Note 332 — [Steele.

In reply to this suggestion that the character of Polypragmon was meant for Harley, Steele said, in the Guardian, No. 53: "I drew it as the most odious image I could paint of ambition.... Whoever seeks employment for his own private interest, vanity, or pride, and not for the good of his prince and country, has his share in the picture of Polypragmon; and let this be the rule in examining that description, and I believe the Examiner will find others to whom he would rather give a part of it, than to the person on whom I believe he bestows it, because he thinks he is the most capable of having his vengeance on me.... I have not, like him, fixed odious images on persons, but on vices." To this the Examiner (vol. iv. No. 2) replied: "He would insinuate, that Timon and Polypragmon are general characters, and stand for a whole species, or, as he quaintly words it, for Knights of the Shire. If this be true, why did he not before now silence the industrious clamours of his party, who both in print and public conversation applied those characters to persons of the first rank, though without any regard to the rules of resemblance?" The writer of "Annotations on the Tatler," 1710, in the preface to the second part, regretted that Steele had become a politician, and said, in allusion to Steele's experiments in alchemy: "Turning statesman and drudging for the Philosopher's Stone, are toils not altogether unlike each other; buffeting with fire, labouring in smoke, wearing out of lungs, and tiring oneself with expectation, are misfortunes common to both these projects; 'tis converting real gold to dross, out of a prospect of converting dross into real gold."