Yet good fortune never deserted Mr. Addison for long. In 1704 the Duke of Marlborough won the famous victory of Blenheim, and forthwith the little Whig poets began to sing it. But much of their fustian was so sublimely bad that even the Lord Treasurer, Godolphin, to whom all poetry was very much alike, began to see that the triumph was suffering for lack of a worthy poet. In this emergency he applied to Montague, whom he supposed to know most about such matters, and Montague recommended his old protégé, Addison. Thus it happened--if Pope's story be correct--that one day there climbed to Mr. Addison's lodgings, up three flights in the Haymarket, no less a person than the Honorable Henry Boyle, Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the request that Mr. Addison write a poem. _The Campaign_, which Addison produced in response to this august invitation, will be voted by most readers to-day a dull poem; but it was much admired then, and one simile in particular, comparing Marlborough to an avenging angel, is said to have captivated the imagination of Godolphin. At all events, _The Campaign_ served to introduce Addison to public life. He was shortly after made Under-Secretary of State, and was never out of office again so long as he lived. In 1707 he was elected to Parliament; next year was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Ireland--where he was residing when Steele started _The Tatler_,--and although he lost that office when the Whigs went into a minority in 1710, yet he was one of the few Whigs elected to Parliament that year; after the death of Anne he went to Ireland again as Chief Secretary, and for a little time before his death reached his highest office as Secretary of State for England. It was a career of easy and uninterrupted prosperity. "I believe Mr. Addison could be elected king if he chose," said Swift with a twinge of envy. Yet Addison would never have been remembered for his public services. His title to lasting fame, like that of Steele, rests upon the work done for _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_. The later writings of the two men are of less importance. _The Spectator_ was discontinued at the end of 1712, and through the following year Steele conducted a similar periodical, _The Guardian_, from which political discussion was not to be so rigidly excluded as it had been from _The Spectator_. In the next five years he attempted three or four other papers, but they were all short-lived, and of little interest. Addison revived _The Spectator_ in 1714, issuing it thrice a week for a year, and in 1715-16 he conducted for some months a periodical called _The Freeholder_ in the interest of party measures he was then advocating. But neither Steele nor Addison ever had much success in managing an enterprise of this sort alone.