t a play might be, though
it is not wholly what a play should be.

[Footnote 332: In reply to this suggestion that the character of
Polypragmon was meant for Harley, Steele said, in the _Guardian_, No.
53: "I drew it as the most odious image I could paint of ambition....
Whoever seeks employment for his own private interest, vanity, or pride,
and not for the good of his prince and country, has his share in the
picture of Polypragmon; and let this be the rule in examining that
description, and I believe the Examiner will find others to whom he
would rather give a part of it, than to the person on whom I believe he
bestows it, because he thinks he is the most capable of having his
vengeance on me.... I have not, like him, fixed odious images on
persons, but on vices." To this the _Examiner_ (vol. iv. No. 2) replied:
"He would insinuate, that Timon and Polypragmon are general characters,
and stand for a whole species, or, as he quaintly words it, for Knights
of the Shire. If this be true, why did he not before now silence the
industrious clamours of his party, who both in print and public
conversation applied those characters to persons of the first rank,
though without any regard to the rules of resemblance?" The writer of
"Annotations on the _Tatler_," 1710, in the preface to the second part,
regretted that Steele had become a politician, and said, in allusion to
Steele's experiments in alchemy: "Turning statesman and drudging for the
Philosopher's Stone, are toils not altogether unlike each other;
buffeting with fire, labouring in smoke, wearing out of lungs, and
tiring oneself with expectation, are misfortunes common to both these
projects; 'tis converting real gold to dross, out of a prospect of
converting dross into real gold."]

[Footnote 333: A burlesque of Lee's "Rival Queens; or, the Death of
Alexander the Great," by Gibber, called "The Rival Queans; or, the
Humours of Alexander the Great," was acted at Drury Lane in 1710, but
not printed until 1729.]

[Footnote 334: An adaptation of Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy, by the
Duke of Buckingham, 1682.]

No. 192. [ADDISON.

From _Thursday, June 29_, to _Saturday, July 1, 1710_.

Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens.--HOR., 3 Od. ix. 24.

* * * * *

_From my own Apartment, June 30._

Some years since I was engaged with a coachful of friends to take a
journey as f