My purpose in this study is to examine in some detail the per-
sonal, political, and literary relations of these three men, and
to set the known facts about their friendship and their quarrels
against the background of party warfare and political journalism
in the last six years of Queen Anne. Throughout, my emphasis
is upon Swift, rather than Addison and Steele, and I have
analyzed as much of his political writing as has seemed relevant.
The split between him and his Whig friends may also, I think,
involve more than politics; for running deeper than the political
differences separating these figures are differences about funda-
mental intellectual, moral, and religious issues of their age. For
this reason, I have undertaken in the Introduction to provide
a framework of contrasting intellectual traditions and literary
assumptions, a framework which is perhaps essential for any
real understanding of their overt personal difficulties. The re-
maining chapters will then investigate their more explicit, if no
less complicated, clash over political loyalties and convictions.

I am grateful to the Clarendon Press for permission to quote
passages from The Poems of Jonathan Swift, The Journal to
Stella, The Letters of Joseph Addison, and Steele The English-
man; and to G. Bell and Sons for permission to quote from The
Correspondence of Jonathan Swift. Quotations from The Prose
Works of Jonathan Swift are made by permission of Sir Basil
Blackwell. Between the inception of this study as a dissertation
at Princeton University and its present publication, I have re-
ceived a great deal of help and advice. I wish to extend my partic-
ular thanks to Professor Irvin Ehrenpreis of Indiana University,
who made valuable suggestions for revision of the original thesis;
and to Professors Henry K. Miller, Jr., of Princeton and Paul A.
Olson of the University of Nebraska, for their personal assistance
and scholarly advice. I am indebted to the Research Council of
Lawrence College for grants which enabled me to continue the
project. My greatest thanks, however, are to Professor Louis A.
Landa of Princeton, who suggested the subject, supervised the
dissertation, and generously provided guidance and encourage-
ment.

-viii-