ADDISON.

JOSEPH ADDISON was born on the first of May

1672, at Milfton, of which his father, Lancelot Addifon, was then rector, near Ambrofebury in Wiltshire, and appearing weak and unlikely to live, he was chriftened the fame day. After the usual domeftick education, which from the character of his father may be reasonably supposed to have given him ftrong impreffions of piety, he was committed to the care of Mr. Naish at Ambrofebury, and afterwards of Mr. Taylor at Salisbury.

Not to name the fchool or the mafters of men illuftrious for literature, is a kind of hiftorical fraud, by which honeft 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 refidence, and, I believe, placed him for fome time, probably not long, under Mr. Shaw, then mafter of the school at Lichfield, father of the late Dr. Peter

Shaw,

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 to 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 recess, took poffeffion of the school, of which they barred the doors, and bade their mafter defiance from the windows. It is not easy 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 furprise the garrifon. The mafter, when Pigot was a fchool-boy, was barred-out at Lichfield; and the whole operation, as he faid, was planned and conducted by Addison.

1

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 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 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

as he confeffes, under an habitual subjection to the predominating genius of Addison, whom he always mentioned with reverence, and treated with obfequiousness.

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 Addison, 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 foine Latin verfes gained him the patronage of Dr. Lancafter, afterwards provost of Queen's College; by whose recommendation he was elected into Mag

* Spence.

This fact was communicated to Johnson in my hearing by a perfon of unquestionable veracity, but whofe 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 Hiftory; and he, from Mr. Pope. H.

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

dalen

dalen College as a Demy, a term by which that fociety denominates thofe 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 compofi tions, 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 supply.

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 fubjects on which perhaps he would not have ventured to have written in his own language. The Battle of the Pigmics and Cranes; The Barometer; and A Bowlinggreen. When the matter is low or scanty, 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 himfelf.

In his twenty-fecond year he first shewed his power of English poetry by fome verfes addreffed to Dryden; and foon afterwards published a tranflation 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 compofed the arguments prefixed to the feveral 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, infcribed to Henry Sacheverell, who was then, if not a poet, a writer of verfes; as is fhewn by his verfion of a fmall part of

* 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 history, 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 queftion 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 Isle 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 contem porary and intimate with Mr. Addison in Oxford, who died, Dear 50 years ago, a prebendary of Winchester, H.

Virgil's