Between Steele's _Guardian_ (1713) and the _Rambler_ of Johnson (1750), a period of thirty-seven years, a swarm of periodicals testify to the fame of Steele and Addison. The reader curious on the subject will find in Dr. Drake's essays a minute account of the numerous essayists who flourished, or who made an effort to live, between the close of the eighth volume of the _Spectator_ and the beginning of the present century. Of these a few have still a place on our shelves, but for the most part they enjoyed a butterfly existence, and serve but to prove the immeasurable superiority of the writers who created the English Essay.
[38] _English Dramatic Literature_, vol. ii., p. 603.
[39] 'It is a strange thing,' he writes, 'that you will not behave yourself with the obedience people of worse features do, but that I must be always giving you an account of every trifle and minute of my time.'
[40] Steele had been previously married to Mrs. Stretch, a widow, who possessed an estate in the West Indies; but the lady did not long survive the marriage.
[41] Victor's _Original Letters, Dramatic Pieces, and Poems_, vol. i., p. 330.
[42] _Selections from Steele_, by Austin Dobson. Introduction, p. xxx. Clarendon Press.
The booksellers who employed the most famous man of letters then living (1777), to write the _Lives of the Poets_, selected the authors whose biographies were to accompany the poems they proposed to publish. They did not know the difference between versemakers and poets; but they probably did know what authors of the rhyming tribe were likely to prove the most popular. Dr. Johnson, who was then in his sixty-ninth year, was willing to write the _Lives_ to order. He added, indeed, three or four names to the list which had been given him; but he made no protest, and contented himself, as he told Boswell, in saying that a man was a dunce when he thought that he was one.
Among the biographies included by Johnson in the _Lives_, appears the illustrious name of Swift. He was far indeed from being a dunce; but just as certainly he was not a poet, unless the title be given to him by courtesy. On the other hand, Swift ranks among the most distinguished prose writers of his time--many critics consider him the greatest--and he therefore finds his natural place in the prose section of this volume.