wits of whose names we shall treat in this lecture and two following, all (save one) touched the King's coin, and had, at some period of their lives, a happy quarter-day coming round for them.
They all began at school or college in the regular way, producing panegyrics upon public characters, what were called odes upon public events, battles, sieges, court marriages and deaths, in which the gods of Olympus and the tragic muse were fatigued with invocations, according to the fashion of the time in France and in England. Aid us Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, cried Addison, or Congreve, singing of William or Marlborough. "Accourez, chastes nymphes de Permesse," says Boileau, celebrating the Grand Monarch. "Des sons
of the Records in Ireland; Lord of Trade; and one of the Principal Secretaries of State, successively.
Steele.—Commissioner of the Stamp Office; Surveyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court; and Governor of the Royal Company of Comedians; Commissioner of "Forfeited Estates in Scotland."
Prior.—Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague; Gentleman of the Bedchamber to King William; Secretary to the Embassy in France; Under Secretary of State; Ambassador to France.
Tickell.—Under Secretary of State; Secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland.
Congreve.—Commissioner for licensing Hackney Coaches; Commissioner for Wine Licenses; Place in the Pipe Office; post in the Custom House; Secretary of Jamaica.
Gay.—Secretary to the Earl of Clarendon (when Ambassador to Hanover.)
John Dennis.—A place in the Custom House.
"En Angleterre. . . . . . les lettres sont plus en honneur qu'ici."
—Voltaire, Lettres sur les Anglais, Let. 20.
