The essayist thinks it fortunate for the Whigs 'that their very enemies acknowledge the finest women of Great Britain to be of that party;' and in an amusing but rather absurd way he discourses to maids, wives, and widows on the advantages of adhering to the Hanoverian Government. It is characteristic of Addison that a political paper like the _Freeholder_ should be flavoured with the humour and badinage he found so effective in the _Spectator_. To the ladies he appeals again and again, but not to their reason. He gives them mirth instead of argument, and thinks it more likely to prevail with the 'Fair Sex.' The _Freeholder_ has several papers worthy of the author in his best moods, the best of them, perhaps, being the 'Tory Fox-hunter,' with which, to quote Johnson's words, 'bigotry itself must be delighted.' In the year which gave birth to the _Freeholder_, _The Drummer_, a comedy, was acted at Drury Lane, and ran three nights. The play was not acknowledged by Addison, neither was it printed in Tickell's edition of his works; but Steele, who published an edition of the play, with a dedication to Congreve, never doubted, and there is no reason to doubt, that Addison was the author. 'The piece,' Mr. Courthope writes, 'is like _Cato_, a standing proof of Addison's deficiency in dramatic genius. The plot is poor and trivial, nor does the dialogue, though it shows in many passages traces of its author's peculiar vein of humour, make amends by its brilliancy for the tameness of the dramatic situation.'[37] After the _Freeholder_ Addison wrote nothing of importance, unless we except the essay published after his death _On the Evidences of Christianity_. Of this essay it will suffice to quote the judgment of his most distinguished eulogist. After observing that the treatise shows the narrow limits of Addison's classical knowledge, Lord Macaulay adds: 'It is melancholy to see how helplessly he gropes his way from blunder to blunder. He assigns as grounds for his religious belief stories as absurd as that of the Cock Lane Ghost, and forgeries as rank as Ireland's Vortigern; puts faith in the lie about the Thundering Legion; is convinced that Tiberius moved the senate to admit Jesus among the gods, and pronounces the letter of Agbarus, King of Edessa, to be a record of great authority. Nor were these errors the effects of superstition, for to superstition Addison was by no means prone. The truth is, that he was writing about what he did not understand.'