removed either from that of Salisbury 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 so effectually recorded.

Of this memorable friendship the greater praife must be given to Steele. It is not hard to love thofe from whom nothing can be feared, and Addifon never confidered Steele as a rival; but Steele lived, as he confeffes, under an habitual fubjection to the predominating genius of Addifon, whom he always mentioned with reverence, and treated with obfequioufnefs.

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 va nity 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 Addifon, who seems to have had other notions of a hundred pounds, grew

• Spence.

B 2

impa

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 fome Latin verfes gained him the patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards provost of Queen's College; by whofe recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as a Demy, a term by which that fociety denomi nates those which are elsewhere called Scho

lars; young men who partake of the foun der's benefaction, and fucceed in their order to vacant fellowships *.

Here he continued to cultivate poetry and criticism, 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 ftile 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 fondnefs; for he collected a fecond volume of the Mufa Anglicana, perhaps

• He took the degree of M. A. Feb. 14, 1693.

for

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 presented 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 Bowling-green. 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 fonorous magnificence of Roman fyllables, the writer conceals penury of thought, and want of novelty, often from the reader, and often from himself.

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

says Dryden, my latter fwarm is hardly worth the biving.

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 uninstructive, without much either of the scholar's learning or the critick's penetration,

His next paper of verfes contained a character of the principal English poets, inscribed to Henry Sacheverell, who was then, if not a poet, a writer of verses; as is fhewn by his verfion of a small part of Virgil's Georgicks, published in the Mifcellanies, and a Latin encomium on queen Mary, in the Mufæ Anglicanæ. Thefe verfes exhibit all the fondness of friendship; but, on one fide or the other, friendship was too weak for the malignity of faction.

In this poem is a very confident and difcriminative character of Spenfer, whose work he had then never read *. So little fometimes is criticism the effect of judgment. It is neceffary to inform the reader, that about this time he was introduced by Congreve to Montague, then Chancellor of the Exchequer : Addison was then learning the trade of a courtier, and fub

• Spence.

joined Montague as a poetical name to those of Cowley and of Dryden.

By the influence of Mr. Montague, concurring, according to Tickell, with his natural modefty, he was diverted from his original design of entering into holy orders. Montague alleged the corruption of men who engaged in civil employments without li beral education and declared, that, though he was represented as an enemy to the Church, he would never do it any injury but by withholding Addison from it.

;

Soon after (in 1695) he wrote a poem to king William, with a kind of rhyming introduction addressed to lord Somers. King William had no regard to elegance or literature; his study was only war; yet by a choice of minifters, whose difpofition was very different from his own, he produced, without intention, a very liberal patronage to poetry. Addison was careffed both by Somers and Montague.

In 1697, he wrote his poem on the peace of Ryfwick, which he dedicated to Montague, and which was afterwards called by Smith the best Latin poem fince the Æneid. Praise must not be too rigorously examined; but the performance cannot be denied to be vigorous and elegant.