CHAPTER VIII.
In our last talk we had an opening skirmish with a group of royal people; we saw James II. flitting away ignominiously from a throne he could not fill or hold; we saw that rough fighter, the opinionated William III., coming to his honors—holding hard, and with gauntleted hand, his amiable consort, Queen Mary. I spoke of the relationship of these two; also had some fore-words about Mary’s sister, the future Queen Anne, and about the death of her boy, the little Duke of Gloucester.
I had something to say of that easy and artful poet, Matthew Prior, who smartly wrote his way, by judicious panegyrics and well-metred song, from humble station to that of ambassador at the court of France. We had a taste of the elegant Congreve, and said much of that bouncer of a man Daniel De Foe; the character of this latter we cannot greatly esteem—but when can we cease to admire the talent that gave to us the story of Robinson Crusoe?
Then I spoke to you of Sir Richard Steele—poor Steele! poor Prue! And I spoke also of his friend Addison, the courtly, the reticent, the graceful, and the good. All of these men outlived William and Mary; all of them shone—in their several ways—through the days of Queen Anne.