stocracy. Addison replied with "The Old Whig," Steele rejoined
without alluding to the person of his opponent. But "The Old Whig"
could not restrain his political feelings, and contemptuously
described "little Dicky, whose trade it was to write pamphlets."
Steele replied with his usual warmth; but indignant at the charge of
"vassalage," he says, "I will end this paper, by firing every free
breast with that noble exhortation of the tragedian--

Remember, O my friends! the laws, the rights,
The generous plan of power deliver'd down
From age to age, &c."

Thus delicately he detects the anonymous author, and thus energetically
commends, while he reproves him!

Hooke (a Catholic), after he had written his "Roman History,"
published "Observations on Vertot, Middleton, &c., on the Roman
Senate," in which he particularly treated Dr. Middleton with a
disrespect for which the subject gave no occasion: this was attributed
to the Doctor's _offensive_ letter from Rome. Spelman, in replying to
this concealed motive of the Catholic, reprehends him with equal
humour and bitterness for his desire of _roasting a Protestant
parson_.

Our taste, rather than our passions, is here concerned; but the moral
sense still more so. The malice of faction has long produced this
literary calamity; yet great minds have not always degraded
themselves; not always resisted the impulse of their finer feelings,
by hardening them into insensibility, or goading them in the fury
of a misplaced revenge. How delightful it is to observe Marvell, the
Presbyterian and Republican wit, with that generous temper that
instantly discovers the alliance of genius, warmly applauding the
great work of Butler, which covered his own party with odium and
ridicule. "He is one of an excellent wit," says Marvell, "and
whoever dislikes the choice of his subject, cannot but commend the
performance."[346]

Clarendon's profound genius could not expand into the same liberal
feelings. He highly commends May for his learning, his wit and
language, and for his Supplement to Lucan, which he considered as "one
of the best epic poems in the English language;" but this great spirit
sadly winces in the soreness of his feelings when he alludes to May's
"History of the Parliament;" then we discover that this late
"ingenious person" performed his part "so meanly, that he seems to
have lost his wit when he left his honesty." Behold the political
criticism in literature! However we