"Addison had bridled me in point of party." This was ill hinted, both with relation to him, and, sir,
Your most obedient humble servant,
TO MR. STEELE.
THE reason I give you the trouble of this reply to your letter, is because I am going in a very few days to Ireland: and although I intended to return toward winter, yet it may happen, from the common accidents of life, that I may never see you again.
In your yesterday's letter, you are pleased to take the complaining side, and think it hard I should write to Mr. Addison as I did, only for an allusion. This allusion was only calling a clergyman of some little distinction an infidel: a clergyman, who was your friend, who always loved you, who had endeavoured at least to serve you; and who, whenever he did write any thing, made it sacred to himself never to fling out the least hint against you.
One thing you are pleased to fix on me, as what you are sure of; that the Examiner had talked after me, when he said, "Mr. Addison had bridled you in point of party." I do not read one in six of those papers, nor ever knew he had such a passage; and I am so ignorant of this, that I cannot tell what
