To cater further to the Artificial Age, the literary cravings of which far exceeded those of any former period, there sprang up a school of Essayists, most of whom were also poets, dramatists, and politicians.  Among these Addison, Steele, and Swift stand pre-eminent.  Each of them was a man of distinct and interesting personality.  Two of them—­Addison and Swift—­presented such a remarkable contrast, that it has been usual for writers on this period of English Literature to bring them together as foils to each other.  This has led to injustice towards Swift; they should be placed in juxtaposition because they are of the same period, and because of their joint efforts in the literary development of the age.  The period is distinctly marked.  We speak as currently of the wits and the essayists of Queen Anne’s reign as we do of the authors of the Elizabethan age.

A glance at contemporary history will give us an intelligent clue to our literary inquiries, and cause us to observe the historical character of the literature.

To a casual observer, the reign of Queen Anne seems particularly untroubled and prosperous.  English history calls it the time of “Good Queen Anne;” and it is referred to with great unction by the laudator temporis acti, in unjust comparison with the period which has since intervened, as well as with that which preceded it.

QUEEN ANNE.—­The queen was a Protestant, as opposed to the Romanists and Jacobites; a faithful wife, and a tender mother in her memory of several children who died young.  She was merciful, pure, and gracious to her subjects.  Her reign was tolerant.  There was plenty at home; rebellion and civil war were at least latent.  Abroad, England was greatly distinguished by the victories of Marlborough and Eugene.  But to one who looks through this veil of prosperity, a curious history is unfolded.  The fires of faction were scarcely smouldering.  It was the transition period between the expiring dynasty of the direct line of Stuarts and the coming of the Hanoverian house.  Women took part in politics; sermons like that of Sacheverell against the dissenters and the government were thundered from the pulpit.  Volcanic fires were at work; the low rumblings of an earthquake were heard from time to time, and gave constant cause of concern to the queen and her statesmen.  Men of rank conspired against each other; the moral license of former reigns seems to have been forgotten in political intrigue.  When James II. had been driven out in 1688, the English conscience compromised on the score of the divine right of kings, by taking his daughter Mary and her husband as joint monarchs.  To do this, they affected to call the king’s son by his second wife, born in that year, a pretender.  It was said that he was the child of another woman, and had been brought to the queen’s bedside in a warming-pan, that James might be able to present, thus fraudulently, a Roman Catholic heir to the throne.  In this they did the king injustice, and greater injustice to the queen, Maria de Modena, a pleasing and innocent woman, who had, by her virtues and personal popularity alone, kept the king on his throne, in spite of his pernicious measures.