ADDISON.

JOSEPH ADDISON was born on the first of May

1672, at Milfton, of which his father, Lancelot Addison, was then rector, near Ambrofebury in Wiltshire, and appearing weak and unlikely to live, he was chriftened the fame day. After the ufual 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 il-' luftrious for literature, is a kind of hiftorical 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 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 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 licence, practifed in many fchools 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 recess, took poffeffion of the fchool, 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.

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 preserved 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 muft be given to Steele. It is not hard to love those from whom nothing can be feared; and Addison never confidered Steele as a rival; but Steele lived,

as

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

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 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 perusal of fome Latin verfes gained him the patronage of Dr. Lancaster, 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 tranfaction somewhat Afferently related. R.

dalen

dalen 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 older to vacant fellowthips *.

Here he continued to cultivate poetry and criticifm, and grew firft eminent by his Latin compofitions, which are indeed entitled to particular praife. 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 fondnefs, for he collected a fecond volume of the Mufæ Anglicana, perhaps for a convenient receptacle, in which all his Latin pieces are inferted, and where his Poem on the Peace has the firft 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 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, 693.

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,

power

In his twenty-fecond year he firft thewed his 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 verses; as is fhewn by his version of a small part of

* A letter which I found among Dr. Johnfon's papers, dated in January 1784, from a lady in Wiltshire, contains a difcovery 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 queftion were not an address to the famous Dr. Sacheverell, but to a very ingenious gentleman of the same 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. Addifon in Oxford, who died, near 50 years ago, a prebendary of Winchester. H.

Virgil's