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verend Mr. Taylor; and thence to the Charter-house, where he was under the tuition of the learned Dr. Ellis, and where he contracted an intimacy and friendship with the famous Mr. Steele, afterwards Sir Richard Steele, which lafted as long as Mr. Addison lived. He was not above 15 when he went to the university of Oxford, where he was entered of Queen's College, in which his father had studied. He addicted himself at this time with fach diligence to claffical learning, that he acquired an elegant Latin ftile before he arrived at that age in which lads usually begin to write good English. A paper of his verses in that tongue fell by accident, in the year 1687, into the hands of Dr. Lancaster, dean of Magdalen College, who was fo pleafed with them, that he immediately procured their author's election into that houfe, where he took the degrees of Batchelor and Mafter of Arts. It was here he became acquainted with Mr. Henry Sacheverell, who made fo much noife afterwards.

Mr. Addison employed his first years in the ftudy of the old Greek and Roman poets, and his Latin poetry was, in the courfe of a few years, very much admired in both universities, and juftly gained him the reputation of a great poet, before his name was so much as known in Londonf. He was 22 years of age before he published any thing in our language, and then came abroad a short copy of verses addresfed to Mr. Dryden, which procured him immediately, and that very deservedly, from the best judges in that nice age, a great reputation, being as correct and perfect as any thing which even he himself afterwards produced. Some little space intervening, he fent into the world a translation of the 4th georgick of Virgil, (omitting the story of Ariftæus) exceedingly commended by Mr. Dryden. He wrote also that discourse on the Georgicks, which is prefixed to them by way of pre

face in Mr. Dryden's tranflation, and is allowed to be one of the jufteft pieces of criticism in our own, or in any other language. It was not then known who was the author of it, for it being an untried ftrain of criticifm, and bearing a little hard upon the old profeffors of that art, it was thought proper both by Mr. Dryden and Mr. Addison, that it should be faid to have been communicated by a friend, without mentioning any name, as it might have appeared to fome to have been a subject not fo fit for a young man to have decided upon an early inftance of Mr. Addifon's prudence. Indeed he always was remarkable for keeping fo ftrict a rein upon his wit, that it never got the start of his wisdom.

The next year he wrote feveral poems of different kinds, amongst the rest one dated the 3d of April 1694, directed to Mr. H. S. that is Henry Sacheverell, a piece truly original, and of great judgment. This Gentleman was of the fame age with Mr. Addison, and at this time had not entertaiped any qualms about the revolution, as is very clear from these verses, which Mr. Addison would not have written to him, had he been then an enemy to the revolution, fince they contain a very high panegyrick on it; and what confirms it the more, is, that afterwards, when Sacheverell deserted these principles, the intimacy between them gradually decreased, and at length fubfided.

The following year he began to have higher views, which difcovered themselves in a poem to king William III. on one of his campaigns, addreffed to the Lordkeeper, Sir John Somers. That judicious ftatefman received this mark of a young author's attachment with great kindnefs, took Mr. Addison thenceforward into the number of his friends, and gave him, upon all occafions, fignal proofs of a fincere esteem.

While he was at the univerfity, he had

The Latin pieces he wrote were 8 in number; their titles were these : 1. Peace, under the Aufpices of William, restored to Europe. 2. A Description of the Barometer. 3. A Battle between the Pigmies and the Cranes. 4. A Poem upon the Refur rection, being a Defcription of the Painting over the Altar in Magdalen College, Oxford. 5. The Bowling-Green. 6. An Ode to Dr. Hannes, an excellent Phyfician and Poet. 7. A Puppet-Shew. And 8. An Ode to the celebrate: Dr. Thomas Burnet, Author of the Theory of the Earth. Thefe poems have been tranflated into English by Dr. George Sewell of Peterhouse, Cambridge, Mr. Newcomb, and Nicholas Amhurst, Esq, both of Oxford.

been

been very earnestly folicited to enter into holy orders. At one time he feemed refolved on it, probably out of respect to his father; and this he intimates at the conclufion of his poem to Sacheverell, in the following words:

I've done at length, and now, dear friend, receive

The laft poor prefent that my Muse can give.

I leave the arts of poetry and verse, To them that practise them with more fuccefs.

Of greater truths I'll now prepare to tell, And fo at once, dear friend, and mufe, farewell.

But, through an excefs of modefty, he imagined himself to be deficient in those qualities he thought neceffary for the function of a divine, and therefore entirely laid aide that defign. But fome difpute has arisen on this affair: Mr. Tickell, in bis preface to Mr. Addifon's works, makes this reflection: "Thus his remarkable seriousness and modesty, which might have been urged as powerful reafons for his chufing that life, proved the chief obstacles to it. Thefe qualities by which the priefthood is fo much adorned, reprefented the duties of it as too weighty for him, and rendered him still more worthy of that honour, which they made him decline." Sir Richard Steele, on the contrary, in his dedication of the Drummer, does not think that these were the reafons which induced Mr. Addison to turn his thoughts to the civil world, but that it was owing to the warm inftances which my Lord Hallifax made to the head of the college, not to inAft on Mr. Addifon's going into holy orders. But this does not contradict the pasfage of Mr. Tickell. He accounts for Mr. Addifon's quitting his refolution; the Knight talks of the pains other people took to prevent his following it. Mr. Addison might really in his own judgment think himself not qualified for the office, and Lord Hallifax might at the fame time defire the college not to admit him. These are therefore by no means contradictions of each other, for both accounts may be equally true.

Having a great inclination to travel, his patron Lord Somers procured him a penfion from the crown, of 300 l. a-year, and this enabled him to make a tower ino Italy in 1699. His Latin poems dedi

cated to Mr. Montagu, then chancellor of the exchequer, were printed before his departure in the Mufa Anglicana, and were as much admired abroad as they could poffibly be at home, particularly by the great Boileau, who fift conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry, by perufing the Mufæ Anglicana, which Mr. Addison made him a prefent of. Amongst other civilities which paffed between these two great men, M. Boileau, who was both an able judge, and incapable of partiality, told him, that this performance of his had given him a very new idea of the Englih politeness; and that he doubted not but that there were excellent compofitions in the language of a country that poffeffed the Roman genius in fo elegant a degree.

Two years after, Mr. Addison wrote from Italy an epiftolary poem to Montagų, Lord Hallifax, which has been reckoned by fome to be the best of any of his performances. It is a finifhed piece in its kind. It was tranflated into Italian verfe by the abbot Antonio Maria Salvini, Greek profeffor at Florence, and is in the highest efteem in Italy, which is not to be wondered at, fince there are in it the best turned compliments on that country that are perhaps to be found in any language. Add to this, that the Italians must naturally apprehend their force, as well as, or better than ourselves, on account of their familiarity with the objects therein described. Lord Hallifax had that year been impeached by the Commons, and an addrefs had been prefented to the King to remove him from his Majefty's prefence and councils for ever: for these reasons he had retired from public bufinefs, and Mr. Addison's addrefs of this piece to him at that time is a noble proof of his gratitude, as the manner of it will be a lafting monument of his good fenfe. The opening of the poem is peculiarly graceful, and, if attentively confidered, alike honourable for the writer and the patron:

While you, my Lord, the rural fhades admire,

And from Britannia's public pofts retire; Nor longer her ungrateful fons to please, For their advantage, facrifice your eafe; Me into foreign realms my fate conveys, Through nations fruitful of immortal lays; Where the foft season, and inviting clime, Confpire to trouble your repofe with rhime.

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