Popularity is more often significant of the tact which makes a man avoid giving offence, than of the warm impulses of a generous nature.

A good man who mixes with the world ought to be hated, if not to hate.

But whatever we may say against his excessive goodness, Addison deserved and received universal esteem, which in some cases became enthusiastic.

Foremost amongst his admirers was the warm-hearted, reckless, impetuous Steele, the typical Irishman; and amongst other members of his little senate--as Pope called it--were Ambrose Philips and Tickell, young men of letters and sound Whig politics, and more or less competitors of Pope in literature.

When Pope was first becoming known in London the Whigs were out of power; Addison and his friends were generally to be found at Button's Coffee-house in the afternoon, and were represented to the society of the time by the _Spectator_, which began in March, 1711, and appeared daily to the end of 1712.