=149=: 23. =A story I have heard.= Addison probably invented this story, and he certainly thought well of it himself. On the same day this paper was printed he sent to his friend Edward Wortley Montague a letter beginning thus: "Being very well pleased with this day's _Spectator_, I cannot forbear sending you one of them, and desiring your opinion of the story in it. When you have a son, I shall be glad to be his Leontine, as my circumstances will probably be like his." The tone of discouragement in the last clause is explained by Addison's statements, later in the letter, that he has recently lost large sums of money, "and what is worse than all the rest, my mistress." The Countess of Warwick was evidently not smiling upon him just then, and Addison saw himself in the future--if not like Leontine, a widower--a bachelor in humble circumstances. =149=: 27. =Like a novel.= The word _novel_ was introduced into English in the sixteenth century as a name for the Italian _novelle_, or short tales, translations of which were then very numerous in England. In Addison's time it was still used to designate a short story as distinguished from the longer romances like those in the _Ladies Library_ (V of this volume). The modern novel, an extended narrative of real life, with careful plot usually having for its central motion the passion of love, was not yet written in English. It is usually said to begin with the work of Richardson and Fielding, 1740-1750. =150=: 14. =Gazette.= The official journal of the government. Steele, it will be remembered, had been gazetteer from May, 1707, to October, 1710, when the Whigs went out of power. =150=: 23. =According to Mr. Cowley.= "You would advise me not to precipitate that resolution [of retiring from public life] but to stay a while longer with patience and complaisance, till I had gotten such an estate as might afford me (according to the saying of that person whom you and I love very much and would believe as soon as another man) 'cum dignitate otium.' That were excellent advice to Joshua, who could bid the sun stay too. But there is no fooling with life when it is once turned beyond forty. The seeking for a fortune then is but a desperate after-game."--Cowley's Essay, _The Danger of Procrastination_. Also see note, p. 234. =150=: 29. =Of three hundred a year=, _i.e_. yielding an income of three hundred pounds a year. =152=: 19. =Inns of Court.= See note, p. 221. XXI. WHIGS AND TORIES =Motto.= "This thirst of kindred blood, my sons, detest, Nor turn your force against your country's breast." --Virgil, _Æneid_, vi. 832. Dryden's tr.