own calling. He heartily hates an ill poet, and throws himself into a passion when he talks of any one that has not a high respect for Homer and Virgil. I don't know whether there is more of old age or truth in his censures on the French writers, but he wonderfully decries the present, and extols very much his former contemporaries, especially hist two intimate friends Arnaud and Racine. I asked him whether he thought Télémaque was not a good modern piece: he spoke of it with a great deal of esteem, and said that it gave us a better notion of Homer's way of writing than any translation of his works could do, but that it falls however infinitely short of the Odyssey, for Mentor, says he, is eternally preaching, but Ulysses shows us everything in his character and behaviour that the other is still pressing on us by his precepts and instructions. He said the punishment of bad kings was very well invented, and might compare with anything of that nature in the 6th Æneid, and that the deceit put on Télémaque's pilot to make him misguide his master is more artful and poetical than the death of Palinurus. I mention his discourse on this author because it is at present the book that is everywhere talked of, and has a great many partisans for and against it in this country. I found him as warm in crying up this man and the good poets in general, as he has been in censuring the bad ones of his time, as we commonly observe that the man who makes the best friend is the worst enemy. He talked very much of Corneille, allowing him to be an excellent poet, but at the same time none of the best tragic writers, for that he declaimed too frequently, and made very fine descriptions often when there was no occasion for them. Aristotle, says he, proposes two passions that are proper to be raised by tragedy, terror and pity, but Corneille endeavours at a new one, which is admiration. He instanced in his Pompey, (which he told us the late Duke of Condé thought the best tragedy that was ever written,) where in the first scene the king of Egypt runs into a very pompous and long description of the battle of Pharsalia, though he was then in a great hurry of affairs and had not himself been present at it. I hope your Lordship will excuse me for this kind of intelligence, for in so is said to have conceived a high idea of the English genius for poetry, on perusing the Musa Anglicanæ, of which the new volume, then recently published, was presented to him by Addison. beaten a road as that of France it is impossible to talk of anything new unless we may be allowed to speak of particular persons, that are always changing, and may therefore furnish different matter for as many travellers as pass through the country. I am, my Lord, your Lordship's, &c. J. ADDISON. To the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. ADDISON TO THE EARL OF MANCHESTER. [Italy, February, 1701.] Analysis. Congratulating his Lordship on his promotion to the office of principal Secretary of State,' with thanks for kind mention of him to Lord Halifax, and offering his services abroad. ADDISON TO LORD HALIFAX.2 [Italy,] March, 1701. Analysis. An apology for having "a long time denied myself the honour of writing to your Lordship," &c.-" As I The appointment was gazetted, January 4, 1701, thus: "Charles (Montagu) Earl of Manchester, vice Lord Jersey." We therefore presume this letter to have been written in the following month. The Earl of Manchester had previously been ambassador to France, and resided in Paris during Addison's visit. Macky describes him as of " greater application than capacity, of good address, but no elocution; very honest and a lover of his constitution." It was in compliment to the lady of this nobleman that Addison composed the well-known lines engraved on his toasting-glass at the Kit-cat club, and printed at our page 228. It was a rule of the club that each member, on his admission, should name the lady of his choice and write a verse to her beauty. 2 In this year (April, 1701) Charles Montagu, Lord Halifax, (who had been elected a peer in 1700,) was impeached by the Commons in Parliament, for procuring exorbitant grants from the crown to his own use; and further charged with cutting down and wasting the timbers in his Majesty's forests, and with holding several offices in the exchequer that were inconsistent and designed as checks upon each other. The Commons had addressed the king to remove him from his councils and presence for ever. These were the causes of his retiring, although he was favoured by the king and justified by the peers. At this period also Mr. Addison addressed to him his celebrated " Epistle," a noble proof of his gratitude and good feeling. For further notice of Lord Halifax see p. 377. first of all undertook my travels by your Lordship's encouragement, I have endeavoured to pursue them in such a manner, as might make me best answer your expectations.-I could almost wish that it was less for my advantage than it is to be entirely devoted to your Lordship, that I might not seem to speak so much out of interest as inclination; for I must confess, the more I see of mankind the more I learn to value an extraordinary character, which makes me more ambitious than ever of showing myself, my Lord, Your Lordship's, &c."] ADDISON TO MR. [WORTLEY] MONTAGU.1 DEAR SIR, [Rome,] August 7, [1701.] I hope this will find you safe at Geneva, and that the adventure of the rivulet which you have so well celebrated in your last, has been the worst you have met with in your journey thither. I cannot but envy your being among the Alps, where you may see frost and snow in the dog-days. We are here quite burnt up, and are at least ten degrees nearer the sun then when you left us. I am very well satisfied it was in August that Virgil wrote his, O quis me gelidis sub montibus Hæmi, &c. Our days at present, like those in the first chapter of Genesis, consist only of the evening and the morning; for the Roman noons are as silent as the midnights of other countries. But, among all these inconveniencies, the greatest I suffer is from your departure, which is more afflicting to me than the canicule. I am forced, for want of better company, to converse mostly with pictures, statues, and medals. For you must know I deal very much in ancient coins, and can count out a sum in sesterces with as much The original holograph is in the Bodleian Library (in Ballard's MSS. vol. xx. page 24). It is without place, but presumed to be written from Rome in 1701. Álthough this letter has been printed in five different collections, 1800, (Gents. Mag. 1791, Addisoniana, 1803, Seward's Anecdotes, Drake's Essays, 1805, and Miss Aikin, 1843,) no one seems to have followed the original, which not only has the superscription to Montagu, but also has the name of Alston after Sir Thomas. The Gents. Mag. describes it erroneously as addressed to Dr. Chartlett, (whose letters in the Bodleian were published by Aubrey,) and Miss Aikin prints it as a letter "without date of place or address, but manifestly written from Rome, and no doubt genuine." ease as in pounds sterling. I am a great critic in rust, and can tell the age of it at first sight. I am only in some danger of losing my acquaintance with our English money; for at present I am much more used to the Roman. If you glean up any of our country news, be so kind as to forward it this way. Pray give Mr. Dashwood's and my very humble service to Sir Thomas Alston, and accept of the same yourself, from, dear sir, Your most affectionate, My Lord Bernard, &c. give their service. J. ADDISON. ADDISON TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU. DEAR SIR, [Geneva,] December 9th, 1701. I am just now arrived at Geneva by a very troublesome journey over the Alps, where I have been for some days together shivering among the eternal snows. My head is still giddy with mountains and precipices, and you cannot imagine how much I am pleased with the sight of a plain, that is as agreeable to me at present as a shore was about a year ago after our tempest at Genoa. During my passage over the mountains I made a rhyming epistle to my Lord Halifax, which perhaps I will trouble you with the sight of, if I do not find it to be nonsense upon a review. You will think it, I dare say, as extraordinary a thing to make a copy of verses in a voyage over the Alps as to write an heroic poem in a hackney coach,2 and I believe I am the first that ever thought of Parnassus on Mount Cenis. At Florence, I had the honour to have about three days' conversation with the Duke of Shrewsbury,3 which made me some amends for the 1 See "A Letter from Italy, in the year 1701," vol. i. p. 29. The Duke of Shrewsbury, at first a Tory but afterwards a Whig, had the year previously retired from political life in disgust, and refused to accept a post in the administration after the accession of Queen Anne. Many overtures were made to him without avail. From Rome, June 17th, 1701, he writes to Lord Somers, "Had I a son I would sooner breed him a cobbler than a courtier, and a hangman than a statesman." As Lord Halifax, Mr. Montagu, the Duke of Marlborough, and others of the Whig party, were anxious for the Duke's return to office, it is not improbable that Addison may have had this object in view in his "three days' conversation." missing Sir Th. Alston's company, who had taken another road for Rome. I find I am very much obliged to yourself and him, but will not be so troublesome in my acknowledgments as I might justly be; I shall only assure you that I think Mr. Montagu's acquaintance the luckiest adventure that I could possibly have met with in my travels. I sup pose you are in England as full of politics as we are of religion at Geneva, which I hope you will give me a little touch of your letters. The rake Wood1 is grown a man of a very regular life and conversation, and often begins our good friends' health in England. I am, dear sir, Your most affectionate Humble servant, in J. ADDISON. I have taken care to manage myself according to your kind intimations. ADDISON TO CHAMBERLAIN DASHWOOD, ESQ. Geneva, July, 1702. Analysis. Acknowledging the receipt of a very pretty snuff-box.-"You know Mr. Bays recommends snuff as a great provocation to wit, but you may produce this letter as a standing evidence against him. I have, since the beginning of it, taken above a dozen pinches, and still find myself much more inclined to sneeze than to jest. From whence I conclude that wit and tobacco are not inseparable, or to make a pun of it, though a man may be master of a snuff box, 'Non cuicunque datum est habere Nasum.'' SIR, ADDISON TO MR. STEPNEY.2 [Vienna,] November, 1702. That I may be as troublesome to you in prose as in verse, I take the liberty to send you the beginning of a work Mr. Wood is again mentioned at page 344. 2 This letter is referred to in Mr. Tickell's preface as indicating when and where Addison's Dialogue on Medals was first cast into form. Mr. George Stepney, then British envoy at the court of Vienna, was at Trinity College, Cambridge, (1689,) at the same time as Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax, his friend and patron, and was one of the contributors to Tonson's "Miscellany Poems," in 1695. He died in 1707, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a fine monument was erected to him, |