Note 343 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS; (continued 3)

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.