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 57 
 
 It is needless for us to attempt a history of the great war 
 which was one of the most important features in Anne's reign. 
 No student of history can be ignorant of its general course, 
 nor of the completeness with which Marlborough's victories 
 crushed the exorbitant power of France and raised the prestige 
 of Eno-land. There is no lack of histories of the great general 
 and his career of victory: how he out-fought, out-marched, 
 and out-generaled all his rivals, and scarcely in his ten years 
 of active warfare encountered one check ; how, though he did 
 not accomplish the direct object for which all the bloodshed 
 and toil were undertaken, he yet secured such respect for the 
 Eno-lish name and valor as renewed our old reputation and 
 made all interference with our natural settlement or intrusion 
 into our private economy impossible forever. "What good 
 came of it at last ? " says the poet. But the inquiry, though so 
 plausible, appealing at once to humanity and common sense, 
 is not perhaps so hard to answer as it seems. Up to this time 
 it has been impossible to procure in the intercourse of nations 
 any other effectual arbiter but the sword: a terrible one, indeed, 
 but apparently as yet the only means of keeping a check upon 
 the rapacity of some, and protecting the weakness of others. 
 At all events, whatever individual opinion may be on the point 
 now, there was a unanimous conviction then, and no one 
 doubted at the opening of the war that it was most necessary 
 and just. And of its conduct there has been but one opinion. 
 Contemporaries accused Marlborough of every conceivable 
 wickedness, — of peculation, treachery, even personal cowardice ; 
 but no one ventured to say that he was not a great general. 
 And as we have got further and further from the infuriated 
 politics of his time, his gifts and graces, his wisdom and moder- 
 ation, as well as his wonderful military genius, have been done 
 more and more justice to. Coxe, his special biographer, may 
 be supposed to look with partiality upon his hero; but this
 
 58 The Reign of Queen Amie 
 
 cannot be said of more recent writers, — of Lord Stanhope in 
 his tolerant and sensible history, or of Dr. Hill Burton in his 
 sagacious volumes on the reign of Queen Anne. 
 
 It is, however, with Marlborough's wife and not with himself 
 that we are chiefly concerned, and with the stormy course of 
 Anne's future intercourse with her friend rather than the battles 
 that were fought in her name. It is said that by the time she 
 came to the throne her faithful affection to her lifelong com- 
 panion had begun to be impaired, but the date of the first 
 beginning of their severance will probably never be determined, 
 nor its immediate cause. Miss Strickland professes to have 
 ascertained that certain impatient words used by Sarah of 
 Marlborough, which were overheard by the queen, were the 
 occasion of the breach ; but as there is no very satisfactory 
 foundation for the story, and it is added that Anne kept her 
 feelings undisclosed for long after, we may dismiss the legend 
 as possible enough, but no more. 
 
 All the great hopes which the pair must have formed seemed 
 likely to be fulfilled in the early part of Queen Anne's reign. 
 A very short time after her accession, Marlborough, who had 
 at once entered upon the conduct of foreign affairs and the 
 preparations for war, according to William's appointment, 
 received the garter which Anne and her husband had vainly 
 asked for him in the previous reign ; and when he returned 
 from his first campaign, a dukedom was bestowed upon him, 
 with many pretty expressions on Anne's part. 
 
 Indeed, the queen's gift of "writing pretty, affectionate let- 
 ters," which was the only thing, according to the duchess's opin- 
 ion of her expressed in later days, that she could do well, is still 
 abundantly proved by the correspondence. Anne was as anx- 
 ious as ever to serve and please her friend and favorite. She 
 prays God, in her little note of congratulation after the siege of 
 Bonn in 1703, to send Marlborough "safe home to his and my
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 59 
 
 dear adored Mrs. Freeman," widi all die grace of perfect sym- 
 pathy; for the great duke was as abject in his adoration of that 
 imperious, bewitching, and triumphant Sarah as the queen her- 
 self. With the tenderest recollection of her friend's whims, the 
 queen gave her the rangership of Windsor Park (strange of- 
 fice for a woman to hold!), in which was included "a lodge in 
 the great park," which the duchess describes as " a very agree- 
 able place to live in," . . . " remembering that when we used in 
 former days to ride by it, I had often wished for such a place," 
 although it was necessary to turn out Portland, King Wil- 
 liam's friend and favorite, in order to replace him by Lady 
 Marlborough; no doubt, however, this summary displacement 
 of the Dutchman added to the pleasure both of giving and 
 receiving. Lady Marlborough had a multiplicity of other 
 offices in addition to this, — such as those of mistress of the 
 robes, groom of the stole, and keeper of the privy purse, — 
 offices, however, which she had virtually held for years in the 
 household of the princess. All these brought in a great deal 
 of money, a matter to which she was never indifferent ; and 
 along with the dukedom, the queen bestowed upon Marl- 
 borough a pension of ^5000 a year ; so that the resources of 
 the new ducal house were abundant. They would seem by 
 their posts and perquisites alone to have had an income between 
 them not far short of ^60,000 a year, an enormous sum for 
 those times, not to speak of less legitimate profits — presents 
 from contractors, and percentages on the pay of the troops, 
 which Marlborough took, as everybody did, as a matter of 
 course, though it was afterward charged against him as if he 
 had invented the custom. The queen also promised a little 
 fortune to each of their daughters as they married — a promise 
 certainly fulfilled in the case of Henrietta, who married the son 
 of Godolphin, thus uniting the colleagues in the closest family 
 bonds. Anne also offered a pension of £2000 a year to the
 
 6o The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 duchess from the privy purse, a bounty dedined at first, but of 
 which afterward, in the final breaking up of their relations, 
 Sarah was mean enough to demand the arrears, amounting 
 to no less a sum than ;^ 18,000. Thus every kind of gift and 
 favor was pressed upon the royal favorite in the early days of 
 Anne's reign. 
 
 Before this the means of the pair had been but small. Marl- 
 borough had been long deprived of all preferment, and the 
 duchess informs us that she had discharged in the princess's 
 household all the offices for which afterward she was so highly 
 paid on an allowance of ;/^400 a year. It was for this reason 
 that the dukedom was unwelcome to her. " I do agree with 
 you," her husband writes to her, "that we ought not to wish 
 for a greater title till we have a better estate," and he assures 
 her that " I shall have a mind to nothing but as it may be 
 easy to you." It was in this strain that the great conqueror 
 always addressed his wife, and it would be difficult to say which 
 of her two adorers, her husband or her queen, showed the 
 deepest devotion. When Marlborough set out for his first 
 campaign in the' war which was to cover him with glory, and 
 in which for the first time he had full scope, this is how he 
 writes to the companion of his life (she had gone with him 
 to Margate to see him embark): 
 
 It is impossible to express with what a heavy heart I parted from you 
 when I was by the water's side. I could have given my life to have come 
 back though I knew my own weakness so much that I durst not, for I 
 know I should have exposed myself to the company. I did for a great 
 while with a perspective glass look out upon the cliffs in hopes I 
 might have had one sight of you. We are now out of sight of Margate 
 and I have neither soul nor spirits, but I do at this time suffer so much 
 that nothing but being with you can recompense it. 
 
 These lover-like words were written by a man of fifty-two to 
 his wife of forty-two, to whom he had been married for nearly a 
 quarter of a century. In all the pauses of these wars, amid the
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 6i 
 
 plans and combinations of armies, and all the hard thinking and 
 hard fighting, the perpetual activity and movement of his life 
 for the next ten years, the same voice of passionate attachment, 
 love, and longing penetrates for us the tumults of the time. 
 She was flattered to the top of her bent both by husband and 
 mistress ; and it is not much to be wondered at if she came to 
 think herself indispensable and above all law. 
 
 In the midst, however, of this prosperity and quickly grow- 
 ing greatness, the same crushing calamity which had previously 
 fallen upon Anne, overwhelmed these companions of her life. 
 Their only son, a promising boy of seventeen, died at Cam- 
 bridge, and both father and mother were bowed to the dust. 
 The queen's letter on this occasion expresses her sense of 
 yet another melancholy bond between them. It is evident 
 that she had offered to go to her friend in her affliction. " It 
 would be a great satisfaction to your poor unfortunate faithful 
 Morley if you would have given me leave to come to St. 
 Alban's," she writes, " for the unfortunate ought to come to 
 the unfortunate." With a heavy heart Marlborough chano-ed 
 his will, leaving the succession of the tides and honors, so sud- 
 denly deprived of all value to him, to the family of his eldest 
 daughter, and betook himself sadly to his fighting, deriving 
 a gleam of satisfaction from the thought that other children 
 might yet be granted to him, yet adjuring his wife to bear their 
 joint calamity with patience, whatever might befall. She herself 
 says nothing on this melancholy subject. Perhaps in her old age, 
 as she sat surveying her life, that great but innocent sorrow no 
 longer seemed to her of the first importance in a record crossed 
 by so many tempests — or perhaps it was of so much importance 
 that she would not trust herself to speak of it at all. The parti- 
 zans of the exiled Stuarts were eager to point out how both 
 she and her mistress had suffered the penalty of their sin 
 against King James and his son, by being thus deprived of
 
 62 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 their respective heirs. It was a "judgment" — a thing dear 
 
 to the popular imagination and most easily concluded upon 
 
 at all times. 
 
 It would not seem, however, .. that this natural drawing of 
 
 "the unfortunate to the unfortunate" had the effect it might 
 
 have had in further cementing the union of the queen and 
 
 the duchess. The 
 
 little rift within the lute 
 That by and by will make the music mute 
 
 began to be apparent shortly after, though not at first showing 
 itself by any lessening of warmth or tenderness. The existence 
 of a division of opinion is the first thing visible. " I cannot help 
 being extremely concerned that you are so partial to the Whigs, 
 because I would not have you and your poor unfortunate faith- 
 ful Morley differ in the least thing. And, upon my word, my 
 dear Mrs. Freeman," adds Queen Anne, "you are mightily mis- 
 taken in your notion of a true Whig. For the character you 
 eive of them does not in the least belong^ to them." 
 
 We need not discuss here the difference between the mean- 
 ing of the names Tory and Whig as understood then and now. 
 Lord Mahon and Lord Macaulay both consider a complete 
 transposition of terms to be the easiest way of making the 
 matter clear, but in one particular at least this seems scarcely 
 necessary ; for the Tories, then as now, were emphatically the 
 church party, which was to Anne the only party in which 
 safety could be found. The queen had little understanding of 
 history or politics in the wider sense of the words, but she was 
 an excellent churchwoman, and in the sentiments of the Tory 
 leaders she found, when brought into close contact with them, 
 something more in accord with her own, the one sympathy in 
 which her bosom friend had been lacking. 
 
 "These were men who had all a wonderful zeal for the Church, 
 a sort of public merit that eclipsed all others in the eye of the
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 63 
 
 Queen. . . . For my own part," the duchess adds, " I had not 
 the same prepossessions. The word Church had never any 
 charm for me in the mouths of those who made the most noise 
 with it, for I could not perceive that they gave any other proof 
 of their regard for the thing than a frequent use of the word, Hke 
 a spell to enchant weak minds, and a persecuting zeal against 
 dissenters and against the real friends of the Church who would 
 not admit that persecution was agreeable to its doctrine." 
 
 This difference had not told for very much so long as neither 
 the queen nor her friend had any share in public affairs, but it 
 became strongly operative now. How much the queen had ac- 
 tually to do with the business of the nation, and how entirely 
 it depended upon the influence brought to bear upon her lim- 
 ited mind who should be the guide of England at this critical 
 moment, is abundantly evident from every detail of history. 
 Queen Victoria, great as her experience is, and notwithstanding 
 the respectful attention which all classes of politicians naturally 
 give to her opinion, changes her ministry only when the majority 
 in Parliament requires it, and has only the very limited choice 
 which the known and acknowledged heads of the two parties 
 permit when she transfers office and power from one side to the 
 other. But Queen Anne had no compact body of statesmen, 
 one replacing the other as occasion required, to deal with ; but 
 put in here one high official and there another, according as 
 intrigue or impulse gained the upper hand. 
 
 There is something about a quarrel of women which excites 
 the scorn of every chronicler, an insidious contempt for the 
 weaker half of the creation which probably no one would own 
 to, lying dormant in the minds of the race generally, even of 
 women themselves. Had Anne been a king of moderate abili- 
 ties, and Marlborough the friend and guide to whom he owed 
 his prosperity and fame, the relationship would have been noble 
 and honorable to both; and when the struggle began, the
 
 64 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 strenuous ofiforts of the great general to secure the coopera- 
 tion of ministers with whom he could work, and whose support 
 would have helped toward the carrying out of his great plans 
 for the glory of his country and the destruction of her enemies, 
 would, whether the historical critic approved of them or not, 
 have at least secured his respect and a dignified treatment. 
 But when it is Sarah of Marlborough, with all the defects of 
 temper that we know in her, who, while her lord fights abroad, 
 has to fight for him at home, to scheme his enemies out of, and 
 his friends into, power, to keep her hold upon her mistress by 
 every means that her imagination can devise, the idea that some 
 nobler motive than mere self-aggrandizement may be in the 
 effort occurs to no one, and the hatred of political enmity is 
 mingled with all the ridicule that spiteful wit can discharge 
 upon a feminine squabble. Lady Marlborough was far from 
 being a perfect woman. She had a fiery temper and a stinging 
 tongue. When she was thwarted at the very moment of ap- 
 parent victory, and found herself impotent where she had been 
 all-powerful, her fury was like a torrent against which there was 
 no standing. But with these patent defects it ought to be al- 
 lowed her that the object for which she struggled was not only 
 a perfectly legitimate, but a noble one. What the great W^illiam 
 had spent his life and innumerable campaigns in endeavoring to 
 do, against all the discouragements of frequent failure, Marl- 
 borough was doing, with a matchless and almost unbroken suc- 
 cess. It was no shame to either the general or the general's 
 wife to believe, as William did, that this was the greatest work 
 of the time, and could alone secure the safety of England as 
 well as of her allies. And the gallant stand of Lady Marl- 
 borough for the party and the statesmen who were likely to 
 carry out this object, deserved some better interpretation from 
 history than it has ever received. 
 
 And it cannot be said that there was anything petty in Anne's
 
 THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. 
 
 ENGRAVED BY J. H. E. WHITNEY, FROM AN ENGRAVING BY PIETER VAN GUNST, 
 AETER PAINTING BY ADRIAAN VANDER WERFF.
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 65 
 
 public acts while she remained under the influence of her first 
 friend. The beginning of her reign showed no ignoble spirit. 
 One of the first things the queen did was to abolish the old 
 and obstinate practice of selling places, which had hitherto been 
 accepted as the course of nature ; so much so that when Marl- 
 borough fell into disgrace under King William, he had been 
 bidden to "sell or dispose of" the places he held, and the prin- 
 cess had herself informed Sarah at least on one occasion of 
 vacancies, in order that her friend should have the profit of 
 filling them up. "Afterwards, I began to consider in my own 
 mind this practice," the lady says; but whether she took the 
 initiative in so honorable a measure, it would be rash to pro- 
 nounce upon the authority of her own word alone. It certainly, 
 however, was one of the first acts of the queen, and the credit of 
 such a departure from the use and wont of courts should at least 
 be allowed to the new reign. Anne did various other things 
 for which there was no precedent. As soon as her civil list 
 was settled, she gave up voluntarily ^100,000 a year to aid 
 the public expenses, then greatly increased by the war, and, 
 shortly after, she made a still more important and permanent 
 sacrifice by giving up the ecclesiastical tribute of first-fruits and 
 tithes ; namely, the first year's stipend of each cure to which a 
 new incumbent was appointed, and the tenth of all livings — to 
 which the crown, as succeeding the Pope in the headship 
 of the church, had become entitled. Her object was the aug- 
 mentation of small livings, and better provision for the necessi- 
 ties of the church, and there can be little doubt that this act at 
 least was exclusively her own. The fund thus formed con- 
 tinues to this day under the name of Queen Anne's Bounty, 
 but unfortunately remained quite inefficacious during her reign, 
 in consequence of various practical difficulties; and it has never 
 been by any means the important agency she intended it to 
 be. But the intention was munificent and the desire sincere.
 
 66 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 Throughout her Hfe the church was the word which most 
 moved Anne. She was wilhng to do anything to strengthen 
 it, and to sacrifice any one, even as turned out her dear friend, 
 in its cause. 
 
 The first subject which quickened a vague and suspicious 
 disagreement into opposition was the bill against what was 
 called occasional conformity, a bill which was aimed at the 
 dissenters and abolished the expedient formerly taken advan- 
 tage of in order to admit nonconformists to some share in 
 public life — of periodical compliance with the ceremonies of 
 the church. The new law not only did away with this impor- 
 tant " easement," but was weighted with penal enactments 
 against those who, holding office under government, should 
 be present at any conventicle or assembly for worship in any 
 form but that of the Church of England. Upon this subject 
 the queen writes as follows: 
 
 I must own to you that I never cared to mention anything on this 
 subject to you because I knew you would not be of my mind, but since 
 you have given me the occasion, I can't forbear saying that I see noth- 
 ing like persecution in the bill. You may think it is a notion Lord 
 Nottingham has just put into my head, but upon my word it is my own 
 thought. I promise my dear Mrs. Freeman faithfully I will read the 
 book she sent me, and beg she will never let differences of opinion hin- 
 der us from living together as we used to do. Nothing shall ever alter 
 your poor unfortunate faithful Morley, who will live and die with all 
 truth and tenderness yours. 
 
 As the differences go on increasing, however. Queen Anne 
 gradually changes her ground. At first she "hopes her not 
 agreeing with anything you say will not be imputed to want 
 of value, esteem, or tender kindness, for my dear, dear Mrs. 
 Freeman " ; but at last, as the argument goes on, plucks up a 
 spirit and finds courage enough to declare roundly^ that when- 
 ever public affairs are in the hands of the Whigs, " I shall think 
 the Church beorinninof to be in danger." Thus the political
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 67 
 
 situation became more and more difficult, and gradually embit- 
 tered even the personal relations between the friends, and the 
 duchess had not even the support of her husband in her polit- 
 ical preferences. He had himself belonged to the moderate 
 Tory party, and, even though they thwarted and discouraged 
 him, showed no desire to throw himself into the arms of the 
 Whigs, whither his wife would so fain have led him. He 
 was almost as little encouraging to her in this point as the 
 queen was. " I know," he says, "they would be as unreason- 
 able as the others in their expectations if I should seek their 
 friendship, — for all parties are alike." It was thus a hard part 
 she had to play between the queen's determination that the 
 Whigs were the enemies of the church/ and her husband's 
 conviction that all parties were alike. He, perhaps, was the 
 more hard to manage of the two. He voted for the occasional 
 conformity bill, against which she was so hot, and trusted in 
 Harley, who indeed owed his first beginning to Marlborough's 
 favor, but whom the duchess saw through. In young St. 
 John, too, the great general had perfect faith ; "I am very 
 confident he will never deceive you," he wrote to Godolphin. 
 Thus the husband warmed in his bosom the vipers that were 
 to sting him and bring a hasty end to his career. He, too, 
 remained obstinately indifferent, while she stormed and en- 
 treated and wrote a hundred letters and used every art both 
 of war and peace in vain. It is easy to see how this perpetual 
 letter-writing, her determination to prove that her correspon- 
 dent was in error and she right, and her continual reiteration 
 of the same charges and reproaches, must have exasperated 
 the queen and troubled Marlborough, in the midst of the 
 practical difficulties of his career. But yet there are many 
 points on which Sarah has a just claim to our sympathy. For 
 she foresaw what actually did happen, and perceived whither 
 the current was tending, but was refused any credit for her
 
 68 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 prognostications or help in subduing the dangerous forces she 
 dreaded. How irritating this position must have been to a 
 fiery temper it is needless to point out, and the duchess would 
 not permit herself to be silenced by either husband or queen. 
 Lord Macaulay's description of the astonishing state of affairs 
 which compelled two of the ablest statesmen in Europe to have 
 recourse for the conduct of the imperial business to the in- 
 fluence of one woman over another, was thus far less true even 
 than it seems on the surface; for Sarah of Marlborough sus- 
 pected the real state of the case when no one else did, fighting 
 violently against her husband's enemies before they had dis- 
 closed themselves, and her final overthrow was as much the 
 result of a new tide in political affairs as of the straining of the 
 personal relations between her and her queen. 
 
 Meanwhile, Marlborough was going on in his career of con- 
 quest. It was a very costly luxury ; but the pride of England 
 had never been so fed with triumphs. Queen Anne was in her 
 closet one day at Windsor, a litde turret-chamber with windows 
 on every side looking over the green and fertile valley of the 
 Thames, with all the trees in full summer foliage and the harvest 
 beginning to be gathered in from the fields, when there was 
 brought to her a scrap of crumpled paper bearing upon it the 
 few hurried lines which told of the "glorious victory" of the 
 battle of Blenheim. It had been torn off in haste from a mem- 
 orandum book on the field, and was scribbled over with an inn- 
 reckoning on the other side. The commotion it caused was not 
 one of unmixed joy ; for though the queen wrote her thanks 
 and congratulations, and there was a great thanksgiving service 
 at St. Paul's, which she attended in state, the party in power did 
 all that in them lay to depreciate the importance of the victory. 
 When, however, Marlborough appeared in England with his 
 prisoners and trophies, — a marshal of France among the 
 former, — and many standards taken in the field, the popular
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 69 
 
 sentiment burst all bounds, and his reception was enthusiastic. 
 The crown lands of Woodstock were bestowed upon him as a 
 further reward, and the queen herself commanded that a palace 
 should be built upon the estate at the expense of the crown, to 
 be called Blenheim in commemoration of the extraordinary vic- 
 tory. A curious relic of ancient custom religiously carried out to 
 the present day .was involved in this noble gift. The quit-rent 
 which every holder of a royal fief has to pay, was appointed to 
 be a banner embroidered with three fleurs-de-lis, the arms then 
 borne by France, to be presented on every anniversary of the 
 battle. Not very long ago the present writer accompanied a 
 French lady of distinction through some part of Windsor Castle 
 under the guidance of an important member of the queen's 
 household. When the party came into the armory, on each 
 side of which, a vivid spot of color, hung a little standard fresh 
 in embroidery of gold, the kind cicerone smiled, and whispered 
 aside, "We need not point out these to her." One of them 
 was the Blenheim, the other the Waterloo banner, both yearly 
 acknowledgments, after the old feudal fashion, for fiefs held 
 of the crown. 
 
 Among the honors done to Marlborough at this triumphant 
 moment, when, an English duke, a prince of the Holy Roman 
 Empire, and, still more splendid title, the greatest soldier of his 
 time, he came home in glory to England, were the verses with 
 which Addison saluted him. There were plenty of odes piping 
 to all the winds in his honor, but this alone worthy of record. 
 Every reader will recollect the simile of the great angel who 
 "drives the furious blast;" 
 
 And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, 
 Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm. 
 
 The compliment might be supposed to be somewhat magnif- 
 icent even for the greatest of commanders. And yet whatever
 
 70 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 Marlborough's faults may have been, his attitude during this 
 wonderful war is scarcely too splendidly described by the image 
 of a calm and superior spirit beholding contemporary events 
 from a higher altitude than that of common humanity, executing 
 vengeance and causing destruction without either rage or fear, 
 in serene fulfilment of a great command and in pursuance of 
 a mighty purpose. His unbroken temper, his patience and 
 courtesy in the midst of all contentions, the firm composure with 
 which he supports all the burdens thrown upon him, appeals 
 from home as well as necessities abroad, might well suggest a 
 spirit apart, independent, not moved like lesser men. No man 
 ever bore so many conflicting claims more calmly. Even the 
 adjurations, the commands, the special pleadings of his "dearest 
 soul" do not lead him a step farther than he thinks wise. 
 "When I differ from you," he says, " it is not that I think those 
 are in the right whom you say are always in the wrong, but it 
 is that I would be glad not to enter into the unreasonable rea- 
 soning of either party; for I have trouble enough for my litde 
 head in the business which of necessity I must do here." There 
 could not be a greater contrast than between the commotion 
 and whirlwind that surrounds Duchess Sarah and the great 
 general's calm. 
 
 It is not necessary for our purpose to enter into those 
 changes of ministry which first temporarily consolidated the 
 Marlborough interest and afterward wrought its destruction, 
 nor into the intrigues by which Harley and St. John gradually 
 secured the reins of state. It is not to be supposed that these 
 fluctuations were wholly owing to the influences brought to 
 bear upon the queen ; but that her prevailing disposition to 
 uphold the party which to her represented the church kept the 
 continuance of the war and the foreign policy of the country in 
 constant danger, there can be no doubt. It is only in 1707, 
 however, that we are made aware of the entry of a new actor
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 71 
 
 upon the scene, in the person of a smooth and noiseless wo- 
 man, always civil, always soft-spoken, apologetic, and plausible, 
 whose sudden appearance in the vivid narrative of her great 
 rival is in the highest degree dramatic and effective. This was 
 the famous Abigail who has given her name, somewhat injuri- 
 ously to her own position, to the class of waiting-women ever 
 since. She was in reality bedchamber-woman to the queen — 
 a post now very far removed from that of a waiting-maid, and 
 even then by no means on a level, notwithstanding the duchess's 
 scornful phrases, with that of the class which ever since has 
 been distinguished by Mrs. Hill's remarkable name. Her in- 
 troduction altogether, and the vigorous mise en scene of this 
 new episode in history, are fine examples of the graphic power 
 of Duchess Sarah. Her suspicions, she informs us, were roused 
 by the information that Abigail Hill, a relation of her own, and 
 placed by herself in the royal household, had been married 
 without her knowledge to Mr. Masham, who was one of the 
 queen's pages ; but there are allusions before this in her letters 
 to the queen to "flatterers," which point at least to some sus- 
 pected influence undermining her own. She tells us first in a 
 few succinct pages who this was whose private marriage ex- 
 cited so much wonder and indignation in her mind. Abigail 
 and all her family owed their establishment in life to the active 
 exertions of the duchess, who had taken them in their poverty 
 upon her shoulders— or rather had succeeded in passing them 
 on to the broader shoulders of the public, which was still more 
 satisfactory. Thus she had been the making of the whole band, 
 henceforward through other members besides Abigail to prove 
 thorns in her flesh. Harley, who was at this time secretary of 
 state, and aiming at higher place, was related in the same 
 degree on the father's side to Mrs. Abigail ; so that, first cousin 
 to the great duchess on one hand and to the leader of the 
 House of Commons on the other, though it suits the narrator's
 
 72 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 purpose to humble her, Mrs. Hill was no child of the people. 
 It is curious to remark here that Harley too came to his first 
 advancement by Marlborough's patronage. 
 
 From the moment of this discovery, and of the further facts 
 that the marriage had taken place under Anne's auspices, and 
 that Abigail had already taken advantage of her favor to bring 
 Harley into close relations with the queen, the duchess gave 
 her mistress little peace. Fiery letters were showered daily 
 upon the queen. She let nothing pass without a hasty visit, 
 or a long epistle. If it were not for the pertinacity with which 
 she returns again and again to one subject, these letters have 
 so much force of character in them that it would be impossible 
 not to enter with sympathetic excitement into the fray. The 
 reader is carried along by the passionate absorption of the 
 writer's mind as she pours forth page upon page, flying to her 
 desk at every new incident, transmitting copies of every epistle 
 to Godolphin to secure his cooperation, and to Marlborough, 
 though so much farther off, to show him how she had confuted 
 all his adversaries. And then there follows a record of stormy 
 scenes, remonstrances, and appeals that lose their effect by 
 repetition. The duchess would never accept defeat. Every 
 new affront, every symptom of failure in the policy which she 
 supported with so much zeal, made her rush, if possible, to the 
 presence of the queen, with a storm of reproaches and invec- 
 tives, with tears of fury and outcries of wrath, — or to the pen, 
 with which she reiterated the same burning story of her wrongs. 
 Anne is represented to us throughout in an attitude of stolid 
 and passive resistance, which increases our sympathy with the 
 weeping, raging, passionate woman, whose eloquence, whose 
 arguments, whose appeals and entreaties all dash unheeded 
 against the rock of tranquil obstinacy which is no more moved 
 by them than the cliff is moved by the petulance of the rising 
 tide ; although, on the other hand, a similar sympathy is not
 
 THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. 
 
 lINCKAvnn BY R. G. TIET2E. TROM MEZZOTINT AFTER PAINTING BY SIR G 
 
 GODFREY KNELLER.
 
 The Queen and the Duchess jz 
 
 wanting for the dull and placid soul which could get no peace, 
 and which longed above all things for tranquillity, for gentle 
 attentions and soft voices, and the privilege of nominating 
 bishops and playing basset in peace. Poor lady ! on the whole 
 it is Queen Anne who is most to be pitied. She was often ill, 
 always unwieldly and uncomfortable. She had nobody but a 
 soft, gliding, smooth-tongued Abigail to fall back upon, while 
 the duchess had half the great men of the time fawning upon 
 her, putting themselves at her feet : her husband prizing a word 
 of kindness from her more than anything in the world ; her 
 daughters describing her as the dearest mother that ever was ; 
 money — which she loved — accumulating in her coffers; and 
 great Blenheim still a-building, and all kinds of noble hang- 
 ings, cut velvets and satins, pictures, and every fine thing that 
 could be conceived, getting collected for the adornment of that 
 great house. 
 
 Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that Duchess Sarah 
 represented a nobler idea and grander national policy than 
 that into which her mistress was betrayed. Her later inter- 
 course with Anne was little more than a persecution ; and yet 
 what she aimed at was better than the dishonoring and selfish 
 policy by which she was finally conquered. The Marlboroughs 
 were not of those who pressed the German heir upon the 
 queen, or would have compelled her to receive his visit, which 
 she passionately declared she could not bear ; but they were 
 determined, all treasonable correspondence notwithstanding, up- 
 on the maintenance of the Protestant succession, upon the firm 
 establishment of English independence and greatness, — those 
 objects which alone had justified the Revolution and made the 
 stern chapter of William's life and reign anything better than 
 an incidental episode. Though he had been false to William, 
 as everybody was false in those days, and had lain so long 
 in the cold shade of his displeasure, Marlborough had, in his
 
 74 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 whole magnificent career, been little more than the execu- 
 tor of William's plans, the fulfiller of his policy. The duchess, 
 on her side, with much love of power and of gain, with all 
 the drawbacks of her temper and pertinacity, still bent every 
 faculty to the work of backing up that policy, as embodied 
 in her husband, keeping his friends in power, neutralizing the 
 efforts of his enemies, and bringing the war to an entirely 
 successful conclusion. A certain enlightenment was in all her 
 passionate interferences with the course of public affairs. The 
 men whom she labored to thrust into office were the best 
 men of the time ; the ascendency she endeavored so violently 
 to retain was one under which England had been elevated 
 in the scale of nations and all her liberties confirmed. Such 
 persecuting and intolerant acts as the bill against occasional 
 conformity, which was a test of exceptional severity, had 
 her strenuous opposition. In short, had there been no Marl- 
 borough to carry on the half-begun war at William's death, 
 and no Sarah at Anne's ear to inspire the queen's sluggish 
 nature with spirit and to keep her up to the mark of the large 
 plans of her predecessor, England might have fallen into 
 another driveling period of foreign subserviency, into a new 
 and meaner Restoration. 
 
 That the reader may see, however, to what an extraordin- 
 ary pass the friendship had come which had been so intimate 
 and close, we add the duchess's account of the concluding 
 interview. Every kind of exasperating circumstance had ac- 
 cumulated in the mean time between the former friends. 
 There had been violent meetings, violent letters by the score ; 
 even in the midst of a thanksgiving service Sarah had taken 
 her mistress to task and imperiously bidden her not to answer. 
 Indeed, the poor queen was more or less hunted down, pursued 
 to her last corner of defense, when the mistress of the robes 
 made her sudden appearance at Kensington one April after-
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 75 
 
 noon in the year 1710, when everything was tending toward 
 her downfall. 
 
 As I was entering, the Queen said she was just going to write to me, 
 and when I began to speak she interrupted me four or five times with 
 these repeated words, "Whatever you have to say you may put it in writ- 
 ing." I said her Majesty never did so hard a thing to any as to refuse to 
 hear them speak, and assured her that I was not going to trouble her 
 upon the subject which I knew to be so ungrateful to her, but that I could 
 not possibly rest until I had cleared myself from some particular calum- 
 nies with which I had been loaded. I then went on to speak (though 
 the Queen turned away her face from me) and to represent my hard case, 
 that there were those about her Majesty that had made her believe that 
 I said things of her which I was no more capable of saying than of kill- 
 ing my own children. The Queen said without doubt there were many 
 lies told. I then begged, in order to make this trouble the shorter and 
 my own innocence the plainer, that I might know the particulars of 
 which I had been accused, because if I were guilty that would quickly 
 appear, and if I were innocent this method alone would clear me. The 
 Queen replied that she would give me no answer, laying hold on a word 
 in my letter that what I had to say in my own vindication need have no 
 consequence in obliging her Majesty to answer, etc., which surely did not 
 at all imply that I did not desire to know the particular things laid to my 
 charge, without which it was impossible for me to clear myself This I 
 assured her Majesty was all I desired, and that I did not ask the names 
 of the authors or relaters of these calumnies, saying all that I could 
 think reasonably to enforce my just request. I protested to her 
 Majesty that I had no design in giving her this trouble, to solicit 
 the return of her favor, but that my sole view was to clear myself: 
 which was too just a design to be wholly disappointed by her Majesty. 
 Upon this the Queen offered to go out of the room, I following her, and 
 begging leave to clear myself, and the Queen repeating over and over 
 again, "You desired no answer and shall have none." When she came 
 to the door I fell into great disorder; streams of tears flow'd down 
 against my will and prevented my speaking for some time. At length 
 I recovered myself and appealed to the Queen in the vehemence of my 
 concern whether I might not still have been happy in her Majesty's 
 favour if I could have contradicted or dissembled my real opinion of men 
 or things? whether I had ever, during our long friendship, told her one 
 lie, or play'd the hypocrite once ? whether I had offended in anything, 
 unless in a very zealous pressing upon her that which I thought neces-
 
 76 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 sary for her service and security ? I then said I was informed by a very 
 reasonable and credible person about the court that things were laid to 
 my charge of which I was wholly incapable ; that this person knew that 
 such stories were perpetually told to her Majesty to incense her, and 
 had beg'd of me to come and vindicate myself: that the same person 
 had thought me of late guilty of some omissions towards her Majesty, 
 being entirely ignorant how uneasy to her my frequent attendance 
 must be after what had happened between us. I explained some things 
 which I had heard her Majesty had taken amiss of me, and then, with 
 a fresh flood of tears and a concern sufficient to move compassion, even 
 where all love was absent, I beg'd to know what other particulars she 
 had heard of me, that I might not be denied all power of justifying my- 
 self But the only return was, " You desired no answer and you shall 
 have none." I then beg'd to know if her Majesty would tell me some 
 other time ? "You desired no answer and you shall have none." I 
 then appealed to her Majesty again, if she did not herself know that I 
 had often despised interest in comparison of serving her faithfully and 
 doing right ? And whether she did not know me to be of a temper in- 
 capable of disowning anything which I knew to be true ? " You 
 desired no answer and you shall have none." This usage was so severe, 
 and these words, so often repeated, were so shocking (being an utter 
 denial of common justice to one who had been a most faithful servant, 
 and now asked nothing more) that I could not conquer myself, but said 
 the most disrespectful thing I ever spoke to the Queen in my life, and 
 yet what such an occasion and such circumstances might well excuse if 
 not justify, and that was, that " I was confident her Majesty would suffer 
 for such an instance of inhumanity." The Queen answered, " That will 
 be to myself" Thus ended this remarkable conversation, the last I ever 
 had with her Majesty [the duchess adds]. 
 
 After this there was no more possibility of reconciliation. 
 Attempts of all kinds were made, and there is even a record of a 
 somewhat pitiful scene in which great Marlborough himself, on his 
 return from the wars, appears on his knees pleading with Queen 
 Anne to take back her old companion into favor, but without ef- 
 fect. Unfortunately for himself, he did not resign at this turning- 
 point, being persuaded both by friends and foes not to do so ; 
 and with the evident risk before his eyes of hazarding all the 
 combinations of the war and giving a distinct advantage to the
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 17 
 
 enemy against whom he had hitherto operated so forcibly. He 
 kept his command, therefore, for the pubHc interest rather than 
 his own, and returned, when the season of warfare recom- 
 menced, to the post which all these events made uneasy for him, 
 and where his credit was shaken and his prestige diminished 
 by the disfavor of the court and the opposition of the ministry. 
 The responsibility was therefore left upon Anne and her minis- 
 ters of dismissing him, which they did in the end of 1 71 1, to the 
 consternation of their allies, the delight of the French, and the 
 bewilderment of the nation. The party plots by which this 
 came about are far too long and involved to be capable of ex- 
 planation here — neither can we enter into the semi-secret 
 negotiations for the humiliating and disgraceful peace secured 
 by the treaty of Utrecht, which were carried on unknown to 
 Marlborough, to the destruction of the alliance and confusion of 
 all his plans. Never, perhaps, was so great a man treated with 
 such contumely. His associate in his work, the Lord Treasurer 
 Godolphin, the great financier of his time, had already fallen, 
 leaving office so poor a man that he would have been wholly 
 dependent on his relations but for the unexpected death of a 
 brother who left him a small fortune. He has left an account 
 of his dismissal by the queen herself and on the ground ap- 
 parently of personal offense, which is extraordinary indeed. 
 
 Anne herself was no doubt litde more than a puppet in the 
 hands of successive politicians ; but yet the struggle that took 
 place around her at this unfortunate period — the maintenance 
 by every wile of somebody who could influence her, the conflict 
 for her ear and favor — shows her immense importance in the 
 economy of public life. Queen Victoria is the object of univer- 
 sal veneration and respect, but not the smallest official in her 
 government need fear the displeasure of the queen as the high- 
 est minister had to fear that of Anne, for whom no one enter- 
 tained any particular respect. Yet there was little real power
 
 78 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 in the possession of the unfortunate woman who, badgered on 
 all sides, and refused both peace and rest, sank slowly into 
 disease and decay during the two years which followed the 
 disgrace of the friend of her youth. 
 
 She had no longer an audacious Freeman to tell her un- 
 welcome truths and tease her with appeals and reproaches ; 
 but it is probable that she soon found her soft-voiced Abigail, 
 her caressing duchess (of Somerset) little more satisfactory ; 
 never was a head that wore a crown more uneasy. She held 
 fast to the power which she had been persuaded she was to get 
 into her own hands when she was delivered from the sway of 
 the Marlboroughs, and for a little while believed it possible that 
 she could reign unaided. But this was a delusion that could 
 not last long; and her death was hastened, it is said, by a 
 violent altercation between Harley and St. John, when the inev- 
 itable struggle between the two who had pushed all competitors 
 out of place occurred at last. They wrangled over the staff of 
 office in Anne's very presence, overwhelming her with agitation 
 and excitement. Apart from politics, the royal existence was 
 dull enough. When Dean Swift was at Windsor, following 
 Harley and waiting for the decision of his Irish business, we 
 have occasional glimpses through his eyes which show the 
 tedium of the court. "There was a drawing-room to-day," he 
 says, " but so few company that the Queen sent for us into her 
 bedchamber, where we made our bows, and stood, about twenty 
 of us round the room, while she looked round with her fan in 
 her mouth, and once a minute said about three words to some 
 that were nearest her, and then she was told dinner was ready, 
 and went out." The same authority mentions her way of tak- 
 ing exercise, which was a strange one. " The Queen was 
 hunting the stag till four this afternoon," he says ; " she drove in 
 her chaise about forty miles, and it was five before we went to 
 dinner. . . . She hunts in a chaise with one horse, which she
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 79 
 
 drives herself, and drives furiously like Jehu, and is a mighty 
 hunter like Nimrod." Windsor's great park and forest must 
 have afforded room and space for some part at least of this 
 course, and a hunt in August would need to have been confined 
 to ground less cultivated than that of the smiling plain which 
 skirts the castle hill on the other side. Queen Anne's Ride 
 and Queen Anne's Drive are still well-known names in the 
 locality where the strange apparition of the queen, solitary in 
 her high chaise, and "driving furiously" after the hunt, must 
 once have been a familiar sight. 
 
 The end of this poor queen's life was disturbed by a new 
 and terrible struggle, in which natural sentiment and public 
 duty, and all the prepossessions and prejudices of her nature, 
 were set in conflict one against the other. This was upon the 
 question of the succession. The family of Hanover, the Elec- 
 tress Sophia and her son and grandson, had been chosen 
 solemnly by Parliament as the nearest members of the royal 
 race who were Protestants, and were recoQfnized as the heirs to 
 the throne in all public acts and in the prayers of the church. 
 But to Anne the house of Hanover was of no special interest. 
 She did not love the idea of successor at all. She had declared 
 to Marlborough passionately that the proposed visit of the 
 Hanoverian prince was a thing which she could not bear, and 
 there was no friendship, nor even acquaintance, between her 
 and relatives so far removed. But apart from all public know- 
 ledge, in the secret chambers and by the back-stairs came 
 whispers now of another name, that of James Stuart, more 
 familiar and kindly — the baby-brother about whom Anne had 
 believed the prevailing fable, that he was a supposititious child, 
 for whom she had invented the name of the Pretender, but 
 who now in her childless decay began to be presented before 
 her as the victim of a great wrong. Poor queen ! she was torn 
 asunder by all these contradictions ; and if her heart was melt-
 
 8o The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 ing toward her father's son, all the dull experience which she 
 had acquired in spite of herself must have convinced her that 
 this solution of the difficulty was impossible. Her life of late 
 had been one long conflict; imperious Sarah first, then Harley 
 and St. John quarrelling in her very presence-chamber ; and 
 when the door was shut and the curtains drawn and all the 
 world departed save Abigail lying on a mattress on the floor to 
 be near her mistress, here was the most momentous question 
 of all. She who desired nothing so much as quiet and to be 
 left in peace, was once again compelled to face a problem of 
 the utmost importance to England, and on which she alone had 
 the power to say a decisive word. Little wonder if Anne was 
 harassed beyond all endurance. But those who pressed this 
 question upon her waning senses were the instruments of their 
 own overthrow. The powers of life worn out before their time 
 could bear no more. The hopes of the Jacobite party were 
 rising higher every day as the end drew near ; but at the last 
 she escaped them, having uttered no word of support to their 
 cause ; and in the confusion which ensued, George I. was peace- 
 fully proclaimed as soon as the queen out of her lethargy had 
 slipped beyond the boundaries of any earthly kingdom. 
 
 The Marlboroughs, who had been living on the Continent 
 since their disgrace, came back after this new change. The 
 duke's entry into London " in great state, attended by hun- 
 dreds of gentlemen on horseback and some of the nobility in 
 their coaches " a few days after, is reported by one of the 
 chroniclers of the time. The duchess followed him soon after, 
 and whether her temper and disposition had so far mended as 
 to allow him to enjoy the peace he had so often longed for 
 by the side of her he loved, he had at least a tranquil evening- 
 time among his friends and dependents, and the grandchildren 
 who were to be his heirs — for only one of his own children 
 survived at his death. Duchess Sarah lived long after him.
 
 BISHOP GILBERT BURNET. 
 
 ENGRAVED BY R. A. MULLER, FROM MEZZOTINT IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 BY JOHN SMITH. AFTER THE PAINTING BY JOHN RILEY.
 
 The Queen and the Duchess 8i 
 
 She was sixty-two when he died, but, nevertheless, in spite of 
 temper and every other failing, was still charming enough to be 
 sought in marriage by two distinguished suitors — one of them 
 that proud Duke of Somerset whose first wife had supplanted 
 her at court. She answered this potentate in the only way 
 consistent with the dignity of a woman of her age and circum- 
 stances; but added, with a noble pride which sat well upon her, 
 that had she been but half her age, not the emperor of the 
 world should ever have filled the place sacred to great Marl- 
 borough. It is a pity we could not leave her here in the glow 
 of this proud tenderness and constancy. She was capable of 
 that and many other noble things, but not of holding her 
 tongue, of withdrawing into the background, or accepting in 
 other ways the natural change from maturity to age. Her 
 restless energies, however, had some legitimate outlet. She 
 finished Blenheim, and she wrote innumerable explanations and 
 memoranda, which finally shaped themselves into that "Account 
 of the Conduct of the Duchess of Marlborough from her first 
 Coming to Court," which is one of the most interesting of all 
 metnoires pour servir. This was published in her eighty-second 
 year, and it is curious to think of the vivacious and unsubdued 
 spirit which could throw itself back so completely out of the 
 calm of age into the conflicts and the very atmosphere of what 
 had passed thirty years before. And she did her best to pre- 
 pare for a great life of Marlborough which should set him right 
 with the world. But her time was not always so innocently 
 employed, and it is to be feared that she wrangled to the end 
 of her life. The "Characters" of her contemporaries which 
 she left behind are full of spite and malice. There was no 
 peace in her soul. A characteristic little story is told of her in 
 an illness. " Last year she had lain a great while ill without 
 speaking; her physicians said she must be blistered or she 
 would die. She called out, ' I won't be blistered and I won't
 
 82 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 die ! ' and apparently for the moment kept her word." She 
 lived long enough to be impaled by Pope in verses which an 
 involuntary admiration for this daring, dauntless, impassioned 
 woman makes us reluctant to quote. She survived almost her 
 entire generation, and was capable of living a hundred years 
 more had nature permitted. She was eighty-four when she 
 succumbed at last, in the year 1 744, thirty years after the death 
 of the queen.
 
 Chapter III 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF "GULLIVER" 
 
 THERE are few figures in history, and still fewer in 
 literature, which have occupied so great a place in the 
 world's attention, or which retain so strong a hold up- 
 on its interest, as that of Jonathan Swift, dean of St. Patrick's. 
 It is considerably more than a century since he died, old and 
 mad and miserable : a man who had never been satisfied with 
 life, or felt his fate equal to his deserts; who disowned and 
 hated (even when he served it) the country of his birth, and 
 with fierce and bitter passion denounced human nature itself, 
 and left a sting in almost every individual whom he loved ; a 
 man whose preferment and home were far from the center of 
 public affairs, and who had no hereditary claim on the attention 
 of Eno-land. Yet when the Endish reader, or he who in the far- 
 thest corner of the New World has the same right to English 
 literature as that which the subjects of Queen Victoria hold, — 
 as the American does— from the subjects of Queen Anne, — 
 reads the title at the head of this page, neither the one nor the 
 other will have any difficulty in distinguishing among all the 
 ecclesiastical dignitaries of that age who it is that stands con- 
 spicuous as the dean. Not in royal Westminster or Windsor 
 is this man to be found ; not the ruler of any great cathedral 
 in the rich English midlands where tradition and wealth and an 
 almost Catholic supremacy united to make the great official of 
 the church as important as any official of the state — but far 
 
 83
 
 84 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 from those influences, half as far as America is now from the 
 center of EngHsh society and the sources of power, one of a 
 nation which the most obstinate conservative of to-day will not 
 hesitate to allow was then deeply wronged and cruelly mis- 
 governed by England, many and anxious as have been her 
 efforts since to make amends. Yet among the many strange 
 examples of that far more than republican power (not always 
 most evident in republics) by which a man of native force and 
 genius, however humble, finds his way to the head of affairs and 
 impresses his individuality upon his age, when thousands born 
 to better fortunes are swept away as nobodies. Swift is one of 
 the most remarkable. His origin, though noted by himself, 
 not without a certain pride, as from a family of gentry not 
 unknown in their district, was in his own person almost as 
 lowly and poor as it was possible to be. The posthumous son 
 of a poor official in the Dublin law-courts, owing his education 
 to the kindness, or perhaps less the kindness than the family 
 pride, of an uncle, Swift entered the world as a hanger-on, 
 waiting what fortune and a patron might do for him, a posi- 
 tion scarcely comprehensible to young Englishmen nowadays, 
 though then the natural method of advancement. Such a 
 young man in the present day would betake himself to his 
 books, with the practical aim of an examination before him, 
 and the hope of immediate admission through that gate to the 
 public service and all its chances. It is amusing to speculate 
 what the difference might have been had Jonathan Swift, coming 
 raw with his degree from Trinity College, Dublin, shouldered 
 his robust way to the head of an examination list, and thus 
 making himself at a stroke independent of patronage, gone out 
 to reign and rule and distribute justice in India, or pushed him- 
 self upward among the gentlemanly mediocrities of a public 
 office. One asks would he have found that method more suc- 
 cessful, and endured the desk and the routine of his office, and
 
 JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 FROM PHOTOGRAPH OH ORIGINAL MARBLE BUST OH SWIHT 
 
 BY ROUBILLIAC (X695-1762), NOW IN THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
 
 The Author of ''Gulliver'' 85 
 
 "got on" with the head of his department, better than he 
 endured the monotony and subjection, the possible sHghts and 
 spurns of Sir Wilham Temple's household, which he entered, 
 half servant, half equal, the poor relation, the secretary and 
 companion of that fastidious philosopher? The question may 
 be cut short by the almost certainty that Swift could not have 
 gained his promotion in any such way ; but his age had not 
 learned the habit of utilizing education, and he was one of the 
 idle youths of fame. " He was stopped of his degree," he him- 
 self writes in his autobiographical notes, " for dullness and 
 insufficiency, and at last hardly admitted in a manner little to 
 his credit, which is called in that college speciali gratia." Re- 
 cent biographers have striven to prove that this really meant 
 nothing to Swift's discredit, but it is to be supposed that in such 
 a matter he is himself the best authority. 
 
 The life of the household of dependents at Moor Park, 
 where young Swift attended Sir William's pleasure in the 
 library, while the Johnsons and Dingleys, the waiting-gentle- 
 women of a system which now lingers only in courts, hung 
 about my lady, her relatives, gossips, servants, is to us ex- 
 tremely difficult to realize, and still more to understand. This 
 little cluster of secondary personages, scarcely at all elevated 
 above the servants, with whom they sometimes sat at table, and 
 whose offices they were always liable to be called on to per- 
 form, yet who were all conscious of gentle blood in their veins, 
 and a relationship more or less distinct with the heads of the 
 house, is indeed one of the most curious lingerings of the past 
 in the eighteenth century. When we read in one of Macau- 
 lay's brilliant sketches, or in Swift's own words, or in the indi- 
 cations given by both history and fiction, that the parson, — 
 perhaps at the great house, — humble priest of the parish, 
 found his natural mate in the waiting-maid, it is generally for- 
 gotten that the waiting-maid was then in most cases quite as
 
 86 The Reign of Que en Anne 
 
 good as the parson : a gently bred and well-descended woman, 
 like her whom an unkind but not ignoble fate made into the 
 Stella we all know, the mild and modest star of Swift's exis- 
 tence. It was no doubt a step in the transition from the great 
 medieval household, where the squire waited on the knight 
 with a lowliness justified by his certainty of believing himself 
 knight in his turn, and where my lady's service was a noble 
 education, the only school accessible to the young gentlewomen 
 of her connection — down to our own less picturesque and 
 more independent days, in which personal service has ceased 
 to be compatible with the pretensions of any who can assume, 
 by the most distant claim, to be " gentle " folk. The institu- 
 tion is very apparent in Shakspere's day, the waiting-gentle- 
 women who surround his heroines being of entirely different 
 mettle from the soubrettes of modern comedy. At a later 
 period such a fine gentleman as John Evelyn, in no need of 
 patronage, was content and proud that his daughter should 
 enter a great household to learn how to comport herself in the 
 world. In the end of the seventeenth century the dependents 
 were perhaps more absolutely dependent. But even this, like 
 most things, had its better and worst side. 
 
 That a poor widow with her child, like Stella's mother, 
 should find refuge in the house of her wealthy kinswoman at no 
 heavier cost than that of attending to Lady Temple's linen and 
 laces, and secure thus such a training for her little girl as might 
 indeed have ended in the rude household of a Parson Trulliber, 
 but at the same time might fit her to take her place in a witty 
 and brilliant society, and enter into all the thoughts of the most 
 brilliant genius of his time, was no ill fate ; nor is there any- 
 thing that is less than noble and befitting (in theory) in the 
 association of that young man of genius, whatsoever exercises 
 of patience he might be put to, with the highly cultured man of 
 the world, the ex-ambassador and councilor of kings, under
 
 The Author of ''Gulliver'' 87 
 
 whose auspices he could learn to understand both books and 
 men, see the best company of his time, and acquire at second 
 hand all the fruits of a ripe experience. So that, perhaps, 
 there is something to be said after all for the curious little com- 
 munity at Moor Park, where Sir William, like a god, made the 
 day good or evil for his people according as he smiled or 
 frowned; where the young Irish secretary, looking but uneasily 
 upon a world in which his future fate was so unassured, had 
 yet the wonderful chance once, if no more, of explaining Eng- 
 lish institutions to King William, and in his leisure the amuse- 
 ment of teaching little Hester how to write, and learning from 
 her baby prattle — which must have been the delight of the 
 house, kept up and encouraged by her elders — that "little 
 language " which had become a sort of synonym for the most 
 intimate and endearing utterances of tenderness. No doubt 
 Sir William himself (who left her a m9dest little fortune when 
 he died) must have loved to hear the child talk, and even Lady 
 Giffard and the rest, having no responsibility for her parts 
 of speech, kept her a baby as long as possible, and delighted 
 in the pretty jargon to which foolish child-lovers cling in all 
 ages after the little ones themselves are grown too wise to 
 use it more. 
 
 Jonathan Swift left Ireland, along with many more, in the 
 commotion that succeeded the revolution of 1688 — a very poor 
 and homely lad, with nothing but the learning, such as it was, 
 picked up in a somewhat disorderly university career. Through 
 his mother, then living at Leicester, and on the score of hum- 
 ble relationship between Mrs. Swift and Lady Temple, of whom 
 the reader may perhaps remember the romance and tender his- 
 tory, — a pleasant association, — he was introduced to Sir Wil- 
 liam Temple's household, but scarcely, it would appear, at first 
 to any permanent position there. He was engaged, an un- 
 friendly writer says, " at the rate of £20 a year" as amanuensis
 
 88 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 and reader, but " Sir William never favoured him with his con- 
 versation nor allowed him to sit at table with him." Temple's 
 own account of the position, however, contains nothing at all 
 derogatory to the young man, for whom, about a year after, 
 he endeavored, no doubt in accordance with Swift's own wishes, 
 to find a situation with Sir Robert Southwell, then going to 
 Ireland as secretary of state. Sir William describes Swift as "of 
 good family in Herefordshire. . . . He has lived in my house, 
 read to me, writ for me, and kept all my accounts as far as my 
 small occasions required. He has Latin and Greek, some 
 French, writes a very good current hand, is very honest and 
 diligent, and has good friends, though they have for the present 
 lost their fortunes," the great man says; and he recommends 
 the youth " either as a gentleman to wait on you, or a clerk to 
 write under you, or upon any establishment of the College to 
 recommend him to a fellowship there, which he has a just pre- 
 tence to." This shows how little there was in the position of 
 "a gentleman to wait on you," of which the young suitor need 
 have been ashamed. Swift's own account of this speedy re- 
 turn to Ireland is that it was by advice of the physicians, 
 " who weakly imagined that his native air might be of some use 
 to recover his health," which he was young enough to have 
 endangered by the temptations of Sir William's fine gardens ; 
 a "surfeit of fruit" beinof the innocent cause to which he 
 attributes the disease which haunted him for all the rest of 
 his life. 
 
 His absence, however, from the Temple household was of 
 very short duration. Sir Robert Southwell having apparently 
 had no use for his services, or means of preferring him to a fel- 
 lowship, and he returned to Moor Park in 1690, where he re- 
 mained for four years. It was quite clear, whatever his vicis- 
 situdes of feeling might have been, that he identified himself 
 entirely with his patron's opinions and even prejudices, and was
 
 '^•^^
 
 The Author of ''Gulliver'' 89 
 
 9. loyal and devoted retainer both now and afterward. When 
 Sir William became involved in a literary quarrel with the 
 great scholar Bentley, young Swift rushed into the field with a 
 jeu d' esprit which has outlived all other records of the contro- 
 versy. The "Battle of the Books" could hardly have been 
 written in aid of a hard or contemptuous master. Years after, 
 when he had a house of his own and had entered upon his in- 
 dependent career, he turned his little rectory garden into a 
 humble imitation of the Dutch paradise which Temple had 
 made to bloom in the wilds of Surrey, with a canal and a wil- 
 low walk like those which were so dear to Kine William and 
 his courtiers. And when Temple died, it was to Swift, and 
 not to any of his nephews, that Sir William committed the 
 charge of his papers and literary remains. This does not look 
 like a hard bondage on one side, or any tyrannical sway on the 
 other, notwithstanding a few often-quoted phrases which are 
 taken as implying complaint. " Don't you remember," Swift 
 asks long after, "how I used to be in pain when Sir William 
 Temple would look cold and out of temper for three or four 
 days, and I used to suspect a hundred reasons ? " But these 
 words need not represent anything more than that sensitiveness 
 to the aspect of the person on whom his prospects and comfort 
 depend which is inevitable to every individual in a similar posi- 
 tion, however considerate and friendly the patron may be. The 
 hard-headed and unbending Scotch philosopher, James Mill, 
 was just as sensitive to the looks of his kind friend and helper 
 in the early struggles of life, Jeremy Bentham, in whose sunny 
 countenance Mill discovered unspoken offense with an ingenu- 
 ity worthy of a self-tormenting woman. It was natural indeed 
 that Swift, a high-spirited young man, should fret and struggle 
 as the years went on and nothing happened to enlarge his 
 horizon beyond the trees of Moor Park. He was sent to Kino- 
 William, as has been said, when Temple was unable to wait
 
 90 The Reign of Queen Aniie 
 
 upon his Majesty, to explain to him the expediency of certain 
 padiamentary measures, and this was no doubt intended by his 
 patron as a means of bringing him under the king's notice. 
 William would seem to have taken a kind of vague interest in 
 the secretary, which he expressed in an odd way by offering 
 him a captain's commission in a cavalry regiment, — a proposal 
 which did not tempt Swift, — and by teaching him how to cut 
 asparagus "in the Dutch way," and to eat up all the stalks, as 
 the dean afterward, in humorous revenge, made an unlucky 
 visitor of his own do. But William, notwithstanding these 
 whimsical evidences of favor, neither listened to the young sec- 
 retary's argument nor gave him a prebend as had been hoped. 
 Four years, however, is a long time for an ambitious young 
 man to spend in dependence, watching one hope die out after 
 another ; and Swift's impatience began to be irrestrainable and 
 to trouble the peace of his patron's learned leisure. Although 
 destined from the first to the church, and for some time waiting 
 ill tremulous expectation of ecclesiastical preferment. Swift had 
 not yet taken orders. The explanation he gives of how and 
 why he finally determined on doing so is characteristic. His 
 dissatisfaction and restlessness, probably his complaints, moved 
 Sir William, — though evidently deeply offended that his secre- 
 tary should wish to leave him, — to offer him an employ of 
 about ^120 a year in the Rolls Office in Ireland, of which 
 Temple held the sinecure office of master. " Whereupon [says 
 Swift's own narrative] Mr. Swift told him that since he had now 
 an opportunity of living without being driven into the Church 
 for a maintenance, he was resolved to go to Ireland and take 
 Holy Orders." This arbitrary decision to balk his patron's 
 tardy bounty, and take his own way in spite of him, was prob- 
 ably as much owing to a characteristic blaze of temper as to the 
 somewhat fantastic disinterestedness here put forward, though 
 Swift was never a man greedy of money or disposed to sacrifice
 
 The Author of ''Gtdliver'' 91 
 
 his pride to the acquisition of gain, notwithstanding certain 
 habits of misediness afterward developed in his character. Sir 
 William was "extremely angry" — hurt, no doubt, as many a 
 patron has been, by the ingratitude of the dependent who would 
 not trust everything to him, but claimed some free will in the 
 disposition of his own life. Had they been uncle and nephew, 
 or even father and son, the same thing might easily have hap- 
 pened. Swift set out for Dublin full of indignation and ex- 
 citement, "everybody judging I did best to leave him," — but 
 alas ! in this, as in so many cases, pride was doomed to speedy 
 downfall. 
 
 On reaching Dublin, and taking the necessary steps for his 
 ordination, Swift found that it was needful for him to have a rec- 
 ommendation and certificate from the patron in whose house so 
 many years of his life had been spent. No doubt it must have 
 been a somewhat bitter necessity to bow his head before the 
 protector whom he had left in anger and ask for this. Macaulay 
 describes him as addressing his patron in the language "of a 
 lacquey, or even of a beggar," but we doubt greatly if apart 
 from prejudice or the tingle of these unforgettable words, any 
 impartial reader would form such an impression. "The par- 
 ticulars expected of me," Swift writes, "are what relates to 
 morals and learning and the reasons of quitting your honour's 
 family, that is whether the last was occasioned by any ill ac- 
 tion." " Your honour " has a somewhat servile tone in our days, 
 but in Swift's the formality was natural. Lady Giffard, Tem- 
 ple's sister-in'-law, in the further quarrels which followed Sir 
 William's death, spoke of this as a penitential letter, and per- 
 haps it was not wonderful that she should look on the whole 
 matter with an unfavorable eye. No doubt the ladies of the 
 house thought young Swift an unnatural monster for wishing 
 to go away and thinking himself able to set up for himself with- 
 out their condescending notice and the godlike philosopher's
 
 92 The Reign of Queen Ajine 
 
 society and instruction, and were pleased to find his pride so 
 quickly brought down. Sir William, however, it would seem, 
 behaved as a philosopher and a gentleman should, and gave 
 the required recommendation with magnanimity and kindness. 
 Thus the young man had his way. 
 
 Swift got a small benefice in the north of Ireland, the little 
 country parish of Kilroot, in which doubtless he expected that 
 the sense of independence would make up to him for other 
 deprivations. It was near Belfast, among those hard-headed 
 Scotch colonists whom he could never endure ; and probably 
 this had something to do with the speedy revulsion of his mind. 
 He remained there only a year; and it is perhaps the best 
 proof we could have of his sense of isolation and banishment 
 that this was the only time in his life in which he thought of 
 marriage. There is in existence a fervent and impassioned let- 
 ter addressed to the object of his affections, a Miss Waring, 
 whom, after the fashion of the time, he called Varina. He does 
 not seem in this case to have had the usual good fortune that 
 attended his relationships with women. Miss Waring did not re- 
 spond with the same warmth ; indeed, she was discouraging and 
 coldly prudent. And he was still pleading for a favorable answer 
 when there arrived a letter from Moor Park inviting his return 
 — Sir William's pride, too, having apparently broken down 
 under the blank made by Swift's departure. He made instant 
 use of this invitation — which must have soothed his injured 
 feelings and restored his self-satisfaction — to shake the resolu- 
 tion of the ungrateful Varina. " I am once more offered," he says, 
 " the advantage to have the same acquaintance with greatness 
 which I formerly enjoyed, and with better prospects of interest"; 
 and though he offers magnanimously "to forego it all for your 
 sake," yet it is evident that the proposal had set the blood stir- 
 ring in his veins, and that the dependence from which he had 
 broken loose with a kind of desperation, once more seemed to
 
 DEAN SWIFT. 
 
 FROM COPPERPLATE ENI.RAVING P.Y PIERRE FOURDRINIER, 
 AFTER A PAINTING HY CHARLES JERVAS.
 
 The Author of ''Gulliver ' 93 
 
 him, unless Varina had been mehed by the sacrifice he would 
 have made for her, to be the most desirable thing in the world. 
 
 Macaulay, and after him Thackeray and many less distin- 
 guished writers, still persistently represent this part of Swift's 
 life as one of unmitigated hardship and suffering. The brilliant 
 historian so much scorns the guidance of facts as to say that the 
 humble student " made love to a pretty waiting-maid who was 
 the chief ornament of the servant's hall," by way of explaining 
 the strange yet tender story which has been more deeply dis- 
 cussed than any great national event, and which has made the 
 name of Stella known to every reader. 
 
 Hester Johnson was a child of seven when young Swift, "the 
 humble student," went first to Moor Park. She was only fifteen 
 when he returned, no longer as a sort of educated man of all 
 work, but on the entreaty of the patron who had felt the want 
 of his company so much as to forget all grievances. He was not 
 now a humble student, Temple's satellite and servant, but his 
 friend and coadjutor, fully versed in all his secrets, and most 
 likely already chosen as the guardian of his fame and the ex- 
 ecutor of his purposes and wishes ; therefore it is not possible 
 that Macaulay's reckless picturesque description could apply to 
 either time. Such an easy picture, however, has more effect 
 upon the general imagination than the outcries of all the biog- 
 raphers, and the many researches made to show that Swift was 
 not a sort of literary lackey, nor Stella an Abigail, but that he 
 had learned to prize the advantages of his home there during 
 his absence from it, and that during the latter part of his life 
 at Moor Park at least his position was as good as that of a 
 dependent can ever be. 
 
 Sir William Temple died, as Swift records affectionately, on 
 the morning of January 27, 1699, "and with him all that was 
 good and amiable among men." He died, however, leaving 
 the young man who had spent so many years of his life under
 
 94 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 his wing, scarcely better for that long subjection. Swift had, a 
 legacy of /loo for his trouble in editing his patron's memoirs, 
 and he got the profits of those memoirs, amounting, Mr. Fors- 
 ter calculates, to no less than ^600 — no inconsiderable pres- 
 ent; but no one of the many appointments which were then 
 open to the retainers of the great, and especially to a young 
 man of letters, had come in Swift's way. He himself, it is 
 said, "still believed in the royal pledge for the first prebend 
 that should fall vacant in Westminster or Canterbury," but this 
 was a hope which had accompanied him ever since he ex- 
 plained constitutional law to King William six years before, 
 and could not be very lively after this long interval. 
 
 Thus Swift's life came to a sudden and complete break. 
 The great household, with its easy and uneasy jumble of patrons 
 and dependents, fell asunder and ceased to be. The younger 
 members of the family were jealous of the last bequest, which 
 put the fame of their distinguished relative into the hands of a 
 stranger, and did their best to set Swift down in his proper place, 
 and to proclaim how much he was the creature of their uncle's 
 bounty. In the breaking up which followed, there were many 
 curious partings and conjunctions. Why Hester Johnson, to 
 whom Sir William had bequeathed a little independence, should 
 have left her mother's care and joined her fortunes to those of 
 Mrs. Dingley instead, remains unexplained, unless indeed it was 
 Mrs. Johnson's second marriage which was the cause, or perhaps 
 some vexation on the part of Lady Giffard — with whom the 
 girl's mother remained, notwithstanding her marriage — at the 
 liberality of her brother to the child brought up in his house. 
 Mrs. Johnson had other daughters, one of whom Swift saw, and 
 describes favorably, years after. Perhaps Mrs. Dingley and the 
 crirl whom he had taught and petted from her childhood had 
 taken Swift's side in the Giffard -Temple difference, and so got 
 on uneasy terms with the rest of the household, always faithful
 
 The Atithor of ''Gtdliver'' 95 
 
 to my lady. At all events, at the breaking up Hester with her 
 little fortune separated herself from the connection generally, 
 and with her elder friend made an independent new beginning, 
 as Swift also had to do. The fact seems of no particular im- 
 portance, except that it afforded a reason for Swift's interference 
 in her affairs, and threw them into a combination which lasted 
 all their lives. 
 
 Swift was thirty-one, too old to be beginning his career, yet 
 young enough to turn with eager zest to the unknown, when 
 this catastrophe occurred. Sir William Temple's secretary and 
 literary executor must have known, one would suppose, many 
 people who could have helped him to promotion, but it would 
 seem as if a kind of irresistible fate impelled him back to his 
 native country, though he did not love it, and forced him to be 
 an Irishman in spite of himself The only post that came in his 
 way was a chaplaincy, conjoined with a secretaryship, in the 
 suite of the Earl of Berkeley, newly appointed one of the lords 
 justices in Ireland, and just then entering upon his duties. 
 Swift accepted the position in hopes that he should be continued 
 as Lord Berkeley's secretary, and possibly go with him after- 
 ward to more stirring scenes and a larger life, but this expecta- 
 tion was not carried out. Neither was his application — which 
 seems at the moment a somewhat bold one — for the deanery of 
 Derry successful, and all the preferment he succeeded in getting 
 was another Irish living, with a better stipend and in a more 
 favorable position than Kilroot : the parish of Laracor, within 
 twenty miles of Dublin, which, conjoined with a prebend in St. 
 Patrick's and other small additions, brought him in ^200 a 
 year ; a small promotion, indeed, yet not a bad income for the 
 place and time. And he was naturally, as Lord Berkeley's 
 chaplain, in the midst of the finest company that Ireland could 
 boast, one of a court more extended than Sir William Temple's, 
 yet of a similar description, and affording greater scope for his
 
 96 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 hitherto undeveloped social qualities. Satire more sportive 
 than mere scorn, yet sometimes savage enough ; an elephantine 
 fun, which pleased the age ; the puns and quibs in which the 
 men emulated one another ; the merry rhymes that pleased the 
 ladies, — seem suddenly to have burst forth in him, throwing an 
 unexpected gleam upon his new sphere. 
 
 Swift was always popular with women. He treated them 
 roughly on many occasions, with an arrogance that grew with 
 age, but evidently possessed that charm — a quality by itself and 
 not dependent upon any laws of amiability — which attracts one 
 sex to the other. Lady Berkeley, whom he describes as a wo- 
 man of " the most easy conversation joined with the truest 
 piety," and her young daughters were charming and lively 
 companions with whom the chaplain soon found himself at 
 home. And notwithstanding his disappointment with respect 
 to the preferment which Lord Berkeley might have procured 
 for him and did not, it would seem that this period of hanging 
 on at the little Irish court was amusing at least. The lively 
 little picture of the inferior members of a great household which 
 Swift made for the entertainment of the drawing-rooms on the 
 occasion when Mrs. Frances Harris lost her purse, is one of the 
 most vivid and amusing possible. 
 
 His stay in Ireland at this period lasted about two years, 
 during which he paid repeated visits to his living at Laracor, 
 and made trial of existence there also. The parsonage was in 
 a ruinous condition ; the church a miserable barn ; the congrega- 
 tion numbered about twenty persons. Many are the tales of 
 the new parson's arrival there like a thunder-storm, frightening 
 the humble curate and his wife with the arrogant roughness of 
 manner which they, like many others, found afterward covered 
 a great deal of genuine practical kindness. His mode of travel- 
 ing, his sarcastic rhymes about the places at which he paused 
 on the journey, the careless swing of imperious good and ill
 
 '^..„ 
 
 Cl.Ai Ki-vtCj-t-t C-V^-~ 
 
 STELLA'S COTTAGE, ON THE BOUNDARY OF 
 THE MOOR PARK ESTATE. 
 
 DRAWN BY CHARLES HERBERT WOODBURY. 
 ENGRAVED BY S. DAVIS.
 
 The Author of ''Gulliver'' 97 
 
 humor in which he indulged, contemptuous of everybody's 
 opinion, have furnished many amusing incidents. One well- 
 known anecdote, which describes him as findinor his cong-repfa- 
 tion to consist only of his clerk and beginning the service 
 gravely with, " Dearly beloved Roger," has found a permanent 
 place among ecclesiastical pleasantries. In all probability it is 
 true ; but if not so, it is at least so ben trovato as to be as good 
 as true. There were few claims upon the energies of such a 
 man in such a sphere, and when Lord Berkeley was recalled to 
 England his chaplain went with him. But neither did he find 
 any promotion in London. Up to this time his only literary 
 work had been that wonderful ** Battle of the Books," which 
 had burst like a bombshell into the midst of the squabble of the 
 literati, but which had only as yet been handed about in man- 
 uscript, and was therefore known to few. No doubt it was 
 known to various wits and scholars that Sir William Temple's 
 late secretary and literary executor was a young man of no 
 common promise; but statesmen in general, and the king in 
 particular, sick and worn out with many preoccupations, had 
 no leisure for the claims of the Irish parson. He hung about 
 the Berkeley household, and gravely read out of the book of 
 moral essays which the countess loved those Reflections on a 
 Broomstick which her ladyship found so edifying, and launched 
 upon the world an anonymous pamphlet or two, which he had 
 the pleasure of hearing talked about and attributed to names 
 greater than his own, but made no step toward the advance- 
 ment for which he loneed. 
 
 The interest of this visit to England was however as great 
 and told for as much in his life as if it had broueht him a 
 bishopric. It determined that long connection and close inter- 
 course in which Swift's inner history is involved. After he had 
 paid in vain his court to the king, and made various ineffectual 
 attempts to recommend himself in high quarters, he went on a
 
 98 The Reign of Queen A7ine 
 
 visit to Farnham, where Hester Johnson and Mrs. Dingley had 
 settled after Sir WilHam's death. Swift found the two women 
 quite undetermined what to do, in an uncomfortable lodging, 
 harassed for money, and without any object in their lives. Most 
 probably he was called to advise as to their future plans, where 
 they should settle and how they were to live, both being en- 
 tirely inexperienced in the art of independent existence. They 
 had lived together for years, and knew everything about each 
 other : Hester had grown up from childhood under Swift's eye, 
 his pupil, his favorite and playfellow. She had now, it is true, 
 arrived at an age when other sentiments are supposed to come 
 in. She must have been about twenty, while he was thirty- 
 four. There was no reason in the world why they should not 
 have married then and there, had they so wished. But there 
 seems no appearance or thought of any such desire, and the 
 question was what should the ladies do for the arrangement 
 of their affairs and pleasant occupation of their lives. Farn- 
 ham being untenable, where should they go? Why not to 
 Ireland, where Hester's property was — where they would be 
 near their friend, who could help them into society and give 
 them his own companionship as often as he happened to be 
 there? Here is his own account of the decision: 
 
 "I prevailed with her and her dear friend and companion, 
 the other lady," he says, "to draw what money they had into 
 Ireland, a great part of their fortunes being in annuities upon 
 funds. Money was then ten per cent, in Ireland, besides the 
 advantage of returning it, and all the necessaries of life at half 
 the price. They complied with my advice, and soon after came 
 over ; but I happening to continue some time longer in Eng- 
 land, they were much discouraged to live in Dublin, where they 
 were wholly strangers. But this adventure looked so like a 
 frolic, the censure held for some time as if there were a secret 
 history In such a removal ; which however soon blew off by
 
 The Author of ''Gulliver'' 99 
 
 her excellent conduct. She came over with her friend in the 
 year 1 700, and they both lived together until the day [of her 
 death, 1728]." 
 
 This was then the time which decided that which is called 
 the "sad and mysterious history" of Swift and Stella — a story 
 so strangely told, so obstinately insisted upon as miserable, un- 
 natural, and tragical, that the reader or writer of to-day has 
 scarcely the power of forming an impartial judgment upon it. 
 We have not a word from the woman's side of the question, 
 who is supposed to have passed a melancholy existence of un- 
 satisfied longings and disappointed love by Swift's side, the 
 victim of his capricious affections, neglect, cruelty, and fond- 
 ness. That she should have wished to marry him, that the 
 love was impassioned on her side, and her whole life blighted 
 and overcast by his fantastic repugnance to the common ties 
 of humanity, is taken for granted by every historian. These 
 writers differ as to Swift's motives, as to the character of his 
 feelings, and even as to the facts of the case ; but no one has 
 the slightest doubt of what the woman's sentiments must have 
 been. But, as a matter of fact, we have no evidence at all what 
 Stella's sentiments were. By so much written testimony as re- 
 mains we are fully entitled to form such conclusions as we please 
 on Swift's side of the question ; but there is actually no testi- 
 mony at all upon Stella's side. Appearances of blighted life or 
 unhappiness there are none in anything we know of her. As 
 the ladies appear reflected in that "Journal to Stella" — which 
 is the dean's only claim upon our affections, but a strong one 
 — they seem to have lived' a most cheerful, lively life. They 
 had a number of friends, they had their little tea-parties, their 
 circle of witty society, to which the letters of the absent were a 
 continual amusement and delight. And it is the man, not the 
 woman, who complains of not receiving letters ; it is he, not 
 she, who exhausts every playful wile, every tender art, to keep
 
 loo The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 himself in vivid recollection. Is it perhaps a certain mixture of 
 masculine vanity and compassion for the gentle feminine creature 
 who never succeeded in getting the man she loved to marry her, 
 and thus failed to attain the highest end of woman, which has 
 moved every biographer of Swift, each man more compassion- 
 ate than his predecessor, thus to exhaust himself in pity for 
 Stella? Johnson, Scott, Macaulay, Thackeray, not to mention 
 many lesser names, have all taken her injured innocence to 
 heart. And nobody notes the curious fact that Stella herself 
 never utters any complaint, nor indeed seems to feel the neces- 
 sity of being unhappy at all, but takes her dean most cheer- 
 fully, — laughing, scolding, giving her opinion with all the 
 delightful freedom of a relationship which was at once nature 
 and choice, the familiar trust and tenderness of old use and wont 
 with the charm of voluntary association. We see her only as 
 reflected in his letters, in the references he makes to hers, and 
 all his tender, sportive allusions to her habits and ways of think- 
 ing. This reflection and image is not in rigid lines of black 
 and white, but an airy and radiant vision, the representation of 
 anything in the world rather than a downcast and disappointed 
 woman. It is not that either of a wife or a lover ; it is more 
 like the wilful, delightful image of a favorite child, a creature 
 confident that everything she says or does will be received with 
 admiration from the mere fact that it is she who says or does it, 
 and who tyrannizes, scoffs, and proffers a thousand comments 
 and criticisms with all the elastic brightness of unforced and 
 unimpassioned affection. It is through this medium alone that 
 Stella is ever visible. And he, too, laughs, teases, fondles, and 
 advises with the same doting, delightful ease of affection. By 
 what process this attractive conjunction should have furnished 
 the idea of a victim in Stella, and in Swift of a tyrannous secret 
 lover crushing her heart, it is difficult to understand. The ex- 
 ternal circumstances of their intimacy were, no doubt, very
 
 HESTER JOHNSON. SWIFT'S "STELLA." F^AINTED FROM LIFE 
 
 BY MRS. DELANY, ON THE WALL OF THE TEMPLE 
 
 AT DELVILLE, AND ACCIDENTALLY DESTROYED. 
 
 ENGRAVIH) r.V M. HAIDHR, l-KdM COPY oi: THK ORIGINAI, RY III-NRY MACMANUS. 
 R. H. A., Now IN l><lSSl-SSION OF I'ROFFSSOR DOWDI-;N.
 
 The Afithor of ''Gulliver'' loi 
 
 unusual, and might have lent occasion to much evil speakino-. 
 But they do not seem to have done so, after the first moment at 
 least. Nobody ventured to assail the good fame of Stella, and 
 Swift took every means to make the perfect innocence of their 
 friendship apparent. She cannot be made out to have suffered 
 in the vulgar way, and it seems to us one of the most curious 
 examples of an obstinately maintained theory to represent her 
 as Swift's victim in what is supposed to be a long martyrdom 
 of the heart. 
 
 One can well imagine, however, when the two ladies arrived 
 in Dublin, where their friend had no doubt represented to them 
 his power to gain them access into the best society, and found 
 that he did not come and that they were stranded in a strange 
 place, knowing nobody, how some annoyance and disappoint- 
 ment, and perhaps anger, must have been in their thoughts, and 
 that P. D. F. R., as he is called in the little language, faithless 
 rogue ! had his share of abuse. And no doubt it might be 
 believed by good-natured friends that their object in coming 
 was to secure the vicar of Laracor either for the young and 
 lovely girl or the elder woman, who was scarcely older than 
 Swift — if not indeed that some "secret history" more damag- 
 ing still was at the bottom of the adventure. Insensibly, how- 
 ever, Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Dingley found a place and po- 
 sition for themselves. Swift was often away in the following 
 years, spending about half his time in London, and when he 
 was absent they took possession of his newly repaired and ren- 
 ovated house, or occupied his lodging in Dublin, and gathered 
 friends about them, and went out to their card-parties, and 
 played a litde, and talked, and lived a pleasant life. When he 
 returned, they removed to their own rooms. Thus there could 
 be no doubt about the close association between them, which, 
 when it was quite apparent that it meant nothing closer to 
 come, no doubt made everybody wonder. But we have no con-
 
 I02 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 temporary evidence that Stella was an object of pity, and her 
 aspect as we see it in all Swift says of her is exactly the 
 reverse, and gives us the impression of a charming and easy- 
 minded woman, a queen of society in her little circle, enjoying 
 everything that came her way. 
 
 As Swift's relations with Stella are the great interests of his 
 life, the subject which occupies every new writer who so much 
 as touches upon him, it is needless to make any excuse for en- 
 tering into the question with an amount of detail which our 
 limited space would otherwise scarcely justify. The mystery 
 about it lends it an endless attraction, and as, whatever it was, 
 it is the one great love of his life, and represents all the private 
 satisfaction and comfort he got by means of his affections, it has 
 a permanent interest which most readers will not find in the 
 "Tale of a Tub," or any other of the productions which made 
 this period of his life remarkable. Swift was continually going 
 and coming to London through these years. Though he had 
 begun at once to make Laracor a sort of earthly paradise with 
 a Dutch flavor, such as he had learnt from his early master, and 
 though it was "very much for his own satisfaction " that he had 
 invited Stella to come to Ireland, yet neither of these reasons 
 was enough to keep him in the rural quiet among his willows, 
 though he loved them. He hankered after society, after fame 
 and power. He liked to meet with great men, to hear the 
 news, to ride over weaker reasoners in society, to put forth his 
 own vigorous views, and whip, with sharp satire, the men who 
 displeased him. Tradition and habit had made him a Whig, 
 but political names were of easy interchange in those days, and 
 Swift's objects were much more definite than his politics. From 
 the moment of Queen Anne's ascension, when she gratified the 
 Church of England by the remission of certain dues hitherto 
 paid to the crown. Swift's energies were directed to obtaining a 
 similar remission for the Irish Church, and this was the osten-
 
 The Author of ''Gidliver'' 103 
 
 sible object of his repeated journeys to London. He had also 
 a purpose still nearer to his heart, which was the advancement 
 of Jonathan Swift to a post more fitted to his genius. For 
 these great objects he haunted the anterooms of Halifax and 
 Somers and Godolphin, and did what he could to show them 
 what they were not wise enough to perceive, that he was him- 
 self an auxiliary well worth securing. The Whig lords played 
 with, flattered, and neglected the brilliant but importunate 
 envoy of the Irish Church, holding him upon tenterhooks of 
 expectation, going so far as to make him believe that his cause 
 for the church was won, and that his bishopric was certain, 
 till disgust and disappointment overcame Swift's patience. 
 Nine years had passed in these vain negotiations. It was in 
 1 70 1 that he paid that visit to Farnham which decided Stella's 
 fate, but his own was still hanging in the balance when, after 
 almost yearly expeditions in the interval, he set out for London 
 in the autumn of the year 1710 with a threat upon his lips. 
 " I will apply to Mr. Harley, who formerly made some ad- 
 vances toward me, and, unless he be altered, will I believe think 
 himself in the right to use me well." The change was sudden, 
 but it had little in it that could be called political apostasy. 
 Every man was more or less for his own hand, and the balance of 
 popular feeling fluctuated between war and peace: between pride 
 and the glory of England on the one hand, and horror of the 
 sacrifices and misery involved in the long-continued, never-end- 
 ing campaigns of Marlborough on the other — almost as much 
 as Queen Anne wavered between the influence of the imperious 
 duchess and the obsequious Abigail. There was no shame to 
 Swift at such a moment in the sudden revolution he made. 
 
 The man who felt himself of sufficient importance to make 
 this threat seems to have possessed already, notwithstanding 
 the neglect of the Whig lords, the rank of his intellect rather 
 than of his external position, and this not entirely because of the
 
 I04 The Reign of Qtieen Amie 
 
 anonymous productions which were more or less known to be 
 his. The " Tale of a Tub," written while he was still an inmate 
 of Moor Park, had by this time been before the world six years. 
 It was published along with the " Battle of the Books" in 1704, 
 and caused great excitement and sensation among politicians, 
 wits, and critics. But the careless contempt of fame which 
 mingled in him with so fierce a hunger for it kept it long a 
 matter of doubt whether the immense reputation of these works 
 belonged to him or not ; and it would appear that his own per- 
 sonality, the size and rude splendor of his individual character, 
 had at least as much to do with his position as the doubtful 
 glory of an anonymous publication. The vicar of Laracor was 
 not sufficiently important to be chosen as the representative 
 of the Irish Church — but Jonathan Swift was; and though 
 the bishops schemed against him in his absence when he 
 seemed to have failed, no one seems to have ventured to 
 suggest that he was too humble a person to hold that repre- 
 sentative post. The book which dazzled English society 
 and set all the wits talking was by no means the kind of 
 book to support ecclesiastical dignity. It was indeed by way 
 of being a vindication of the superiority of the Anglican Church 
 over Rome on the one hand, and the dissenters on the other ; 
 but the tremendous raid against false pretenses, hypocrisy, and 
 falsehood which is its real scope, was executed with such a riot 
 and madness of laughter, and unscrupulous derision of every- 
 thing that came in the satirist's way, as had scarcely been known 
 in English speech before. The mockery was at once brilliant 
 and careless, dashed about hither and thither in a sort of giant's 
 play, full of the coarsest metaphors, the finest wit, indignation, 
 ridicule, fun, almost too wild and reckless to be called cynical, 
 though penetrated with the profoundest cynicism and disbelief 
 of any good. The power which still lives and asserts itself in 
 those strange and often detestable pages, must strike even the
 
 ^._ Qao'/iiiiits Cjti/it///iiis \.'ci/i/j/e 
 
 -^ \« ,',., --'- /.funfii^' .'i\i-Ji'ui^ Elttsdem Scr ' fLci^ts r ,*''■;".-'■' -■*i'; 
 
 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 liNGRAVED UY K. A. MUMPER, FROM AN ENGRAX'ING IN THE BRITISH Ml'SEl'M, 
 AI-TER A TAINTING BY SIR PETER LELY.
 
 The AutJior of ''Gulliver'' 105 
 
 reader to whom they are most abhorrent. And the standard 
 of taste was different in the reign of Anne, and critics were not 
 easily alarmed. To some readers the most desperate satire 
 that was ever written appeared a delightful piece of wit. 
 
 William Penn sent to the author from America a gammon 
 of bacon on the score of having been "often greatly amused by 
 thy Tale,'' and a hundred years later it "delighted beyond de- 
 scription " the robust mind of William Cobbett, so that he for- 
 got that he had not supped, and preferred the book to a bed. 
 The effect upon the general mind of his contemporaries was 
 equally great; and notwithstanding the immense difference of 
 taste and public feeling it has never lost its place among Eng- 
 lish classics. Many indeed were horrified by its audacious 
 treatment of the most sacred things, and the objection of Queen 
 Anne to give its author a bishopric would probably have been 
 shared by nine tenths of her subjects. The " Tale of a Tub " is 
 one of those books which furnish a test of literary character. 
 Like the man who was bound to hear the Ancient Mariner, and 
 whom that mystic personage knew whenever he saw him, the 
 reader of Swift's great work must be born with the faculty ne- 
 cessary for due appreciation and understanding. It is not a 
 power communicable, any more than it is possible to explain 
 the story of the albatross, and the curse that fell upon its slayer. 
 The greater part of the public take both for granted, and remain 
 in a respectful ignorance. To such Swift's work is little better 
 than a dust-heap of genius, in which there are diamonds and 
 precious things imbedded, which flash at every turning over ; 
 but the broken bits of treasure are mixed up with choking dust 
 and dreary rubbish, as well as the offensive garbage which 
 revolts the searcher. The dedication of the work to Prince 
 Posterity is thus wholly justified, and at the same time a fail- 
 ure. It stands in the highest rank of classic satire, and yet 
 to the mass of readers it is nothing but a name.
 
 io6 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 It is characteristic, however, of the man that he should have 
 tossed into the world without a name a book which made a 
 greater impression than any contemporary publication, enjoy- 
 ing no doubt the wonders and queries, yet scorning to make 
 himself dependent upon so small a thing as a book for his rep- 
 utation and influence. He was no more disposed than the 
 most sensitive of authors to let another man claim the credit of 
 it, yet proud enough in native arrogance to hold himself inde- 
 pendent of such aids to advancement, and thus to prove his 
 scorn of the world's opinion, even when he sought its applauses 
 most. Whether this work had anything to do w^ith his intro- 
 duction to the society of the coffee-houses, and the wits of Lon- 
 don, we are not told. He was addressed by Addison as " the 
 most Agreeable Companion, the Truest Friend, and the Great- 
 est Genius of his age,"* very shortly after the publication of his 
 great satire ; so that it is probable he already enjoyed the ad- 
 vantage of its fame, without seeming to do so. The friendship 
 of Addison was a better thing than the admiration of the crowd, 
 and notwithstanding Swift's imperious temper and arrogant 
 ways, it is just to add that he always numbered among his 
 friends the best and greatest of his time. 
 
 On a first accost, it would not seem that his manners were 
 ingratiating. This story, which is told of Swift's appearance at 
 the St. James coffee-house is amusing, and may be true. 
 
 They had for several successive days observed a strange clergyman 
 come into the house who seemed entirely unacquainted with any of 
 those who frequented it, and whose custom was to lay down his hat on 
 a table and walk backward and forward at a good pace, for half an hour 
 or an hour, without speaking to any mortal, or seeming in the least to 
 attend to anything that was going forward there. He then used to take 
 up his hat, pay his money at the bar, and walk away without opening 
 his lips. On one particular evening, as Mr. Addison and the rest were 
 observing him, they saw him cast his eyes several times on a gentleman
 
 The Author of ''Gulliver'* 107 
 
 in boots who seemed to be just come out of the country, and at last ad- 
 vance, as if intending to address him. Eager to hear what this dumb, 
 mad parson had to say, they all quitted their seats to get near him. 
 Swift went up to the country gentleman, and in a very abrupt manner, 
 without any previous salute, asked him, " Pray, sir, do you remember 
 any good weather in the world ? " The country gentleman, after star- 
 ing a little at the peculiarity of his manner, answered, "Yes, sir, I re- 
 member a great deal of good weather in my time." "That is more," 
 rejoined Swift, " than I can say. I never remember any weather that 
 was not too hot or too cold, or too wet or too dry ; but however God 
 Almighty contrives at the end of the year it is all very well." With 
 which remark he took up his hat, and without uttering a syllable more, 
 or taking the least notice of any one, walked out of the coffee-house. 
 
 His whimsical humor, and love of making the spectators 
 stare, remained a characteristic of Swift all his life. 
 
 These beginnings of social life were, however, past, and no 
 one was better known or more warmly welcomed, when he ap- 
 peared with his wig new curled, and his azure eyes aglow, than 
 the Irish parson, waiting upon Providence and the Whigs, 
 whose political pamphlets, and papers in the "Tatler," and 
 malicious practical joking with poor Partridge, the astrologer, 
 made him, at each appearance, a more notable figure to all the 
 lookers-on. His eyes must have been on fire under those ex- 
 pressive brows when he came to London in 1710, resolved this 
 time to be put off by Whig blandishments no longer, but to try 
 what the other side would do. The other side received him 
 with open arms, and the most instant appreciation of what he 
 was worth to them and what he could do. Harley was not 
 great In any sense of the word, but If he had shown as much 
 insight In the conduct of public affairs as he did In his percep- 
 tion of the workmen best adapted to his purpose. In the strug- 
 gle upon which he had entered, he would have been the most 
 successful of ministers. He told Swift that his colleagues and 
 himself had been afraid of none but him In the ranks of their 
 enemies, and that they had resolved to have him. And In proof
 
 io8 The Reign of Queen 'Anne 
 
 that they were ready to do anything to secure his services, they 
 pushed on and decided as soon as might be his suit for the 
 church, which had hung in the balance so long, was as good 
 as granted, now as far off as ever. It was settled at once, to 
 Swift's great triumph. And to crown all, the new minister, 
 the greatest man in England, called him Jonathan! — of all 
 wonderful things, what could be more wonderful than that this 
 great wit, this powerful and pitiless satirist, this ambitious man, 
 should be altogether overcome with pleasure when Harley 
 called him by his Christian name ! Was it mere servility, van- 
 ity, the flattered weakness of a hanger-on in a great man's 
 familiarity, as everybody says? It is hard to believe this, 
 though it is taken for granted on all sides. Swift seems, at 
 all events, to have had a real affection for the shifty minister, 
 who received him in so different a fashion from that of his 
 former masters. He flung himself into all the backstair in- 
 trigues, and collogued with Abigail Masham, and took his 
 share in every plot. When Harley was stabbed. Swift felt 
 for him all the anxiety of a brother. He threw himself into 
 the " Examiner," the new Tory organ, with fervor and enthusi- 
 asm, and expounded the principles of his party and set their 
 plans before the public with a force and clearness which no- 
 body but he, his patrons declared, possessed. The two states- 
 men, Harley and Bolingbroke, who were so little like each 
 other, so ill calculated to draw together, were alike in this : 
 that neither could be flattering enough or kind enough to the 
 great vassal whom they had secured. He seems to have 
 thought of himself that he was a sort of third consul, an un- 
 official sharer of their power. 
 
 This extraordinary episode in the life of a man of Swift's 
 profession, and so little likely to come to such promotion, 
 lasted three years ; and the history of it is not less remark- 
 able than the fact. It was a period of the greatest intellec-
 
 ^ o 
 
 ■< C/) 
 
 I > 
 
 o _
 
 The Aitthor of ''Gtdliver'' 109 
 
 tual activity and brilliancy in Swift's career, and besides his 
 hard political work in the "Examiner" and elsewhere, he 
 flung from him, amid the exhilarating appreciation of the 
 great world and his patrons, a number of the best of his 
 lighter productions. But nothing that he ever wrote can be 
 compared to the letters in which the story of this period is 
 told, since nowhere else do we find the charm of humanity, 
 which is more ereat and attractive even than crenius. As if 
 the rule of paradox was to prevail in his life as well as in his 
 wit, this cynic, misanthrope, and satirist, ignoring love and 
 every softer thought, exhibits himself once to us in an abandon 
 and meltine of the heart such as common men are as little 
 capable of as they are of his fierce laughter and bitter jests. 
 If it is the true man whom we see in these unpremeditated 
 and careless pages, written before he got up of a morning, 
 or in the evening when he came home from his entertain- 
 ments, with the chairmen still wrangling over their sixpences 
 outside, how different is that man from the other who storms 
 and laughs and mocks humanity, and sees through all its mis- 
 erable pretenses without a thought of pardon or excuse ! The 
 "Journal" letters addressed to the ladies in Dublin, Madam P. 
 P. T. and Madam Elderby, the two women who shared his 
 every thought, now so well known as the "Journal to Stella," 
 are, of all Swift's works, the only productions that touch the 
 heart. They are not to be numbered among his "works" at 
 all : publication of any kind never seems to have occurred to 
 him, while writing: they are as frank as Pepy's, and far more 
 simple and true. They are English history and London life, 
 and the eighteenth century, with its mannerisms and quaint- 
 ness, all in one ; and beyond and above every circumstance, 
 they are Swift as he was in his deepest soul, — not as he 
 appeared to men, — a human being full of tenderness, full of 
 fun and innocent humor, full of genius and individual nature,
 
 I lo The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 but, above all, of true affection, the warmest domestic love. 
 Passion is not in those delightful pages ; but the endearing 
 playfulness, the absolute freedom of self-revelation, the tender 
 intimacy and confidence of members of the same family, whose 
 interests and subjects of thought and talk and merry jests and 
 delusions are one. They describe every day — nay, hour — of 
 his life, every little expedition, all the ups and downs of his oc- 
 cupations and progress, with the boundless freedom and sport- 
 ive extravagance, the unimpassioned, unabashed adoration of 
 something warmer than a father, more indulgent, more admir- 
 ing than a brother, yet brother, father, lover, and friend all 
 in one. 
 
 Only to a woman could such letters have been addressed, 
 and few women reading them will be disposed to pity Stella or 
 think her life one of blight or injury. Without these the life of the 
 dean would not have touched our human sympathies at all, but 
 now that time has let us thus fully into his confidence, and opened 
 to our sight what was never intended for any but hers and those 
 of her shadow, her guardian, the humble third in this profound 
 and perfect union, it is with moistened eyes that we read the 
 ever living record. There is nothing in the coarse and strug- 
 gling potency of those books which critics applaud, that comes 
 within a hundred miles of the delightful life and ease of these 
 outpourings of Swift's innermost soul. The "Tale of a Tub," 
 the "Battle of the Books," retain a sort of galvanic existence, 
 but are for the greater part insupportable to the honest readers 
 who have no tradition of superior acumen and perception to 
 maintain. But when we turn to the "Journal," the clean and 
 wholesome pages smile with a cordial life and reality. If there 
 is here and there a phrase too broad for modern ears, it is 
 nothing more than the language of the time, and has not a 
 ghost of evil meaning in it. The big arrogant wit — not unused 
 to bluster and brag, to act like a tyrant and speak like a bully
 
 The Author of ''Gulliver'' m 
 
 — meets us there defenseless, with the tenderest Hght upon his 
 face, in his nightcap and without his wig, smiHng over Httle 
 M. D.'s letter in the wintry mornings, snatching a moment at 
 bedtime when he is already "seepy," and can do nothing but 
 bid " nite deelest dea M. D. nite deelest loques," making his 
 mouth, he says, as if he were saying the broken, childish words, 
 retiring into the sanctuary of the little language with an infi- 
 nite sense of consolation and repose. Outside it may be he 
 swaggered and defied all men, even his patrons ; but here an 
 exquisite softness comes over him. However he may be judged 
 or mistaken in the world, he is always understood by the 
 women in that secret world where they make their comments 
 on whatever happens, and merrily answer back again with 
 their criticisms, their strictures, no more afraid of that impetu- 
 ous, angry genius than if he had been the meekest of rural 
 priests. It is this that has got Swift his hold upon many a 
 reader, who, beginning by hating him, the coarse and bitter wit, 
 the scorner of men and crusher of women's hearts, has suddenly 
 found his own heart melt in his breast to see the giant lay by 
 his thunders and-prattle like an old gossip, like a tender mother, 
 father, all in one, in the baby-talk that first had opened to him 
 the knowledge of all that is sweetest in life. We do not un- 
 derstand the man, much less the woman, who can read without 
 forgiving to Swift all his brutalities, as indeed most women who 
 encountered him seem to have done without that argument. 
 He would treat the fine ladies with the most imperious rudeness, 
 giving forth his rule that it was they who should make ad- 
 vances to him, not he to them, yet captivating even those who 
 resisted in the end. 
 
 The litrie language which this fierce satirist and cynic dared 
 to put in writing, the only man ever so bold as to pay such 
 homage to affection, puzzled beyond measure his first editors 
 and expositors, who, with a horrified prudery, seem to have done
 
 112 The Reign of Queen Amie 
 
 their best to Interpret and restore it to decorum and dignity ; but 
 it has now become the point in his story which is most tenderly 
 recollected, his sacred reconciliation with mankind. A homeless 
 boy, with none of the traditions of a family, finding his unlovely 
 life not less but more unpromising in his first experiences of 
 Temple's luxurious English home, what a sudden fountain of 
 sweetness must have opened to him in the prattle of the de- 
 lightful child, which was a new revelation to his heart — revela- 
 tion of all that kindred meant, and delightful intimacy and 
 familiar love. His little star of life never waned to Swift: 
 Stella grew old, but never outgrew the little language, and 
 every young woman had something in her of the sprightly 
 creature that loved to do his bidding, the P. P. T. who held her 
 own, and put him upon his best behavior often, yet never was 
 other than the "deelest little loque" whom he bantered and 
 laughed at with soft tears of tenderness in his eyes. " Better 
 thank God, and M. D.'s prayers," he says among the private 
 scribbles of his daily diary, which neither she nor any one was 
 ever meant to see. Nevertheless, even while he was writing 
 this "Journal," which is the record of a tender intimacy so remark- 
 able, Swift was meddling with the education of another girl, 
 incautiously, foolishly, who was not of the uninflammable nature 
 of Stella, but a hot-headed, passionate creature who did not at 
 all imagine that the mere 
 
 . . . delight he took 
 To see the virgin mind her book 
 
 was all Dr. Swift meant by his talk and attention. Swift says 
 nothing of this pupil in the "Journal." He mentions his dinners 
 at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's, and her handsome daughter, but he 
 does not tell Madam P. P. T. that he had given one of his 
 usual caressing names to this girl, whose early beauty and 
 frank devotion had pleased him. There is, indeed, no shadow
 
 MARLEY ABBEY, THE RESIDENCE OF VANESSA, 
 NOW CALLED SELBRIDGE ABBEY. 
 
 DRAWN BY HARRY FENN. ENGRAVED BY R. C. COLLINS.
 
 The Author of ' ' Gulliver " 113 
 
 of Vanessa anywhere visible, though the brief mention of her 
 name shows that the second story, which was to be so fa- 
 tally and painfully mingled with the first, had already begun. 
 The three years of Swift's stay in England were the cli- 
 max of his life. They raised him higher than ever a sim- 
 ple parson had been raised before, and made of him (or so, 
 at least, he believed) a power in the state. It has been 
 doubted whether he was really so highly trusted, so much 
 built upon, as he thought. The great lords who delighted 
 in Swift's talk, and called him Jonathan, did not, perhaps, 
 follow his advice and accept his guidance, as he supposed. 
 He says, jestingly, — yet half, perhaps, with an uneasy mean- 
 ing, — that everything that was said between himself and Harley 
 as they traveled sociably in my Lord Treasurer's coach to 
 Windsor, might have been told at Charing Cross ; but this 
 was a rare admission, and generally he was very full of the 
 schemes of the ministers and their consultations, and his own 
 important share in them. He seems to have constituted himself 
 the patron of everybody he knew, really providing for a con- 
 siderable number, and largely undertaking for others, though 
 it was long before he got anything for himself. The follow- 
 ing anecdote gives an unpleasant view from outside of his de- 
 meanor and habits. It is from Bishop Kennett's diary during 
 the year 1713, the last of Swift's importance: 
 
 Swift came into the coffee-room, and had a bow from everybody 
 save me. When I came to the antechamber to wait before prayers. Dr. 
 Swift was the principal man of talk and business, and acted as minister 
 of requests. He was soliciting the Earl of Arran to speak to his brother 
 the Duke of Ormond to get a chaplain's place established in the garri- 
 son of Hull for Mr. Fiddes, a clergyman in that neighborhood, who had 
 lately been in jail and published sermons to pay fees. He was promis- 
 ing Mr. Thorold to undertake with my Lord Treasurer that according 
 to his position he should obtain a salary of ;[^200 per annum as minister 
 of the English Church in Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq.,
 
 1 1 4 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 going in with the red bag to the Queen, and told him aloud he had 
 something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He talked with the 
 son of Dr. Davenant, to be sent abroad, and took out his pocket-book, 
 and wrote down several things as memoranda to do for him. He turned 
 to the fire, and took out his gold watch, and, telling them the time of day, 
 complained it was very late. A gentleman said, " It goes too fast." 
 " How can I help it," says the Doctor, " if the courtiers give me a 
 watch that won't go right?" Then he instructed a young nobleman that 
 the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a papist), who had begun a 
 translation of Homer into English verse, for which, he said, he must 
 have them all subscribe. " For," says he, " the author shall not begin 
 to print it till I have a thousand guineas for him." Lord Treasurer, 
 after leaving the Queen, came through the room, beckoning Dr. Swift 
 to follow him ; both went off just before prayers. 
 
 But the account of the patronage which he exercised, and 
 the brag and general "sv^agger" of his demeanor, though it is 
 by no means invisible in the "Journal," has a different aspect 
 there, where he tells all about his favor and power, to please 
 his correspondents, with a good excuse in this tender reason 
 for magnifying all that happens to him. It was, indeed, a posi- 
 tion to turn even the soundest head, and Swift had thirsted all 
 his life for power, for notability, for that buoyant sense of being 
 on the top of the wave which was so contrary to all his previ- 
 ous experience. His own satirical account of himself, as desir- 
 ing literary eminence only to make up for the mistake of not 
 being born a lord, is a self-contemptuous way of stating the 
 thirst he had to be foremost, to be doing, to be capable of 
 moving the world. And he may very well be excused for 
 thinking now that he had done so. 
 
 Amid the many disappointments of his life he had these 
 three years of triumph, which are much for a man to have. 
 If there was a certain vulgarity in his enjoyment of them, there 
 was at the same time a great deal of active kindness, and 
 though he might brag of the services he did, he yet did ser- 
 vice and remembered his friends, and helped as he could those
 
 The Author of ''Gulliver'' 115 
 
 hangers-on and waiters upon Providence who, in those days, 
 were always about a minister's antechamber. It is unnecessary 
 to attempt to go over again the story of the poUtics of the time, 
 in which he was so powerful an agent. To see Swift moving 
 about in his gown and wig, with his eyes, ** azure as the heav- 
 ens," glowing keen from underneath his deep brows, sometimes 
 full of sport and laughter and tender kindness, sometimes 
 with something " awful " in their look, sometimes dazzling 
 with humorous tyranny and command, is more interesting 
 than to fathom over again for the hundredth time the confusing 
 intrigues of the age. One thing is evident, that while he 
 served others he got nothing for himself: the bishopric so long 
 longed for did not come, nor even a fat English deanery, which 
 would have been worth the having and kept him near the cen- 
 ter of affairs. Was Harley, too, disposed to flatter rather than 
 promote his Jonathan? or was it the queen's determined preju- 
 dice, and conviction that the " Tale of a Tub " was no fit foun- 
 dation for a miter? The latter would have been litde won- 
 derful, for Swift had taken pains to embroil himself with the 
 court, by a coarse and ineffective satire called the "Windsor 
 Prophecy," which no doubt amused the hostile coteries, yet 
 could not but do the rash writer harm. 
 
 At last, just before the fall of Harley, preferment was found 
 for the champion who had served him so well. It was the last 
 that Swift would have chosen for himself — a kind of dienified 
 banishment and exile from all he loved best. There was a 
 question between the deanery of St. Patrick's and that of 
 Windsor, he himself says. Had he gone to the royal borough, 
 what a curious change might have come to all his after life ! 
 Would Stella, one wonders, have found a red-roofed house 
 under the cloister walls ? and the dean lived, perhaps, to get the 
 confidence of Queen Caroline, a queen worth pleasing? and 
 looked upon the world with azure eyes softened by prosperity
 
 1 1 6 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 from the storied slopes, and worn his ribbon of the Garter with 
 a proud inflation of the bosom which had always sighed for 
 greatness? How many differences, how much softening, ex- 
 panding, almost elevation, might not the kind hand of Fortune 
 work in such great but troubled natures were it allowed to 
 smooth and caress the roughness away ! 
 
 When the issue of the conflict between Harley and Boling- 
 broke became too evident to be doubted, Swift showed the 
 softer side of his character in a very unexpected way. He ran 
 away from the catastrophe like a nervous woman, hiding him- 
 self in a country parsonage till the blow should be struck and 
 the calamity be overpast, a very curious piece of moral timidity 
 or nervous over-sensitiveness, for which we are entirely unpre- 
 pared. It was less extraordinary that he should write to offer 
 himself to Harley as a companion in his solitude when the min- 
 ister was fairly ousted, although even then Bolingbroke was 
 bidding eagerly for his services. But whether Swift would 
 have accepted these offers, or would have carried his evidently 
 genuine attachment to Harley so far as permanently to with- 
 draw with him from public life, was never known. For the vic- 
 tory of St. John was short indeed. " The Earl of Oxford was 
 removed on Tuesday, the Queen died on Sunday. What a 
 world is this, and how does Fortune banter us!" writes Boling- 
 broke. It was such a stroke of the irony of fate as Swift him- 
 self might have invented, and St. John applauded with the 
 laughter of the philosopher. There was an end of political 
 power for both, and the triumph and greatness of Swift's 
 reflected glory was over without hope of renewal. 
 
 He had now nothing to do but to return to Ireland, so long 
 neglected, the country of his disappointments, which did not 
 love him, and which he did not love, where his big genius (he 
 thought) had not room enough to breathe, where society was 
 small and provincial, and life flat and bare, and only a few
 
 The Author of ''Gulliver'' 117 
 
 familiar friends appreciated him or knew what he was. How 
 he was to make himself the idol of that country, a kind of king 
 in it, and gain power of a different kind from any he had yet 
 wielded, was as yet a secret hidden in the mists of the future 
 to Swift and everybody around. His account of himself when 
 he got home to his dull deanery, "a vast unfurnished house," 
 with a few servants in it, "all on board wages," is melancholy 
 enough. " I live a country life in town, see nobody, and go 
 every day once to prayers, and hope in a few months to grow 
 as stupid as the present situation of affairs will require," but he 
 consoles himself: " after all, parsons are not such bad com- 
 pany, especially when they are under subjectioji; and I let 
 none but such come near me" a curious statement, in which 
 the great satirist, as often before, gives a stroke of his idle 
 sword at himself 
 
 But Swift was not long left in this stagnation. Extreme 
 quiet is in many cases but a cover for brewing mischief, and 
 the dean had not long returned to Ireland when that handsome 
 daughter of Mrs. Vanhomrigh, of whom he had said so little in 
 his letters, found herself, on her mother's death, drawn to 
 Ireland, and the neighborhood of her tutor and correspondent. 
 It is curious to find so many links to Ireland in this little com- 
 pany. Stella had a farm in Meath left to her by Sir William 
 Temple, Vanessa, "a small property at Celbridge," to which it 
 suited her to retire. And thus there were gathered together 
 within a short distance the dean himself in his dull house, the 
 assured and quiet possessor of his tenderest affections in Dublin 
 near him, and the impassioned girl who had declared for him 
 love of a very different kind, at Marley Abbey, within the reach 
 of a ride. That Swift had a heart large enough to admit on 
 his own terms many women is very evident, and that he had a 
 fondness for Vanessa among the rest ; but how far he was to 
 blame for her fatal passion, it is scarcely possible to decide.
 
 1 1 8 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 The story of their connection, as told from his side of the ques- 
 tion in the poem of " Cadenus and Vanessa," shows an uncon- 
 sciousness and innocence of purpose which takes all the respon- 
 sibility of her infatuation from the dean, and shows him in a light 
 all too artless. 
 
 The innocent delight he took, 
 
 To see the virgin mind her book, 
 
 Was but the master's secret joy 
 
 In school to hear the finest boy. 
 
 But this was not the light in which the headstrong young 
 woman, who made no secret of her love, and filled him with 
 "shame, disappointment, guilt, remorse," by the revelation, re- 
 garded his attentions. Their correspondence went on for 
 nearly ten years. It is a painful correspondence, as the out- 
 pouring of a woman's passion for a man who does not respond 
 to it must always be ; but Swift never seems to have fostered 
 that passion, nor to have done anything but discourage and 
 subdue a love so embarrassing and troublesome. 
 
 And now comes in the mystery which everybody has dis- 
 cussed, but which none have brought to any certain conclusion. 
 In 1 716, two years after Swift's return to Ireland, it is said that 
 he married Stella, thus putting himself at once out of all possi- 
 bihty of marrying Miss Vanhomrigh (which might have been a 
 motive) and satisfying Stella, as the notion goes. Scott re- 
 ceives the statement as proved ; so does Mr. Craik, Swift's last, 
 and a most conscientious and careful biographer. The evi- 
 dence for it is that Lord Orrery and Dr. Delany, the earliest 
 writers on the subject, both assert it ("if my informations are 
 right," as the former says) as a supposition universally believed 
 in society ; and that the fact was told by the Bishop of Clogher, 
 who performed the ceremony, to Bishop Berkeley, who told it 
 to his wife, who told it after her husband's death, and long after 
 the event, to George Monck Berkeley, who tells the story.
 
 The AfUhor of ''Gulliver'' 119 
 
 But Bishop Berkeley was in Italy at the time and could not 
 have been told, though he might have heard it at second-hand 
 from his pupil, the Bishop of Clogher's son. We wonder if an 
 inheritance or the legitimacy of a child would be considered 
 proved by such evidence, or whether the prevailing sense of so- 
 ciety that such a thing ought to have taken place has not a 
 large share in the common belief At all times, as at the 
 present moment, wherever a close friendship between man and 
 woman exists (and the very fact of such rumors makes it ex- 
 tremely rare), suggestions of the same description float in the 
 air. Nobody supposes, if the marriage took place at all, that it 
 was anything more than a mere form. It was performed, if 
 performed at all, in the garden without any formal or legal pre- 
 liminaries. Supposing such a fictitious rite to have any justifi- 
 cation in Irish law, we wonder what the authorities of the 
 church would have had to say to two high dignitaries who 
 united to perform an act so disorderly and contrary to ecclesi- 
 astical decorum, if to nothing else. It is totally unlike Swift, 
 whose feeling for the church was strong, to have used her or- 
 dinances so disrespectfully, and most unlike all we know of 
 Stella that she should have consented to so utterly false a rela- 
 tionship. However, the question is one which the reader will 
 decide according to his own judgment, and upon which no one 
 can speak with authority. Mr. Forster, of all Swift's biographers 
 the most elaborate and anxious, did not get so far in his work 
 as to examine the evidence, yet intimates his disbelief of the 
 story. We do not need, however, to have recourse to the ex- 
 pedient of a marriage to explain how the story of Vanessa 
 might have been a pain and offense to Stella. Swift had not in 
 this particular been frank with his friends, and the discovery, so 
 near them, of a woman making so passionate a claim upon his 
 affections must have conveyed the shock at once of a deception 
 and an unpardonable intrusion to one who was proudly con-
 
 1 20 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 scious of being his most trusted confidant and closest com- 
 panion. Whatever were the rights of the case, however, no- 
 body can now know. Whether Vanessa had heard the rumor 
 of the private marriage, whether she conceived that a des- 
 perate appeal to his dearest friend might help her own claim, 
 or whether mere suspicion and misery, boiling over, found ex- 
 pression in the hasty letter to Stella which she wrote at the 
 crisis of her career, is equally unessential. She did write, and 
 Stella, surprised and offended, showed the letter to Swift. 
 Nothing can be more tragic than the events that follow. 
 Swift, in one of those wild bursts of passion which were be- 
 yond the control of reason, rode out at once to the unfortu- 
 nate young woman's house. He burst in without a word, 
 threw her own letter on the table before her, and rode off 
 again like a whirlwind. Vanessa came of a short-lived race, 
 and was then, at thirty-four, the last of her family. She never 
 recovered the blow, but, dying soon after, directed her letters 
 and the poem which contained the story of her love and his 
 coldness to be published. This was not done for nearly a 
 century ; and now more than half of another has gone, but 
 the story is as full of passion and misery, as unexplained, as 
 ever. This was one of the occupations of Swift's stagnant 
 time. He fled, as he had done at the moment of Harley's 
 fall, that, at least, he might not see what was going to happen. 
 But a little while longer was the other, the love of his life, 
 spared to him. Five years after the tragical end of Vanessa, 
 Stella too died, after long suffering. There is a second story, 
 of equally doubtful authenticity and confused and extraordinary 
 details, about a proposed tardy acknowledgment of the apoc- 
 ryphal marriage ; but whether it was he or she who sug- 
 gested this, whether it was he or she who found it "too 
 late," whether there was any reality in it at all, no one 
 has ever determined. Stella's illness grew serious while Swift
 
 GEORGE, EARL OF BERKELEY. 
 
 FROM AN UNFINISHED ENGRAVING, IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM, 
 ATTRIBUTED TO DAVID LOGGAN.
 
 The Author of ''Gulliver'' 121 
 
 was absent, and his anguish at the news was curiously mingled 
 with an overwhelming dread lest she should die at the deanery, 
 and thus compromise her reputation and his own; perhaps, 
 too, lest the house to which he must return should be made in- 
 tolerable to him by the shadow of such an event. That he 
 should have kept away, with his usual terror of everything 
 painful, was entirely in keeping with his character. But the 
 first alarm passed away, and Swift was in the deanery when 
 this great sorrow overtook him. He who had kept a letter for 
 an hour without daring to open it, in which he trembled to find 
 the news of her death, now shut himself up heartbroken in his 
 solitary house, and, somewhat calmed by the irrevocable, — as 
 grief, however desperate, always must be, — proceeded to give 
 himself what consolation was possible by writing a "Character," 
 as was the fashion of the time, of " the truest, most virtuous, 
 and valuable friend I, or perhaps any other person, was ever 
 blessed with." The calm after the storm, but a calm of sober 
 despair and dread, unreal composure, is in this strange docu- 
 ment. He wrote till " my head aches, and I can write no 
 more," and on the third day resumed and completed the 
 strange and melancholy narrative. 
 
 This is the night of her funeral, which my sickness will not suffer me 
 to attend. It is now nine at night, and I am removed into another 
 apartment, that I may not see the light in the Church, which is just over 
 against the window of my bedchamber. 
 
 She was buried in his own cathedral by torchlight, as the 
 custom was ; but he would no more bear the glimpses of that 
 awful light through the window, than he could witness the put- 
 ting away of all that remained of Stella in the double gloom of 
 the vault and the night. In that other apartment he concluded 
 his sad panegyric, the story of all she was and did, showing 
 with intense but subdued eloquence that there was no fault in
 
 122 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 her. "There is none like her, none." This is the burden of 
 the old man's self- restrained anguish, the tragedy of his age, 
 as it is the young lover's paean of triumph. The truest, most 
 valuable friend that ever man had — and now her beautiful life 
 was ended, to be his consolation no more. He had a lock of 
 her hair in his possession somewhere, either given him then or 
 at some brighter moment, which was found after his death, as 
 all the world knows, with these words written upon the paper 
 that contained it: "Only a woman's hair." Only all the soft- 
 ness, the brightness, the love and blessing of a life ; only all 
 that the heart had to rest upon of human solace; only that — 
 no more. He who had thanked God and M. D.'s prayers for 
 his better health, had now no one to pray for him, or to re- 
 ceive his confidences. It was over, all that best of life — as 
 if it had never been. 
 
 It is easy to expand such a text, and many have done it. 
 In the mean time, before these terrible events had occurred, 
 while Vanessa's letters were still disturbing his peace, and death 
 had as yet touched none of his surroundings, he had accom- 
 plished the greatest literary work of his life, that by which 
 every child knows Swift's name — the travels of the famous 
 Gulliver. The children have made their selection with an un- 
 erring judgment which is above criticism, and have taken Lilli- 
 put and Brobdingnag into their hearts, rejecting all the rest. 
 That Swift had a meaning, bitter and sharp, even in the most 
 innocent part of that immortal fable, and meant to strike a blow 
 at politicians and generals, and the human race, with its puny 
 wars, and glories, and endless vanities and foolishness, is evi- 
 dent enough ; and it was for this that the people of his time 
 seized upon the book with breathless interest, and old Duchess 
 Sarah in her old age chuckled and forgave the dean. But the 
 vast majority of his readers have not so much as known that 
 he meant anything except the most amusing and witty fancy,
 
 The Attthor of ''Gulliver'^ 123 
 
 the keenest comic delineation of impossible circumstances. 
 That delightful Irish bishop, if ever he was, who declared that 
 " the book was full of improbable lies, and for his part he 
 hardly believed a word of it," is the only critic we want. "'Gul- 
 liver's Travels ' is almost the most delightful children's book 
 ever written," says Mr. Leslie Stephen, no small authority. It 
 had no doubt been talked over and read to the ladies, who, it 
 would incidentally appear, had not liked the " Tale of a Tub." 
 But Swift was at home when he wrote " Gulliver," and had no 
 need of a journal to communicate his proceedings. 
 
 Between 1714 and 1726, for a dozen years, he remained in 
 Ireland without intermission, altogether apart from public life. 
 At the latter date he went to London, probably needing, after 
 the shock of Miss Vanhomrigh's death, and the grievous sense 
 he must have had that it was he who had killed her, a change 
 of scene ; and it was then that " Gulliver " was published. The 
 latter portions of it which the children have rejected we are glad 
 to have no space to dwell upon. The bitterness, passion, and 
 misery of them are beyond parallel. One would like to have 
 any ground for believing that the Houyhnhms and the rest 
 came into being after Stella's death ; but this was not the case. 
 She was only a woman, and was not, after all, of such vital 
 importance in the man's existence. Withdrawal from the life 
 he loved, confinement in a narrow sphere, the disappointment 
 of a soul which felt itself born for greatness, and had tasted the 
 high excitements of power, but now had nothing to do but 
 fight over the choir with his archbishop, and give occasion for 
 a hundred anecdotes in the Dublin coteries, had matured the 
 angry passion in him and soured the sweetness of nature. Few 
 people now when they take up their "Gulliver" go beyond 
 Brobdingnag. The rest is like a succession of bad dreams, the 
 confused miseries of a fever. To think that in a deanery, that 
 calm seat of ecclesiastical luxury, within sound of the cathedral
 
 1 24 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 bells and the choristers' chants, a brain so dark and distracted, 
 and dreams so terrible, should have found shelter ! They are 
 all the more bitter and appalling from their contrast with the 
 surroundings among which they had their disastrous birth. 
 
 The later part of Swift's life, however, had occupation of a 
 very different and nobler kind. The Ireland he knew was so 
 different from the Ireland with which we are acquainted, that 
 to contemplate the two is apt to give a sort of moral vertigo, a 
 giddiness of the intellect, to the observer. Swift's Ireland was 
 the country of the English-Irish, ultra- Protestant, like the real 
 Ireland only in the keenness of its politics and the sharpness 
 of its opposition to imperial measures. It was Ireland with a 
 parliament of her own, and many of the privileges which are 
 now her highest aspirations, yet she was not content. Swift, 
 in speaking of the people, the true Irish, the Catholic masses, 
 who at that moment bore their misery with a patience incon- 
 ceivable, said of them that they were no more considerable than 
 the women and children, a race so utterly trodden down and 
 subdued that there was no need for the politician to take them 
 into account. The position of the predominant class was al- 
 most like that of white men among the natives of a savage 
 country, or at least like that of the English in India, the confi- 
 dent and assured rulers of a subject race. Nevertheless, these 
 men were full of a sort of national feeling, and ready to rise 
 up in hot and not ineffectual opposition when need was, and 
 reckon themselves Irish, whereas no sahib has ever reckoned 
 himself Indian. The real people of Ireland were held under 
 the severest yoke, but those gentlemen who represented the 
 nation can scarcely be said to have been oppressed. Their 
 complaint was that Englishmen were put into vacant posts, 
 that their wishes were disregarded, and their affairs neglected, 
 complaints which even prosperous Scotland has been known to 
 make. They were affected, however, as well as the race which'
 
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 The Author of ''Gulliver'' 125 
 
 they kept under their feet, by the intolerable law which sup- 
 pressed woolen manufactures in Ireland, and it was on this 
 subject that Swift first broke silence, and appeared as the na- 
 tional champion, recommending to his countrymen such re- 
 prisals as the small can employ against the great, in the form 
 of a proposal that Irishmen should use Irish manufactures only, 
 a proposal by no means unlikely to be carried out should an 
 Irish parliament ever exist again. 
 
 The commotion produced by this real and terrible oppres- 
 sion was nothing, however, to that called forth by an inno- 
 cent attempt to give a copper coinage — the most convenient 
 of circulating mediums — to Ireland. Nothing could have been 
 more harmless, more useful and necessary in reality, and there 
 is no reason to suppose that dishonesty of any kind was in- 
 volved. But the public mind was embittered by the fact that 
 the patent had been granted to one of King George's Ger- 
 man favorites, and by her sold to Wood, an Englishman, who 
 was supposed to be about to make an enormous profit out of 
 the country by half-pence not worth their nominal value. 
 Such an idea stirred the prejudices and fears of the very low- 
 est, and would even now rouse the ignorant into rage and 
 panic. Whether Swift shared that natural and national, if 
 unreasonable, outburst of indignation and alarm to the full ex- 
 tent, or if he threw himself into it with the instinct of an agi- 
 tator foreseeing the capabilities of the subject, it is difficult to 
 tell. But the " Drapier's Letters " gave to the public outcry 
 so powerful a force of resistance, and excited the entire 
 country into such unanimity and opposition, that the English 
 Government was forced to withdraw from this attempt, and 
 the position of the Irish nation, as an oppressed yet not un- 
 powerful entity, still able to face its tyrants and protest 
 against their careless sway, became distinctly apparent. It is 
 strange that a man who hated Ireland, and considered himself
 
 126 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 an exile in her, should have been the one to claim for her 
 an independence, a freedom she had never yet possessed, and 
 should have been able to inspire at once the subject and the 
 ruling race with the sense that they had found a champion ca- 
 pable of all things, and through whom for the first time their 
 voice miofht be heard in the world. The immediate result was to 
 Swift a popularity beyond bounds. The people he despised 
 were seized with an adoration for him which was shared by 
 the class to which he himself belonged — perhaps the first sub- 
 ject on which they had agreed. "When he returned from 
 England in 1726 bells were rung, bonfires lighted, and a guard 
 of honor escorted him to the deanery. Towns voted him their 
 freedom and received him as a prince. When Walpole spoke 
 of arresting him a prudent friend told the minister that the 
 messenger would require a guard of 10,000 soldiers." When 
 the crowd which had gathered to see an eclipse disturbed him 
 by the hum they made. Swift sent out to tell them that the 
 event was put off by order of the dean, and the simple-minded 
 people dispersed obediently! Had he been so minded, and had 
 he fully understood and loved the race over which his great 
 and troubled spirit had gained such power, much might per- 
 haps have been ameliorated in that unfortunate country, so 
 cursed in her friends as in her foes, and much in the soul con- 
 suming itself in angry inactivity with no fit work in hand. But 
 it would have taken a miracle indeed to have turned this EnQf- 
 lishman born in Ireland, this political churchman and hater 
 of papists and dissenters, into the savior of the subject race. 
 That he was, however, deeply struck with an impression of 
 their misery, and that his soul, always so ready to break forth 
 upon the cruelty, the falsehood, the barbarous misconception 
 of men by men, found in their wrongs a subject upon which he 
 could scarcely exaggerate, is apparent enough. His " Modest 
 Proposal for Preventing the Children of the Poor in Ireland
 
 The Author of ''Gulliver'' 127 
 
 from Being a Burden to their Parents or Country " is one of 
 those pieces of terrible satire which lacerate the heart. Tears 
 as of blood are in it, a passion of indignant pity, and fury, and 
 despair. " Eat them, then, since there 's nothing else to be 
 done with them," he says, detailing with elaborate composure 
 the way to do it and the desirableness of such a supply of deli- 
 cate food. The reader, unwarned and simple-minded, might al- 
 most, with a gasp of horror, take the proposal for genuine. 
 But Swift's meaning was really more terrible than cannibalism. 
 It was the sense that these children, the noblest fruit of nature, 
 were in truth the embarrassment, the fatal glut of a miserable 
 race, that forced this dreadful irony upon him. And what pic- 
 ture could be more terrible than that of the childless old man 
 with his bleeding heart, himself deserted of all that made life 
 sweet, thus facing the world with scorn so infinite that it tran- 
 scends all symbols of passion, bidding it consume what it has 
 brought forth ? 
 
 But Swift, unfortunately for himself and her, loved Ireland 
 as little when he thus made himself her champion as he had 
 done throughout his life. At all times his longing eyes were 
 turned toward the country in which life was, and power, and 
 friends, and fame. Though he was aware he was growing old 
 and ought to be "done with this world," he yet cries aloud his 
 desire "to get into a better before I was called into the best, 
 and not die here in a rage like a poisoned rat in a hole," — a 
 terrific image, and one of those phrases that burn and glow 
 with a pale light of despair. But he never got into that better 
 world he longed for. The slow years crept over him, and he 
 lived on, making existence tolerable by such expedients as he 
 could, a wonderful proof how the body will resist all the fret- 
 tings of the soul, yet growing more angry, more desperate, 
 more subject to the bitter passions which had broken forth even 
 in his best days, as he grew older and had fewer reasons for
 
 128 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 restraining himself. At last the great dean, the greatest 
 genius of his age, the man of war and battle, of quip and jest, 
 he who had thirsted to be doing through all his life, fell into 
 imbecility and stupor, with occasional wild awakenings into 
 consciousness which were still more terrible. He died, de- 
 nuded of all things, in 1 745, having lived till seventy-eight in 
 
 spite of himself. 
 
 Ubi saeva indignatio 
 Cor ulterius lacerare nequit 
 
 is written on his tomb. No more can fiery wrath and indigna- 
 tion reach him where he lies by Stella's side in the aisle over 
 against his chamber window. The touch of her quiet dust 
 must have soothed, one would think, the last fever that lingered 
 still in him even after death had done its worst.
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF "ROBINSON CRUSOE" 
 
 THE age of Queen Anne was one which abounded in 
 paradoxes, and loved them. It was an age when Eng- 
 land was full of patriotic policy, yet every statesman 
 was a traitor; when tradition was dear, yet revolution practi- 
 cable ; when speech was gross and manners unrefined, yet the 
 laws of literary composition rigid, and correctness the test of 
 poetry. It was full of high ecclesiasticism and strict Puritan- 
 ism, sometimes united in one person. In it ignorance was 
 most profound, yet learning most considered and prominent. 
 An age when Parson Trulliber was not an unfit representative 
 of the rural clergy, yet the public could be interested in such 
 a recondite pleasantry as the " Battle of the Books," seems the 
 strangest self-contradiction ; yet so it was in this paradoxical 
 age. No man lived who was a more complete paradox than 
 Defoe. His fame is world-wide, yet all that is known of him is 
 one or two of his least productions, and his busy life is ignored 
 in the permanent place in literary history which he has secured. 
 His characteristics, as apart from his conduct, are all those of an 
 honest man, but when that most important part of him is taken 
 into the question it is difficult to pronounce him anything but 
 a knave. His distinguishing literary quality is a minute truth- 
 fulness to fact which makes it almost impossible not to take 
 what he says for gospel. But his constant inspiration is fiction, 
 not to say, in some circumstances, falsehood. He spent his life
 
 130 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 in the highest endeavors that a man can engage in : in the 
 work of persuading and influencing his country, chiefly for her 
 good ; and he is remembered by a boy's book, which is indeed 
 the first of boy's books, yet not much more. Through these 
 contradictions we must push our way before we can reach to 
 any clear idea of Defoe, the London tradesman who by times 
 composed almost all the newspapers in London, wrote all the 
 pamphlets, had his finger in every pie, and a share in all that 
 was done, yet brought nothing out of it but a damaged repu- 
 tation and an unhonored end. 
 
 It is curious that something of a similar fate should have 
 happened to the other and greater figure, his contemporary, 
 his enemy, in some respects his fellow -laborer, another and 
 more brilliant slave of the government, which in itself had 
 so little that was brilliant, — the great dean whose name has 
 already appeared so often in these sketches. Swift, too, of all 
 his books, is remembered chiefly by the book of the travels of 
 " Gulliver," which, though full of a satirical purpose unknown 
 to Defoe, has come to rank along with " Robinson Crusoe." 
 We may say indeed that these two books form a class by 
 themselves, of perennial enchantment for the young, and full of 
 a curious and enthralling illusion which even in age we rarely 
 shake off. Swift rises into bitter and terrible tragedy, while 
 Defoe sinks into matter of fact and commonplace ; but the 
 shipwrecked sailor on his desolate island, and the exile at the 
 courts of Lilliput and Brobdingnag, both in the beginnings of 
 their careers hold our imaginations captive, and are as fresh 
 and as powerful to-day as when, the one in keen satire, the 
 other in the legitimate way of business, they first made their 
 appearance in the world. It is a singular link between the 
 men who both did Harley's dirty work for him, and were sub- 
 ject to a leader so much smaller than themselves. 
 
 Daniel Defoe was born in London in 1661, of what would
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 
 
 i^i 
 
 seem to have been a respectable burgher family, only one 
 generation out of the country, which probably was why his 
 father, with yeomen and grazier relations in Northampton- 
 shire, was a butcher in town. The butcher's name, however, was 
 Foe ; and whether the Defoe of his son was a mere pleasantry 
 upon his signature of D. Foe, or whether it embodied an inten- 
 tion of setting up for something better than the tradesman's 
 monosyllable, is a quite futile question upon which nobody can 
 throw any light. The boy was well educated, according to the 
 capabilities of his kindred, in a school at Newington, probably 
 intended for the sons of comfortable dissenting tradesmen, who 
 were to be devoted to the ministry, with the assistance in some 
 cases of a fund raised for that purpose. The master was good, 
 and if Defoe attained there even the rudiments of the informa- 
 tion he afterward showed, and laid claim to, the education must 
 have been excellent indeed. He claims to have known Latin, 
 Spanish, Italian, French, "and could read the Greek," — which 
 latter is as much as could have been expected had he been 
 the most advanced of scholars, — besides an acquaintance with 
 science, geography, and history not to be surpassed, appar- 
 ently, by any man of his time. "If I am a blockhead," he 
 says, " it was nobody's fault but my own," his father having 
 " spared nothing " on his education. Much of this information, 
 however, was no doubt picked up in the travels and much knock- 
 ing about of his early years, of which there is little record. He 
 would seem to have changed his mind about becoming a dis- 
 senting minister at an early age, and was probably a youth of 
 somewhat wandering tendencies, as he claims to have been 
 " out " with Monmouth, and does not appear in any recognized 
 occupation till after that unfortunate attempt. He must have 
 been twenty-four when he first becomes visible as a hosier in 
 Cornhill, which seems a very natural and indeed rather superior 
 beginning in life for the son of the butcher in Cripplegate.
 
 132 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 He laid claim afterward to having been a trader, — not a shop- 
 keeper, — a claim supported more or less from a source not 
 favorable to Defoe, by Oldmixon, who says that his only con- 
 nection with the trade was that of "peddling to Portugal," 
 whatever that may mean. We may take it for granted that he 
 had occasions of visiting the Continent in connection, one way 
 or other, with his trade. The volume of advice to shopkeepers 
 which is entitled the " Complete English Tradesman," written 
 and published in the latter part of his life, though it does not seem 
 to be taken by his biographers in general as any certain indica- 
 tion that he himself made his beginning in a shop, is never- 
 theless full of curious details of the life of the London shopkeeper 
 of his time, to which class he assuredly belonged. We learn 
 from this curious production that vanity was even more foolish 
 in the eighteenth century than it is now. We are acquainted 
 with sporting shopkeepers who ride to hounds, and with foolish 
 young men who fondly hope to be mistaken for "swells"; but 
 a shopkeeper in a wig and a sword passes the power of imagi- 
 nation. It is a droll example of the fallacy of all our fond retro- 
 spections and preference of the good old times to find that in 
 Defoe's day this was by no means an extraordinary circum- 
 stance. "The playhouses and balls," he says, " are more filled 
 with citizens and young tradesmen than with gentlemen and 
 families of distinction ; the shopkeepers wear different garbs 
 than what they were wont to do, are decked out with long 
 wigs and swords, and all the frugal badges of trade are quite 
 disdained and cast aside." 
 
 We may take from this book as an illustration of the habits 
 of the age the following description of a young firm which is 
 clearly on the way to ruin : 
 
 They say there are two partners of them, but there had as good 
 be none, for they are never at home or in the shop. One wears a long 
 peruke and a sword, I hear, and you see him often at the ball and at
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe''' 133 
 
 court, but very seldom in his shop, or waiting on his customers ; and 
 the other, they say, Hes abed till eleven o'clock every day, just comes 
 into the shop and shows himself, then stalks about to the tavern to take 
 a whet, then to the coffee-house to hear the news, comes home to din- 
 ner at one, takes a long sleep in his chair after it, and about four o'clock 
 comes into the shop for half an hour or thereabouts, then to the tavern, 
 where he stays till two in the morning, gets drunk, and is led home by 
 the watch, and so lies till eleven again; and thus he walks round like the 
 hand of a dial. And what will it all come to ? They '11 certainly break. 
 They can't hold long. 
 
 The account of the shop kept by these two idle masters is 
 equally characteristic. 
 
 There is a good stock of goods in it, but there is nobody to serve 
 but a prentice boy or two and an idle journeyman. One finds them all 
 at play together rather than looking out for customers ; and when you 
 come to buy, they look as if they did not care whether they showed you 
 anything or no. Then it is a shop always exposed ; it is perfectly 
 haunted with thieves and shoplifters. They are nobody but raw boys 
 in it that mind nothing, so that there are more outcries of stop thief! at 
 their door, and more constables fetched to that shop than to all the shops 
 in the street. 
 
 The households of the soberer and more sensible members 
 of the craft are also open to grave animadversion. The ladies 
 are too fine ; they treat their friends with wine or punch or 
 fine ale, and have their parlors set off with the tea-table and 
 the chocolate-pot, and the silver coffee-pot, and oftentimes an 
 ostentation of plate into the bargain, and they keep " three or 
 four maid servants, nay, sometimes five," and some a footman 
 besides, " for 't is an ordinary thing to see the tradesmen and 
 shopkeepers of London keep footmen, as well as the gentlemen. 
 Witness the infinite number of blue liveries which are so com- 
 mon now that they are called the tradesmens' liveries, and few 
 gentlemen care to give blue to their servants for that very 
 reason." Of the maids themselves, who ask "six, seven, nay
 
 134 The Reign of Qiiee^t Anne 
 
 eight pounds per annum " for their services, a terrible account 
 is given in a pamphlet published about 1725, where there is a 
 humorous description in the first person of a young woman who 
 comes to apply for the place of housemaid, evidently maid of all 
 work to the speaker, who lives with his sister, with a man and 
 maid for their household. She is so fine that Defoe himself 
 shows her into the parlor and keeps her company till his sis- 
 ter is ready, thinking her a gentlewoman come to pay a visit. 
 Perhaps it is not Defoe, but, with his usual skill, he makes 
 us think so. All these details bring before us the London of 
 his time. The mercers had their shops in Paternoster Row, 
 " where the spacious shops, back warehouses, skylights, and 
 other conveniences, made on purpose for their trade, are still 
 to be seen," where " they all grew rich and very seldom any 
 failed or miscarried," and also in Cornhill, where Defoe's own 
 establishment was, though there, apparently, business was car- 
 ried on wholesale. It appears to him that trade is going 
 downhill fast when this order is changed, when Paul's Church- 
 yard is filled with cane-chair makers, and Cornhill with the 
 meanest of trades, even Cheapside itself, " how is it now filled 
 up with shoemakers, toy shops, and pastry cooks ? " Every- 
 thing is going to destruction, the old trader thinks, shaking 
 his head as he goes through the well-known streets, where 
 once the fine ladies came in their fine coaches standing in two 
 rows; he cannot think but that trade itself is coming to an end 
 when such changes can come to pass. Trade, he says, like 
 vice, has come to a height, and as things decline when they 
 are at their extremes, so trade not only must decline, but does 
 already sensibly decline. It ought to be a comfort to the many 
 timid persons who have lived and prophesied evil since then to 
 hear that Defoe a hundred and fifty years ago had come to 
 this sad conclusion. 
 
 He was born into a world he thus describes, into the atmos-
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 135 
 
 phere of shops and counting-houses, where the good tradesman 
 lived in the parlor above or behind his shop, and was called 
 with a bell when need was, and was constant at business " from 
 seven in the morning till twelve, and from two to nine at night," 
 the interval being occupied with dinner ; where the appearance 
 of the long, flowing periwig and the sword and the man in blue 
 livery were the danger-signals, and showed that he must break, 
 he could not hold; where the cry of "Stop, thief!" might sud- 
 denly get up in the midst of the traffic, and the constable be 
 called to some fainting fine lady who had got a piece of taf- 
 feta or a lace in her muff or under her hoop ; and where, per- 
 haps the greatest risk of all, a young man of genius, who was 
 but a hosier, might betray himself in a coffee-house and be 
 visited afterward by great personages veiling their lace and 
 embroidery under their cloaks, who wanted a seasonable pam- 
 phlet or a newspaper put into the right way. A strange old 
 London, more difficult to put on record in its manners and 
 features than it is to record in pasteboard its outward aspect ; 
 where town could be convulsed by a chance broadsheet, and the 
 Government propped or wounded to death by an anonymous 
 essayist; when men of letters were secretaries of state, and other 
 men ofletters starved in Grub street, and the masses thanked 
 God they could not read; when a revolution was made for liberty 
 of conscience, yet every office and privilege was barred by a test, 
 and intolerance was the habit of the time. The author of "Rob- 
 inson Crusoe " must have got all his ideas in the narrow, bust- 
 ling streets, full of rumors, of wars and commotions, and talk 
 about the scandals of the court, and sight of the finery and license 
 which revolted, yet exercised some strange fascinations upon 
 the sober dissenting tradesmen who had found the sway of 
 Oliver a hard one. He was born the year after the Restora- 
 tion, and was no doubt carried out of London post-haste with 
 the rest of his family in the early summer when the roads were
 
 136 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 crowded with wagons and carts full of women, children, and 
 servants, all flying from the plague. The butcher's little son 
 was but four, but very likely retained a recollection of the 
 crowded ways and strange spectacles of the time ; and no doubt 
 he saw, with eyes starting out of their little sockets with ex- 
 citement and terror, the glare of the great fire which burned 
 down all the haunts of the pestilence and cured London by 
 destroying it. Then, both at school, at Newington, and in the 
 parlor behind the shop, there would be many a grave talk over 
 what was to come of all the wickedness in high places ; and 
 when the papist king came to the throne, many discussions as 
 to how much his new-born liberality was good for, and whether 
 there was any safety in trusting to his indulgences and declara- 
 tions of liberty of conscience. Defoe by this time was old 
 enough to speak his own mind. He had left school at nineteen, 
 and till he was twenty-four there is no appearance that he was 
 doing anything, save, perhaps, picking up notions on trade 
 in general, and as much as a young dissenter could, among 
 his own class, or in the coffee-houses where it was safe, deliver- 
 ing his sentiments upon questions so vital to the welfare of the 
 country. According to his own statement, he had written a 
 pamphlet in 1683 to prove that a Christian power, though 
 popish, was better than the Turk. He was now so bold as to 
 tell the dissenters " he had rather the Church of England should 
 pull our clothes off by fines and forfeitures than the papists 
 should fall both upon the church and the dissenters, and pull 
 our skins off by fire and faggot." No doubt he was then 
 about in London noticing everything, discoursing largely with 
 a wonderful, long-winded, sober enthusiasm, making every 
 statement that occurred to him look like the most certain truth; 
 talking everywhere, in the coffee-house, at the street corners, 
 down in Cripplegate in the paternal parlor, never silent ; a 
 swarthy youth, with quick gray eyes and keen, eager features,
 
 DANIEL DEFOE. 
 
 ENGRAVED BY C. A. PGWEI.L. AFTER COPPERPLATE BY M. VAN UER GUCHT. 
 IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 137 
 
 and large, loquacious mouth. Better be fined and silenced than 
 let in popery to burn you into the bargain. Better stand fast 
 in all those deprivations and hold your faith in corners, than 
 accept suspicious favor from such a source, and help to bring in 
 again the Jesuit and the Pope. While Penn, with his plausible 
 speech and amiable temper, drew his Quaker brethren into $. 
 strange harmony with the courtier's arts, and presented ad- 
 dresses to James, and accepted his grace, the young tradesman 
 would be pressing his very different argument upon the suspi- 
 cious somber groups far from St. James's, where there was no 
 finery, but a great deal of determination. And when in the 
 disturbed and confused wretchedness of the time, no man know- 
 ing what was about to happen, but sure that some change 
 must come, young Monmouth set up his hapless standard, 
 could it be Defoe's own impulse, or the catch of some eddy of 
 feeling into which he had been swept, which carried him off 
 into the ranks of the adventurer ? It is said that three of his 
 fellow-students at Newington figure among the victims of the 
 Bloody Assize. Defoe would always be more disposed to talk 
 than fight. He must, we cannot help thinking, have thought 
 it a feeble proceeding to put yourself in the way of getting 
 your head cut off, when you could use it so much more effectu- 
 ally in convincing your fellow-creatures. His mind, ever so 
 ready to slip through every loophole, carried his body off 
 safely out of the clutches of Jeffreys. Probably when he turned 
 up at home against all hope after this unlucky escapade, his 
 friends were too thankful to thrust him into the hosier's ware- 
 house, where no doubt he would give himself the air of having 
 sold and bought hose all his life. 
 
 There is, however, nothing to build any account of his life 
 upon in these earlier years. The revolution filled him with 
 enthusiasm, and King William gained his full and honest sup- 
 port — a support both bold and serviceable, and with nothing in
 
 138 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 it which was not to his credit. But apparently a man cannot 
 be so good a talker, so active a politician, and follow the rules 
 which he himself laid down for a successful tradesman at the 
 same time. Most likely his mind was never in his hose, and 
 the world was full of so many more exciting matters. Seven 
 years after he had been set up in business he "broke," and had 
 to fly, though no further than Bristol, apparently, where he 
 made an arrangement with his creditors. He would seem to 
 have failed for the large sum at that time of seventeen thou- 
 sand pounds, which he honestly exerted himself to pay, and so 
 far succeeded in doing so that he reduced in a few years his 
 debts to five thousand pounds in all ; and, what was still more, 
 finding certain of the creditors with whom he had compounded 
 to be poor, after he had paid his composition fully, he made up 
 to them the entire amount of his debt — an unlooked-for and 
 exceptional example of honorable sentiment. Some years later, 
 when Defoe had got into notoriety, and was the object of a 
 great deal of violent criticism, a contemporary gives this fact, on 
 the authority indeed of an anonymous gentleman in a coffee- 
 house only, but it seems to have been generally received as 
 true. The writer was in a company " where I and everybody 
 else were railing at him," when "the gentleman took us up 
 with this short speech: 
 
 " ' Gentlemen,' said he, ' I know this Defoe as well as any of 
 you, for I was one of his creditors, compounded with him and 
 discharged him fully. Several years afterward he sent for me, 
 and, though he was clearly discharged, he paid me all the 
 remainder of his debt, voluntarily and of his own accord, and 
 he told me that, as far as God should enable him, he intended 
 to do so with everybody. When he had done he desired me 
 to set my hand to a paper to acknowledge it, which I readily 
 did, and found a great many names to the paper before me, 
 and I think myself bound to own it.' "
 
 The Atithor of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 139 
 
 This has a suspicious resemblance to Defoe's own style, but 
 the fact seems to be generally received as true. 
 
 Neither his business nor his failure, however, kept him 
 from the active exercise of his literary powers, which he used 
 in the service of King William with what seems to have been 
 a most genuine and hearty sympathy. Pamphlet after pam- 
 phlet came from his pen with an influence upon public opinion 
 which it is difficult to estimate nowadays, but which was 
 certainly much greater than any fugitive political publications 
 could have now. He wrote in defense of a standing army, the 
 curious insular prejudice against which was naturally astonish- 
 ing as well as annoying to the continental prince who had be- 
 come king of Great Britain. He wrote in support of the war, 
 which to WilHam was a vital necessity, but which England was 
 somewhat slow to see in the same light. And, most effectively 
 of all, he answered the always ready national grumble 
 against foreigners, which was especially angry and thunderous 
 against the Dutchmen, by the triumphant doggerel of ''The 
 True-born Englishman," the first of Defoe's works which takes 
 a conspicuous place. In this strange and not very refined pro- 
 duction he held up to public admiration the pedigree of the 
 race which complained so warmly of every new invasion, and 
 held so high an opinion of itself. "A true-born Englishman 's 
 a contradiction," he cries, and sets forth, step by step, the ad- 
 mixtures of new blood which have gone to the formation of the 
 English people — Roman, Saxon, Dane, Norman. 
 
 From this amphibious, ill-born mob began 
 That vain, ill-natured thing, an Englishman. 
 
 It is not a very delicate hand which traces these, and many 
 another wave of strange ancestors. " Still the ladies loved the 
 conquerors." But Defoe's rude lines went straight to the mark. 
 The public had no objection to a coarse touch when it was effec-
 
 I40 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 tive, and Englishmen are rarely offended by ridicule; never, we 
 may say, when it is home-born. The stroke was so true that 
 the native sense of humor was hit. Perhaps England did not, 
 on account of Defoe's verses, like the Dutchmen any better, 
 but she acknowledged Tutchin's seditious assault upon the 
 foreigners to be fully answered, and the universal laugh cleared 
 the air. Eighty thousand copies of this publication were sold, 
 it is said, in the streets, where everybody bought the "lampoon," 
 which, assailing everybody, gave no individual sting. It also 
 procured for Defoe a personal introduction to the king. Whether 
 it was to this or to his former services that he owed a small ap- 
 pointment he held for some years, it is difficult to say, but 
 evidently he did not serve King William for nothing. In the 
 mean time Defoe resumed his business occupations, and set up a 
 manufactory of pantiles at Tilbury, where he employed a hun- 
 dred poor laborers, and throve, or seems to have thriven, in his 
 new industry, living in something like luxury, and paying off, 
 as described, his previous debts. His head was full of the pro- 
 jects upon which one of his most successful pamphlets was writ- 
 ten, and he recommended many sweeping schemes and made 
 many bold suggestions on all subjects, from the institution of 
 an income tax to that of an academy like the French. It was a 
 period when the air was swarming with schemes, and Defoe was 
 not necessarily original in his suggestions ; but his brain was 
 teeming with life and energy, and there is no saying which was 
 absolutely his own thought, and which the thought of others. 
 He was a man to whom ideas came as he was writing, and were 
 flung off into the air, to fly or fall as they might. One thought, 
 one fancy, suggested another. For instance, after arguing 
 long and well in favor of the war with France, which was the 
 object of King William's life, and the only thing that could save 
 — according to the ideas of his party on the Continent, and 
 eventually of most sound Protestants in England — the Protes-
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 141 
 
 tant faith, Defoe, with a sudden whimsical perception of certain 
 possibiHties on the other side, came out with a pamphlet en- 
 titled, " Reasons Against a War with France," which was 
 founded on the suggestion that a war with Spain instead would 
 be very profitable, and that the Spanish Indies were a booty well 
 worth having: a sudden dash into new fields which must have 
 brought up the public which he had persuaded to fight France 
 with a certain gasp of breathless inability to follow this rapid 
 reasoner in the instantaneous change of front, which meant no 
 real change of opinion, but only the flash of a sudden happy 
 thouorht. 
 
 When William died, however, and the times changed, the 
 High Church came back with Anne into a potency which had 
 been impossible in the unsympathetic reign of that Dutchman. 
 Defoe had written some time before against the practice of 
 occasional conformity ; that is, the device by which dissenters 
 managed to hold public offices in despite of existing tests, by 
 kneeling now and then at the altars of the established church, 
 and receiving the communion there. Defoe took the highest 
 view of principle in this respect, and denounced the noncon- 
 formists who thus secured ofifice to themselves by the sacri- 
 fice of their consciences, "bowing in the House of Rimmon." 
 There seems no reason, in fact, why a moderate dissenter 
 should not do this, except that any religious duty specially per- 
 formed for the sake of a secular benefit is always suspect and 
 odious. Yet the obvious argument that a man who could 
 reconcile it with his conscience to attend the worship of the 
 church should not be a dissenter, was unquestionably sound 
 and unassailable in point of logic. Defoe had deeply offended 
 the dissenters, to whom he himself belonged, by his protest ; 
 but this did not prevent him from rushing into print in defense 
 of the expedient of occasional conformity as soon as it was 
 threatened from the other side. There is little difficulty in
 
 142 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 following the action of his mind in such a question. It was 
 wrong and a deflection from the highest point of duty to sacri- 
 fice one's conscience, even occasionally, for the sake of office ; 
 but, on the other hand, it was equally wrong to abolish an ex- 
 pedient which broke the severity of the test, and made life 
 possible to the nonconforming classes. The views were con- 
 tradictory, yet both were true, and it was his nature to see 
 both sides with most impartial good sense, while he felt it to 
 be, if a breach of external consistency, no wrong to defend or 
 assail one side or the other, as might seem most necessary. 
 He allowed himself so complete a license on this point that 
 it is curious he should be found the public champion of the 
 higher duty. No doubt his utterance to his dissenting brethren 
 on that question was to himself no reason why he should not 
 defend their right to use the expedient if they had a mind. 
 But this is too fine a distinction for the general intelligence. 
 The discussions on this subject were the occasion of one of 
 the most striking episodes in his life. When the bill against 
 occasional conformity was introduced, to the delight of the 
 High Church party, from the queen downward, and when the 
 air began to buzz around him with the bluster, hitherto sub- 
 dued by circumstances, of the reviving party, who would have 
 made short work with the dissenters had their power been 
 equal to their will, a grimly humorous perception of the capa- 
 bilities of the occasion seems to have seized Defoe. Notwith- 
 standing that he had angered all the sects by his plain speaking, 
 he was a dissenter born, and there is no such way of reconvert- 
 ing a stray Israelite as to hear the Philistines blaspheme. He 
 seized upon the extremest views of the high-fliers with charac- 
 teristic insight, and, with a keen consciousness of the power of 
 his weapon, used it remorselessly. The " Shortest Way to Deal 
 with Dissenters" is a grave and elaborate statement of the wild 
 threats and violent talk in which, in the intoxication of newly
 
 The Atithor of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 143 
 
 acquired power, the partizans of the church indulged, with noise 
 and exaggeration proportioned to the self-suppression which 
 had been forced upon them by the panic of a papal restoration 
 under James, and by the domination of the more moderate 
 party during William's unsympathetic reign. They were now 
 at the top of the wave, and could brandish their swords in the 
 eyes of their adversaries. Their talk in some of their public 
 utterances was as bloodthirsty as if they intended a St. Barthol- 
 omew. Defoe took up this frenzied babble, and put it into the 
 form of a grave and practical proposal. As serious as was 
 Swift when he proposed to utilize the superabundant babies of 
 the poor by eating them, Defoe propounded the easy way to 
 get rid of the dissenters and the necessity of settling this ques- 
 tion forever. " Shall any law be given to such wild creatures? 
 Some beasts are for sport, and the huntsman gives them 
 advantages of ground, but some are knocked on the head 
 by ail possible ways of violence and surprise." He says: 
 
 'T is vain to trifle in this matter. The light, foolish handling of 
 them by mulcts, fines, etc., 't is their glory and their advantage. If 
 the gallows instead of the counter, and the galleys instead of the fines, 
 were the reward of going to a conventicle to preach or to hear, there 
 would not be so many sufferers. The spirit of martyrdom is over. They 
 that will go to church to be chosen sheriffs and mayors would go to 
 forty churches rather than be hanged. If one severe law were made and 
 punctually executed, that whoever was found at a conventicle should be 
 banished, the nation and the preacher be hanged, we should see an end 
 of the tale. They would all come to church, and one age would make 
 us all one again. 
 
 To talk of 5s. a month for not coming to this sacrament, and is. 
 per week for not coming to church, this is such a way of converting 
 people as never was known. This is selling them a liberty to transgress 
 for so much money. If it be not a crime, why don't we give them full 
 license ? And if it be, no price ought to compound for committing it, for 
 that is selling a liberty to people to sin against God and the government. 
 
 If it be a crime of the highest consequence, both against the peace 
 and welfare of the nation, the glory of God, the good of the church, and
 
 144 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 the happiness of the soul, let us rank it among capital offences, and let 
 it receive a punishment in proportion to it. 
 
 We hang men for trifles and banish them for things not worth nam- 
 ing. But an offence against God and the church, against the welfare of 
 the world, and the dignity of religion shall be bought off for 5s. — this 
 is such a shame to a Christian Government that 't is with regret I trans- 
 mit it to posterity. 
 
 If men sin against God, affront his ordinances, rebel against his 
 church, and disobey the precepts of their superiors, let them suffer as 
 such capital crimes deserve : so will religion flourish, and this divided 
 nation be once again united. ... I am not supposing that all the dis- 
 senters in England should be hanged or banished, but as in cases of 
 rebellions and insurrections, if a few of the ringleaders suffer, the multi- 
 tude are dismissed ; so a few obstinate people being bad examples, 
 there 's no doubt but the severity of the law would find a stop in the 
 compliance of the multitude. 
 
 The reader will perceive by what a serious argument the 
 hot-headed fanatic was betrayed and the wiser public put upon 
 their guard. The mirror thus held up to nature, with a gro- 
 tesque twist in it which made the likeness bewildering, gave 
 London such a sensation as she had not felt for many a day. 
 The wildest excitement arose. At first all parties in the shock 
 of surprise took it for genuine. "The wisest churchmen in 
 the nation were deceived by it," and while some were even so 
 foolish as to receive it with unthinking applause, which was the 
 case, according to Oldmixon, " in our two famous Universities," 
 the more sensible reader of the church party was first indignant 
 with the high-flyers for expressing such opinions, and then 
 furious with the satirist who had insulted the church by putting 
 them into her mouth. Nobody indeed saw the joke. The fel- 
 low of Cambridge who thanked his bookseller for packing up 
 " so excellent a treatise " along with the books he had ordered, 
 and considered it " next to the Sacred Bible and Holy Com- 
 ments the best book he ever saw"; the "soberer churchman" 
 who "openly exclaimed against the proposal, condemned the
 
 CHURCH OF ST. GILES, CRIPPLEGATE, 
 WHERE DEFOE IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN BAPTIZED. 
 
 DRAWN BY HAKRV FENN. liNr.KAVED BY H. H. SYLVESTER.
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' i45 
 
 warmth that appeared in the clergy, and openly professed that 
 such a man as Sacheverell and his brethren would blow up the 
 foundations of the church " ; the dissenters who were at once 
 insulted and alarmed by the extraordinary threats thus set forth 
 ao-ainst them— all alike turned upon the perpetrator of the hoax 
 ^v^len he was discovered. Some " blushed when they reflected 
 how far they had applauded," some labored to prove that it was 
 "a horrible slander against the church." The government, shar- 
 ino- the general commotion, placed Defoe in the position of a 
 revolutionary leader who, " by the villainous insinuations of that 
 pamphlet, would have frightened the dissenters into another 
 rebellion." Defoe himself seems to have had a moment of panic, 
 and fled. He was proclaimed in the " Gazette," and a reward 
 offered for his discovery. His biographers in general assert 
 that he gave himself up with some generosity to save the printer 
 and publisher, who had been arrested, but there are public docu- 
 ments which seem to prove a different procedure, showing how 
 "My Lord Nottingham hunted him out," and how "the per- 
 son who discovered Daniel Foe" claimed and was paid the 
 reward of fifty pounds offered for the offender, described as a 
 " middle-aged, spare man, about forty years old, of a brown 
 complexion and dark brown colored hair (but wears a wig), 
 a hooked nose, a sharp chin, gray eyes, and a large mole near 
 his mouth." However that might be, he was arrested and 
 committed to Newgate in the spring of 1703, and the obnox- 
 ious publication — "this little book, a contemptible pamphlet of 
 but three sheets of paper," as he describes it— was burned by 
 the common hangman. It was not, however, till the summer, 
 three or four months after his arrest, that he was tried, and 
 that period he seems to have spent in Newgate in perfect free- 
 dom, at least for literary productions, since he filled the air with 
 a mist of pamphlets explaining that he meant nothing but a 
 harmless satire at one moment, at another exhorting the dis-
 
 146 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 senters to be content with spiritual freedom, and again bursting 
 into the rude but potent strains of the " Hymn to the Pillory." 
 He was sentenced to fine and imprisonment, as well as to that 
 grotesque but sometimes terrible instrument of torture ; but the 
 pillory was no torture to Defoe. On the last three days of 
 July — once before the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, where his 
 shop had been, and where no doubt everybody knew him, once 
 in Cheapside, and again at Temple Bar — he stood aloft with 
 the crowd surging round and performed his penance. The 
 crowd in those days was not a soft or civil one when it indorsed 
 the sentence pronounced by law. Its howls and cries, its mis- 
 siles and its curses, made the punishment horrible. But the 
 crowd had by this time found time to take in the joke, — banter, 
 when it is broad enough to be intelligible, always pleases the 
 o-eneral, — and there must have been some bonhomie about the 
 sufferer, some good repute as a merry fellow and one who 
 loved a jest, which conciliated the populace. Instead of dead 
 cats, they flung him nosegays; they gathered about his platform 
 under the low deep arch which once made a mock gate to the 
 city, and behind the bustling 'Change, and between the shops 
 of Cheapside, holding a series of impromptu festivals, drinking 
 his health, shouting out his new verses, which were sold by 
 thousands in the streets : 
 
 Hail, hieroglyphic state machine, 
 
 Contriv'd to punish fancy in ; 
 
 Men that are men, in thee can feel no pain, 
 
 And all thy insignificants disdain; 
 
 Exalted on thy stool of state, 
 
 What prospect do I see of sovereign fate. 
 
 The bold satirist, looking through those "lofty loops," re- 
 calls all the good men that have stood there, reminding himself 
 that even the learned Selden had the pillory in prospect, and 
 that, had he "triumphed on thy stage," no man could have
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 147 
 
 shunned it more. Contempt, "that false new word for shame," 
 has no power where there is no crime, he declares. The lines 
 are rough, but the sentiments are manly and full of honest 
 scorn, which here and there reaches a high tone. From his 
 platform where he stood in all the emancipation of feeling that 
 the worst had happened, he throws a bold glance upon the dis- 
 orders of the time, political and social, and summons to this post 
 of scorn the firebrands, the cowards, the failures of the age. 
 One can imagine those keen gray eyes inspecting through the 
 loops the hoarse and roaming groups, not sure perhaps what his 
 reception was to be, gathering courage as the shouts became 
 intelligible and turned into hurrahs for Defoe. No doubt he 
 marked the fluctuating crowd as keenly as if he had been a 
 careless spectator at a window, and saw Colonel Jack and his 
 brother pickpockets threading devious ways among the multi- 
 tude, with here and there a gallant from St. James in his long 
 curled periwig fluttering on the edge, and the tradesmen, half 
 curious, half unwilling to join in the riot, looking on from their 
 doors. A pillory is a coign of vantage when the man upon it 
 has eyes like Defoe's. -'Tell 'em," he says, apostrophizing his 
 platform contemptuously — 
 
 Tell 'em the men that placed him here 
 Are friends unto the times, 
 But at a loss to find his guilt, 
 They can't commit his crimes. 
 
 Mr. Burton, in his " Reign of Queen Anne," quotes from 
 manuscript authority a statement that Penn had been commis- 
 sioned by Defoe to offer " an account of all his accomplices in 
 whatsoever he has been concerned," on condition that he should 
 be freed from the pillory, which is a very confusing statement, 
 since it seems impossible to understand what accomplices he 
 could have had. This, according to the same authority, was
 
 148 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 considered important enough to call for a special meeting of the 
 cabinet council; but " the Queen seems to think that his confes- 
 sion amounts to nothing." Another account is that Notting- 
 ham visited him in prison and offered him his liberty if he would 
 say who set him on to do it. Thus this j'eu d' esprit — the first 
 exercise of Defoe's special and most characteristic gift, that of en- 
 dowing a fictitious production with every appearance of reality — 
 set the world aflame. It is almost a more astonishing feat than 
 the narratives which look so like literal transcripts of experi- 
 ence ; for the subtle power which, by a cunning fitting together 
 of actual utterances, could thus indicate the alarming tendency 
 and danger of a great party, is more wonderful than to create 
 an imaginary man and trace his every action as if he were a real 
 one. The art may be less noble, but it is more difficult. Indeed, 
 the "Shortest Way" is about the only example of such an extra- 
 ordinary achievement. Swift's tremendous satire was more 
 bitter, more scathing, and treated not so much the exaggerated 
 opinions of a class as the cruel and callous indifference of human 
 nature to the sufferings of its slaves and victims. 
 
 This curious episode once more ruined Defoe. It is to be 
 supposed that when he went into hiding his business had to be 
 abandoned, and all his affairs got into confusion. The official 
 document already quoted describes him as " living at Newington 
 Green with his father-in-law, who is a lay elder of a conventicle 
 there." This description, however, is evidently drawn up by an 
 enemy, since his previous bankruptcy is spoken of as fraudulent, 
 an assertion made nowhere else. His biographer, Wilson, in- 
 forms us that though he had ** kept his coach " before this period, 
 the pantile works had now to be broken up, and his business 
 was ruined. He had, though there is no information about her, 
 a wife and six children — perhaps supported by the elder at 
 Newington, who very likely thought, like his brethren, but 
 badly of Defoe.
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 149 
 
 He lay in Newgate for nearly a year, without, however, to all 
 appearance, losing any opportunity for a pamphlet during the 
 whole time, and laying in grist for his mill amid the strange and 
 terrible surroundings of an eighteenth-century prison. Mr. 
 Minto, in the admirable sketch of Defoe which he has contrib- 
 uted to the "English Men of Letters " series, seems to think that 
 his hero must have enjoyed himself in this teeming world of new 
 experiences, and that " he spent many pleasant hours " listening 
 to the tales of his fellow-prisoners. No doubt there must have 
 been some compensation to such a man in making acquaintance 
 with a new aspect of life, but it is, perhaps, going too far to 
 attribute a possibility of enjoyment to any undegraded man in 
 the pandemonium described in so many contemporary narra- 
 tives. Defoe did, however, what, so far as we are aware, no 
 other man before or after him has ever done (except, perhaps, 
 Leigh Hunt, in whose case we have a vague recollection of 
 similar activity) : he originated, wrote, and published a newspa- 
 per in his prison. "The Review," so called, "of the Affairs of 
 
 France" — that is, of the affairs of Europe and the world that 
 
 is, of any political subject that might be uppermost — was pub- 
 lished twice a week, and appeared during the whole time of his 
 imprisonment. A brilliant, familiar, graphic commentary upon 
 all that was happening, a dialogue between the imprisoned 
 spectator of life and the busy world outside, in which he was 
 both questioner and answerer, pouring out upon the country 
 with the keenest understanding of other people's views, and the 
 most complete mastery of his own, his remarks and criticisms, 
 his judgment and advice. A newspaper in those days was not, 
 of course, the huge broadsheet which it has now become. The 
 " Review " was a sheet of eight, but afterward of only four 
 small quarto pages. It was no assemblage of paragraphs, 
 trivial or important, the work of many anonymous persons 
 whose profession it is to manufacture a newspaper, but one
 
 I50 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 man's eager and lively conversation with his countrymen, full 
 of the vigor of personal opinion and the unity of an individual 
 view. A keener intelligence was never brought to the treat- 
 ment of public affairs, nor a mind more thoughtful, reasonable, 
 and practical. His prejudices were few — too few, perhaps. 
 Granted that the aim was good, Defoe was disdainful of punc- 
 tilio in the way of carrying it out. He was not above doing 
 evil that good might come, but he had a far higher refinement 
 of meaning than could be embraced by any such vulgar state- 
 ment in his subtle faculty of discovering, and all but proving, 
 that what might have seemed evil to a common intelligence was 
 in reality a good, if not the best, way of carrying his excellent 
 purpose out. Up to the moment of his leaving Newgate, how- 
 ever, there was nothing equivocal in the use he made of his ex- 
 traordinary faculties. He was a free man discussing boldly on 
 his own responsibility, and without any arriere pensee, the affairs 
 of England. If he had first keenly assailed the dissenters, who 
 were his own people, in respect of the compliances by which they 
 made themselves capable of bearing office, and then exposed to 
 grimmest ridicule the adversaries who aimed at rendering them 
 altogether incapable, there was in this no real inconsistency. 
 His championship of King William had been honest and thor- 
 ough. If he loved to have a finger in every pie, and let loose 
 his opinion at every crisis, there was no contemporary opinion 
 which was better worth having. But now this unwearying 
 critic, this keen observer, this restless, brilliant casuist, this 
 practical man of business, had come to the turning-point of 
 his life. 
 
 His liberation from Newgate followed closely upon the ad- 
 vent of Harley to power. When this event happened, it is said 
 that one of the first things the new minister did was to send a 
 message to Defoe in prison : " Pray ask that gentleman what I 
 can do for him." Whether it was in direct sequence to this
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 151 
 
 question, or whether the Queen had formed an independent 
 intention of freeing the prisoner, we need not inquire; but he 
 was set free, Queen Anne furnishing the means of paying his 
 fine. She is said also to have taken an interest in his family, 
 and contributed to their support during his confinement. He 
 declared himself to be liberated on the condition of writing 
 nothing (further modified as nothing " which some people 
 mio-ht not like") for some years; a condition which he imme- 
 diately fulfilled by publishing an " Elegy on the Author of the 
 True-born Englishman," to tell the world so, and took no 
 further notice of the prohibition, so far as appears. The real 
 meaning of this curious statement would seem by all evidence to 
 have been that Defoe there and then accepted the position of a 
 secret servant of the government, a writer pledged to support 
 their measures and carry out their views. At the moment, and 
 perhaps in reality during the greater part of his career, their 
 measures were those which he approved ; and certainly at this 
 period of his history he has never been accused of writing against 
 his conscience. Even when, after eager championship of peace, 
 he was obliged by political changes to veer into what looked like 
 support of war, he was never without the strong defense to fall 
 back upon, that he demanded peace only after securing certain 
 indispensable conditions, and that war might be, and was, the 
 only means of gaining them — an argument most simple and 
 evident to his mind. 
 
 Harley has never appeared in history as a great man, but 
 when we consider that he was able thus to subjugate and se- 
 cure to his own service two of the greatest intelligences of his 
 time, it is impossible not to respect his influence and judgment. 
 The great and somber genius of Swift, the daring, brilliant, and 
 ever-ready intellect of Defoe, became Instruments in the hands 
 of this ordinary and scheming statesman. Once more, with a 
 curious parallelism, these two men stand before us — no friends
 
 152 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 to each other. " An ilHterate fellow, whose name I forget," says 
 Swift, with the almost brutal scorn which was part of his char- 
 acter; while Defoe replies to the taunt with angry virulence, set- 
 ting forth his own acquirements, ** though he wrote no bill at 
 his door, nor set Latin on the front of his productions," a piece 
 of pretension, habitual to the time, of which the other was guilty. 
 But Harley, who was not worthy, so far as intellect went, to 
 clean the shoes of either, had them both at his command, serv- 
 ing his purposes, doing his bidding. Which of them suffered 
 most by the connection it is not easy to say. It turned Swift's 
 head, and brought into humiliating demonstration the braggart 
 and the bully in his nature. Defoe had not the demoralizing 
 chance of being the lord treasurer's boon companion ; but 
 Harley made a dishonest partizan, a paid and slippery special 
 pleader and secret agent, out of the free-lance of politics. 
 From this moment the defenders and champions of Defoe have 
 to turn into casuists, as he himself did. They have to give 
 specious explanations to suppress and account for his shifts and 
 changes, though at first they were sufficiently innocent. The 
 evil grew, however, so that toward the end of his career even 
 the apologist must keep silence ; but this is the nature of all 
 evil. 
 
 If excuses are to be sought for Defoe's conduct in this first 
 beginning of his slavery, it will not be difficult to find them. The 
 age, for one thing, was corrupt through and through. There was 
 not a statesman but had two strings to his bow, nor a politician 
 of any description who did not attempt to serve two masters. 
 To hold the balance between Hanover and St. -Germain, ready 
 to perform a demi-volt in the air at any moment as the scale 
 should turn, was the science of the day. On the other hand, De- 
 foe was now a ruined man, with a family to support, and nothing 
 but his busy and inexhaustible pen to do it with. The material 
 inducement of a certain income to fall back upon, whatever
 
 ROBERT HARLEY, EARL OF OXFORD. 
 
 ENGRAVED BY JOHN P. DAVIS, AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY 
 SIR GODFREY KNELLER, IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 153 
 
 might be the chances of journalism, must have been very 
 strong. And what was stronger still was the delight of his own 
 vivacious, resdess, ready mind, with its sense of boundless 
 power and infinite resource, to which difficulty was a dello-ht 
 and the exercise of walking over hot coals or dancing on a 
 sword-point the most exhilarating possibility, in making its tri- 
 umphant way over obstacles which would have baffled almost all 
 his contemporaries. - The danger's self was lure alone " to this 
 skilled and cunning fencer, this master of all the arts. In a very 
 different sense from that of Tennyson's noble hero, "Faith Un- 
 faithful " was inspiration and strength to him, and to be falsely 
 true the most delightful situation. He loved to support his 
 principles by a hundred dodges, and plead them from the other 
 side, and make of himself the devil's advocate in the interest of 
 heaven. All this was life to his mind. He must have had a 
 positive pleasure in proving to himself first, and then to all 
 England, that the happiest thing a Whig could do was to find 
 the Tory measures exactly those which he would have recom- 
 mended, and that his allegiance to the queen required a change 
 of policy on his part whenever circumstances compelled her to 
 change her ministry. It was all devotion— not time-serving, as 
 the vulgar thought. Defoe took infinite pleasure in proving 
 that it was so, in making everything clear. The commonplace 
 and humdrum expedient of following your party would have 
 been dull to him — a proceeding without interest as without 
 danger. He wanted excitement, obstacles to get over; a posi- 
 tion which would make sudden claims upon his ingenuity to ac- 
 count for and fortify it. Such a mind is rare, and still more 
 rarely is it accompanied by genius. But when such a com- 
 bination does occur it is a very curious spectacle. 
 
 In the mean time, however, all that Defoe had to do was 
 simple enough. He had to support peace and the union — 
 two things which in his free estate he had already advocated
 
 1 54 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 with all his powers. He did it with the utmost skill, fervor, and 
 success, and to all appearance contributed much to the great 
 public act which was the subject of so many struggles and re- 
 sistances on the part of the smaller nation — the union. This 
 great expedient, of which from the first he had seen the advan- 
 tage, Defoe worked for with unwearying zeal. He praised and 
 caressed Caledonia — upon which subject he wrote one of those 
 vigorous essays in verse which he called poetry — and the tol- 
 erance of the Presbyterian Church, and the good sense of the 
 nation generally, which was not always perceptible to English 
 politicians; and even risked a visit to Edinburgh in perform- 
 ance of the orders of the government, though at the risk of 
 rude handUng to himself. In all this there cannot be the slight- 
 est doubt that he was entirely honest and patriotic, and acted 
 from an enlightened personal view of the necessities of the case. 
 When the curious incident of the Sacheverell prosecution oc- 
 curred, he had once more a subject entirely to his own mind, 
 and expressed his own feelings in supporting with all his might 
 the measures of the government against that High Church fire- 
 brand, one of the chief of those whom he had held up to public 
 ridicule in the "Shortest Way." So far he was fortunate, being 
 employed upon subjects entirely congenial to his mind, and on 
 which he had already strong convictions. The equivocal part 
 of the matter is that he never ceased to assert and insist upon 
 his independence. "Contemn," he says, "as not worth men- 
 tioning, the suggestions of some people of my being employed 
 to carry on the interests of a party. I have never loved any 
 party, but with my utmost zeal have sincerely espoused the 
 great and original interest of this nation and of all nations — I 
 mean truth and liberty" — which was the truth, yet not all the 
 truth. Again, with still more violent protestations, he refers to 
 his private circumstances, of which nothing is known, to prove 
 how little he was protected by power. It would seem from this
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 155 
 
 statement that he was still being pursued for the remnant of old 
 debts, or those new ones with which the failure of his tile fac- 
 tory and his long imprisonment had saddled him. 
 
 If paid, gentlemen, for writing [he cries], if hired, if employed, 
 why still harassed with merciless and malicious men ; why pursued to 
 all extremities of law for old accounts which you clear other men of 
 every day? Why oppressed, distressed, and driven from his family, 
 and from all his prospects of delivering them and himself? Is this the 
 fate of men employed and hired ? Is this the figure the agents of 
 courts and princes make? 
 
 The argument is a feeble one for such a practised reasoner 
 as Defoe, without considering the trifling detail that it was un- 
 true, for debts are by no means unknown to favorites of the 
 crown. Nor could he have been saved by Harley's pay, which 
 probably was never very great, from the consequences of previ- 
 ous misfortunes. The reader will think that a judicious silence 
 would have been more appropriate, but that was not Defoe's 
 way. The only wonder is that he did not adduce such detailed 
 evidence of his own freedom as would have deceived any man, 
 and shown to demonstration that it was he who subsidized the 
 ministry, and not they him. The wonderful thing is that he was 
 free through all, maintaining his own favorite opinions, working 
 as an independent power. Servile journalists have existed in 
 plenty, but seldom one who took the pay of his masters and 
 served their interests, yet fought under his own flag with hon- 
 esty and a good conscience all the while. 
 
 This happy state, however, did not last. Harley fell, but 
 with his last breath (as a minister) adjured his champion not to 
 sacrifice himself, but to come to an understanding with his suc- 
 cessor, Godolphin. This necessitated a certain revolution in re- 
 spect to peace, which Defoe managed cleverly with the excel- 
 lent device above mentioned. And there was still higher ground 
 which he felt himself entitled to take. The public safety was in-
 
 15^ The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 volved in the stability of the new ministry such as it was. And 
 he faces the dilemma with boundless pluck and assurance. 
 "Though I don't like the crew, I won't sink the ship; I '11 
 pump and heave and haul and do everything I can, though he 
 that pulls with me were my enemy. The reason is plain. We 
 are all in the ship and must sink or swim together." These 
 admirable reasonings brought him at last to the calm recti- 
 tude of the following conclusion: 
 
 It occurred to me instantly as a principle for my conduct that it was 
 not material to me what ministers her Majesty was pleased to employ. 
 My duty was to go along with every ministry so far as they did not 
 break in upon the constitution and the laws and liberties of my country, 
 my part being only the duty of a subject, viz : to submit to all lawful 
 commands, and to enter into no service that was not justifiable by the 
 laws, to all of which I have exactly obliged myself 
 
 When Harley returned to power, another modification be- 
 came necessary, but Defoe piously felt it w^as providential that 
 he should thus be thrown back upon his original protector ; and 
 had the matter ended here, as was long supposed, it is difficult 
 to see what indictment could be brouofht aeainst him. It is not 
 expedient certainly that a director of public opinion should have 
 state pay, and does not look well when the secret is betrayed. 
 But so long as the scope of all his productions is good, honest, 
 and patriotic, with only as much submission in trifles as is in- 
 evitable, the bargain is a personal meanness rather than a public 
 crime, and this was long supposed to have been the case. It 
 was believed that after the death of Queen Anne and Harley's 
 final fall, Defoe's eloquent mouth was closed, and he disappeared 
 into the calm of private life to earn a better hire and a more 
 lasting influence through the two immortal works of fiction by 
 which alone, but for the painful labors of biographers, his name 
 would have been known. Had the matter been left so, how 
 much happier would it have been for the hero of this romance
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 157 
 
 of literary life, how much more edifying for posterity ! We could 
 have imagined the tired warrior retiring from that hot and pain- 
 ful field in which even the laurels were not worth the plucking, 
 where defeat was miserable and success mean, and scarcely any 
 combatant could keep his honor intact, to the quietness of 
 some suburban house in which his three pretty daughters could 
 care for him and idolize him, and where his wonderful imagina- 
 tion, no longer a slave to the exigencies of political warfare, 
 could weave its dreams into a sober certainty of life awake. 
 We should then have said of the author of " Robinson Crusoe" 
 and the "Journal of the Plague," that in his poverty and anxi- 
 ety and overhaste he had been beguiled into a bargain which 
 might have been a shameful one had not his marvelous power 
 of seeing every side of a subject, and that Insight of genius 
 which divines the real unity of honest souls through all the ex- 
 ternal diversities which fill the limited vision of common men, 
 carried him triumphantly through. And upon what real fault 
 there was we should have thrown a veil. The age would have 
 borne the blame — an age which was corrupt to the core, and in 
 which men changed their principles every day. In the garden 
 at Newington, where the young ladies entertained their lovers, 
 we could have pictured him benevolent and friendly in the flow- 
 ing peruke under which his keen eyes sparkled, looking on 
 at the love-making with prudent, tradesmanlike thoughts of 
 Sophia's portion, and how much the young people would have 
 to set up housekeeping upon, coming In not inappropriately 
 between the pages of Crusoe — perhaps taking a suggestion 
 about Robinson's larder from some passing talk about the store- 
 room, or modifying for the use of Friday some rustical remark 
 of the young serving-man from the country, or in the renewing 
 of old recollections produced by some old friend's visit finding 
 an anecdote, a detail, to Incorporate into the "Journal of the 
 Plague." And we should have asked ourselves by what strange
 
 158 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 play of genius the unenchanted island, where all the sober 
 elaborations of fact clothed so completely the vivid realizations 
 of imagination, should have risen out of the mists amid those 
 trim, old-fashioned alleys, and green plots, and stiff parterres 
 of flowers. 
 
 Alas ! That demon of research which in its poking and pry- 
 ing sometimes puts old bones together, and sometimes scatters 
 to the winds the ashes of the dead, has spoiled this pleasant 
 picture. Impelled by its influence, an unwary or else too pains- 
 taking student, some twenty years ago, was seized with the idea 
 of roaming the earth in search of relics of Defoe. And the 
 diabolical powers which put this fatal pursuit into his mind 
 directed him to a bundle of yellow papers in the State Paper 
 Office which has, alas ! for ever and ever made an end of our 
 man of genius. These treacherous papers give us to wit under 
 his own hand that he was in reality in full action in the most 
 traitorous of employments during the period of his supposed 
 retirement. The following, which is the first of these fatally 
 self-elucidatory letters, will reveal at once the inconceivable 
 occupation to which Defoe in his downfall lent himself. He 
 had perhaps compromised himself too much, and been too com- 
 pletely identified with Harley at the end to be considered cap- 
 able of more honorable and evident employment. The letter 
 is addressed to the secretary of the minister who had given 
 him his disgraceful office : 
 
 It was proposed by my Lord Townsend that I should appear as if 
 I were as before under the displeasure of the government, and sepa- 
 rated from the Whigs, and that I might be more serviceable in a kind 
 of disguise than if I appeared openly. In the interval of this. Dyer, 
 the '* News- Letter " writer, being dead, and Dormer, his successor, 
 being unable by his troubles to carry on that work, I had an offer 
 of a share in the property as well as in the management of that work. 
 
 I immediately acquainted my Lord Townsend of it, who, by Mr. 
 Buckley, let me know it would be a very acceptable piece of service,
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 159 
 
 for that letter was really very prejudicial to the public, and the most 
 difficult to come at in a judicial way in case of offense given. My Lord 
 was pleased to add, by Mr. Buckley, that he would consider my ser- 
 vice in that case, as he afterwards did. 
 
 Upon this I engaged in it, and that so far, that though the property 
 was not wholly my own, yet the conduct and government of the style 
 of news was so entirely in me, that I ventured to assure His Lordship 
 the sting of that mischievous paper should be entirely taken out, though 
 it was granted that the style should continue Tory, as it was, that the 
 party might be amused and not set up another, which would have de- 
 stroyed the design, and this part I therefore take entirely on myself 
 still. 
 
 This went on for a year before my Lord Townsend went out of the 
 office, and His Lordship, in consideration of the service, made me the 
 appointment which Mr. Buckley knows of, with promise of a further 
 allowance as service presented. 
 
 My Lord Sunderland, to whose goodness I had many years ago 
 been obliged, when I was in a secret commission sent to Scotland, was 
 pleased to approve and continue this service, and the appointment 
 annexed, and, with His Lordship's approbation I introduced myself, in 
 the disguise of a translator of the foreign news, to be so far concerned 
 in this weekly paper of Mist's as to be able to keep it within the circle 
 of a secret management, also prevent the mischievous part of it, and 
 yet neither Mist, or any of those concerned with him, have the least 
 guess or suspicion by whose direction I do it 
 
 There is nothing, it seems to us, for any apologist to say in 
 explanation of this extraordinary statement. The emissary of a 
 Whig and Hanoverian government actfng as editor of a Tory 
 and Jacobite newspaper, — nay, of three newspapers, — in order 
 to take the harm out of them, to amuse the Tory party with a 
 pretense of style and subjects suitable to their views, while 
 balking all their purposes, is at once the most ingenious and the 
 most shameless of all devices. It continued for a long period, 
 and was very successful. But when the deceit was discovered 
 at last, Mist, the deluded publisher, made a murderous assault 
 upon the deceiver, and the journalists of the period seem to 
 have risen unanimously against him. That Defoe must have
 
 1 60 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 fallen sadly before he came to this is very evident ; but how 
 he fell, except by the natural vengeance of deterioration, which 
 makes a man who has long paltered with the truth unable at 
 last to distinguish the gradations which separate the doubtful 
 from the criminal, no one can say. He must, however, have 
 fallen indeed in position and importance before he could be put 
 to such miserable work ; and he must have fallen more fatally, 
 like that other son of the morning, deep down into hades, 
 where he became the father of lies and the betrayer of man- 
 kind, before he could have been capable of this infamous 
 mission. 
 
 We turn with relief to the work which, of all these manifold 
 labors, is the only portion which has really survived the effects 
 of time. Defoe's political writings, with all their lucidity, their 
 brilliant good sense, daring satire, and astonishing readi- 
 ness and variety, are for the student, and retain a place among 
 the materials of history, studied no longer for their own sake, 
 but for the elucidations they may give. But " Robinson 
 Crusoe" lives by his own right, and will, we may confidently 
 affirm, after the long trial he has had, never die. We need 
 not discuss the other works of fiction which are all as char- 
 acteristic as distinct narratives of apparent fact, as carefully 
 elaborated in every detail. They are almost all excellent in 
 their beginning, but, a fault which is shared by Crusoe himself, 
 run into such a prodigality of detail toward their close, that 
 the absence of dramatic construction and of any real inspiration 
 of art, becomes painfully (or rather tediously, which is worse) 
 apparent. We do not, however, share the opinion of those 
 critics who disparage Defoe's marvelous power of narrative. 
 " The little art he is truly master of, of forging a story and 
 imposing it on the world for truth," is an art which he pos- 
 sesses in common with but very few who have ever lived ; and 
 even among these few he has it in a very high degree.
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' i6i 
 
 The gift is peculiar ; we are not moved by it to pity or ten- 
 derness, and not much to admiration of the hero. The inner 
 circle of our emotions is seldom, if ever, entered ; but, on the 
 other hand, there is nothing in that island where the ship- 
 wrecked mariner finds a shelter, and which he makes into a 
 home, which we do not know and see, as well as if we had 
 dwelt in it like Robinson. It is an island which is added 
 to the geography of the world. Not only would no child ever 
 doubt of its existence, but to the most experienced reader it is 
 far more true and real than half of those of which we have 
 authentic histories, which our relatives and countrymen have 
 visited and colonized. Those South Sea Islands, about which 
 we have so many flowery volumes, are not half so certain. 
 And every detail of the life of its solitary inhabitant comes up 
 before us like our own personal proceedings — more than visi- 
 ble, incontestable experiences. Not one of us but could draw 
 the picture of the solitary in his furs, with all his odd imple- 
 ments about him ; and, more wonderful still, not a child from 
 four upward but could tell who it was. The tale does not 
 move us as do imaginative histories on a more poetic level; 
 but in its humbler range it is as living as the best. And 
 there is something in this very absence of emotion which gives 
 a still more wonderful force to the tale. Men in such despe- 
 rate circumstances, driven to the use of all their faculties for 
 the mere preservation of their lives, have presumably but litde 
 time for feeling. The absorption of every faculty in this one 
 primitive need brings a certain serenity, a calm which is like the 
 hush of the solitude — the silence of the seas. The atmosphere 
 is full of this stillness. There is the repose of Nature, not filled 
 with reflections of human sentiment, but imposing her patience, 
 her calm repetition of endless endeavor upon the solitary flung 
 into her bosom ; and there is a sobriety in the story which 
 adds immensely to the power. Other unknown islands have
 
 1 62 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 been in fiction, but none where the progress of events was so 
 gradual, where there were so few miraculous accessories. One 
 of the most able of English romancers, the late Charles Reade, 
 is the last who has carried us to a desolate island. His story 
 is full of charm, of humor, and sentiment far beyond the reach 
 of Defoe. Nothing could be more tender, more delightful, than 
 the idyl of the two lovers cut off from all mankind, lost in the 
 silence of the seas. But in every way his isle is an enchanted 
 isle. Not only is it peopled with love and all the graces, but 
 it is running over with every convenience, — everything that is 
 useful and beautiful. The inexhaustible ingenuity of the lover 
 is not more remarkable than the wealth of necessary articles of 
 every kind that turns up at every step. He builds his lady a 
 bower lined with mother-of-pearl ; he clothes her in a cloak of 
 sealskin ; he finds jewels for her ; she has but to wish and to 
 have, as if Regent street had been within reach. Very different 
 is the sober sanity of the elder narrative. Defoe knows noth- 
 ing about lovers ; all his heroes marry with prodigality ; but he 
 has no love, any more than he has pearls or gutta-percha, on 
 his island. Conveniences come very slowly to Robinson Crusoe ; 
 he has to grope his way, and find his living hardly, patiently. 
 Day after day, and year after year, the story-teller goes on 
 working out the order of events. It is as leisurely as nature, 
 as litde helped by accident, as sober even as matter of fact, and 
 yet what a potent, clear, all-realizing fancy — a faculty which in 
 its limited sphere saw and felt and acted in completest appro- 
 priation of the circumstances — this sober imagination was ! 
 
 He was fifty-eight at the time this book was written — a man 
 worn with endless work and strife, but ever ready for more — a 
 man who had fallen and failed, and made but litde of his life. It 
 is said that he was at his highest point of external prosperity 
 when he published " Robinson Crusoe " ; but when we remember 
 that he was at that time engaged in the inconceivable muddle of
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 163 
 
 •* Mist's Journal," it seems almost impossible to believe this, or 
 to understand how anything but poverty could drive him into 
 such a disgraceful employment. No doubt, to a man who at heart 
 had once been an honest man, and was so no more, it must have 
 been a relief and blessed deliverance to escape away into the 
 distant seas, to refresh his ever-active soul with the ingenious 
 devices of the shipwrecked sailor, and bury himself in that life so 
 different from his own, the savage necessities, the primitive cares. 
 The goats and the parrot and poor Friday : what an ease and 
 comfort to escape into their society after bamboozling Mist, and 
 reporting to my lord at St. James's ! Was it a desperate expe- 
 dient of nature to save him from utter self-contempt ? Such a 
 man, even if his conscience had grown callous, must have re- 
 quired some outlet from the dreadful slavery to which he had 
 bound himself. 
 
 " Robinson Crusoe " is the work by which Defoe is best 
 known, which is, after all, the most effectual guarantee that it is 
 his best work. But it is not, to our thinking, worthy of being 
 placed in competition with the "Journal of the Plague" — a his- 
 tory so real, so solemn and impressive, so full of the atmosphere 
 and sentiment of the time, that it reaches a far higher point of 
 literary art than anything else Defoe has written. For this is 
 not prose alone, nor that art of making fiction look like truth, 
 which is supposed to be his greatest excellence : it is one of 
 the most impressive pictures of a historical incident which has 
 struck the poetic imagination everywhere, and of which we have 
 perhaps more authentic records than of any other historical 
 episode. Neither Boccaccio nor Manzoni have equaled Defoe in 
 the story of the plague. To the old Italian it was a horror 
 from which the life-loving fled with loathing as well as fear, and 
 which they tried to forget and put out of their sight. Defoe's 
 minute description of the argument carried on within his own 
 mind by the narrator is curiously characteristic of the tendency
 
 1 64 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 to elaborate and explain which enters so largely into all his 
 works. The mental condition of the respectable citizen, divided 
 between concern for his life and concern for his property, seeing 
 with reasonable eyes that death was not certain, but that in case 
 of flight ruin was, — moved by the divination which he uses in 
 all good faith, yet perhaps not with sufficient devoutness to have 
 allowed himself to be guided by it had it been contrary to his 
 previous dispositions, and at bottom by a certain vis inertics 
 and disinclination to move, which is clearly indicated from the 
 beginning, — is in his best manner, and so real that it is impossi- 
 ble to resist its air of absolute truthfulness. But the state of the 
 shut-up streets, the dreadful sounds and sights, the brooding heat 
 and stillness of the long and awful days, the cloud of fate that is 
 about the doomed city, are beyond description impressive. This 
 curious spectator of all things, this impartial yet eager looker- 
 on, determined to see all that can be seen, prudent yet fearless, 
 adopting every precaution, yet neglecting no means of investi- 
 gation, inquiring everywhere, always with his eyes and ears open, 
 at once a philosophical inquirer and an eager gossip, is without 
 doubt Defoe himself But he is also a marked figure of the time. 
 He is like Pepys ; he is almost, but for the unmistakable differ- 
 ence between the bourgeois and the fine gentleman, like Evelyn. 
 He is one of the special kind of man born to illustrate that 
 period. Pepys would have found means for some piece of junk- 
 eting even in the midst of his alarm, whereas Defoe thinks of his 
 property, when he has time to think of anything but the plague, 
 which is a very natural modification consequent on the changes 
 of the times. But they are at bottom the same. While, how- 
 ever, this central figure remains the characteristic but not ele- 
 vated personage with whom we are already acquainted, the 
 history which he records is done with a tragic force and com- 
 pleteness which it is impossible to surpass. In this there is 
 nothing commonplace, no wearying monotony ; the very sta- 
 tistics have a tragic solemnity in them ; the awful unseen pres-
 
 The Author of ''Robinson Crusoe'' 165 
 
 ence dominates everything. We scarcely breathe while we 
 move about the streets emptied of all passers-by, or with a sus- 
 picious throng in the middle of the way keeping as far apart as 
 possible from the houses. This is not mere prose : it is poetry 
 in its most rare form ; it is an ideal representation, in all its 
 sober details, of one of the most tragical moments of human 
 suffering and fate. 
 
 Nothing else that Defoe has done is on the same level. It 
 is pitched on too high a key perhaps for the multitude. His in- 
 nocent thief, " Colonel Jack," begins with a picture both amus- 
 ing and touching of the curious moral denseness and confusion 
 of a street boy; his "Cavalier" is a charming young man. 
 But both these and all the rest of Defoe's heroes and heroines 
 grow heavy and tedious at the end. The "Journal of the Plague" 
 is not like them in this respect. The conclusion — the sudden 
 surprise and delicious sense of relief, the joy which makes the 
 passers-by stop and shake hands with one another in the streets, 
 and the women call out from windows with tears and outcries 
 of gladness — is sudden and overwhelming as the reality. We 
 are caught in the growing despair, and suddenly in a moment 
 deliverance comes. Here alone Defoe is not too long ; the un- 
 expected is brought in with a skill and force not less remarkable 
 than that which in the previous pages has portrayed the slow 
 growth and inevitable development of the misery. Up to this 
 anticlimax of unlooked-for joy the calamity has grown, every 
 new touch intensifying the awful reality. But the recovery is 
 sudden, and told without an unnecessary word. It is the only 
 instance in which Defoe has followed the instinct of a great 
 artist and shown that he knew how to avail himself of the 
 unwritten code and infallible methods of art. 
 
 We forget his shortcomings when we discuss this which is 
 to our mind much his greatest work, and it is well that we 
 should leave him in this disposition. He died mysteriously 
 alone, after a period of wandering and hiding which nobody
 
 1 66 The Reign of Queen A tine 
 
 can explain. Whether he was in trouble with creditors, or with 
 political enemies, or with the exasperated party which he had 
 managed to outwit ; whether he kept out of the way that his 
 family might make better terms for themselves, or that he 
 might keep the remains of his money out of the hands of an 
 undutiful son, or a grasping son-in-law, nobody can tell. He 
 died in remote lodgings, all alone, and his affairs were admin- 
 istered by a stranger, perhaps his landlady, no one knows. His 
 domestic circumstances have been referred to durinor his life 
 only in the vaguest way. He had a wife and a numerous family 
 when he was put in the pillory; he had a wife, a son who was 
 unkind, and three daughters at the end ; but that is all we know. 
 He died at seventy-two " of a lethargy," no doubt fallen into the 
 feebleness and hopelessness of lonely old age ; and that is all. 
 His life overflowed with activity and business. To be doing 
 seems to have been a necessity of his being. But he never 
 seems to have enjoyed the importance due to his powers, and 
 in an age when men of letters filled the highest posts never 
 would appear to have risen above his citizen circle, his shop- 
 keeping ways. Something in the man must have accounted 
 for this, but it is difficult to say what it was ; for the age did 
 not require a high standard of truthfulness, and the worst of his 
 misdoings were kept secret from the public. Perhaps his man- 
 ners were not such as society, though very easy in those days, 
 could tolerate ; perhaps — but this is simple guesswork. All we 
 know of Defoe is that as a writer he was of the greatest influ- 
 ence and note, but as a man nothing. He died poor and 
 alone ; he had little reward for unexampled labor. When Ad- 
 dison was secretary of state, and Prior an ambassador, he was 
 nobody — a sword in the hand of an unscrupulous statesman ; 
 a shopkeeper manufacturing his genius and selling it by the 
 yard. A sadder conclusion never was told.
 
 Chapter V 
 
 ADDISON, THE HUMORIST 
 
 THERE is not a name in the entire range of English 
 literature to which so full and universal an appreciation 
 has been given by posterity as that of Addison. He 
 had his critics in his day. He had, indeed, more than critics, 
 and from one quarter at least has received in his breast the 
 finest and sharpest sting which a friend estranged could put into 
 poetic vengeance. But the burden even of contemporary voices 
 was always overwhelmingly in his favor, and nowadays there is 
 no one in the world, we believe, that has other than gentle 
 words for the gentle writer — the finest critic, the finest gentle- 
 man, the most tender humorist of his age. It is not only admi- 
 ration, but a sort of personal affection with which we look back, 
 detecting in all the bustling companies of that witty and de- 
 praved period his genial figure, with a delightful simplicity in 
 the midst of all the formalism, and whole-heartedness amone 
 the conceits and pretensions, of the fops and wits, the intriguing 
 statesmen and busy conspirators, of an age in which public faith 
 can scarcely be said to have existed at all. He had his little 
 defects, which were the defects of the time. And perhaps his age 
 would not have loved him as it did had he been entirely without 
 a share in its weaknesses. As it was, no one could call him 
 a milksop then, as no one would venture to record any offensive 
 name against him now. The smile of benevolent good nature, 
 
 of indulgent humor, of observation always as sweet and merci- 
 
 167
 
 1 68 The Reign of Queen Au]ie 
 
 ful as it is acute and refined, is never absent from his counte- 
 nance. He treats no man hardly ; the ideal beings whom he 
 creates are the friends of all : we could, indeed, more easily 
 spare dozens of living acquaintances than we could part with 
 Sir Roger de Coverley. Addison is the very embodiment of 
 that delightful gift of humor on which we pride ourselves so 
 much as a specially English quality ; his soft laugh touches all 
 the chords of sympathy and loving comprehension with a ten- 
 der ridicule in which the applauses of admiration are conveyed 
 with double effect. That his style is the perfection, in its way, 
 of English style is less dear and delightful to us than that what 
 it conveys is the perfection of feeling. His art is the antipodes 
 of that satirical art which allows human excellence only to gird 
 at it, and insinuate motives which diminish or destroy. Addi- 
 son, on the other hand, allows imperfections which his interpre- 
 tation turns into something more sweet than virtue, and throws 
 a delightful gleam of love and laughter upon the eccentricities 
 and characteristic follies of individual nature. That he sees 
 everything is one of the conditions of his genial forgiveness of 
 everything that is not mean or base or cruel. With these he 
 makes no terms. They are not within the range of his treat- 
 ment. Non ragiojiam di lor. He passes by to the genial rural 
 circle where all is honest, simple, and true ; or to town, where in 
 the coffee-houses themselves a kind soul will find humors enough 
 to keep him cheerful without harm to any of his fellow-crea- 
 tures — even the post-writers whom he jocularly recommends to 
 a supplementary Chelsea as having killed more men in the wars 
 than any general ever did, or the "needy persons" hungry for 
 news, whom he promises to keep supplied with good and whole- 
 some sentiments. He was at the same time the first of his 
 kind. Thackeray associates Congreve — one does not exactly 
 know why — with this nobler name: but at once makes it clear 
 that there could be no comparison between them, since the world
 
 Addison, The Humorist 169 
 
 of the comedy-writer was an entirely fictitious world, altogether 
 unlike the human nature of the essayist. Of the humorists we 
 may venture to say that Addison is the first, as well as the most 
 refined and complete. Swift draws a heavier shaft, which lacer- 
 ates and kills, and Pope sends his needle-pointed arrows, all 
 touched with poisonous venom, to the most vulnerable points ; 
 but Addison has no heart to slay. He transfixes the veil of 
 folly with light, shining, irresistible darts, and pins it aloft in 
 triumph, but he lets the fool go free — perhaps lets you see even, 
 by some reflection from his swift-flying polished spear, a gleam 
 of human meaning in the poor wretch's face which touches 
 your heart. Even when he diverts himself with Tom Folio or 
 Ned Softly, instead of plunging these bores into a bottomless 
 gulf of contempt, he plays with them as one might with a child, 
 a twinkle of soft fun in his eye, drawing out their simple absur- 
 dities. That habit of his which Swift describes to Stella, as one 
 which she herself shared, of seeming to consent to follies which 
 it is not worth while contradicting, and which Pope venomously 
 characterizes as "assents with evil leer," lures him, and us 
 along with him, into byways of human nature which the impa- 
 tient critic closes with a kick, and in which there is much amuse- 
 ment and little harm. Moliere's Trissotin is a social conspira- 
 tor meaning to build advancement upon his bad verses ; but 
 Addison's poetaster is only an exposition of harmless vanity, 
 humored by the gently malicious, but kind and patient, listener, 
 who amid his laughter finds a certain pleasure in pleasing the 
 victim too. There is sympathy even in the dissection, a con- 
 junction of feelings which is of the very nature of the true humor- 
 ist. These, no doubt, are of a very different caliber from that 
 creation which still charms the reader — the delightful figure of 
 Sir Roger, and all the simple folks full of follies and of virtues 
 who surround him ; but they are scarcely less remarkable. The 
 lesser pictures, taken at a sitting in which the author has had
 
 1 70 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 no time to elaborate those features of human character which 
 always draw forth his tenderness, are yet full of this instinctive 
 sweetness, as well as of insight, keen, though always tempered, 
 as the touch of Ithuriel's spear. The angel, indeed, was far 
 more severe, disclosing the demon under his innocent disguise ; 
 but Addison has nothing to do with demons, he has no deep- 
 laid plan of mischief to unveil. The worst he does is to smile 
 and banter the little absurdities out of us — those curious little 
 delusions which deceive ourselves as well as the world. 
 
 This most loved of English writers was the son of one of 
 those English parsons who confuse our belief in the extremely 
 unfavorable account, given by both the graver and the lighter 
 historians of the time, of the condition of country clergymen. 
 Neither Parson Adams in his virtue, nor Parson Trulliber in his 
 grossness, nor Macaulay's keen and clear picture, nor Thack- 
 eray's fine disrespectful studies of the chaplain who marries the 
 waiting-maid, seem to afford us any guidance to the nature of 
 the household which the Rev. Launcelot Addison, after many 
 wanderings and experiences, set up in the little parish of Mil- 
 ston in Wiltshire somewhere about the year 1670. Steele's de- 
 scription of it has, no doubt, the artificial form affected by the 
 age, and sets it forth as one of those models of perfection and 
 examples to the world which nowadays we are more disposed to 
 distrust and laugh at than to follow. " I remember among all 
 my acquaintances," he says, "but one man whom I have 
 thouo-ht to live with his children with equanimity and a good 
 grace"; and he goes on to describe the "three sons and one 
 dauo-hter whom he bred with all the care imaginable in a liberal 
 and ingenious way — their thoughts turned into an emulation 
 for the superiority in kind and generous affection toward each 
 other," the boys behaving themselves with a manly friendship, 
 their sister treated by them with as much complaisance as any 
 other young lady of their acquaintance. " It was an unspeak-
 
 Addison, The Humorist 171 
 
 able pleasure to visit or sit at a meal in this family," he adds. 
 " I have often seen the old man's heart flow at his eyes with joy 
 upon occasions which would appear indifferent to such as were 
 strangers to the turn of his mind ; but a very slight accident 
 wherein he saw his children's good will to one another created 
 in him the Godlike pleasure of loving them because they loved 
 one another." The family tenderness thus inculcated no doubt 
 came from a mind full of the milk of human kindness, and hap- 
 pily transmitting that possession to the gentle soul of the eldest 
 son, who probably was the one whom the father " had the weak- 
 ness to love much better than the others " — a weakness which 
 "he took as much pains to correct as any other criminal pas- 
 sion that could arise in his mind." Such a paternity and train- 
 ing does something to account for the prevailing gentleness of 
 Addison's temper and judgments. 
 
 Dr. Addison had seen the world not in a very brilliant or 
 luxurious way. He had been chaplain at Dunkirk, and after- 
 ward at Tangier among the Moors, upon which latter strange 
 experience he wrote a book : and he rose afterward to be Dean 
 of Lichfield, a dignified clergyman. One of the brothers went 
 to India, and attained to some eminence ; the other was even- 
 tually, like Joseph, a fellow of Magdalen. They dispersed 
 themselves in the world as the children of a clergyman might 
 very well do at the present day, and it is evident belonged dis- 
 tinctly to the caste of gentlemen. The sons, or at least the son 
 with whom we have specially to do, after sundry local schoolings 
 went to Charterhouse, which he left at fifteen for Oxford, per- 
 haps because of his unusual advancement, more probably be- 
 cause the custom of the time sent boys earlier to the university, 
 as is still the practice in Scotland. Addison was much distin- 
 guished in that elegant branch of learning, the writing of Latin 
 verse, a kind of distinction which remains dear to the finest 
 minds, in spite of all the remarks concerning its inutility and
 
 172 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 the time wasted in acquiring the art, which the rest of the 
 world has so largely indulged in. A copy of verses upon the 
 accession of King William, written while he was still a very 
 youthful scholar at Queen's College, no more than seventeen, 
 got him his first promotion. The boy's verses came — perhaps 
 from some proud tutor at Queen's, boasting what could be done 
 under the cupola in the High street, finer than anything at- 
 tempted in more distinguished seats of learning — into the 
 hands of the Provost of Magdalen, to the amazement and 
 envy of that more learned corporation. There had been no 
 election of scholars in the previous year, during the melan- 
 choly time when the college was embroiled with King James, 
 and the courtly Quaker Penn had all the disturbed and troubled 
 fellows under his heel ; but now that freedom had returned 
 with the revolution and the heaven-sent William, there was 
 room for a double number of distinguished poor demies. Dr. 
 Lancaster of Magdalen decided at once that to leave such 
 Latinity as that of the young author of these verses to a college 
 never very great in such gifts would be a sin against his own : 
 and young Addison was accordingly elected to all the privileges 
 of a Magdalen demyship. It is with this beautiful college that 
 his name is connected in Oxford. There could be no more fit 
 association. The noble trees and velvet lawns of Magdalen 
 speckled with deer, shy yet friendly creatures that embellish the 
 retired and silent glades — the long-winding walk by the Cher- 
 well round the meadows where the fritillaries grow, the time- 
 worn dignity of the place with its graceful old-world architec- 
 ture and associations, are all in the finest keeping with the shy 
 and silent student who talked so little and thought so much, 
 living among his books in his college rooms, keeping his lamp 
 alight half through the night, or musing under the elms, where 
 the little stream joins the greater. It is dreadful to think that 
 in all probability Addison thought the imposing classicism of
 
 Addison^ The Hitmorist 173 
 
 Queen's, at which the cultivated scholar of to-day shudders, 
 much finer than Magdalen : for he had no opinion of Gothic, 
 and lamented the weakness, if not wickedness, of those mis- 
 taken ages which wasted ornament upon such antiquated forms ; 
 but at least he loved his retired promenade under the trees, with 
 all its sweetness of primrose and thrush in spring, and the won- 
 derful yellow sunsets over the floods in winter, and the pleasant 
 illusions of the winding way. There the stranger may realize 
 still in the quiet of the cloistered shades how the shy young 
 student wandered in Addison's Walk and pondered his verses, 
 and formed the delicate wealth of speech which was to distin- 
 guish him from all his fellows. He spent about ten years in his 
 college, first as a student and then as a fellow, in the position 
 which, perhaps, is more ideal for a scholar than any other in 
 Christendom. But the young man was not much more enlight- 
 ened than the other young men of his age, notwithstanding his 
 genius at Latin verses, and that still finer genius which had not 
 as yet come to utterance. He wrote an "Account of the Great- 
 est English Poets," not much wiser than the school-boy essays 
 of our own day which set Lord Tennyson and Mr. Browning 
 down in their right places. Addison went further. He leaves 
 out all mention of Shakspere, and speaks of Cowley as a 
 "mighty genius." He describes "the spacious times of great 
 Elizabeth" as "a barbarous age," amused by "Old Spenser" 
 with "long-spun allegories" and "dull morals," which have lost 
 all power to charm an age of understanding. The youth, in- 
 deed, ran amuck among all the greatest names till we shiver at 
 his temerity. But he knew better afterward ; and, if he still 
 condescended a litde to his elders and betters, learned to love 
 and comprehend them too. 
 
 It would seem that he wavered for a time whether he should 
 not take orders, a step necessary to retain his fellowship, and 
 dedicate himself to the church, as was the wish of his father.
 
 174 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 It would have been entirely suitable to him one cannot but 
 think ; to his meditative mood, and shy temper, and high moral 
 tone. He would have missed the humors of town, the coffee- 
 houses, and the wits, and the vagaries of the beaus and belles ; 
 but with still a tenderer and more genial humor might have 
 made his villagers live before us, and found out all the amusing 
 follies of the knights and squires, which even in London town 
 did not escape his smiling observation. The manner in which 
 the question was decided is curiously characteristic of the age. 
 That he was not himself inclined that way seems probable, 
 since he bids his muse farewell after the fashion of the time, 
 when this ending seemed imminent, with something like re- 
 gret, and it is said that he distrusted his own fitness for the sa- 
 cred office. At all events, the matter came to the ears of Charles 
 Montague, afterward Lord Halifax, himself an elegant scholar, 
 and at that time in office. Young Addison had addressed to 
 him, on the occasion of the Peace of Ryswick in 1697, one of 
 those pieces of Latin verse for which the young man was known 
 among the scholars of his time. He accompanied the gift 
 with a letter couched in the hyperbole of the age, deprecating 
 his patron's possible disapproval of "the noble subject debased 
 by my numbers," and justifying himself by the poverty of the 
 verses already published on the same theme. " For my part," 
 he says, " I never could prevail on myself to offer you a poem 
 written in our native tongue, since you yourself deter all others 
 by your own Compositions from such an Attempt, as much as 
 you excite them by your Favour and Humanity." Montague 
 returned this compliment by interfering in the young poet's 
 concerns as soon as he heard of the danger that so promising a 
 youth might fall into the gulf of the church, and be lost to the 
 other kinds of work more useful to statesmen. He wrote to the 
 authorities of Magdalen begging that Addison might not be 
 urged into holy orders, and in the mean time took more active
 
 Addison, The Hu7norist 175 
 
 measures to secure him for the state. Lord Somers had also 
 received the dedication of some of Addison's verses, and was 
 equally interested in the young man's career. Between them 
 the two statesmen secured for him a pension of three hundred 
 a year, on no pretense of work to be done or duty fulfilled, but 
 merely that he might be able to prepare himself the better for 
 the public service, and be thus at hand and ready when his work 
 was wanted. Public opinion has risen up nowadays against any 
 such arrangement, and much slighter efforts at patronage would 
 be denounced now over all England as a job. And yet one 
 wonders whether it was so profitless a proceeding as we think 
 it. Addison was worth more than the money to England. To 
 be sure, without the money he would still have been Addison ; 
 yet something, no doubt, of the mellow sweetness of humanity 
 in him was due to this fostering of his youth. 
 
 He went abroad in 1699, and addressed himself in the first 
 place to the learning of French, which he did slowly at Blois, 
 without apparently gaining much enlightenment as to the state 
 of France or the other countries which he visited in his pro- 
 longed tour. No doubt, with his pension and the income of 
 his fellowship, Addison traveled like a young man of fortune 
 and fashion in those times of leisure, with excellent introduc- 
 tions everywhere, seeing the best society, and the greatest men 
 both in rank and letters. Boileau admired his Latin verses as 
 much as the English statesmen did, and the young man went 
 upon his way more and more convinced that Latin verses were 
 the highroad to fame. From France he went to Italy, making a 
 classical pilgrimage. "Throughout," says Mr. Leslie Stephen, 
 quaintly, " if we are to judge by his narrative, he seems to have 
 considered the scenery as designed to illustrate his beloved 
 poets." The much-debated uses of travel receive a new ques- 
 tion from the records of such a journey, pursued with the full- 
 est leisure and under the best auspices ; and one wonders
 
 1 76 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 whether the man who hurries across a continent in a few weeks, 
 catching flying impressions, and forming crude judgments, is, 
 after all, much less advantaged than he who, obHvious of all the 
 human interests around him, discusses Rome, for instance, as if 
 it had no interest later than Martial or Silius Italicus — as if 
 neither Church, nor Pope, nor all the convulsions of the Middle 
 Ages, nor Crusader, nor Jesuit, had ever been. This extraor- 
 dinary impoverishment of the imagination was the fashion of 
 the time, just as it has been the fashion in other days to fix upon 
 the vile records of the Renaissance as the one thing interesting 
 in the history of a noble country. According to that fashion, 
 however, Addison did everything that a young man of the high- 
 est culture could be expected to do. He traced the footsteps of 
 v^neas, and remembered every spot on which a classical battle 
 had been fought, or an ode sung. He wrote an eloquent essay 
 upon medals, and lingered among the sculptures of the muse- 
 ums ; and he picked up a subject for a heroic tragedy from the 
 suggestion of a foolish play which he saw at a Venetian thea- 
 ter. With his head full of such themes, he had gone out from 
 Oxford, and with a deepened sense of their importance he came 
 back again. Though in after days he touches lightly with his 
 satiric dart the young man who can talk of nothing better on 
 his return than how ''he had like to have been drowned at 
 such a place ; how he fell out of a chaise at another " ; yet in 
 the hymn of praise with which he celebrates his own return 
 from all the dangers of foreign travel something like the same 
 record is made, though in a more imposing manner : 
 
 In foreign Realms and Lands remote, 
 
 Supported by thy care. 
 Thro' burning Chmes I passed unhurt, 
 
 And breath'd in Tainted Air. 
 Thy mercy sweetened every Soil, 
 
 Made every Region please. 
 The hoary Alpine Hills it warmed. 
 
 And smooth'd the Tyrrhene Seas.
 
 JOSEPH ADDISON. 
 
 ENGRAVED BY T. JOHNSON, IROM MEZZOTINT BY JEAN SIMON, 
 AFTER PAINTING BY SIR GOUEREY KNELLER.
 
 Addison^ The Humorist 177 
 
 It is only the vulgarity of our modern imagination that 
 makes us think of hot water-pipes when the idea of warming 
 the Alps is presented to our profane minds. The burrowing of 
 the railway that climbs the St. Gothard may be taken as a 
 large contribution to the carrying out of this suggestion. 
 
 When Addison returned home after these four years of clas- 
 sical wanderings, it was to prospects sadly overcast. King 
 William had died a year before, which had stopped his pension ; 
 Halifax was out of office, and all the hopes of public life, for 
 which he had been training himself, seemed to drop as he came 
 back. It is said that during the last year he had charge of a 
 pupil ; but there is no proof of the statement, nor has any pupil 
 ever been identified by name. An offer was made to him to ac- 
 company upon his travels a son of the Duke of Somerset, his 
 services to be paid by the present of a hundred guineas at the 
 year's end, which did not seem to Addison an advantageous 
 offer: but this, which came to nothing, is the only authentic 
 reference to any possible "bear-leading" such as Thackeray 
 refers to in " Esmond " ; and fine as is the sketch made 
 by that kindred humorist, he seems to exaggerate at once 
 the poverty and the neglect into which for the moment 
 Addison fell. 
 
 He returned to England in 1703, being then thirty-one, 
 full of every accomplishment, but with only his fellowship to 
 depend upon, and the uncertain chances of Jacob Tonson's fa- 
 vor instead of the king's. He is said to have sunk, or rather 
 risen, to a poor lodging in London, in the Haymarket, up three 
 pairs of stairs, which was indeed a sad change from the impor- 
 tance of his position as a rich young Englishman making the 
 grand tour. But if he carried a disappointed or despondent 
 heart to those elevated quarters, he never made any moan on 
 the subject, and it is very likely enjoyed his freedom and the 
 happy sense of being at home like other young men ; and he
 
 1 78 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 seems to have been at once advanced to the membership of the 
 Kit- Cat Club, which would supply him with the finest of company, 
 and a center for the life which otherwise must have appeared as 
 if it had come to a broken end. It was not long, however, 
 that this period of neglect was suffered to last, and once more 
 the transaction which elevated Addison to the sphere in which 
 he passed the rest of his life is admirably characteristic of the 
 period, and alas ! profoundly unlike anything that could happen 
 to a young man of genius now. 
 
 We will not return again to any bewildering discussion of 
 the Whigs and Tories of Queen Anne, but only say that Godol- 
 phin and Marlborough, those "great twin brethren" of the state, 
 had come into possession of England at this great crisis, and 
 that every means by which they could secure the suffrages of 
 both parties were doubly necessary, considering the disappoint- 
 ment on one side that the policy of the country remained un- 
 changed, and on the other that it had to be carried out by 
 Whig, not Tory, hands. Nothing could be better adapted than 
 the great victory of Blenheim to arouse an outburst of national 
 feeling, and sweep, for a time at least, the punctilios of party 
 away. The lord treasurer, who had everything in his hands 
 at home, while his great partner fought and conquered abroad, 
 was almost comically at a loss how to sound the trumpet of 
 warlike success so as to excite the country, and, if possible, turn 
 the head of the discontented. In one of Leopardi's fables there 
 is an account of the tremendous catastrophe with which the 
 world was threatened when his illustrious excellency the Sun 
 declined one morning to rise and tread his old-world course 
 around the earth for the comfort of mankind. " Let her in her 
 turn go round me if she wants my warmth and light," says the 
 potentate — with great reason, it must be allowed, since Coperni- 
 cus was born, and everything in the celestial spheres was about 
 to be set right. But how to persuade the earth that she must
 
 Addison^ The Humorist 179 
 
 now undertake this circuit? Let a poet be found to do it is 
 the first suggestion. " La via piu spedita e la piu sicura e di 
 trovare un poeta ovvero un filosofo che persuada alia Terra di 
 muoversi." Godolphin found himself in the same position as 
 that in which the luckless agencies of the Universe were left 
 when the Sun struck work. A poet ! — but where to find a poet 
 he knew not, being himself addicted to other modes of exer- 
 cise and entertainment. He went to Halifax to ask where 
 he should find what was wanted — a poet. But that states- 
 man was coy and held back. He could, indeed, produce the 
 very man ; but why should he interfere to betray neglected 
 merit and induce a man of genius to labor for those who would 
 leave him to perish in obscurity ? Godolphin, however, was 
 ready to promise anything in the great necessity of the case ; 
 and Halifax permitted himself to be persuaded to mention the 
 name which no doubt was bursting from his lips. He would 
 not, however, undertake to be the ambassador, but insisted 
 that the real possessors of power should ask in their own 
 persons, and with immediate and substantial proofs of their 
 readiness to recompense the service they demanded. That 
 day, all blazing in gold lace and splendor, the coach of the 
 chancellor of the exchequer stopped before the little shop 
 in the Haymarket over which the young scholar had his 
 airy abode : and that great personage clambered up the long 
 flights of stairs carrying with him, very possibly, the patent of 
 the appointment which was an earnest of what the powers that 
 were could do for Addison. This was how the great poem of 
 the "Campaign," that illustrious composition, was brought into 
 being. Poems made to order seldom fulfil expectation, but in 
 this case there was no disappointment. Godolphin and Eng- 
 land alike were delighted, and Addison's life and success were 
 at once secured. 
 
 No one now, save as an illustration of history, would think
 
 i8o The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 of reading the "Campaign," though most readers are famiUar 
 with the famous simile which dazzled a whole generation : 
 
 'T was there great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved, 
 
 That in the shock of charging hosts unmoved. 
 
 Amidst confusion, horror, and despair 
 
 Examined all the dreadful scenes of war, 
 
 In powerful thought the field of death surveyed, 
 
 To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid, 
 
 Inspired repulsed battalions to engage. 
 
 And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. 
 
 So when an angel by Divine command 
 
 With rising tempest shakes a guilty land, 
 
 Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past, 
 
 Calm and serene he drives the furious blast ; 
 
 And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform. 
 
 Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm. 
 
 Macaulay points out with much felicity how the fact of the 
 Great Storm — so called in English history — which had passed 
 over England in the previous year, and was yet full in the mem- 
 ory of all, gave strength and meaning to this famous simile, 
 which at once opened to Addison the gates of fortune and of 
 fame. Two years after he was promoted to be one of the under- 
 secretaries of state, and from that time languished no more in 
 the cold shade of obscurity where Halifax had upbraided the 
 Government for leaving him. He was not a man born to linger 
 there. Shy though he was, and little apt to put himself for- 
 ward, this favorite of the muses — to use the phraseology of his 
 time — was also the favorite of fortune. Everything that he 
 touched throve with him. The gifts he possessed were all 
 especially adapted to the requirements of his time. At no 
 other period, perhaps, in history did the rulers of the coun- 
 try bethink themselves of a poet as the auxiliary most neces- 
 sary : and his age was the only one that relished poetry of 
 Addison's kind.
 
 Addison, The Humorist i8i 
 
 This event brought more than mere prosperity to the fortu- 
 nate young man. If he had been already of note enough to 
 belong to the Kit- Cat Club, with what a blaze of modest glory 
 would he now appear — not swelling in self-conceit, like so many 
 of the wits ; not full of silent passion, like the strange big Irish 
 clergyman who pushed into the chattering company in the cof- 
 fee-house and astounded them with his masterful and arrogant 
 ways: but always modest — never heard at all in a large com- 
 pany, opening out a little when the group dispersed, and an au- 
 dience fit but few gathered around him — but with one companion 
 half divine. The one companion by and by became often that 
 very same Irishman whose silent prowl about the room in which 
 he knew nobody had amused all the luckier members. Swift 
 found himself in a kind of coffee-house paradise when he got 
 Addison alone, and the two took their wine together, spending 
 their half-crowns according to the stranger's thrifty record, and 
 wishing for no third. They were as unlike as could be con- 
 ceived in every particular, and yet what company they must 
 have been, as they sat together, the wine going a little too 
 freely — though Swift was always temperate, and Addison, not- 
 withstanding that common peccadillo, the most irreproachable 
 of men! It was then that the "Travels in Italy" were pub- 
 lished, while still the fame of the " Campaign" was warm ; and 
 Addison gave his new friend a copy inscribed to "Jonathan 
 Swift, the most Agreeable Companion, the Truest Friend, and the 
 Greatest Genius of his Age." What quick understanding, what 
 recognition as of two who had been born to know each other ! 
 They were both in their prime — Swift thirty-eight, Addison 
 five years younger, still young enough to hope for everything 
 that can befall a man ; the one fully entered upon the path of 
 fortune, the other surely so much nearer it for being thus re- 
 ceived and welcomed. Addison gave " his little senate laws " 
 for many years in these convivial meetinors, and all who sur-
 
 1 82 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 rounded him adored him. But Swift was never again so close a 
 member of the Httle company. PoHtics, and the curious part 
 which the Irish parson took in them, separated him from the 
 consistent and moderate pohtician, who acted faithfully with his 
 party, and who was always true whoever might be false. But 
 Swift held fast to Addison so far at least as feeling was con- 
 cerned. Over and over he repeated the sentiment, that " if he 
 had a mind to be king he would hardly be refused." Their 
 meetings ceased, and all those outflowings of wit and wisdom, 
 and the talk long into the night which was the most delightful 
 thing in life ; but for years after Swift still continued to say that 
 there was nothing his friend mieht not be if he would : that his 
 election was carried without a word of opposition when every 
 other member had to fight for his life, and that he might be king 
 in Ireland, or anywhere else, had he the mind. They were used 
 to terms of large applause in those days, but to no one else did 
 it take this particular form. 
 
 In 1 708 Addison lost his post as under-secretary by a change 
 of the ministry, or rather of the minister, it being the habit in 
 those days to form a government piecemeal, a Whig here, a 
 Tory there, as favor or circumstances required, so that it was by 
 no means needful that all should go out or come in together. 
 In fact, no sooner was the under-secretary deprived of one place 
 than he obtained another, that of secretary to the lord lieuten- 
 ant of Ireland, the same office, we presume, as that which is 
 now called chief secretary for Ireland, though its seriousness 
 and power are now so much greater. In those days there was 
 no Irish people to deal with, but only a very lively, contentious, 
 pushing, and place-hunting community — the Protestant Eng- 
 lish-Irish, which, so far as literature and public knowledge go, 
 has been accepted as the type of the much darker and less sim- 
 ple character of the Celt. The wild, mystic, morose, and often 
 cruel nature of the native race, with its gleams of poetry and
 
 Addisoji, The Humorist 183 
 
 dreams of fortune, has turned out a very different thing to 
 reckon with. No such problem was presented to the statesmen 
 of that time. The admixture of Irish blood would seem to go 
 to the head of the Saxon and endow him with a gaiety and 
 sparkle which does not exist either in one race or the other un- 
 mixed ; and it was with the society formed on this basis, the 
 ascendant minority, contemptuous of every possible power 
 of the people so-called, yet far less unsympathetic than the 
 anxious politicians of to-day, that Addison had to deal. His 
 post was " very lucrative," we are told — in fees and pieces of 
 patronage, no doubt, for the income was but ^2000 a year 
 — and he soon acquired an even greater popularity on the 
 one side of the channel than on the other. Something amiable 
 and conciliatory must have rayed out of the man : otherwise it 
 is curious to understand the popularity in brilliant and talkative 
 Dublin of a stranger whose chief efforts in conversation were 
 only to be accomplished tSte-a-tite. But he had the foil of a 
 detestable and detested chief — Wharton, whose corrupt and 
 brutal character gave double acceptance to the secretary's charm 
 and goodness, and the Tories contended with the Whigs, says 
 Swift, which should speak best of this favorite of fortune. 
 " How can you think so meanly of a kingdom," he exclaims, 
 *' as not to be pleased that every creature in it who hath one 
 grain of worth has a veneration for you ? " It is not often that 
 even in hyperbole such a thing can be said. 
 
 It was while Addison was in Ireland thus gathering golden 
 opinions that an event occurred which was of the utmost im- 
 portance to his reputation, so far especially as posterity was 
 concerned. Among the little band of friends over whom he 
 held a kind of genial sway, and who acknowledged his superi- 
 ority with boundless devotion, was one who was more nearly 
 his equal than any other of the band ; a friend of youth, one of 
 those erratic but generous natures whose love of excellence is
 
 184 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 almost rapturous, though they are unable themselves to keep 
 up to the high level they approve. Steele can never be forgot- 
 ten where Addison is honored. He had been at Charterhouse 
 and at Oxford along with his friend, and no doubt it was a 
 wonder among the reading men in their earlier days how it was 
 that the correct, the polished, the irreproachable scholar of 
 Magdalen, with his quiet ways, could put up with that gay 
 scapegrace who was perpetually in trouble. Such alliances, how- 
 ever, have not been rare. The cheerful, careless Dick, full of 
 expedients, full of animal spirits, always amusing, friendly, gen- 
 erous in his impulses, if unintentionally selfish in the constant 
 breaches of his better meaning, must have had a charm for the 
 steadier and purer nature which was formed with pulses more 
 orderly. No doubt Steele's perpetual self-revelation, his un- 
 folding of a hundred quips and cranks of human nature, and 
 unsuspicious rendering up of all his natural anomalies and con- 
 tradictions to the instinctive spectatorship of his amused com- 
 panion, helped to endear him to the humorist, who must have 
 laughed till he cried on many an occasion over poor Dick's 
 amazing wisdoms and follies, without any breach of that indul- 
 gent affection which between two men who have grown up to- 
 gether can rarely be said to be mingled with anything so keen 
 as contempt. Steele, it is evident, must have known Addison 
 "at home," as school-boys say, or he could not have made that 
 little sketch of the household where brothers and sisters were 
 taught to be so loving to each other. While the young hero 
 who had, as in the favorite allegories of the time, chosen the 
 right path, and taken the steady hand of Minerva, instead of 
 that more lovely one of fatal Venus to guide him, was reach- 
 ing the heights of applause and good fortune, the unlucky 
 youth who chose pleasure for his pursuit had gone disastrously 
 the other way, and fallen into all sorts of adventures, extremely 
 amusing for his friend to hear of, though he disapproved, and
 
 Addison^ The Humorist 185 
 
 no doubt very amusing to the actual actor in them, though he 
 suffered. But Addison was not a mere "spectator" so far as 
 the friend of his youth was concerned. When he began to rise 
 there seems Htde reason to doubt that he pulled Steele up with 
 him, introducing him to the notice of the fine people, who in 
 those days might make the fortune of a gentlemanly and clever 
 adventurer, and that either by his own interest or that of one 
 of his powerful friends he procured him a place and started him 
 in public life. Steele had already floated into literature, and, 
 whether it is true or not that Addison helped him in the concoc- 
 tion of one play at least, it is clear that he kept his purse and 
 his heart well open to his friend, now a man about town ruffling 
 at the coffee-houses with the best, and full of that energy and 
 readiness which so often strike out new ways of working, 
 though it may require steadier heads to carry them out. 
 
 It was, however, while Addison was in Ireland that Steele 
 was moved by the most important of these original impulses, 
 an idea full, as it proved, of merit and practical use. Journal- 
 ism was then in its infancy. A little " News Letter," or " Fly- 
 ing Post" — a shabby broadsheet containing the bulletin of a 
 batde, a formal and brief notice of parliamentary proceedings, 
 an account of some monstrous birth, a child with two heads, or 
 that perennial gooseberry which has survived into our own 
 time — and an elaborate list of births, deaths, and marriages, 
 was almost all that existed in the way of public record. The 
 post to which Steele had been appointed was that of Gazetteer, 
 which naturally led him to the consideration of such matters : 
 and among the crowd of projects which worked together in 
 his " barmy noddle," there suddenly surged uppermost the idea 
 of a paper which should come out on the post days, the Tues- 
 days, Thursdays, and Saturdays which were, up to that time, 
 the only days of communication with the country ; a paper 
 written after the fancy of the time, in itself a letter from the
 
 1 86 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 wits and the knowing persons in town, revealing not only the 
 existing state of public affairs, but all those exquisite particulars 
 of society which have always been the delight of country cir- 
 cles, and which were doubly sure to please at a time when soci- 
 ety was governed by talk, when all public criticism was verbal, 
 and the echoes of the wits in the coffee-houses were blown 
 about on all the breezes. Happy the Sir Harry who, sitting 
 mum over his wine in a corner, could hear these gentlemen dis- 
 cussing what Sunderland or Somers had said, what my Lord 
 Treasurer intended, or, more delightful, the newest incident in 
 the tragedy-comedy of the great duchess — how the queen 
 looked glumly at her over the card-table, or let her stand unno- 
 ticed at a drawing-room ; and still more deeply blest the par- 
 son who had Mr. Addison pointed out to him, and heard the 
 young Templars and scholars pressing him with questions as to 
 when his " Cato " was coming out, or asking his opinion on a 
 set of verses. Such worthies would go back to the country 
 full of these reflections from the world, and tell how the gallants 
 laughed at the mantua which was going out of fashion, and 
 made fun of the red heels which, perhaps, were just then ap- 
 pearing at the Manor or the Moated Grange. Steele saw at 
 once what a thing it would be to convey these impressions at 
 first hand in a privileged "Tatler" direct to the houses of the 
 gentry all over the country. Perhaps he did not perceive at 
 first what a still finer thing to have them served up with the 
 foaming chocolate or fragrant tea at every breakfast in Mayfair. 
 It is an idea that has occurred to a great many heads since 
 with less success. In these latter days there have been many 
 literary adventurers, to whom the starting of a new paper has 
 seemed an opening into El Dorado. But the opening in the 
 majority of cases does not prove a practicable one — for, in 
 fact, there is no longer any need of news ; and the concise little 
 essays and elegant banterings of those critics of the time have
 
 Addison, The Humorist 187 
 
 fallen out of date. News means in our day an elaborate sys- 
 tem, and instantaneous reports from all the world; and one 
 London newspaper — far more one of the gigantic journals 
 proper to America — contains as much matter as half a hun- 
 dred "Tatlers." One wonders, if Addison's genius, and the 
 light hand of Steele, and Swift's tremendous and scathing hu- 
 mor could be conjured up again, whether such a production, 
 with its mingled thread of the finest sentiments and the pettiest 
 subjects, metaphysics and morals, and the " Eneid" and " Para- 
 dise Lost," and periwigs and petticoats, would find sufficient ac- 
 ceptance with "the fair" and the wise to keep it afloat, or 
 would still go up to sages and fine ladies with their breakfast 
 trays. 
 
 It was on the immediate foundation of one of Swift's savage 
 jeux d'esprits that the new undertaking was begun, a mystifi- 
 cation which greatly amused the wits then, but which does not, 
 perhaps, appear particularly delightful now. Swift had been 
 seized by a freak of mischief in respect to a certain Partridge, 
 an astrologer, who made an income out of the public by pre- 
 tended revelations of the future, as is still done, we believe, 
 among those masses, beneath the ascertained audience of litera- 
 ture, who spend their sixpences at Christmas upon almanacs 
 and year-books containing predictions of what is to happen. It 
 occurred to Swift in some merry moment to emulate and to doom 
 the Merlin of the day : and with the prodigious gravity which 
 characterizes his greatest jests he wrote " Predictions for the year 
 1 708," in which, among many other things, he announced that he 
 had consulted the stars on behalf of Partridge, and had ascer- 
 tained that the wizard would certainly die on March 29, at eleven 
 o'clock at night, of a raging fever. The reader will probably 
 remember that the jest was kept up, and that, notwithstanding 
 Partridge's protest that he was not dead at all, Isaac Bicker- 
 staff insisted on asserting that his prophecy had been fulfilled,
 
 1 88 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 to the grave confusion of various serious affairs, and the inex- 
 tinguishable laughter of the wits. It was not a pretty jest, but 
 it brought into being a visionary critic of public matters, a new 
 personage in the literary world, in whom other wits saw capa- 
 bilities. Steele in particular perceived that Isaac Bickerstaff 
 was just the personality he wanted, and therewith proceeded to 
 make of that shadowy being the Mentor of the time. The de- 
 sign was excellent, the immediate execution cleverly adapted to 
 seize the interest of the public, which had been already amused 
 and mystified under that name. Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff pre- 
 sented his readers with the first number of his journal without 
 charge. "I earnestly desire," he says, "all persons, without 
 distinction, to take it in for the present ^r^/zV, and hereafter at 
 the price of one penny, forbidding all hawkers to take more for 
 it at their peril." The idea took the town. No doubt there 
 would be many an allusion to this and that which the wits 
 would guess at, and which would to them have a double mean- 
 ing; but, to do the "Tatler" justice, the kind of gossip which 
 fills the so-called society newspapers in our day was unknown 
 to the witty gentlemen who sometimes satirize a ruffle or a 
 shoe-tie, but never personally a woman. The types of fine la- 
 dies who flutter through his pages could never raise a pang in 
 any individual bosom; and when he addressed himself to the re- 
 form of the theater, to the difficult duty of checking play and 
 discouraging duels, he had all the w^ell-thinking on his side. 
 
 Steele had gone on for some numbers before his new ven- 
 ture attracted the attention of Addison. He recognized whose 
 the hand was from a classical criticism in the sixth number 
 which he had himself made to Steele ; and he must have been 
 pleased with the idea, since he soon after appears as a coadju- 
 tor, sending his contributions from the Secretary's office in 
 Dublin. There has been a great and prolonged controversy 
 upon the respective merits of these two friends : some, and
 
 Addison^ The Humorist 189 
 
 first among them Macaulay, will have it that Addison had all 
 the merit of the publication. ** Almost everything good in the 
 •Tatler' was his," says the historian. But there are many 
 who, despite Macaulay's great authority, find a certain diffi- 
 culty in distinguishing Addison from Steele and Steele from 
 Addison, and are inclined to find the latter writer as entertain- 
 ing and as gifted as the former. No question could be more 
 difficult to settle. As we glance over the little gray volumes 
 which bring back to us dimly the effect which the little broad- 
 sheet must have had when it appeared day by day, there is no 
 doubt that the eye is oftenest caught by something which, 
 when we look again, proves to be from Addison's hand. We 
 open, it is by chance, and yet not altogether by chance, upon 
 Tom Folio and his humors ; upon the poor poet and his 
 verses ; upon some group of shabby heroes, or stumbling pro- 
 cession of country gentlemen which there is no mistaking. But 
 on the other hand it is Steele who gives us that family picture, 
 which reads like the Vicar of Wakefield, yet with a more 
 tender touch (for Mrs. Primrose was never her husband's 
 equal), showing us the good woman among her family, the 
 husband half distracted with the fear of losing her, the wife for 
 his sake smiling her paleness away. Indeed, we think, in these 
 early essays at least, it would be a mistake for the critic to risk 
 his reputation on the superiority of Addison. He set up no 
 higher standard than that which his friend had raised, but fell 
 into the same humor, adding his contribution of social pictures 
 with less force of moral generally, and more delicacy of work- 
 manship, but no remarkable preeminence. The character of 
 the publication changed gradually as the great new pen came 
 into it ; but whether by Addison's influence or by the mere ac- 
 tion of time, and a sense of what suited the audience he had 
 obtained — which a soul so sympathetic as Steele's would 
 naturally divine with readiness — no one can tell. Gradually
 
 I90 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 the news which at first had regularly filled a column dropped 
 away. It had been, no doubt, well authenticated news, the 
 freshest and best, as it came from the authorized hand of the 
 Gazetteer; but either Steele got tired of supplying it, or a 
 sense of the inexpediency of publishing anything which might 
 displease his patrons and the government, convinced him that 
 it was unnecessary. It is scarcely possible, either, to tell why 
 the "Tader" came to an end. Mr. Austin Dobson, in his 
 recent life of Steele, gives sundry reasons which do not seem, 
 however, of any particular weight. Steele's own account is 
 that he had become known, and his warnings and lessons were 
 thus made of no avail : 
 
 I considered [he says] that severity of manners was absolutely neces- 
 sary to him who would censure others, and for that reason and that only 
 chose to talk in a mask. I shall not carry my humility so far as to call 
 myself a vicious man, but at the same time confess my life is at best but 
 pardonable. And with no greater character than this a man could make 
 an indifferent progress in attacking prevailing and fashionable vices, 
 which Mr. Bickerstaff has done with a freedom of spirit that would have 
 lost both its beauty and efficacy had it been pretended to by Mr. Steele. 
 
 This reason is, however, — though pretty and just enough 
 had its writer renounced the trade, — a somewhat fantastic one 
 when we reflect that though the **Tatler" ended in January, 
 171 1, the "Spectator" began in March of the same year. The 
 one died only to be replaced by the other. It is said that Ad- 
 dison did not know of his friend's intention to cut the "Tatler" 
 short, and it was he who was the chief agent in beginning the 
 "Spectator." Therefore it may have been that the breach was 
 but an impatience of Steele's, which his slow and less impulsive 
 and more constant comrade could not permanently consent to. 
 No doubt Addison had by this time learned the advantage of 
 such a mode of utterance, and felt how entirely it suited his 
 own manner of work and constitution of mind. The fictitious
 
 Addison, The Hujnorist 191 
 
 person of Isaac Bickerstaff was relinquished in the new series: 
 it no longer assumed to give any news. Its contents were 
 less varied, consisting generally of a single essay, and, notwith- 
 standing the impression which the casual reader often has, and 
 which some critics have largely dwelt upon, that the comments 
 of this critic are upon the merest vanities of the time, the hoops, 
 the gold-lace, the snuff-boxes, and patches of the period, it is 
 astonishing how little space is actually taken up with these 
 lighter details, and how many graver questions, how many fine 
 sentiments and delicate situations, afford the moralist occasion 
 for those remarks which he makes in the most beautiful and 
 picturesque English to the edification of all the generations. 
 There is, perhaps, no book which is so characteristic of an 
 epoch in history, and none which gives so clear a conception of 
 the English world of the time. We sit and look on, always 
 amused, often instructed, while the delicate panorama unfolds 
 before us — and see everything pass, the fine coaches, the gen- 
 tlemen on foot, the parsons in their gowns, the young Templars 
 jesting in the doorways : but always with the little monologue 
 going on, which accompanies the movement, and runs off into 
 a hundred byways of thought, sometimes serious, sometimes 
 gay, often with no particular connection with the many-col- 
 ored streams of passers-by, yet never obscuring our sight of 
 them as they come and go. There is, perhaps, a noisy group at 
 the door while Mr. Spectator talks, with their wigs in the last 
 fashion, and their clouded canes hung to a button, while they dis- 
 course. In one corner there are some two or three grave gen- 
 tlemen putting their heads together over the latest news ; and 
 in another the young fellows over their wine eager in discus- 
 sion of Mrs. Oldfield and Mrs. Bracegirdle at the theater, or of 
 Chloe and Clarissa, the reigning beauties of society ; or per- 
 haps it is a poet, poor Ned Softly, as the case may be, who is 
 reading his last sonnet to his mistress's eyebrow, amid the
 
 192 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 laughing commentaries or the ridicule of his companions. 
 What is Mr. Spectator talking of all the while? His discourse 
 does not prevent us hearing the impertinences of the others. 
 Perhaps he is talking of honest love, a favorite theme of his, 
 at which the wits do not dare to laugh in his presence, — or he 
 is telling one of his fables, to which everybody in the midst of 
 his levity or his business gives half an ear at least ; or by a 
 caprice he has turned aside to metaphysics, and is discuss- 
 ing the processes of the mind, and how " no thought can be 
 beautiful that is not just"; how " 't is a property of the heart of 
 man to be diffusive, its kind wishes spread abroad over the face 
 of the creation," and such like; not to speak of graver subjects 
 still to which he will direct our minds on Saturdays, perhaps to 
 prepare us for Sunday, when he is silent. Or he will read 
 aloud a letter from some whimsical correspondent, which the 
 wits will pause to hear, for gossip is ever sweet, but which be- 
 fore they know lands them in a case of hardship or trouble 
 which touches their consciences and rouses their pity. Some- 
 times the hum of life will stop altogether and even Softly put 
 his verses in his pocket to listen : and on the brink of tears the 
 fine gentlemen, and we too along with them, incontinently burst 
 out a-laughing at some touch that no one expected. But whether 
 we laugh or cry, or are shamed in our levity, or diverted in our 
 seriousness, outside the windows the crowd is always streaming 
 on. There is no separating the "Spectator" from the lively, 
 crowded, troublous, and perplexing scenes upon which all his 
 reflections are made. The young lady looking out of her 
 coach — at sight of whom all the young fellows doff their hats 
 and make their comments, how much her fortune is, who is in 
 pursuit of her, or if any mud has yet been flung upon her — 
 shows to the philosopher a face disturbed with all the puzzles 
 of an existence which nobody will allow her to take seriously. 
 The poor wit who endeavors so wistfully to amuse my lord in
 
 J' if ' |i I i' 111 ,„, ' h ' ' 
 
 * , ' ii'/'i I ' 
 IP II I ii H i|ii{ 
 
 
 SIDNEY, EARL OF GODOLPHIN. 
 
 ENGRAVHD BY PETER AlTKIiN, ER 
 
 OM MEZZ,»Th\T BY JOHN SMITH, IN BRITISH MUSEUM 
 PAINTED BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER.
 
 Addison^ The Humorist 193 
 
 his dullness betrays to that critic not so much the soul of a 
 toady, as that of the anxious father with children that starve at 
 home. His young fellows, though they look so careless, have 
 their troubles too. Wherever that keen eye turns another 
 group shows through the crowd, or a lonely whimsical figure 
 as distinct as if there was no one but he. Save perhaps on 
 those Saturdays when he plays his soft accompaniment to Mil- 
 ton's grand, sonorous organ he is never abstracted or retired 
 from men : on all other occasions, though he is thinking of a 
 great deal else, and has his mind absorbed in other themes, 
 this busy world of which he forms a part is always with him. 
 Sometimes he permits us to see him over their heads only, 
 seated on his familiar bench at his table, from whence he de- 
 livers his homilies, with all these figures moving and re-mov- 
 ing on the busy pavement in the foreground ; sometimes we 
 are admitted inside, and watch them through open door and 
 window by his side: but he is never to be parted from the 
 society in which he finds his models, his subjects, his audience. 
 Like other men he takes it for granted that the fashion of his 
 contemporaries is to go on forever. For posterity that smiling, 
 keen observer takes no thought. 
 
 But of all things else that Addison has done there remains 
 one preeminent figure which is his chief claim to immortality. 
 The " Campaign " has disappeared out of literature ; " Cato " is 
 known only by a few well-known lines; the " Spectator" itself, 
 though a work which no gentleman's library can be without, dwells 
 generally in dignified retirement there, and is seldom seen on 
 any table but the student's, though we are all supposed to be 
 familiar with it : but Sir Roger de Coverley is the familiar friend 
 of most people who have read anything at all, and the acquain- 
 tance by sight, if we may so speak, of everybody. There is no 
 form better known in all literature. His simple rustic state, his 
 modest sense of his own importance, his kind and genial patron-
 
 1 94 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 age of the younger world, which would laugh at him if it were 
 not overawed by his modesty and goodness, and which still 
 sniggers in its sleeve at all those kind, ridiculous ways of his as 
 he walks about in London, taken in on all sides, with his hand 
 always in his purse and his heart in its right place, are always 
 familiar and delightful. We learn with a kind of shock that it 
 was Steele who first introduced this perfect gentleman to the 
 world, and can only hope that it was Addison's idea from the 
 first, and that he did not merely snatch out of his friend's hands 
 and appropriate a conception so entirely according to his own 
 heart. To Steele, too, we are indebted for some pretty scenes 
 in the brief history : for Will the Huntsman's wooing, which is 
 the most delicate little enamel, and for the knight's own love- 
 making, which, however, is pushed a little too near absurdity. 
 But it is Addison who leads him forth among his country neigh- 
 bors, and to the assizes, and meets the gipsies with him, and 
 brings him up to town, carrying him to Westminster and to 
 Spring Gardens, in the wherry with the one-legged waterman, 
 and to the play. The delightful gentleman is never finer than 
 in this latter scene. He has to be conveyed in his coach, at- 
 tended by all his servants, armed with "good oaken plants," 
 and Captain Sentry in the sword he had worn at Steinkirk, for 
 fear of the Mohocks, those brutal disturbers of the public peace 
 whom Addison justly feels it would be unbecoming to bring 
 within sight of his noble old knight. 
 
 As soon as the house was full and the candles lighted my old friend 
 stood up and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind 
 seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself at the sight of a multi- 
 tude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the 
 same common entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself as the 
 old man stood up in the middle of the pit that he made a very proper 
 centre to a tragick Audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus the Knight 
 told me that he did not believe the King of France had a better strut. 
 I was indeed very attentive to my old friend's remarks because I looked
 
 Addison^ The Humorist 195 
 
 upon them as a piece of natural criticism and was well pleased to hear 
 him, at the conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could 
 not imagine how the play would end ; one while he appeared much 
 concerned for Andromache, and a little while after as much for Her- 
 mione ; and was extremely puzzled to know what would become of 
 Pyrrhus. When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to her 
 lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear that he was sure she 
 would never have him ; to which he added with a more than ordinary 
 vehemence, " You can't imagine, sir, what 't is to have to do with a 
 widow." Upon Pyrrhus, his threatening afterwards to leave her, the 
 Knight shook his head and murmured, " Ay ! do it if you can." This part 
 dwelt so much upon my friend's imagination that at the close of the third 
 act, as I was thinking of something else, he whispered in my ear, " These 
 widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world. But pray," 
 says he, " you that are a critick, is this play according to your dramatick 
 rules, as you call them ? Should your People in Tragedy always talk to 
 be understood ? Why, there is not a single sentence in this play that I 
 do not know the meaning of! " 
 
 The fourth act very luckily began before I had time to give the old 
 gentleman an answer. " Well," says the Knight, sitting down with great 
 satisfaction, " I suppose we are now to see Hector's Ghost ? " He then 
 renewed his attention, and from time to time fell a-praising the widow. 
 He made, indeed, a little mistake as to one of her pages, whom, at his 
 first entering, he took for Astyanax ; but we quickly set him right in 
 that particular, though at the same time he owned he should have been 
 very glad to see the little boy, who, says he, must needs be a very fine 
 child by the account that is given of him. 
 
 Could anything be more delightful than this genial pic- 
 ture? We have all met in later years a certain Colonel 
 Newcome, who is very like Sir Roger, one of his descendants, 
 though he died a bachelor. But the Worcestershire knight 
 was the first of his lineage, and few are the gifted hands who 
 have succeeded in framing men after his model. Those little 
 follies which are so dear to us, the good faith which makes the 
 young men laugh, yet feel ashamed of themselves for laughing, 
 and all the circumstances of that stately simple life which are so 
 different from anything we know, yet so lifelike and genuine, 
 have grown into the imagination of the after-generations. We
 
 196 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 seem to know Sir Roger from our cradle, though we may never 
 even have read the few chapters of his history. This is the 
 one infallible distinction of genius above all commoner endow- 
 ments. Of all the actors in that stirring time Sir Roger remains 
 the most living and real. The queen and her court are no 
 more than shadows moving across the historic stage. Halifax, 
 and Somers, and Harley, and even the great Bolingbroke, what 
 are they to us ? Figures confused and uncertain, that appear 
 and disappear in one combination or another, so that our head 
 aches in the effort to follow, to identify, to make sure what the 
 intrigues and the complications mean. But we have no diffi- 
 culty in recollecting all about Sir Roger. We would not have 
 the old man mocked at any more than Mr. Addison would, but 
 kiss his kind old hand as we smile at those little foibles which 
 are all ingratiating and delightful. In that generation, with 
 all its wars and successes, there was, perhaps, no such gain 
 as Sir Roger. Marlborough's victories made England feared 
 and respected, but cost the country countless treasure, and gave 
 her little advantage ; the good knight cost nobody anything, and 
 made all the world the richer. He is one of those inhabitants 
 who never grow old or pass away, and he gives us proof unde- 
 niable that when we speak of a corrupt and depraved age, as 
 we have reason to do, we have still nobler reason for believ- 
 ing — as the despairing prophet was taught by God himself in 
 far older times : that however dark might be the prospect 
 there were still seven thousand men in Israel who had never 
 bowed the knee to Baal — what we learn over again, thank 
 Heaven ! from shining example everywhere, that there are al- 
 ways surviving the seed of the just, the salt of the earth, by 
 whose silent agency, and pure love, and honest truth, life is 
 made practicable and the world rolls on. 
 
 Sir Roger is the great point of the " Spectator," as the 
 " Spectator " is the truest history of the time. It contains,
 
 Addison, The Huinorist 197 
 
 however, beside, much that is admirable and entertaining, as 
 well as a good deal that was temporary, and is now beyond the 
 fashion of our understanding, or, at least, of our appreciation. 
 Addison's criticism, or rather exposition, of Milton, which no 
 doubt taught his age a far more general regard for that great 
 poet, is well enough known, but yet not nearly so well known 
 as Sir Roger, and not necessary now as it was then. When 
 these criticisms began it is evident that Addison, as well as his 
 friend Steele, had made a great advance from the time when the 
 young Oxford scholar left Shakspere out of his reckoning alto- 
 gether, and considered " Old Spenser" only fit to amuse a bar- 
 barous age. Though the balance of things had not been re- 
 dressed throughout the English world, yet these scholars had 
 come to perceive that the greatness of their predecessors had 
 been, perhaps, a little mixed up ; that Cowley was not so mighty 
 a genius as their boyhood believed, and that there were figures 
 as of gods behind which it was shame to have misconceived. 
 Throughout all, the meaning was wholesome, and tended toward 
 the elevation of the time. Steele had it specially at heart to 
 discourage gambling, and to put down the hateful tyranny of the 
 duel. And both writers used all their powers to improve and 
 raise the character of theatrical representations, keeping a watch 
 not only over the plays that were performed, but also over the 
 manners of the audience, who crowded the stage so that the 
 players could scarcely be seen, and played cards in their boxes, 
 and used the public entertainment for their own private quarrels 
 and assignations. It is curious, too, to note how these author- 
 ities regarded the opera, the new form of amusement which had 
 pushed its way, against all the prejudices of the English, into 
 fashion. Addison himself, indeed, wrote an opera which was 
 not successful ; but he did not love that new-fangled entertain- 
 ment. He devotes two or three numbers to the description of 
 
 it, for, says he, " There is no question our grandchildren will be 
 13*
 
 1 98 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 very anxious to know the reason why their forefathers used to 
 sit together Hke an audience of foreigners in their own country, 
 and to hear whole plays acted before them in a tongue which 
 they did not understand." It is evident by this that his age had 
 not reached to the further sublimity of believing that when the 
 utterance is musical there is no need of understanding at all. 
 " One scarce knows how to be serious," he adds, " in the con- 
 futation of an absurdity that shows itself at the first sight. It 
 does not want any great measure of sense to see the ridicule of 
 this monstrous practice. If the Italians have a genius for music 
 above the English, the English have a genius for other per- 
 formances of a much higher nature, and capable of giving the 
 mind a much nobler entertainment." We wonder if our " Spec- 
 tator " would be less affronted now by the constant adaptation 
 of equivocal French plays to the English stage, than by the 
 anomaly of a representation given in language which nobody 
 understood? He would, perhaps, feel it to be an advantage 
 often not to understand, and doubt whether the English after 
 all "have a genius for other performances of a much higher 
 nature." 
 
 We are not informed that the "Tatler" and "Spectator," 
 the real foundation of his fame, gave Addison any help in his 
 career. That was assured by the " Campaign." He received 
 his first post, that of "a commissionership with ;!^200 a year," 
 at once, in the end of 1 704 : his pension having ceased at 
 King William's death in i 702 : the interval is not a very long 
 one, and during this time he had retained his college fellow- 
 ship. In 1706 he became under-secretary. In 1 708, his chief, 
 Lord Sunderland, was dismissed, and Addison along with him ; 
 but the latter stepped immediately into the Irish secretaryship, 
 which was worth ^2000 a year. Two years afterward occurred 
 the political convulsions brought about by the trial of Sachev- 
 erell and the intrigues of the back stairs, which brought Harley
 
 Addison, The Humorist 199 
 
 into power, and Addison with his leaders was once more out 
 of office; but in 1714 they came triumphantly back, and he rose 
 to the height of political elevation as secretary of state with a 
 seat in the Cabinet. Though he did not retain this position 
 long on account of his failing health, he retired on a pension of 
 ^1500 a year. In 171 1, at a period when he was supposed to 
 be at a low ebb of fortune, in the cold shade of political opposi- 
 tion, he was able to buy the estate of Bilton, near Rugby, for 
 which he paid /i 0,000 — which is not bad for a moment of mis- 
 fortune. Altogether Addison was provided for as the deserv- 
 ino- and honorable hero — the wise youth of one of his own 
 allegories, the good apprentice — should be, by poetic justice, 
 but is not always in the experience of the world. The success 
 of the " Spectator," however, which was more his than Steele's 
 (as the "Tatler" had been much more Steele's than Addison's), 
 was apparently very considerable ; Addison himself says, in an 
 early number, that it had reached the circulation of three thou- 
 sand copies a day. On a special occasion fourteen thousand 
 copies are spoken of; and the passing of the Stamp Act, which 
 destroyed many of the weaker publications of the time, did com- 
 paratively little harm to the " Spectator," which doubled its price 
 without much diminishing its popularity. It had also what no 
 other daily, and very few periodicals of any time, ever reach, the 
 advantage of a permanent issue afterward, in a succession of 
 volumes, of which the first edition seems to have reached an 
 issue of ten thousand copies. Fortunate writers ! pleasant 
 public ! The " Times," and the rest of our great newspapers, 
 boast a circulation beyond that which the eighteenth century 
 could have dreamed of; and thirty years ago it was the fashion 
 among public orators more indebted to genius than educa- 
 tion — Mr. Cobden for one, and, we think, Mr. John Bright — 
 to say that the leading articles of that day were more than equal 
 to Thucydides and all the other writers of whom classical
 
 200 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 scholars made their boast. But we wonder how the " Times" 
 leaders would read collected into a volume, against those little 
 dingy books (tobacco paper, as a contemporary says) with all 
 their wisdom and their wit. " I will not meddle with the 'Spec- 
 tator,' " says Swift to Stella, "let \\m\ fair sex it to the world's 
 end." And so he has, at least so far as the world has yet ad- 
 vanced toward that undesirable conclusion. 
 
 The "Spectator" ended with the year 1712, having existed 
 less than two years. Whether the authors had found their 
 audience beginning to fail, or their inspiration, or had con- 
 sidered it wise (as is most likely) to forestall the possibility of 
 either catastrophe, we are not informed. Almost immediately 
 after the conclusion of this greatest undertaking of his life, Ad- 
 dison plunged into what probably appeared to the weakness of 
 contemporary vision a much greater undertaking, the produc- 
 tion of his tragedy " Cato," which made a commotion in town 
 such as few plays did even at that period. It was partly as a 
 political movement, to stir up the patriotism and love of liberty 
 which were supposed to be failing under the dominion of the 
 Tories, suspected of all manner of evil designs, that his Whig 
 friends urged Addison to bring out the great play which had 
 been simmering in his brain since his travels, and which had no 
 doubt been read in detached acts and pieces of declamation to 
 all his literary friends. These friends had received several ad- 
 ditions in the mean time, especially in the person of Pope, who 
 was still young enough to be proud of Addison's notice, yet re- 
 markable enough to be intrusted with the composition of a pro- 
 logue to the great man's work. Swift, notwithstanding the 
 coldness which had ensued between them on his change of 
 politics, was still sufficiently in Addison's friendship to be pres- 
 ent at a rehearsal, and the whole town on both sides was moved 
 with excitement and expectation. On the first night, " our 
 house," says Gibber, " was in a manner invested and entrance
 
 Addison^ The Httmorist 201 
 
 demanded by twelve o'clock at noon ; and before one it was not 
 wide enough for many who came too late for their places." The 
 following account of its reception is given in a letter by Pope : 
 
 The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one side 
 of the theatre were echoed back by the Tories on the other ; while the 
 author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause 
 proceeding more from the hand than the head. This was the case, too, 
 with the Prologue-writer, who was clapped into a sound Whig at the 
 end of every two lines. I believe you have heard that, after all the 
 applause of the opposite faction, my lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, 
 who played Cato, into the box between one of the acts, and presented 
 him with fifty guineas, in acknowledgment, as he expressed it, for de- 
 fending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator. The 
 Whigs are unwilling to be distanced this way, and therefore design a 
 present to the same Cato very speedily. 
 
 Bolingbroke's speech about a perpetual dictator was a gibe 
 which everybody understood, directed against the devotion of 
 the Whigs to Marlborough, and was quite honest warfare ; but 
 what, we wonder, would Mr. Irving think if Mr. Gladstone sent 
 for him to his box, and "presented him with fifty guineas"? 
 The actor who considers himself one of the most distinguished 
 members of good society had not been thought of in those days. 
 One wonders, too, in passing, where a fine gentleman kept his 
 money, and whether the purse of the stage, which is always 
 ready to be flung to a deserving object, was a reality in the 
 days of Queen Anne? Fifty guineas is a somewhat heavy 
 charge for the pocket ; however, perhaps. Lord Bolingbroke 
 had come specially provided, or he had a secretary handy who 
 did not mind the bulofinor of his coat. 
 
 Of this great tragedy, which turned the head of London, and 
 which the two great political parties vied with each other in 
 applauding, there are but a few lines virtually existing now- 
 adays. To be sure, it is in print with the rest of Addison's
 
 202 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 works, to be read by whosoever will ; but very few avail them- 
 selves of that privilege. 
 
 'T is not in mortals to command success. 
 
 But we '11 do more, Sempronius ; we '11 deserve it 
 
 is the chief relic, and that of a very prosaic common sense and 
 familiar kind, which the great tragedy has left us. " Plato, thou 
 reasonest well ! " is another quotation, which is, perhaps, more 
 frequently used in a jocular than serious sense. But for these 
 scraps Cato is as dead as most of his contemporaries ; and we 
 do not even remember the great tragedy when we hear the 
 name of its author. We think, indeed, only of the "Spectator" 
 if we have read a little in the literature of the period ; but if we 
 have no special tastes and studies that way, of Sir Roger de 
 Coverley alone ; for Sir Roger is Addison's gift to his country 
 and the world, the creation by which his name will always be 
 known. 
 
 The end of a man's life is seldom so interesting as its begin- 
 ning. After he has achieved all of which he is capable, our in- 
 terest is more usually a sad than a cheerful one. Addison made 
 in 1 716 what seems to have been an ambitious marriage, though 
 he was not the man, one would think, to care for the rank which 
 gave his wife always a distinct personality and another name 
 than his. The Countess of Warwick, however, was, it would 
 appear, a beautiful woman. She had the charge of a trouble- 
 some boy, for whom, no doubt, she would be eager to have the 
 advice of such a man as Mr. Addison, whom all the world re- 
 spected and admired. The little house at Chelsea (the house 
 was called Sandford Manor House, and was some years ago 
 figured against its present doleful background of gasometers, in 
 the Century) which that statesman had acquired, and where he 
 delighted to withdraw from the noise and contention of town, 
 was within reach through the fields of Holland House, the
 
 Addiso7t, The Htimorist 203 
 
 residence of Lady Warwick. They had known each other 
 for years, and Addison had written exquisite little letters to 
 the boy-earl — no doubt with intentions upon the heart of 
 the mother, to which, as is well known, that method is a 
 very successful way — long before. It was. Dr. Johnson says, 
 a long and anxious courtship ; and perhaps — who knows ? 
 — when Steele performed that picture of the beloved knight 
 sitting silent before the two fine ladies and unable to articulate 
 the desires of his honest heart, it was some similar performance 
 of the shy man of genius who found utterance with such diffi- 
 culty, which was in Dick's mind. But perhaps Addison grew 
 bolder when he was a secretary of state. The great Mr. Ad- 
 dison, the delightful " Spectator," the author of " Cato," the man 
 whose praises were in everybody's mouth, and whom Whig and 
 Tory delighted to honor, was no insignificant fine gentleman for 
 a lady of rank to stoop to ; and finally those evening walks over 
 the fields, and pleasant rural encounters — for Chelsea was the 
 country in those days, and Holland House quite retired among 
 all the songsters of the grove, and out of town — came to a 
 legitimate conclusion. Addison was forty, and her ladyship had 
 been a widow for fifteen years ; but there is no reason for con- 
 cluding that there was no romance in the wedding, which, how- 
 ever, is always a nervous sort of business under such circum- 
 stances. There was the boy, too, to be taken into account, who 
 evidently was not a nice boy, but a tale-bearer, who did not 
 love his mother's faithful lover, and made mischief when he 
 could. There seems no evidence, however, that the marriage 
 was unhappy, beyond a malicious note of Pope's, which all the 
 commentators have enlarged. The poor women who have 
 the misfortune to be married to men of genius, fare badly at 
 the hands of the critics. There seems no warrant whatever 
 for Thackeray's picture of the vulgar vixen whom he calls Mrs. 
 Steele. Steele's letters exist, but not those of poor Prue, who
 
 204 The Reign of Qiieen Anne 
 
 was so sadly tried in her husband ; and so that suffering woman 
 had to suffer over again in her reputation after her Hfe's trouble 
 is over. It is very unfair to the poor women who have left no 
 champions behind. 
 
 The end of our " Spectator's " life was, however, clouded 
 with more than one unfortunate quarrel, the greatest of which 
 has left its sting behind to quiver in Addison's name as long as 
 Pope and he are known. It is neither necessary nor edifying 
 to enter at length into the bitternesses of the past. Pope fancied 
 himself aggrieved in various ways by the man who had warmly 
 acknowledged his youthful merits, and received him (though so 
 much his senior in years and fame) on a footing of equality, and 
 who all through never spoke an ill-natured word of the waspish 
 little poet. He believed, or persuaded himself to believe, in his 
 malignant little soul that Addison was jealous of his greatness, 
 and had set up Tickell to rival him in the translation of Homer ; 
 and he believed, or pretended to believe, on the supposed 
 authority of young Warwick, that Addison had hired a vulgar 
 critic to attack him. There seems not the slightest reason to 
 believe that either of these grievances was real. Tickell had 
 written simultaneously a translation, which Addison had read 
 and corrected, on account of which he courteously declined to 
 read Pope's translation of the same, telling him the reason, 
 but accepting the office of critic to the second part of Pope's 
 work. He had himself, according to the poet's brag, accepted 
 Pope's corrections of "Cato," leaving "not a word unchanged 
 that I objected to " ; and he was not moved to any retaliation by 
 Pope's attack upon him, but continued serenely to praise his 
 envious little assailant with a magnanimity which is wonderful 
 if he had seen the brilliant and pitiless picture so cunningly 
 drawn within the lines of nature, with every feature travestied 
 so near the real, that even Addison's most faithful partizan has 
 to pause with alarm lest the wicked thing so near the truth
 
 Addison, The Humorist 205 
 
 might perhaps be true. We hesitate to add to the serene and 
 gentle story of our man of letters this embittered utterance of 
 spite and malice and genius. The lines are sufficiently well 
 
 known. 
 
 Addison did not end his periodical work with the " Spec- 
 tator." He took up that familiar character once again for a 
 short time, long enough to produce an additional volume, — 
 the eighth, — in which he had no longer the help of his old vi- 
 vacious companion. The series is full of fine things, but we 
 are not sure, though Macaulay thinks otherwise, that we do not 
 a little miss the light and shade which Steele helped to supply. 
 And other publications followed. Steele himself set up the 
 "Guardian," in which Addison had little share; and various 
 others after that in which he had no share at all. And Addison 
 himself had a " Freeholder," in which he said some notable 
 things ; but these are all dead and gone, like so much of the 
 ^contemporary furnishings of the age. Students find and read 
 them in the old, collected editions; but life and recollection 
 have gone out of them. Perhaps his own time even had by 
 then got as much as it could enjoy and digest out of Addison. 
 We, at least, have done so after these hundred and fifty years, 
 and are capable of no more. 
 
 He died in 1 719, at the early age of forty-seven. The story 
 goes that he sent for young Warwick when he was on his death- 
 bed, that he might see how a Christian could die : which we 
 should say was unlike Addison, save for the reason that he had 
 been drawing morals all his life, and might at that supreme mo- 
 ment be beyond seeing the ridicule of a last exhibition. Per- 
 haps it was in reality a message of charity and forgiveness to 
 the wayward boy, who, there seems reason to believe, was not 
 fond of his stepfather. And thus the great writer glided gently 
 out of a life in which he had more honor than falls to the lot of 
 most men, and, let us hope, a great deal of mild satisfaction and
 
 2o6 The Reign of Queen Anne 
 
 pleasure. Thackeray has a little scoff at him as a man without 
 passion. "I doubt until after his marriage whether he ever lost 
 his night's rest or his day's tranquillity about any woman in his 
 life." Neither, perhaps, did Sir Roger, whose forty years' love- 
 making and unrequited affection was a sentimental luxury of the 
 most delicate kind, as his maker intended it to be. But Ad- 
 dison's fine and meditative genius had no need of passion. He 
 is the " Spectator" of humankind. He had little temptation in 
 his own calm nature to descend into the arena ; the honors of 
 the fight came to him somehow without any soil of the actual 
 engagement. No smoke of gunpowder is about his laurels, no 
 spot of blood upon his sword. He looks on at the others fight- 
 ing, always with a nod of encouragement for the man of honor 
 and virtue, of keen scorn for the selfish and evil-minded, of pity 
 for the fallen. But it is not his part to fight. He makes no 
 pretense of any inclination that way. He is the looker-on ; 
 and, as such, more valuable than a thousand men-at-arms. 
 
 He died at Holland House, that fine historical mansion 
 sacred to the wits of a later age, but which in Addison's time 
 contained no tyrannical tribunal of literary patronage, whatever 
 else there might be there which was contrary to peace. His 
 life and death there make an association more touching, and at 
 the same time of sweeter meaning, than the after-struggles of 
 the Whig men of letters for "Lady Holland's arbitrary favors. 
 The great humorist died in the middle of summer, in June, 
 1 719, and was carried from that leafy retirement to the Jeru- 
 salem Chamber, where he lay in state : why, it seems difficult 
 to understand — but his position had in it a kind of gentle 
 royalty unlike that of other men. He was buried at West- 
 minster by night, the wonderful solemn arches over the funeral 
 party, half seen by the wavering lights, going off into vistas of 
 mysterious gloom, echoing with the hymns of the choir, who 
 sang him to his rest. Did they sing, one wonders, one of those
 
 Addison, The Hiunorist 207 
 
 verses which had been the most intimate utterance of his life : 
 that great hymn of creation, scarcely inferior to the angelic mur- 
 murines of medieval Francis in his cell at Assisi ? — 
 
 Soon as the evening shades prevail 
 
 The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 
 
 And nightly to the listening earth 
 
 Repeats the story of her birth ; 
 
 Whilst all the stars that round her burn, 
 
 And all the planets in their turn, 
 
 Confirm the tidings as they roll. 
 
 And spread the truth from pole to pole. • 
 
 Or one of those humble and more fervent human utterances of 
 faith and humility and thanksgiving? — 
 
 Through every period of my life, 
 
 Thy goodness I '11 pursue, 
 And after death, in distant worlds. 
 
 The glorious theme renew. 
 
 When nature fails, and day and night 
 
 Divide thy works no more, 
 My ever-grateful heart, O Lord, 
 
 Thy mercy shall adore. 
 
 Through all eternity to thee 
 
 A joyful song I '11 raise. 
 But, oh ! eternity 's too short 
 
 To utter all thy praise. 
 
 With such a soft, yet rapturous, strain the lofty arches and 
 half-seen aisles, perhaps with a summer moon looking in, taking 
 up the wondrous tale, might have echoed over Addison — the 
 gentlest soul of all those noble comrades who lie together await- 
 ing the restitution of all things — when our great humorist, our 
 mildest kind " Spectator," all his comments over, was laid in the 
 best resting-place England can give to those whom she loves.

 
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