it he found in his own bad heart. His own | know by heart, and sent them to Addison. One life was one long series of tricks, as mean charge which Pope has enforced with great and as malicious as that of which he suspect- skill is probably not without foundation. Aded Addison and Tickell. He was all stiletto dison was, we are inclined to believe, too fond and mask. To injure, to insult, to save him- of presiding over a circle of humble friends. self from the consequence of injury and insult Of the other imputations which these famous by lying and equivocating, was the habit of lines are intended to convey, scarcely one has his life. He published a lampoon on the Duke ever been proved to be just, and some are cer of Chandos; he was taxed with it; and he lied tainly false. That Addison was not in the and equivocated. He published a lampoon on habit of "damning with faint praise," appears Aaron Hill; he was taxed with it; and he lied from innumerable passages in his writings; and equivocated. He published a still fouler and from none more than from those in which lampoon on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; he he mentions Pope. And it is not merely unwas taxed with it; and he lied with more than just, but ridiculous, to describe a man who usual effrontery and vehemence. He puffed made the fortune of almost every one of his himself and abused his enemies under feigned intimate friends, as "so obliging that he ne'et names. He robbed himself of his own letters, obliged." and then raised the hue and cry after them. Besides his frauds of malignity, of fear, of interest, and of vanity, there were frauds which he seems to have committed from love of fraud alone. He had a habit of stratagem-a pleasure in outwitting all who came near him. Whatever his object might be, the indirect road to it was that which he preferred. For Bolingbroke Pope undoubtedly felt as much love and veneration as it was in his nature to feel for any human being. Yet Pope was scarcely dead when it was discovered that, from no motive except the mere love of artifice, he had been guilty of an act of gross perfidy to Bolingbroke.

Nothing was more natural than that such a man as this should attribute to others that which he felt within himself. A plain, probable, coherent explanation is frankly given to him. He is certain that it is all a romance. A line of conduct scrupulously fair, and even friendly, is pursued towards him. He is convinced that it is merely a cover for a vile intrigue by which he is to be disgraced and ruined. It is vain to ask him for proofs. He has none, and wants none, except those which he carries in his own bosom.

That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satire keenly, we cannot doubt. That he was con scious of one of the weaknesses with which he was reproached, is highly probable. But his heart, we firmly believe, acquitted him of the gravest part of the accusation. He acted like himself. As a satirist he was, at his own weapons, more than Pope's match; and he would have been at no loss for topics. A dis torted and diseased body, tenanted by a yet more distorted and diseased mind-spite and envy thinly disguised by sentiments as benevolent and noble as those which Sir Peter Teazle admired in Mr. Joseph Surface-a feeble, sickly licentiousness-an odious love of filthy and noisome images-these were things which a genius less powerful than that to which we owe the Spectator could easily have held up to the mirth and hatred of mankind. Addison had, moreover, at his command other means of vengeance which a bad man would not have scrupled to use. He was powerful in the state. Pope was a Catholic; and, in those times, a minister would have found it easy to harass the most innocent Catholic by innumerable petty vexations. Pope, near twenty years later said, that "through the lenity of the govern. ment alone he could live with comfort." "Consider," he exclaimed, "the injury that a man

person, under penal laws and many other disadvantages." It is pleasing to reflect that the only revenge which Addison took was to insert in the Freeholder a warm encomium on the translation of the Iliad; and to exhort all lovers of learning to put down their names as subscribers. There could be no doubt, he said, from the specimens already published, that the masterly hand of Pope would do as much for Homer as Dryden had done for Vir gil. From that time to the end of his life, he always treated Pope, by Pope's own acknow ledgment, with justice. Friendship, was, of course, at an end.

Whether Pope's malignity at length provoked Addison to retaliate for the first and last time, cannot now be known with certain-of high rank and credit may do to a private ty. We have only Pope's story, which runs thus. A pamphlet appeared containing some reflections which stung Pope to the quick. What those reflections were, and whether they were reflections of which he had a right to complain, we have now no means of deciding. The Earl of Warwick, a foolish and vicious ad, who regarded Addison with the feelings with which such lads generally regard their best friends, told Pope, truly or falsely, that this pamphlet had been written by Addison's direction. When we consider what a tendency stories have to grow, in passing even from one honest man to another honest man, and when we consider that to the name of honest man neither Pope nor the Earl of Warwick had a claim, we are not disposed to attach much importance to this anecdote.

It is certain, however, that Pope was furious. He had already sketched the character of Atticus in prose. In his anger he turned this prose into the brilliant and energetic lines which everybody knows by heart, or ought to

One reason which induced the Earl of War wick to play the ignominious part of the talebearer on this occasion, may have been his dislike of the marriage which was about to take place between his mother and Addison The countess-dowager, a daughter of the old and honourable family of the Myddletons of Chirk, a family which, in any country but ours, would be called noble, resided at Holland

business might easily have been found; and his collegues knew that they could not expect assistance from him in debate. He owed his elevation to his popularity; to his stainless probity, and to his literary fame.

But scarcely had Addison entered the cabi net when his health began to fail. From one serious attack he recovered in the autumn; and his recovery was celebrated in Latin verses, worthy of his own pen, by Vincent Bourne, who was then at Trinity College, Cambridge. A relapse soon took place; and, in the follow ing spring, Addison was prevented by a severe asthma from discharging the duties of his post. He resigned it, and was succeeded by his friend Craggs; a young man whose natural parts, though little improved by cultivation, were quick and showy, whose graceful person and winning manners had made him generally acceptable in society, and who, if he had lived, would probably have been the most formidable of all the rivals of Walpole.

House. Addison had, during some years, oc- | clined by him. Men equally versed in cfficia cupied at Chelsea a small dwelling, once the abode of Nell Gwyn. Chelsea is now a district of London, and Holland House may be called a town residence. But, in the days of Anne and George L., milkmaids and sportsmen wandered, between green hedges and over fields bright with daisies, from Kensington almost to the shore of the Thames. Addison and Lady Warwick were country neighbours, and became intimate friends. The great wit and scholar tried to allure the young lord from the fashionable amusements of beating watchmen, breaking windows, and rolling women in hogsheads down Holborn Hill, to the study of letters and the practice of virtue. These well meant exertions did little good, however, either to the disciple or to the master. Lord Warwick grew up a rake, and Addison fell in love. The mature beauty of the countess has been celebrated by poets in language which, after a very large allowance has been made for flattery, would lead us to believe that she was a fine woman; and her rank doubtless heightened her attractions. The courtship was long. The hopes of the lover appear to have risen and fallen with the fortunes of his party. His attachment was at length matter of such notoriety that, when he visited Ireland for the last time, Rowe addressed some consolatory verses to the Chloe of Holland House. It strikes us as a little strange that, in these verses, Addison should be called Lycidas; a name of singularly evil omen for a swain just about to cross St. George's Channel.

At length Chloe capitulated. Addison was indeed able to treat with her on equal terms. He had reason to expect preferment even higher than that which he had attained. He had inherited the fortune of a brother who died governor of Madras. He had purchased an estate in Warwickshire, and had been welcomed to his domain in very tolerable verse by one of the neighbouring squires, the poetical fox-hunter, William Somervile. In August, 1716, the newspapers announced that Joseph Addison, Esquire, famous for many excellent works both in verse and prose, had espoused the countess-dowager of Warwick.

As yet there was no Joseph Hume. The ministers therefore, were able to bestow on Addison a retiring pension of £1500 a year. In what form this pension was given we are not told by his biographers, and have not time to inquire. But it is certain that Addison did not vacate his seat in the House of Com

mons.

Rest of mind and body seemed to have reestablished his health; and he thanked God, with cheerful piety, for having set him free both from his office and from his asthma. Many years seemed to be before him, and he meditated many works-a tragedy on the death of Socrates, a translation of the Psalms, a treatise on the evidences of Christianity. Of this last performance a part, which we could well spare, has come down to us.

But the fatal complaint soon returned, and gradually prevailed against all the resources of medicine. It is melancholy that the last months of such a life should have been overclouded both by domestic and by political vexations. A tradition which began early, which has been generally received, and tc which we have nothing to oppose, has repreHe now fixed his abode at Holland House-sented his wife as an arrogant and imperious a house which can boast of a greater number woman. It is said that till his health failed of inmates distinguished in political and literary history than any other private dwelling in England. His portrait now hangs there. The features are pleasing; the complexion is remarkably fair; but, in the expression, we trace rather the gentleness of his disposition than the force and keenness of his intellect.

Not long after his marriage he reached the height of civil greatness. The whig government had, during some time, been torn by internal dissensions. Lord Townshend led one section of the cabinet; Lord Sunderland the other. At length, in the spring of 1717, Sunderland triumphed. Townshend retired from office, and was accompanied by Walpole and Cowper. Sunderland proceeded to reconstruct the ministry; and Addison was appointed secretary of state. It is certain that the seals were pressed upon him, and were at first de

him he was glad to escape from the countess dowager and her magnificent dining-room, blazing with the gilded devices of the house of Rich, to some tavern where he could enjoy a laugh, to talk about Virgil and Boileau, and a bottle of claret, with the friends of his happier days. All those friends, however, were not left to him. Sir Richard Steele had been gradually estranged by various causes. He considered himself as one who, in evil times, had braved martyrdom for his political principles, and de manded, when the whig party was triumphant, a large compensation for what he had suffered when it was militant. The whig leaders took a very different view of his claims. They thought that he had, by his own petulance and folly, brought them as well as himself intc trouble; and though they did not absolutely neglect him, doled out favours to him with a

sparing hand It was natural that he should | Addison reasoned well and Steele ill; and that De angry with them, and especially angry with consequently Addison brought out a false con. Addison. But what above all seems to have clusion, while Steele blundered upon the truth. disturbed Sir Richard was the elevation of In style, in wit, and in politeness, Addison Tickell, who, at thirty, was made by Addison maintained his superiority, though the Old under-secretary of state; while the editor of Whig is by no means one of his happiest perthe Tatler and Spectator, the author of the formances.* Crisis, the member for Stockbridge who had been persecuted for firm adherence to the house of Hanover, was, at near fifty, forced, after many solicitations and complaints, to content himself with a share in the patent of Drury-lane theatre. Steele himself says, in his celebrated letter to Congreve, that Addison; by his preference of Tickell, "incurred the warmest resentment of other gentlemen;" and every thing seems to indicate that, of those re-ing. One calumny which has been often resentful gentlemen Steele was himself one.

While poor Sir Richard was brooding over what he considered as Addison's unkindness, a new cause of quarrel arose. The whig party, already divided against itself, was rent by a new schism. The celebrated bill for limiting the number of peers had been brought in. The proud Duke of Somerset, first in rank of all nobles whose religion permitted them to sit in Parliament, was the ostensible author of the measure. But it was supported, and, in truth, devised by the prime minister.

We are satisfied that the bill was most pernicious; and we fear that the motives which induced Sunderland to frame it were not honourable to him. But we cannot deny that it was supported by many of the best and wisest men of that age. Nor was this strange. The royal prerogative had, within the memory of the generation then in the vigour of life, been so grossly abused, that it was still regarded with a jealousy which, when the peculiar situation of the house of Brunswick is considered, may perhaps be called immoderate. The prerogative of creating peers had, in the opinion of the whigs, been grossly abused by Queen Anne's last ministry; and even the tories admitted that her majesty, in swamping, as it has since been called, the Upper House, had done what only an extreme case could justify. The theory of the English constitution, according to many high authorities, was, that three independent powers, the monarchy, the nobility, and the commons, ought constantly to act as checks on each other. If this theory were sound, it seemed to follow that to put one of these powers under the absolute control of the other two, was absurd. But if the number of peers were unlimited, it could not be denied that the Upper House was under the absolute control of the crown and the commons, and was indebted only to their moderation for any power which it might be suffered to retain.

Steele took part with the opposition; Addison with the ministers. Steele, in a paper called the "Plebeian," vehemently attacked the bill. Sunderland called for help on Addison, and Addison obeyed the call. In a paper called the "Old Whig," he answered, and indeed refuted, Steele's arguments. It seems to us that the premises of both the controversialists were unsound; that, on those premises,

At first, both the anonymous opponents observed the laws of propriety. But at length Steele so far forgot himself as to throw an odious imputation on the morals of the chiefs of the adminis tration. Addison replied with severity; but, in our opinion, with less severity than was due to so grave an offence against morality and decorum; nor did he, in his just anger, forget for a moment the laws of good taste and good breed

peated, and never yet contradicted, it is our duty to expose. It is asserted in the Biogra phia Britannica, that Addison designated Steele as "little Dicky." This assertion was repeated by Johnson, who had never seen the Old Whig, and was therefore excusable. It has also been repeated by Miss Aikin, who has seen the Old Whig, and for whom, therefore, there is less excuse. Now, it is true that the words "little Dicky" occur in the Old Whig, and that Steele's name was Richard. It is equally true that the words "little Isaac" occur in the Duenna, and that Newton's name was Isaac. But we confidently affirm that Addison's little Dicky had no more to do with Steele, than Sheridan's little Isaac with Newton. If we apply the words "little Dicky" to Steele, we deprive a very lively and ingenious passage, not only of all its wit, but of all its meaning. Little Dicky was evidently the nickname of some comic actor who played the usurer Gomez, then a most popular part, in Dryden's Spanish Friar.t

The merited reproof which Steele had received, though softened by some kind and courteous expressions, galled him bitterly. He replied with little force and great acrimony; but no rejoinder appeared. Addison was fast hastening to his grave; and had, as we may well suppose, little disposition to prosecute a quarrel with an old friend. His complaint had terminated in dropsy. He bore up long and manfully. But at length he abandoned all hope,

We will transcribe the whole paragraph. How it can ever have been misunderstood is unintelligible to us.

"But our author's chief concern is for the poor House of Commons, whom he represents as naked and defence less, when the crown, by losing this prerogative, would be less able to protect them against the power of a House of Lords. Who forbears laughing when the Spanish Friar represents little Dicky, under the person of Gomez, insulting the Colonel that was able to fright him out of his wits with a single frown? This Gomez, says he, dew upon him like a dragon, got him down, the Devil being strong in him, and gave him bastinado on bastinado, and buffet suffered with a most Christian patience. The improba on buffet, which the poor Colonel, being prostrate, bility of the fact never fails to raise mirth in the audience; and one may venture to answer for a British House that it will scarce be either so tame or so weak as our of Commons, if we may guess from its conduct hitherto, author supposes."

dismissed his physicians, and calmly prepared | snares of vice; who had made his cup rur himself to die. over with worldly blessings; who had doubled His werks he intrusted to the care of Tickell; the value of those blessings, by bestowing a and dedicated them a very few days before his thankful heart to enjoy them, and dear friends death to Craggs, in a letter written with the to partake them; who had rebuked the waves sweet and graceful eloquence of a Saturday's of the Ligurian gulf, had purified the autumnal Spectator. In this, his last composition, he air of the Campagna, and had restrained the alluded to his approaching end in words so avalanches of Mont Cenis. Of the Psalms, his manly, so cheerful, and so tender, that it is dif- favourite was that which represents the Ruler ficult to read them without tears. At the same of all things under the endearing image of a time he earnestly recommended the interests shepherd, whose crook guides the flock safe, of Tickell to the care of Craggs. through gloomy and desolate glens, to meadows well watered and rich with herbage. On that goodness to which he ascribed all the hap piness of his life, he relied in the hour of death with the love which casteth out fear. He died on the 17th of June, 1719. He had just entered on his forty-eighth year.

Within a few hours of the time at which this dedication was written, Addison sent to beg Gay, who was then living by his wits about town, to come to Hoiland House. Gay went and was received with great kindness. To his amazement his forgiveness was implored by the dying man. Poor Gay, the most goodnatured and simple of mankind, could not imagine what he had to forgive. There was, however, some wrong, the remembrance of which weighed on Addison's mind, and which he declared himself anxious to repair. He was in a state of extreme exhaustion; and the parting was doubtless a friendly one on both sides. Gay supposed that some plan to serve him had been in agitation at court, and had been frustrated by Addison's influence. Nor is this improbable. Gay had paid assiduous court to the royal family. But in the queen's days he had been the eulogist of Bolingbroke, and was still connected with many tories. It is not strange that Addison, while heated by conflict, should have thought himself justified in obstructing the preferment of one whom he might regard as a political enemy. Neither is it strange that, when reviewing his whole life, and earnestly scrutinizing all his motives, he should think that he had acted an unkind and ungenerous part, in using his power against a distressed man of letters, who was as harmless and as helpless as a child.

His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was borne thence to the Abbey at dead of night. The choir sang a funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, one of those tories who had loved and honoured the most accomplished of the whigs, met the corpse, and led the procession by torch-light, round the shrine of Saint Edward and the graves of the Plantagenets, to the chapel of Henry the Seventh. On the north side of that chapel, in the vault of the house of Albemarle, the coffin of Addison lies next to the coffin of Montagu. Yet a few months-and the same mourners passed again along the same aisle. The same sad anthem was again chanted. The same vault was again opened; and the coffin of Craggs was placed close to the coffin of Addison.

Many tributes were paid to the memory of Addison. But one alone is now remembered. Tickell bewailed his friend in an elegy which would do honour to the greatest name in our literature; and which unites the energy and magnificence of Dryden to the tenderness and purity of Cowper. This fine poem was prefixed to a superb edition of Addison's works, One inference may be drawn from this anec- which was published in 1721, by subscription. dote. It appears that Addison, on his death-The names of the subscribers proved how bed, called himself to a strict account; and was widely his fame had been spread. That his not at ease till he had asked pardon for an in-countrymen should be eager to possess his jury which it was not even suspected that he had committed-for an injury which would have caused disquiet only to a very tender conscience. Is it not then reasonable to infer that, if he had really been guilty of forming a base conspiracy against the fame and fortunes of a rival, he would have expressed some remorse for so serious a crime? But it is unnecessary to multiply arguments and evidence | for the defence, when there is neither argument nor evidence for the accusation.

The last moments of Addison were perfectly serene. His interview with his son-in-law is universally known. "See," he said, "how a Christian can die!" The piety of Addison was, in truth, of a singularly cheerful character. The feeling which predominates in all his devotional writings, is gratitude. God was to him the all-wise and all-powerful friend, who had watched over his cradle with more than maternal tenderness; who had listened to his cries before they could form themselves in prayer; who had preserved his youth from the

writings, even in a costly form, is not wonderful. But it is wonderful that, though English literature was then little studied on the Continent, Spanish grandees, Italian prelates, mar shals of France, should be found in the list. Among the most remarkable names are those of the Queen of Sweden, of Prince Eugene, of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Dukes of Parma, Modena, and Guastalla, of the Doge of Genoa, of the Regent Orleans, and of Cardinal Dubois. We ought to add, that this edition, though eminently beautiful, is in some impor tant points defective: nor, indeed, do we yet possess a complete collection of Addison's writings.

It is strange that neither his opulent and noble widow, nor any of his powerful and at tached friends, should have thought of placing even a simple tablet, inscribed with his name, on the walls of the Abbey. It was not till three generations had laughed and wept over his pages that the omission was supplied by the public veneration. At length, in our own