day—Addison, and Congreve, and Prior, and their friends—became commissioners of excise, of hackney coaches, and so forth, or found shelter in other pleasant little offices, then newly created, of which Ministers could dispose. Such patronage was, of course, not given for abstruse learning; scholars and antiquaries were not sought out in their studies or college lecture-rooms, or enabled to pursue recondite researches. Still less did it come to Grub Street. The recipients of the golden shower were 'wits,' or men known in 'the town,' which was no longer overshadowed by the Court. They were selected from the agreeable companions at one of the newly invented clubs, where statesmen could relax over their claret and brush up their schoolboy recollections of Horace and Homer. Halifax, Harley, and St. John could give a few crumbs from their table to the men whom they met at the Kitcat or the Brothers' Club. Swift hoped to be the founder of an academy which should direct patronage to men of letters, and the anecdotes of his attempts to help his poorer brethren show the most creditable side of his character. The pleasant time disappeared for an obvious reason. In the reign of Queen Anne the system of Party Government was
