taposition because they are of the same period, and
because of their joint efforts in the literary development of the age. The
period is distinctly marked. We speak as currently of the wits and the
essayists of Queen Anne's reign as we do of the authors of the Elizabethan
age.

A glance at contemporary history will give us an intelligent clue to our
literary inquiries, and cause us to observe the historical character of
the literature.

To a casual observer, the reign of Queen Anne seems particularly
untroubled and prosperous. English history calls it the time of "Good
Queen Anne;" and it is referred to with great unction by the _laudator
temporis acti_, in unjust comparison with the period which has since
intervened, as well as with that which preceded it.

QUEEN ANNE.--The queen was a Protestant, as opposed to the Romanists and
Jacobites; a faithful wife, and a tender mother in her memory of several
children who died young. She was merciful, pure, and gracious to her
subjects. Her reign was tolerant. There was plenty at home; rebellion and
civil war were at least latent. Abroad, England was greatly distinguished
by the victories of Marlborough and Eugene. But to one who looks through
this veil of prosperity, a curious history is unfolded. The fires of
faction were scarcely smouldering. It was the transition period between
the expiring dynasty of the direct line of Stuarts and the coming of the
Hanoverian house. Women took part in politics; sermons like that of
Sacheverell against the dissenters and the government were thundered from
the pulpit. Volcanic fires were at work; the low rumblings of an
earthquake were heard from time to time, and gave constant cause of
concern to the queen and her statesmen. Men of rank conspired against each
other; the moral license of former reigns seems to have been forgotten in
political intrigue. When James II. had been driven out in 1688, the
English conscience compromised on the score of the divine right of kings,
by taking his daughter Mary and her husband as joint monarchs. To do this,
they affected to call the king's son by his second wife, born in that
year, a pretender. It was said that he was the child of another woman, and
had been brought to the queen's bedside in a warming-pan, that James might
be able to present, thus fraudulently, a Roman Catholic heir to the
throne. In this they did the king injustice, and greater injustice to the
queen, Maria de Modena, a pleasing an