ADDISON. OSEPH ADDISON was born on the first of May, 1672, at Milfton, of which his father, Lancelot Addifon, was then rector, near Ambrofbury in Wiltshire, and appearing weak and unlikely to live, he was christened the fame day. After the ufual domestick education, which, from the character of his father, may be reasonably fupposed to have given him ftrong impreffions of piety, he was committed to the care of Mr. Naish at Ambrofbury, and afterwards of Mr. Taylor at Salisbury. Not to name the fchool or the masters of men illuftrious for literature, is a kind of historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously diminished : I would therefore trace him through the whole procefs of his education. In 1683, in the beginning of his twelfth year, his father being made dean of Lichfield, naturally carried his family to his new refidence, and, I believe, placed him for fome time, probably not long, under Mr. Shaw, then master of the fchool at Lichfield, father father of the late Dr. Peter Shaw. Of this inter val his biographers have given no account, and I know it only from a story of a barring-out, told me, when I was a boy, by Andrew Corbet of Shropshire, who had heard it from Mr. Pigot his uncle. The practice of barring-out, was a favage license, practised in many schools to the end of the last century, by which the boys, when the periodical vacation drew near, growing petulant at the approach of liberty, fome days before the time of regular recefs, took poffeffion of the school, of which they barred the doors, and bade their master defiance from the windows. It is not eafy to fuppofe that on fuch occafions the mafter would do more than laugh; yet, if tradition may be credited, he often struggled hard to force or surprise the garrifon. The mafter, when Pigot was a schoolboy, was barred-out at Litchfield, and the whole operation, as he said, was planned and conducted by Addifon. To judge better of the probability of this story, I have enquired when he was fent to the Chartreux; but, as he was not one of those who enjoyed the Founder's benefaction, there is no account preferved of his admiffion. At the school of the Chartreux, to which he was removed either from that of Salisbury or Lichfield, he pursued his juvenile ftudies under the care of Dr. Ellis, and contracted that intimacy with Sir Richard Steele, which their joint labours have fo effectually recorded. Of this memorable friendship the greater praise muft must be given to Steele. It is not hard to love those from whom nothing can be feared, and Addifon never confidered Steele as a rival; but Steele lived, as he confeffes, under an habitual subjection to the predominating genius of Addison, whom he always mentioned with reverence, and treated with obfequioufnefs. Addifon *, who knew his own dignity, could not always forbear to fhew it, by playing a little upon his admirer; but he was in no danger of retort his jefts were endured without refiftance or refentment. But the fneer of jocularity was not the worst. Steele, whofe imprudence of generofity, or vanity of profufion, kept him always incurably neceffitous, upon fome preffing exigence, in an evil hour, borrowed an hundred pounds of his friend, probably without much purpose of repayment; but Addifon, who feems to have had other notions of a hundred pounds, grew impatient of delay, and reclaimed his loan by an execution. Steele felt with great fenfibility the obduracy of his creditor; but with emotions of forrow rather than of anger. In 1687 he was entered into Queen's College in Oxford, where, in 1689, the accidental perufal of fome Latin verfes gained him the patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards provoft of Queen's College; by whofe recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as a Demy, a term by which that fociety denominates those which are elsewhere called Scholars; young men who partake of the founder's Spence. |