Already, on March the 12th, 1713, Steele had issued the first number of his Guardian, the plan of which gave him more liberty to write as a politician, which he became in becoming member for Stockbridge. The Guardian, however, he brought to an end, of his own freewill, on the 1st of October, when it had reached 175 numbers, and five days later he issued the first number of the Englishman. The Englishman did not live very long, but for the writing of its last number, as well as for the celebrated Crisis, he was expelled from the House of Commons by a factious majority. Swift attacked the Crisis with all his force in The Public Spirit of the Whigs. In the Crisis Steele indulged in no personalities, unless we call his praise of the Scottish nation such. Swift, on the other hand, indulged in personal abuse of his manly opponent and one-time friend, and launched his bitterest satire at the poverty and greed of the Scotch. Though expelled the house the moral victory in the mêlée was with Steele.

Being now at leisure, owing to his expulsion and the discontinuance of the Englishman, Steele wrote An Apology for Himself and his Writings, which may be found in his Political Writings, published in 1715. Shortly after he produced a deservedly forgotten treatise entitled Romish Ecclesiastical History of Late Years, and in the same year two papers called The Lover and The Reader.

On the death of Queen Anne and accession of George I., Steele was appointed surveyor of the royal stables, governor of the Royal Company of Comedians, and a magistrate for Middlesex. In April, 1715, he was also knighted, and in George's first parliament he was chosen member for Boroughbridge. Finally, after the suppression of the rebellion in the north, he was made one of the commissioners of the forfeited estates. In this year, 1715, he published An Account of the State of the Roman Catholic Religion throughout the World, as well as A Letter from the

duced a second volume of the Englishman; in 1718 An Account of his Fishpool; in 1719 The Spinster, a pamphlet; and A Letter to the Earl of Oxford concerning the Bill of Peerage. This bill he opposed in the House of Commons as well as in the Plebeian. Addison replied to his criticisms in the Old Whig, and thus, a year before the death of the latter, a coolness sprang up between the two friends. In 1720 Steele wrote two pieces against the South Sea scheme: one The Crisis of Property, the other A Nation a Family. In January of the same year, under the assumed name of Sir John Edgar, he commenced a paper called The Theatre, which he continued till the following 5th of April. During its existence his patent as governor of the Royal Company of Comedians was revoked. This, which was a heavy loss to him, he discussed calmly in a pamphlet called The State of the Case. In 1721, on the accession of Walpole to power, he was reinstated in his post, and in 1722 his Conscious Lovers was produced with great success.

Soon after this, having lost in 1723 his only surviving son, his health began to decline, and, hoping for an improvement, he moved from London to Bath, and from there to Llangunnor near Caermarthen, where he lodged with his agent and receiver of rents. In 1726 he had an attack of palsy, and on the 1st of September, 1729, he died, having "retained his cheerful sweetness of temper to the last.”

Steele's position in literature is only now, after many years, beginning to be properly appreciated. In him is well seen how ready the world is to take a man at his own measurement, for as he claimed to be only a "whetstone to the wit of others," as Professor Morley puts it, the world gave him credit for little more. As a dramatist he was superior to Addison- -as an editor superior beyond comparison. His essays form that part of the Spectator "which," says the writer just quoted, "took the widest grasp upon the hearts of man." "It was," continues Professor Morley, "the firm hand of his friend Steele that helped Addison up to the place in literature which became him. . . . There were those who argued that he was too careless of his own fame in unselfish labour for the exaltation of his friend, and no doubt his rare generosity of temper has been often misinterpreted. But . . . he knew his countrymen, and was in too genuine accord with the spirit of a time then distant but now come, to doubt that, when he was dead, his whole life's work would