Change of Ministry [August, 1710], he found leisure to engage more constantly in it.”  It was advanced indeed! for it was raised to a greater thing than I intended it!  For the elegance, purity, and correctness which appeared in his Writings were not so much my purpose; as (in any intelligible manner, as I could) to rally all those Singularities of human life, through the different Professions and Characters in it, which obstruct anything that was truly good and great.

After this Acknowledgement, you will see; that is, such a man as you will see, that I rejoiced in being excelled! and made those little talents (whatever they are) which I have, give way and be subservient to the superior qualities of a Friend, whom I loved! and whose modesty would never have admitted them to come into daylight, but under such a shelter.

So that all which the Editor has said (either out of design, or incapacity), Mr. CONGREVE! must end in this:  that STEELE has been so candid and upright, that he owes nothing to Mr. ADDISON as a Writer; but whether he do, or does not, whatever STEELE owes to Mr. ADDISON, the Public owe ADDISON to STEELE!

But the Editor has such a fantastical and ignorant zeal for his Patron, that he will not allow his correspondents [coadjutors] to conceal anything of his; though in obedience to his commands!

What I never did declare was Mr. ADDISON’s, I had his direct injunctions to hide; against the natural warmth and passion of my own temper towards my friends.

Many of the Writings now published as his, I have been very patiently traduced and culminated for; as they were pleasantries and oblique strokes upon certain of the wittiest men of the Age:  who will now restore me to their goodwill, in proportion to the abatement of [the] Wit which they thought I employed against them.

But I was saying, that the Editor won’t allow us to obey his Patron’s commands in anything which he thinks would redound to his credit, if discovered.  And because I would shew a little Wit in my anger, I shall have the discretion to shew you that he has been guilty, in this particular, towards a much greater man than your humble servant, and one whom you are much more obliged to vindicate.

Mr. DRYDEN, in his VIRGIL, after having acknowledged that a “certain excellent young man” [i.e., W. CONGREVE himself] had shewed him many faults in his translation of VIRGIL, which he had endeavoured to correct, goes on to say, “Two other worthy friends of mine, who desire to have their names concealed, seeing me straightened in my time, took pity on me, and gave me the Life of VIRGIL, the two Prefaces to the Pastorals and the Georgics, and all the Arguments in prose to the whole Translation.”  If Mr. ADDISON is one of the two friends, and the Preface to the Georgics be what the Editor calls the Essay upon the Georgics as one may