that I told you I had some design of publishing at my return into England. I have wrote it since my being at Vienna, in hopes that it might have the advantage of your correction. I cannot hope that one who is so well acquainted with the persons of our present modern princes, should find any pleasure in a discourse on the faces of such as made a figure in the world above a thousand years ago. You will see however that I have endeavoured to treat my subject, that is in itself very bare of ornaments, as divertingly as I could. I have proposed to myself such a way of instructing as that in the dialogues on the Plurality of Worlds. The very owning of this design will I believe look like a piece of vanity, though I know I am guilty of a much greater in offering what I have wrote to your perusal.

I am, sir, &c. To Mr. Stepney, Envoy at the Court of Vienna.

ADDISON TO MR. STEPNEY.

[Dresden,] Jan. 3rd, 1702-3. Analysis. A complimentary letter acknowledging the pleasure derived from his correspondence.-" Since our leaving Prague we have seen nothing but a great variety of winter pieces, so that all the account I can give you of the country is that it abounds very much in snow scarce anything we meet with, except our sheets and napkins, that is not white."

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ADDISON TO THE EARL OF WINCHELSEA.1

[Hamburgh,] March, 1702-3. Analysis. Describing Hamburgh as a place of commerce and drinking. "Their chief commodity, at least that with which I am best acquainted, is Rhenish wine.

This

of which the pompous inscription is recorded by Dr. Johnson. Macky (in his Memoirs of Secret Service, published 1733) speaks highly of Stepney's qualifications, calling him "one of the best poets now in England, perhaps equal to any that ever was,"-on which Dean Swift, in a MS. note, observes, "scarcely third-rate."

This nobleman (then the Hon. Charles Finch) was at All Souls, Oxford, in 1788, while Addison was at Queen's. Addison seems to have known what kind of letter would be most congenial to the tastes of Lord Winchelsea, if we may judge by the following character given of him in Macky's Memoirs. 'He hath neither genius nor gusto for business, loves hunting and a bottle, was an opposer (to his power) of the measures of

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they have in such prodigious quantities that there is yet no sensible diminution of it, although Mr. Perrot and myself have been among them above a week.-The cellar is near the little English chapel, which your Lordship may well suppose is not altogether so much frequented by our countrymen as the other."

ADDISON TO MR. WYCHE.1

[Holland,] May, 1703. Analysis. Complimentary and facetious in reference to Mr. Wyche's agreeable company and capital wine, which made Hamburgh the pleasantest State that he met with in his travels. "My hand at present begins to grow steady enough for a letter, so that the properest use I can put it to is to thank the honest gentleman that set it a shaking." "I hope the two pair of legs that we left a swelling behind us are by this time come to their shapes again," &c.

ADDISON TO ALLEYN BATHURST,2 ESQ. AT THE HAGUE. [Leyden,] May, 1703.

. Analysis. Complimentary on his political successes, and alluding to the attractions of the Hague.-"I do not suppose you are willing to exchange your assemblies for Anatomy Schools, and to quit your beauties of the Hague for the skeletons of Leyden.3 When you have a mind to walk among King William's reign, and is zealous for the monarchy and church to the highest degree. He loves jests and puns, and that sort of low wit, is of short stature, well shaped, with a very handsome countenance, not thirty years old." To which Swift adds, in reference to his jests and puns, I never observed it ;" and then adds, "being very poor, he complied too much with the party he hated."

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1 His Majesty's Resident at Hamburgh, which appointment he appears to have retained for many years. In a letter of Paul Methuen to the Commissioners of Trade, Dec. 14th, 1716-17, respecting the Herringfishery, his name is spelt Wich. He was probably of the family of Sir Cyril Wyche, Knt. who in 1693 was Lord Justice of Ireland. Mr. Thackeray, in his Lectures on the English Humourists, gives the above letter in extenso. 2 Created Baron Bathurst in 1711, when Queen Anne, to obtain a Tory majority in the Upper House, made twelve new peers in one day. He was nephew of the celebrated Dean Bathurst, and studied at Trinity College, Oxford, while his uncle was President there, in 1700 and after. 3 The Anatomical Museum at Leyden is perhaps the finest in Europe. Sandifort's great work, the Museum Anatomicum, 4 vols. large folio, represents but a portion of it.

dead men's bones, honour me with a line, and I will not

fail to meet you."

Thursday morning.

SIR,

ADDISON TO MR. TONSON.1

[Leyden,] Thursday morning, [May, 1703.]

I have shown your letter to Mr. Conningham. He will speak to the bookseller about the Tableaux des Muses, but cannot possibly meet at Leyden so soon as you mention, expecting a letter by every post from England. I should have answered your letter sooner had I not been two days at Rotterdam, whence I returned yesterday with Colonel Stanhope, whom I found unexpectedly at Pennington's. If I can possibly, I will come and see you to-morrow at Amsterdam for a day. As I dined2 with my Lord Cutts the other day, I talked of your Cæsar, and let him know that two German generals had subscribed. He asked me who had the taking of the subscriptions, and told me he believed he could assist you if they were not full.

Your

I
very

am, sir,

humble servant,

J. ADDISON.

To Mr. Tonson, at Mr. Moor's, the English house near the Fish-market, Amsterdam.

THE DUKE OF SOMERSETS TO MR. TONSON. [London,] Friday night, 10 o'clock, [April or May, 1703.] MR. MANWARING told me you had now received a letter from Mr. Addison, wherein he seems to embrace the proposal, but 1 We assign May, 1703, as the date of this letter, because it appears, from the Kit-cat Memoir, that Tonson was then in Amsterdam.

2 Alluding to Clarke's Cæsar, then preparing, but not published till 1712,- —one of the most splendid editions of a Latin classic ever printed. 3 Charles Seymour, commonly called the proud Duke of Somerset, of whom many amusing anecdotes are told. His two youngest daughters were alternately obliged to stand and watch him during his afternoon siesta. On one occasion, Lady Charlotte, being fatigued, sat down, when the Duke awaking unexpectedly, expressed his surprise at her disobedience, and declared he should remember her want of decorum in his will. He left this daughter £20,000 less than the other. Macky says he had good judgment," to which Swift adds, "not a grain, hardly common

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sense.

• Meaning Arthur Maynwaring, Esq., author of "The Medley," dis

desires to know the particulars, so if you please to come to me to-morrow morning about nine or ten o'clock, we will more fully discourse the whole matter together, that you may be able at your arrival in Holland to settle all things with him. I could wish he would come over by the return of this convoy, but more of this when we meet. In the mean time, believe me

Your very humble servant,

SOMERSET.

For Mr. Jacob Tonson, at Gray's Inn.

THE DUKE OF SOMERSET TO MR. TONSON.

London, June the 4th, 1703.

I RECEIVED yours of the 21st of May yesterday, and am very glad, after so long a time, you are at last safely arrived with the Duke of Grafton at the Hague. As to what you write of Mr. Addison, I shall be very glad to see him here in England, that we may more fully discourse together of that matter, but at the same time I should have been much better satisfied had he made his own proposals, that he then would have been on more certain terms of what he was to depend on, especially since he did not intend to leave Holland so soon on any other account; therefore I think I ought to enter into that affair more freely and more plainly, and tell you what I propose, and what I hope he will comply with: viz. I desire he may be more on the account of a companion in my son's' travels than as a governor, and as such I shall account him: my meaning is, that neither lodging, travelling, or diet shall cost him sixpence, and over and above that, my son shall present him at the year's end with a hundred guineas, as long as he is pleased to continue in that service to my son, by taking great care of him, by his personal attendance and advice in what he finds necessary during his time of travelling. My intention is at present, to send him over before August next to the Hague, there to remain for one year, from

tinguished as a wit and a politician, and one of the most accredited critics of the time. He was a contributor to Tonson's "Miscellany Poems," in the 5th vol. of which is his translation of the First Book of the Iliad. He began life as a Tory and died a Whig, (in 1712,) and was for some time secretary to the Duchess of Marlborough. See Oldmixon's Memoir of him prefixed to the collected edition of his Works, 8vo, 1715; also a Memoir and portrait of him in the Kit-cat collection; and some account of him and many of his letters in Coxe's Life of Marlborough.

1 His son, Algernon, Earl of Hertford, was then nineteen years of age. Addison was thirty-one.

2 Addison, previously to the death of King William, had enjoyed a pension of £300. This had been stopped, and his political friends were not in power; the Duke, as we here see, offered a hundred guineas and maintenance.

thence to go to all the courts of Germany, and to stay some time at the court of Hanover, as we shall then agree. The only reason for his stay at the Hague is to perform all his exercises, and when he is perfect in that, then to go next wherever Mr. Addison shall advise, to whom I shall entirely depend on in all that he thinks may be most for his education. When we are agreed on what terms may be most agreeable to him, I dare say he shall find all things as he can desire. This I thought fit for saving of time to enter into now, for many reasons, that we may the sooner and the better know each other's thoughts, being fully resolved to send him over by the end of next month: so I must desire him to be plain with me, as he will find by this that I am with him, because it will be a very great loss to me not to know his mind sooner than he proposes to come over. I need not tell you the reason, it being so plain for you to guess, and the main of all, which is the conditions, as I have mentioned, may be as well treated on by letter as if he was here. So I do desire his speedy answer, for to tell you plainly, I am solicited every day on this subject, many being offered to me, and I cannot tell them that I am engaged positively, because Mr. Addison is my desire and inclination by the character I have heard of him. Dear Jacob, forgive this trouble, and believe that I am, with sincerity,

ADDISON TO THE DUKE OF SOMERSET.

[Amsterdam, June 16th, 1703.] MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE, MAY

By a letter that Mr. Tonson has shown me, I find that I am very much obliged to your Grace for the kind opinion that you are pleased to entertain of me. I should be extremely glad of an opportunity of deserving it, and am therefore very ready to close with the proposal that is there made me of accompanying my Lord Marquess of Hertford in his travels, and doing his Lordship all the services that I am capable of. I have lately received one or two advantageous offers of the same nature, but as I should be very ambitious of executing any of your Grace's commands, so I cannot think of taking the like employment from any other hands. As for the recompence that is proposed to me, I must take the liberty to assure your Grace that I should not see my account in it, but in the hopes that I have to recommend myself to your Grace's favour and approbation. I am glad your Grace has intimated that you would oblige me to attend my Lord only