was ready on occasion to
hail Swift as 'Jonathan' and, in the case of so highly cultivated a
specimen as Addison, to accept an author's marriage to a countess. The
patrons did not exact the personal subservience of the preceding
period; and there was a real recognition by the more powerful class of
literary merit of a certain order. Such a method, however, had obvious
defects. Men of the world have their characteristic weaknesses; and one,
to go no further, is significant. The Club in England corresponded more
or less to the Salon which at different times had had so great an
influence upon French literature. It differed in the marked absence of
feminine elements. The clubs meant essentially a society of bachelors,
and the conversation, one infers, was not especially suited for ladies.
The Englishman, gentle or simple, enjoyed himself over his pipe and his
bottle and dismissed his womenkind to their bed. The one author of the
time who speaks of the influence of women with really chivalrous
appreciation is the generous Steele, with his famous phrase about Lady
Elizabeth Hastings and a liberal education. The Clubs did not foster the
affectation of Moliere's _Precieuses_; but the general tone had a
coarseness and occasional brutality which shows too clearly that they
did not enter into the full meaning of Steele's most admirable saying.

To appreciate the spirit of this society we must take into account the
political situation and the intellectual implication. The parliamentary
statesman, no longer dependent upon court favour, had a more independent
spirit and personal self-respect. He was fully aware of the fact that he
represented a distinct step in political progress. His class had won a
great struggle against arbitrary power and bigotry. England had become
the land of free speech, of religious toleration, impartial justice, and
constitutional order. It had shown its power by taking its place among
the leading European states. The great monarchy before which the English
court had trembled, and from which even patriots had taken bribes in the
Restoration period, was met face to face in a long and doubtful struggle
and thoroughly humbled in a war, in which an English General, in command
of an English contingent, had won victories unprecedented in our history
since the Middle Ages. Patriotic pride received a stimulus such as that
which followed the defeat of the Armada and preceded the outburst of the
Elizabethan literature