gett, the actor, whose benefit is coming off that night: Addison praises Don Saltero: Addison praises Milton with all his heart, bends his knee and frankly pays homage to that imperial genius.* But between those degrees of his men his praise is very scanty. I don't think the great Mr. Addison liked young Mr. Pope, the Papist, much; I don't think he abused him. But when Mr. Addison's men abused Mr. Pope, I don't think Addison took his pipe out of his mouth to contradict them.† Addison's father was a clergyman of good repute in Wiltshire, and rose in the church. His famous son never lost his clerical training and scholastic gravity, and was called "a parson in a tye-wig" in London afterwards at "Milton's chief talent, and indeed his distinguishing excellence, lies in the sublimity of his thoughts. There are others of the moderns, who rival him in every other part of poetry; but in the greatness of his sentiments he triumphs over all the poets, both modern and ancient, Homer alone excepted. It is impossible for the imagination of man to disturb itself with greater ideas than those which he has laid together in his first, second, and sixth books."- Spectator, No. 279. "If I were to name a poet that is a perfect master in all these arts of working on the imagination, I think Milton may pass for one."- Ibid, No. 417. These famous papers appeared in each Saturday's "Spectator," from January 19th to May 3d, 1712. Beside his services to Milton, we may place those he did to Sacred Music. a time when tye-wigs were only worn by the laity, and the fathers of theology did not think it decent to appear except in a full bottom. Having been at school at Salisbury, and the Charterhouse, in 1687, when he was fifteen years old, he went to Queen's College, Oxford, where he speedily began to distinguish himself by the making of Latin verses. The beautiful and fanciful poem of "The Pygmies and Cranes," is still read by lovers of that sort of exercise; and verses are extant in honor of King William, by which it appears that it was the loyal youth's custom to toast that sovereign in bumpers of purple Lyæus: many more works are in the Collection, including one on the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, which was so good that Montague got him a pension of 300l. a year, on which Addison set out on his travels. During his ten years at Oxford, Addison had deeply imbued himself with the Latin poetical literature, and had these poets at his fingers' ends when he travelled in Italy.* His patron went out of office, and his pen mon freedom by a character like that of Mandeville."-JOHNSON: Lives of the Poets. "Old Jacob Tonson did not like Mr. Addison: he had a quarrel with him, and, after his quitting the secretaryship, used frequently to say of him- One day or other you'll see that man a bishop I'm sure he looks that way; and indeed I ever thought him a priest in his heart." "Addison was very kind to me at first,POPE. Spence's Anecdotes. but my bitter enemy afterwards."- POPE. Spence's Anecdotes. "Leave him as soon as you can,' said Addison to me, speaking of Pope; he will certainly play you some devilish trick else: he has an appetite to satire.'"-LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU. Spence's Anecdotes. Lancelot Addison, his father, was the son of another Lancelot Addison, a clergyman in Westmoreland. He became Dean of Lichfield and Archdeacon of Coventry. "The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an evening in his company, declared that he was a parson in a tye-wig,' can detract little from his character. He was always reserved to strangers, and was not incited to uncom "Mr. Addison staid above a year at Blois. He would rise as early as between two and three in the height of summer, and lie abed till between eleven and twelve in the depth of winter. He was untalkative whilst here, and often thoughtful: sometimes so lost in thought, that I have come into his room and staid five minutes there before he has known any thing of it. He had his masters generally at supper with him; kept very little company beside; and had no amour that I know of; and I think I should have known it if he had had any."-ABBÉ PHILIPPEAUX OF BLOIS. Spence's Anecdotes. * His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound."- MACAULAY. sion was unpaid: and hearing that | confidence, his conversation appears this great scholar, now eminent and to have been so delightful that the known to the literati of Europe (the greatest wits sat rapt and charmed to great Boileau,* upon perusal of Mr. listen to him. No man bore poverty Addison's elegant hexameters, was and narrow fortune with a more lofty first made aware that England was cheerfulness. His letters to his not altogether a barbarous nation) friends at this period of his life, when hearing that the celebrated Mr. Ad- he had lost his Government pension, dison, of Oxford, proposed to travel and given up his college chances, are as governor to a young gentleman on full of courage, and a gay confidence the grand tour, the great Duke of and philosophy: and they are none Somerset proposed to Mr. Addison to the worse in my eyes, and I hope accompany his son, Lord Hartford. not in those of his last and greatest biographer (though Mr. Macaulay is bound to own and lament a certain weakness for wine, which the great and good Joseph Addison notoriously possessed, in common with countless gentlemen of his time), because some of the letters are written when his honest hand was shaking a little in the morning after libations to purple Lyæus over night. He was fond of drinking the healths of his friends: he writes to Wyche,* of Hamburg, Mr. Addison was delighted to be of use to his Grace, and his lordship his Grace's son, and expressed himself ready to set forth. His Grace the Duke of Somerset now announced to one of the most famous scholars of Oxford and Europe that it was his gracious intention to allow my Lord Hartford's tutor one hundred guineas per annum. Mr. Addison wrote back that his services were his Grace's, but he by no means found his account in the recompense for them. The negotiation was broken off. They parted with a profusion of congées on one side and the other. Addison remained abroad for some time, living in the best society of Europe. How could he do other wise? He must have been one of the finest gentlemen the world ever saw at all moments of life serene and courteous, cheerful and calm.t He could scarcely ever have had a degrading thought. He might have omitted a virtue or two, or many, but could not have had many faults committed for which he need blush or turn pale. When warmed into *"Our country owes it to him, that the famous Monsieur Boileau first conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry, by perusing the present he made him of the 'Musa Anglicanæ."— TICKELL: Preface to Addison's Works. "It was my fate to be much with the wits; my father was acquainted with all of them. Addison was the best company in the world. I never knew anybody that had so much wit as Congreve." - LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU. Spence's Anecdotes. "MR. ADDISON TO MR. WYCHE. "DEAR SIR, But steady enough for a letter, so the proper- If gratefully remembering Wyche's describes him over his cups, when hoc." "I have been drinking your Joseph yielded to a temptation which health to-day with Sir Richard Shir- Jonathan resisted. Joseph was of a ley," he writes to Bathurst. "I cold nature, and needed perhaps the have lately had the honor to meet my fire of wine to warm his blood. If Lord Effingham at Amsterdam, he was a parson, he wore a tye-wig, where we have drunk Mr. Wood's recollect. A better and more Chrishealth a hundred times in excellent tian man scarcely ever breathed champagne," he writes again. Swift* than Joseph Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wine- why, we could scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have liked him as we do.* spects to ye owners of them, and desiring you to believe me always, "Dear Sir, "To Mr. Wyche, His Majesty's Resident at Hambourg, "May, 1703." From the Life of Addison, by Miss AIKIN. Vol. i. p. 146. *It is pleasing to remember that the relation between Swift and Addison was, on the whole, satisfactory from first to last. The value of Swift's testimony, when nothing personal inflamed his vision or warped his judgment, can be doubted by nobody. "Sept. 10, 1710.-I sat till ten in the evening with Addison and Steele. "11.-Mr. Addison and I dined together at his lodgings, and I sat with him part of this evening. 18.-To-day I dined with Mr. Stratford at Mr. Addison's retirement near Chelsea. fices I can from Mr. Addison. "27.-To-day all our company dined at Will Frankland's, with Steele and Addison, too. I will get what good of 29.- I dined with Mr. Addison," &c. ·Journal to Stella. Addison inscribed a presentation copy of his Travels "To Dr. Jonathan Swift, the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of his age. (SCOTT. From the information of Mr. Theophilus Swift.) "Mr. Addison, who goes over first secretary, is a most excellent person; and being my most intimate friend, I shall use all my credit to set him right in his notions of persons and things." - Letters. "I examine my heart, and can find no other reason why I write to you now, besides that great love and esteem I have always had for you. I have nothing to ask you either for my friend or for myself."-SWIFT to ADDISON (1717). SCOTT's Swift. Vol. xix. p. 274. Political differences only dulled for a while their friendly communications. Time renewed them; and Tickell enjoyed Swift's friendship as a legacy from the man with whose memory his is so honorably connected. At thirty-three years of age, this most distinguished wit, scholar, and gentleman was without a profession and an income. His book of "Travels " had failed: his "Dialogues on Medals" had had no particular success; his Latin verses, even though reported the best since Virgil, or Statius at any rate, had not brought him a Government place, and Addison was living up two shabby pair of stairs in the Haymarket (in a poverty over which old Samuel Johnson rather chuckles), when in these shabby rooms an emissary from Government and Fortune came and found him. A poem was wanted about the Duke of Marlborough's victory of Blenheim. Would Mr. Addison write one? Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord Carleton, took back the reply to the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, that Mr. Addison would. When the poem had reached a certain stage, it was carried to Godolphin; and the last lines which he read were these: *"Addison usually studied all the morning; then met his party at Button's; dined there, and staid five or six hours, and sometimes far into the night. I was of the company for about a year, but found it too much for me: it hurt my health, and so I quitted it."-POPE. Spence's Anecdotes. "When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness of appearance which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power, and was, therefore for a time, at full leisure for the cultivation of his mind."-JOHNSON: Lives of the Poets. poe Addison left off at a good moment. That simile was pronounced to be of the greatest ever produced in try. That angel, that good angel, flew off with Mr. Addison, and landed him in the place of Commissioner of Appeals vice Mr. Locke providentially promoted. In the following year Mr. Addison went to Hanover with Lord Halifax, and the year after was made Under Secretary of State. O angel visits! you come "few and far between to literary gentlemen's lodgings! Your wings seldom quiver at second-floor windows now! You laugh? You think it is in the power of few writers now-a-days to call up such an angel? Well, perhaps not; but permit us to comfort ourselves by pointing out that there are in the poem of the "Campaign" some as bad lines as heart can desire; and to hint that Mr. Addison did very wisely in not going further with my Lord Godolphin than that angelical simile. Do allow me, just for a little harmless mischief, to read you some of the lines which follow. Here is the interview between the Duke and the King of the Romans after the battle: "Austria's young monarch, whose imperial sway Sceptres and thrones are destined to obey, Whose boasted ancestry so high extends That in the Pagan Gods his lineage ends, Comes from afar, in gratitude to own The great supporter of his father's throne. What tides of glory to his bosom ran Clasped in the embraces of the godlike man! How were his eyes with pleasing wonder fixed, To see such fire with so much sweetness mixed! Such easy greatness, such a graceful port, So learned and finished for the camp or court!" How many fourth-form boys at Mr. Addison's school of Charterhouse could write as well as that now? The " Campaign " has blunders, triumphant as it was; and weak points like all campaigns.* In the year 1718 "Cato" came out. Swift has left a description of the first night of the performance. All the laurels of Europe were scarcely sufficient for the author of this prodigious poem.† Laudations of Whig and Tory chiefs, popular ovations, complimentary garlands from literary "Mr. Addison wrote very fluently; but he was sometimes very slow and scrupulous in correcting. He would show his almost every thing that any of them hinted verses to several friends; and would alter at as wrong. He seemed to be too diffi dent of himself, and too much concerned about his character as a poet, or (as he praise which, God knows, is but a very worded it) too solicitous for that kind of little matter after all!"- POPE. Spence's Anecdotes. in 1713, "I am content at present to be a "As to poetical affairs," says Pope, bare looker-on. . Cato was not so much the wonder of Rome in his days, as he is of Britain in ours; and though all used to make it thought a party play, yet the foolish industry possible has been what the author once said of another may affectionately about his studies, and writes very prettily about nightingales and birds'-nests, which he has found at Fulham for his lordship. Those nightingales were intended to warble in the ear of Lord Warwick's mamma. Addison married her ladyship in 1716; and died at Holland House three years after that splendid but dismal union.* men, translations in all languages, de- | Lord Warwick, in which he addresses light and homage from all- save him as "my dearest lord," and asks from John Dennis in a minority of one. Mr. Addison was called the " great Mr. Addison" after this. The Coffee-house Senate saluted him Divus: it was heresy to question that decree. Meanwhile he was writing political papers and advancing in the political profession. He went Secretary to Ireland. He was appointed Secretary of State in 1717. And letters of his are extant, bearing date some year or two before, and written to young "The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one side of the theatre were echoed back by the Tories on the other; while the author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause proceeding more from the hands than the head. I believe you have heard that, after all the applauses of the opposite faction, my Lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who played Cato, into the box, and presented him with fifty guineas in acknowledgment (as he expressed it) for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator."-POPE's Letter to SIR W. TRUMBULL. "Cato" ran for thirty-five nights without interruption. Pope wrote the Prologue, and Garth the Epilogue. It is worth noticing how many things in "Cato" keep their ground as habitual quotations, e.g.: him on terms much like those on which a "The lady was persuaded to marry Turkish princess is espoused-to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce, 'Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave.' The marriage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition to his happiness; it neither found them, nor made them, equal. Rowe's ballad of "The Despairing Shepherd' is said to have been written, either before or after marriage, upon this memorable pair." -DR. JOHNSON. "I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary of State with the less surprise, in that I knew that post was almost offered to him before. At that time he declined it, and I really believe that he would have done well to have declined it now. Such a post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic, and we may see the day when he will be heartily glad to resign them both."-LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU to POPE: Works, Lord Wharncliffe's edit., vol. ii. p. 111. The issue of this marriage was a daughter, Charlotte Addison, who inherited, on her mother's death, the estate of Bilton, near Rugby, which her father had purchased. She was of weak intellect, and died, unmarried, at an advanced age. Rowe appears to have been faithful to Addison during his courtship, for his Collection contains "Stanzas to Lady Warwick, on Mr. Addison's going to Ireland," in which her ladyship is called "Chloe," and Joseph Addison "Lycidas;" besides the ballad mentioned by the Doctor, and which is entitled "Colin's Complaint." But not even the interest attached to the name of Addison could induce the reader to peruse this composition, though one stanza may serve as a specimen : "What though I have skill to complainThough the Muses my temples have crowned; What though, when they hear my sweet strain, The Muses sit weeping around. |