Smith "the best Latin poem since the Æneid." Having yet no public employment, he obtained in 1699 a pension of 300l. a year, that he might be enabled to travel. He staid a year at Blois, probably to learn the French language; and then proceeded in his journey to Italy, which he surveyed with the eyes of a poet. While he was travelling at leisure, he was far from being idle; for he not only collected his observations on the country, but found time to write his Dialogues on Medals, and four acts of Cato. Such is the relation of Tickell. Perhaps he only collected his materials, and formed his plan. Whatever were his other employments in Italy, he there wrote the letter to lord Halifax, which is justly considered as the most elegant, if not the most sublime, of his poetical productions. But in about two years he found it necessary to hasten home; being, as Swift informs us, "distressed by indigence, and compelled to become the tutor of a travelling squire." At his return he published his travels, with a dedication to lord Somers. This book, though a while neglected, is said in time to have become so much the favourite of the publick, that before it was reprinted it rose to five times its price. When he returned to England in 1702, with a meanness of appearance which gave testimony to the difficulties to which he had been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power; but he remained not long neglected or useless. The victory at Blenheim 1704 spread triumph and confidence over the nation; and lord Godolphin, lamenting to lord Halifax that it had not been celebrated in a manner equal to the subject, desired him to propose it to some better poet. Halifax named Addison; who, having undertaken the work, communicated it to the treasurer, while it was yet advanced no further than the simile of the angel, and was immediately rewarded by succeeding Mr. Locke in the place of commissioner of appeals. In the following year he was at Hanover with lord Halifax; and the year after was made under-secretary of state, first to sir Charles Hedges, and in a few months more to the earl of Sunderland. About this time the prevalent taste for Italian operas inclining him to try what would be the effect of a musical drama in our own language; he wrote the opera of Rosamond, which, when exhibited on the stage, was either hissed or neglected; but, trusting that the readers would do him more justice, he published it, with an inscription to the duchess of Marlborough. His reputation had been somewhat advanced by The Tender Husband, a comedy, which Steele dedicated to him, with a confession that he owed to him several of the most successful scenes. To this play Addison supplied a prologue. When the marquis of Wharton was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, Addison attended him as his secretary; and was made keeper of the records in Bermingham's tower, with a salary of 300l. a year. The office was little more than nominal, and the salary was augmented for his accommodation. When he was in office, he made a law to himself, as Swift has recorded, never to remit his regular fees in civility to his friends: -" I may have a hundred friends; and if my fee be two guineas, I shall by relinquishing my right lose 200 guineas, and no friend gain more than two." He was in Ireland when Steele, without any communication of his design, began the publication of the Tatler; but he was not long concealed: by inserting a remark on Virgil, which Addison had given him, he discovered himself. Steele's first Tatler was published April 22, 1709, and Addison's contribution appeared May 26. Tickell observes, that the Tatler began and was concluded without his concurrence. This is doubtless literally true; but the work did not suffer much by his unconsciousness of its commencement, or his absence at its cessation; for he continued his assistance to Dec. 23, and the paper stopped on Jan. 2. He did not distinguish his pieces by any signature. To the Tatler, in about two months, succeeded the Spectator; a series of essays of the same kind, but written with less levity, upon a more regular plan, and published daily. Dr. Johnson's account of these essays, and of the rise of periodical papers is too valuable to be omitted here. "To teach the minuter decencies and inferior duties, to regulate the practice of daily conversation, to correct those depravities which are rather ridiculous than criminal, and remove those grievances which, if they produce no lasting calamities, impress hourly vexation, was first attempted in Italy by Casa in his Book of Manners, and Castiglione in his Courtier, two books yet celebrated in Italy for purity and elegance. "This species of instruction was continued, and perhaps advanced, by the French; among whom La Bruyere's Manners of the Age, though written without connection, deserves great praise. Before the Tatler and Spectator, if the writers for the theatre are excepted, England had no masters of common life. No writers had yet undertaken to reform either the savageness of neglect, or the impertinence of civility; to teach when to speak, or to be silent; how to refuse, or how to comply. We wanted not books to teach us more important duties, and to settle opinions in philosophy or politics; but an arbiter elegantiarum, a judge of propriety, was yet wanting, who should survey the track of daily conversation, and free it from thorns and prickles, which tease the passer, though they do not wound him. For this purpose nothing is so proper as the frequent publication of short papers, which we read not as study but amusement. If the subject be slight, the treatise likewise is short. The busy may find time, and the idle may find patience. "The Tatler and Spectator reduced, like Casa, the unsettled practice of daily intercourse to propriety and politeness; and, like La Bruyere, exhibited the characters and manners of the age. "But to say that they united the plans of two or three eminent writers, is to give them but a small part of their due praise; they superadded literature and criticism, and sometimes towered far above their predecessors, and taught, with great justness of argument and dignity of language, the most important duties and sublime truths." The year 1713, in which Cato came upon the stage, was the grand climacteric of Addison's reputation. Upon the death of Cato, he had, as is said, planned a tragedy in the time of his travels, and had for several years the four first acts finished, which were shewn to such as were likely to spread their admiration. By a request, which perhaps he wished to be denied, he desired Mr. Hughes to add a fifth act. Hughes supposed him serious; and, undertaking the supplement, brought in a few days some scenes for his examination; but he had in the mean time gone to work himself, and produced half an act, which he afterwards completed, but with brevity irregularly disproportionate to the foregoing parts. The great, the important day came on, when Addison was to stand the hazard of the theatre. That there might, however, be left as little to hazard as was possible, on the first night Steele, as himself relates, undertook to pack an audience. The danger was soon over. The whole nation was at that time on fire with faction. The whigs applauded every line in which liberty was mentioned, as a satire on the tories; and the tories echoed every clap, to shew that the satire was unfelt. When it was printed, notice was given that the queen would be pleased if it was dedicated to her; "but as he had designed that compliment elsewhere, he found himself obliged," says Tickell, " by his duty on the one hand, and his honour on the other, to send it into the world without any dedication." At the publication the wits seemed proud to pay their attendance with encomiastic verses. The best are from an unknown hand, which will perhaps lose somewhat of their praise when the author is known to be Jeffreys. Cato had yet other honours. It was censured as a party play by a scholar of Oxford, and defended in a favourable examination by Dr. Sewel. It was translated by Salvini into Italian, and acted at Florence; and by the jesuits of St. Omer's into Latin, and played by their pupils. While Cato was upon the stage, another daily paper, called the Guardian, was published by Steele; to which Addison gave great assistance. Of this paper nothing is necessary to be said, but that it found many contributors, and that it was a continuation of the Spectator, with the same elegance, and the same variety, till some unlucky spark from a tory paper set Steele's politics on fire, and wit at once blazed into faction. He was soon too hot for neutral topics, and quitted the Guardian to write the Englishman. The papers of Addison are marked in the Spectator by one of the letters in the name of Clio, and in the Guardian by a hand. Many of these papers were written with powers truly comic, with nice discrimination of characters, an accurate observation of natural or accidental deviations from propriety; but it was not supposed that he tried a comedy on the stage, till Steele, after his death, declared him the author of "The Drummer;" this however he did not know to be true by any cogent testimony; for when Addison put the play into his hands, he only told him it was the work of a gentleman in the company; and when it was received, as is confessed, with cold disapprobation, he was probably less willing to claim it. Tickell omitted it in his collection; but the testimony of Steele, and the total silence of any other claimant, have determined the public to assign it to Addison, and it is now printed with his other poetry. Steele carried "The Drummer" to the playhouse, and afterwards to the press, and sold the copy for 50 guineas. To the opinion of Steele may be added the proof supplied by the play itself, of which the characters are such as Addison would have delineated, and the tendency such as Addison would have promoted. He was not all this time an indifferent spectator of public affairs. He wrote, as different exigencies required, in 1707, "The present state of the War, and the necessity of an augmentation;" which, however judicious, being written on temporary topics, and exhibiting no peculiar powers, has naturally sunk by its own weight into neglect. This cannot be said of the few papers intituled "The Whig Examiner," in which is exhibited all the force of gay malevolence and humorous satire. Of this paper, which just appeared and expired, Swift remarks, with exultation, that "it is now down among the dead men." His "Trial of count Tariff," written to expose the treaty of commerce with France, lived no longer than the question that produced it. Not long afterwards an attempt was made to revive the Spectator, at a time indeed by no means favourable to literature, when the succession of a new family to the throne filled the nation with anxiety, discord, and confusion; and either the turbulence of the times or the satiety of the readers put a stop to the publication, after an experiment of 80 numbers, which were afterwards collected into an eighth volume, perhaps more valuable than any one of those that went before it: Addison produced more than a fourth part, and the other contributors are by no means unworthy of appearing as his associates. The time that had passed during the suspension of the Spectator, though it had not lessened his power of humour, seems to have increased his disposition to seriousness: the proportion of his religious to his comic papers is greater than in the former series. The Spectator, from its recommencement, was published only three times a week, and no discriminative marks were added to the papers. To Addison Tickell has ascribed 23. The Spectator had many contributors; and Steele, whose negligence kept him always in a hurry, when it was his turn to furnish a paper, called loudly for the letters, of which Addison, whose materials were more, made little use; having recourse to sketches and hints, the product of his former studies, which he now reviewed and completed: among these are named by Tickell the "Essays on Wit," those on the "Pleasures of the Imagination," and the "Criticism on Milton." When the house of Hanover took possession of the |