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JOSEPH ADDISON.

ADDISON.

1672-1719.

Born at Milston, in Wiltshire-Educated at the Charter-house and Oxford-Is praised by Dryden Early Friendship for Steele-Intended for the Church-Encouraged by Somers and Montague-Travels in Italy-Interview with Boileau-Publishes his Travels-Letter in Verse from Italy-Writes The Campaign,' a Poem-'Rosamond,' an Opera-Made Secretary to Lord Wharton-' The Tatler '-'The Spectator'-'The Whig Examiner'— Origin of Newspapers-' Cato,' a Tragedy-'The 'Drummer,' a Comedy-Made Secretary to the Regency- The Freeholder '-Made Secretary of State-Marries the Countess of Warwick-Resigns his Secretaryship-Alleged Quarrel with Steele-Death and Burial in Westminster Abbey-Works and Character.

JOSEPH ADDISON was born on the 1st of May, 1672, at Milston, of which his father, Lancelot Addison, was then rector, near Ambrosebury in Wiltshire, and appearing weak and unlikely to live, he was christened the same day. After the usual domestic education, which, from the character of his father, may be reasonably supposed to have given him strong impressions of piety, he was committed to the care of Mr. Naish at Ambrosebury, and afterwards of Mr. Taylor at Salisbury.

Not to name the school or the masters of men illustrious for literature, is a kind of historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously diminished: I would therefore trace him through the whole process 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 residence, and, I believe, placed him for some time, probably not long, under Mr. Shaw, then master of the school at Lichfield, father of the late Dr. Peter Shaw. Of this interval 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.

1 Andrew Corbet was at school with Johnson, and was his fellow-student at Pembroke College, Oxford.-Boswell by Croker, p. 12.

The practice of barring-out was a savage licence 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, some days before the time of regular recess, took possession of the school, of which they barred the doors, and bade their master defiance from the windows. It is not easy to suppose that on such occasions the master would do more than laugh; yet if tradition may be credited, he often struggled hard to force or surprise the garrison. The master, when Pigot was a school-boy, was barred-out at Lichfield; and the whole operation, as he said, was planned and conducted by Addison."

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To judge better of the probability of this story, I have inquired when he was sent to the Chartreux; but, as he was not one of those who enjoyed the founder's benefaction, there is no account preserved of his admission. At the school of the Chartreux, to which he was removed either from that of Salisbury or Lichfield, he pursued his juvenile studies under the care of Dr. Ellis, and contracted that intimacy with Sir Richard Steele which their joint labours have so effectually recorded.

Of this memorable friendship the greater praise must be given to Steele. It is not hard to love those from whom nothing can be feared, and Addison never considered Steele as a rival; but Steele lived, as he confesses, under an habitual subjection to the predominating genius of Addison, whom he always mentioned with reverence, and treated with obsequiousness.

Addison, who knew his own dignity, could not always forbear to show it, by playing a little upon his admirer; but he was in no danger of retort: his jests were endured without resistance or resentment.

But the sneer of jocularity was not the worst. Steele, whose imprudence of generosity, or vanity of profusion, kept him always incurably necessitous, upon some pressing exigence, in an evil hour, borrowed a hundred pounds of his friend, probably without much purpose of repayment; but Addison, who seems to have had other

2 If these stories be true, it would be curious to know by what moral discipline so mutinous and enterprising a lad was transformed into the gentlest and most modest of men.-MACAULAY: Essay on Addison. Essays, 1 vol. ed., p. 683.

3 Spence.-JOHNSON. Spence by Singer, p. 197

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