To clear a suspicion which possessed the Court,
That _Cooper's-hill_, so much bragg'd on before,
Was writ by a vicar, who had forty pounds for't."

[342] Dr. Wagstaffe, in his "Character of Steele," alludes to the
rumour which Pope has sent down to posterity in a single
verse: "I should have thought Mr. Steele might have the
example of his _friend_ before his eyes, who _had the
reputation of being the author of The Dispensary_, till, by
two or three unlucky after-claps, he proved himself incapable
of writing it."--WAGSTAFFE'S _Misc. Works_, p. 136.

[343] I know not how to ascertain the degree of political skill which
Steele reached in his new career--he was at least a spirited
Whig, but the ministry was then under the malignant influence
of the concealed adherents to the Stuarts, particularly of
Bolingbroke, and such as Atterbury, whose secret history is
now much better known than in their own day. The terrors of
the Whigs were not unfounded. Steele in the House disappointed
his friends; from his popular Essays, it was expected he would
have been a fluent orator; this was no more the case with him
than Addison. On this De Foe said he had better have continued
the _Spectator_ than the _Tatler_.--LANSDOWNE'S _MSS._ 1097.

[344] Wagstaffe's "Miscellaneous Works," 1726, have been collected
into a volume. They contain satirical pieces of humour,
accompanied by some Hogarthian prints. His "Comment upon the
History of Tom Thumb," ridicules Addison's on the old ballad
of "Chevy Chase," who had declared "it was full of the
majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the
ancient poets," and quoted passages which he paralleled with
several in the AEneid. Wagstaffe tells us he has found "in the
library of a schoolboy, among other undiscovered valuable
authors, one more proper to adorn the shelves of Bodley or the
Vatican than to be confined to the obscurity of a private
study." This little Homer is the chanter of Tom Thumb. He
performs his office of "a true commentator," proving the
congenial spirit of the poet of Thumb with that of the poet of
AEneas. Addison got himself ridiculed for that fine natural
taste, which felt all the witchery of ou