ADDISON.

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 domestick education, which from the character of

* A writer who signs himself T. J., informed Dr. Birch, (Gen. Dict. i. 62.), that Mr. Addison's mother was Jane Gulstone, a circumstance that should not have been omitted. Dr. Launcelot Addison had by his wife six children: 1. Jane, born April 23, 1671. 2. Joseph, 1st May, 1672. 3. Gulstone, in April, 1673. 4. Dorothy, in May, 1674. 5. Anne, in April 1676; and 6. Launcelot, in 1680. Both Gulstone and Launcelot, who was a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, were reputed to be very well skilled in the classicks, and in polite literature. Dr. Addison's living at Milston was 120l. per annum; and after his death his son Joseph was sued for dilapi dations by the next incumbent. The writer abovementioned informed Dr. Birch, that "there was a tradition at Milston, that when at school in the country, [probably at Ambrosebury], having committed some slight fault, he was so afraid of being corrected for it, that he ran away from his father's house, and fled into the fields, where he lived upon fruits, and took up his lodging in a hollow tree, till upon the publication of a reward to whoever should find him, he was discovered and restored to his parents." M.

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.

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.

To judge better of the probability of this story, I have enquired 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 shew it, by playing a little upon his admirer; but he was in no danger of retort: his jests were endured without resistance or resent

ment.

But the sneer of jocularity was not the worst. Steele, whose imprudence of generosity, or vanity

"At the Charter-house, (says Oldmixon, who was personally acquainted with Addison, and as a zealous whig, probably encouraged by him), he made acquaintance with two persons, for whom he had ever after an entire friendship, Stephen Clay, Esq. of the Inner Temple, author of the epistle in verse, from the Elector of Bavaria to the French King after the battle of Ramilies; and Sir Richard Steele, whom he served both with his pen and his purse." Hist. of England, xi. 632. M. + Spence.

of profusion, kept him always incurably necessitous, upon some pressing 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 sensibility the obduracy of his creditor, but with emotions of sorrow rather than of anger.

*

In 1687 he was entered into Queen's College in Oxford, where, in 1689, the accidental perusal of some Latin verses gained him the patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards provost of Queen's College; by whose recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as a Demy, a term by which that society denominates those which are elsewhere called Scholars; young men, who partake of the founder's benefaction, and succeed in their order to vacant fellowships. †

Here he continued to cultivate poetry and criticism, and grew first eminent by his Latin compositions, which are indeed intitled to particular praise. He has not confined himself to the imitation ancient author, but has formed his style from

of any

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

See in Steele's "Epistolary Correspondence, 1809," vol. I. pp. 208,356, this transaction somewhat differently related. N. He took the degree of M. A. Feb. 14, 1693. N.

the general language, such as a diligent perusal of the productions of different ages happened to supply.

His Latin compositions seem to have had much of his fondness, for he collected a second volume of the Musa Anglicana, perhaps for a convenient receptacle, in which all his Latin pieces are inserted, and where his Poem on the Peace has the first place. He afterwards presented the collection to Boileau, who, from that time, "conceived," says 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 profession 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 scanty, a dead language, in which nothing is mean because nothing is familiar, affords great conveniences; and, by the sonorous magnificence of Roman syllables, the writer conceals penury of thought, and want of novelty, often from the reader, and often from himself.

In his twenty-second year he first shewed his power of English poetry by some verses addressed to Dryden; and soon afterwards published a translation of the greater part of the Fourth Georgick upon Bees; after which, says Dryden, " my latter swarm is "hardly worth the hiving."

About the same time he composed the arguments prefixed to the several books of Dryden's Virgil;