conceive"--(having, as the wag observed, "conceived three times and
brought forth nothing"), and spoken sometimes, if not often--he did not
feel himself at home. He must have loathed the licentious and corrupt
Wharton, and felt besides a longing for the society of London, the
_noctes coenoeque Deûm_ he had left behind him. It was in Ireland,
however, that his real literary career began. Steele, in the spring of
1709, had commenced the _Tatler_, a thrice-a-week miscellany of foreign
news, town gossip, short sharp papers _de omnibus rebus et guibusdum
aliis_, with a sprinkling of moral and literary criticism. When Addison
heard of this scheme, he readily lent his aid to it, and then, as honest
Richard admits, "I fared like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful
neighbour to his aid,--I was undone by my auxiliary." To the _Tatler_
Addison contributed a number of papers, which, if slighter than his
better ones in the _Spectator_, were nevertheless highly characteristic
of his singular powers of observation, character-painting, humour, and
invention.

In November 1709, he returned to England, and not long after he shared
in the downfall of his party, and lost his secretaryship. This also is
thought to have injured him in a tender point. He had already conceived
an affection for the Countess-Dowager of Warwick, who had been disposed
to encourage the addresses of the Secretary, but looked coldly on
those of the mere man and scribbler Joseph Addison, who, to crown his
misfortunes at this time, had resigned his Fellowship, suffered some
severe pecuniary losses of a kind, and from a quarter which are both
obscure, and was trembling lest he should be deprived of his small Irish
office too. Yet, although reduced and well-nigh beggared, never did
his mind approve itself more rich. Besides writing a great deal in the
_Tatler_, he published a political journal, called the _Whig Examiner_,
in which, although the wit, we think, is not so fine as in his