A career suggesting a poor man's Pope--deprived of clerical office for non-juring, Russel became a prolific professional writer and translator. Though the two didn't know each other, their names were often associated because of their similar politics and shared enemies (Cibber, e.g.). According to DNB the Grub-Street Journal is Russel's major achievement. His later years were less happy: "Russel's manuscript copies of the original letters reveal his last years to have been marked by unrelenting Jacobitism, worries over money, and urinary disease."