Shaw. Of this interval his biographers have given no account, and I know it only from a ftory 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 licence, practifed in many fchools at the end of the laft 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 fchool, of which they barred the doors, and bade their mafter 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 ftruggled hard to force or furprise the garrifon. The mafter, when Pigot was a fchool-boy, was barred-out at Lichfield; and the whole operation, as he said, was planned and conducted by Addifon.

To judge better of the probability of this ftory, 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 fchool of the Chartreux, to which he was removed either from that of Salifbury or Lichfield, he purfued 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 praife 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 fubjection to the predominating genius of Addifon, whom he always mentioned with reverence, and treated with obfequioufnefs.

Addison *, 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 Addison, who seems 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. Lancafter, afterwards provost of Queen's College ;

* Spence.

This fact was communicated to Johnfon in my hearing by a perfon of unquestionable veracity, but whose name I am not at liberty to mention. He had it, as he told us, from Lady Primrofe, to whom Steele related it with tears in his eyes. The late Dr. Stinton confirmed it to me, by faying, that he had heard it from Mr. Hooke, author of the Roman Hiftory; and he, from Mr. Pope. H.

See, Victor's Letters, vol. I. p. 328, this tranfaction somewhat differently related. R.

by

by whose 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 benefaction, and fucceed in their order to vacant fellowships *.

Here he continued to cultivate poetry and criticifm, and grew firft eminent by his Latin compofitions, which are indeed entitled to particular praise. He has not confined himself to the imitation of any ancient author, but has formed his ftyle from the general language, fuch as a diligent perufal of the productions of different ages happened to fupply.

His Latin compofitions feem to have had much of his fondness, for he collected a fecond volume of the Mufa Anglicana, perhaps for a convenient receptacle, in which all his Latin pieces are inferted, and where his Poem on the Peace has the first place. He afterwards prefented the collection to Boileau, who, from that time, " conceived," fays Tickell, "an opinion "of the English genius for poetry." Nothing is better known of Boileau, than that he had an injudicious and peevish contempt of modern Latin, and therefore his profeffion of regard was probably the effect of his civility rather than approbation.

Three of his Latin poems are upon subjects on which perhaps he would not have ventured to have written in his own language. The Battle of the Pigmies and Cranes; The Barometer; and A Bowlinggreen. When the matter is low or fcanty, a dead language, in which nothing is mean because nothing

*He took the degree of M. A. Feb. 14, 1693.

is familiar, affords great conveniences; and, by the fonorous magnificence of Roman fyllables, the writer conceals penury of thought, and want of novelty, often from the reader, and often from himself.

In his twenty-fecond year he firft fhewed his power of English poetry by fome verfes addreffed to Dryden; and foon afterwards published a translation of the greater part of the Fourth Georgick upon Bees; after which, fays Dryden, "my latter fwarm "is hardly worth the hiving."

About the fame time he composed the arguments prefixed to the several books of Dryden's Virgil; and produced an Effay on the Georgicks, juvenile, fuperficial, and uninftructive, without much either of the fcholar's learning or the critick's penetration.

His next paper of verfes contained a character of the principal English poets, inscribed to Henry Sacheverell, who was then, if not a poet, a writer of verses *; as is fhewn by his verfion of a small part

* A letter which I found among Dr. Johnfon's papers, dated in January 1784, from a lady in Wiltshire, contains a discovery of fome importance in literary hiftory, viz. that, by the initials H. S. prefixed to the poem, we are not to understand the famous Dr. Henry Sacheverell, whofe trial is the moft remarkable incident in his life. The information thus communicated is, that the verfes in question were not an addrefs to the famous Dr. Sacheverell, but to a very ingenious gentleman of the fame name, who died young, fuppofed to be a Mankfman, for that he wrote the hiftory of the Ifle of Man.-That this perfon left his papers to Mr. Addison, and had formed a plan of a tragedy upon the death of Socrates-The lady fays, fhe had this information from a Mr. Stephens, who was a fellow of Merton College, a contemporary and intimate with Mr. Addison in Oxford, who died, near 50 years ago, a prebendary of Winchester. H.

of

of Virgil's Georgicks, publifhed in the Mifcellanies; and a Latin encomium on Queen Mary, in the Mufa Anglicane. Thefe verfes exhibit all the fondnefs of friendship; but, on one fide or the other, friendship was afterwards too weak for the malignity of faction.

In this poem is a very confident and difcriminate character of Spenfer, whofe work he had then never read*. So little fometimes is criticifm the effect of judgement. It is neceffary to inform the reader, that about this time he was introduced by Congreve to Montague, then Chancellor of the Exchequer : Addifon was then learning the trade of a courtier, and fubjoined Montague as a poetical name to those of Cowley and of Dryden.

By the influence of Mr. Montague, concurring, according to Tickell, with his natural modefty, he was diverted from his original defign of entering into holy orders. Montague alleged the corruption of men who engaged in civil employments without liberal education; and declared, that, though he was represented as an enemy to the Church, he would never do it any injury but by withholding Addifon from it.

Soon after (in 1695) he wrote a poem to King William, with a rhyming introduction addreffed to Lord Somers. King William had no regard to elegance or literature; his ftudy was only war; yet by a choice of minifters, whofe difpofition was very different from his own, he procured, without intention, a very liberal patronage to poetry. Addison was careffed both by Somers and Montague.

* Spence.