It was the misfortune of the Duchess of Marlborough to have this witty and malignant satirist for an enemy.  He exposed her peculiarities, and laid bare her character with fearless effrontery.  It was thus that he attacked the most powerful woman in England:  “A lady of my acquaintance appropriated L26 a year out of her allowance for certain uses which the lady received, or was to pay to the lady or her order when called for.  But after eight years it appeared upon the strictest calculation that the woman had paid but L4, and sunk L22 for her own pocket.  It is but supposing L26 instead of L26,000, and by that you may judge what the pretensions of modern merit are when it happens to be its own paymaster.”  Who could stand before such insinuations?  The Duchess afterwards attempted to defend herself against the charge of peculation as the keeper of the privy purse; but no one believed her.  She was notoriously avaricious and unscrupulous.  Swift spared no personage in the party of the Whigs, when by so doing he could please the leaders of the Tories.  And he wrote in an age when libels were scandalous and savage,—­libels which would now subject their authors to punishment.  The acrimony of party strife at that time has never since been equalled.  Even poets attacked each other with savage recklessness.  There was no criticism after the style of Sainte-Beuve.  Writers sought either to annihilate or to extravagantly praise.  The jealousy which poets displayed in reference to each other’s productions was as unreasonable and bitter as the envy and strife between country doctors, or musicians at the opera.

There was one great writer in the age of Queen Anne who was an exception to this nearly universal envy and bitterness; and this was Addison, who was as serene and calm as other critics were furious and unjust.  Even Swift spared this amiable and accomplished writer, although he belonged to the Whig party.  Joseph Addison, born in 1672, was the most fortunate man of letters in his age,—­perhaps in any succeeding age in English history.  He was early distinguished as a writer of Latin poems; and in 1699, at the age of twenty-seven, the young scholar was sent by Montague, at the recommendation of Somers, to the Continent, on a pension of L300 a year, to study languages with a view to the diplomatic service.  On the accession of Anne, Addison was obliged to return to literature for his support.  Solicited by Godolphin, under the advice of Halifax, to write a poem on the victories of Marlborough, he wrote one so popular that he rapidly rose in favor with the Whig ministry.  In 1708 he was made secretary for Ireland, under Lord Wharton, and entered Parliament.  He afterwards was made secretary of state, married a peeress, and spent his last days at Holland House.