and afterwards to the press, and sold the copy for fifty guineas.

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

He was not all this time an indifferent spectator of public affairs.
He wrote, as different exigences required (in 1707), "The Present
State of the War, and the Necessity of an Augmentation;" which,
however judicious, being written on temporary topics, and exhibiting
no peculiar powers, laid hold on no attention, and has naturally
sunk by its own weight into neglect. This cannot be said of the few
papers entitled the Whig Examiner, in which is employed all the
force of gay malevolence and humorous satire. Of this paper, which
just appeared and expired, Swift remarks, with exultation, that "it
is now down among the dead men." He might well rejoice at the death
of that which he could not have killed. Every reader of every
party, since personal malice is past, and the papers which once
inflamed the nation are read only as effusions of wit, must wish for
more of the Whig Examiners; for on no occasion was the genius of
Addison more vigorously exerted, and on none did the superiority of
his powers more evidently appear. His "Trial of Count Tariff,"
written to expose the treaty of commerce with France, lived no
longer than the question that produced it.

Not long afterwards an attempt was made to revive the Spectator, at
a time indeed by no means favourable to literature, when the
succession of a new family to the throne filled the nation with