T HE reign of Queen Anne is one of the most illustrious in English history. In literature it has been common to call it the Augustan age. In politics it has all the interest of a transition period, less agitating, but not less important, than the actual era of revolution. In war, it is, with the exception of the great European wars of the beginning of this century, the most glorious for the English arms of any that have elapsed since Henry V. set up his rights of conquest over France. Opinions c

A YEAR after the accession of William and Mary, and before any of the bitternesses and conflicts above recorded had openly begun, the only child of Anne on whose life any hopes could be built was born. Her many babies had died at birth or immediately after, and their quick and constant succession, as has been said, was the distinguishing feature of her personal life. But after the Revolution, when everything was settling out of the confusion of the crisis, and when as yet no further family troub

T HERE are few figures in history, and still fewer in literature, which have occupied so great a place in the world’s attention, or which retain so strong a hold upon its interest, as that of Jonathan Swift, dean of St. Patrick’s. It is considerably more than a century since he died, old and mad and miserable: a man who had never been satisfied with life, or felt his fate equal to his deserts; who disowned and hated (even when he served it) the country of his birth, and with fierce and bitter pa

T HE age of Queen Anne was one which abounded in paradoxes, and loved them. It was an age when England was full of patriotic policy, yet every statesman was a traitor; when tradition was dear, yet revolution practicable; when speech was gross and manners unrefined, yet the laws of literary composition rigid, and correctness the test of poetry. It was full of high ecclesiasticism and strict Puritanism, sometimes united in one person. In it ignorance was most profound, yet learning most considered

T HERE is not a name in the entire range of English literature to which so full and universal an appreciation has been given by posterity as that of Addison. He had his critics in his day. He had, indeed, more than critics, and from one quarter at least has received in his breast the finest and sharpest sting which a friend estranged could put into poetic vengeance. But the burden even of contemporary voices was always overwhelmingly in his favor, and nowadays there is no one in the world, we be