Duchess Sarah, the author inscribed it on its publication. About the same time, the 'Biographia Britannica' states, he assisted Steele in his comedy of the 'Tender Husband;' but that drama was published two years before 'Rosamond.' Addison wrote the prologue spoken when it was acted at Drury Lane; and when it was soon after published, Steele dedicated it to his friend, in an address in which he acknowledges that he had been indebted to him for several of the most successful scenes.

In the beginning of the year 1709, when the Earl (afterwards Marquis) of Wharton, father of the more notorious duke, who some years later became, for a short time, the patron of Young, went over as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland, he took Addison with him as his secretary; and the latter was, at the same time, appointed to the sinecure office of keeper of the records in Birmingham Tower, with a salary augmented to 3007. a year. He was in Dublin when the Tatler' was commenced in London by Steele, on the 12th of April; and Addison is said to have detected his friend by a remark on Virgil in one of the papers, which he recollected having communicated to him it may be found in No. 6, published the 23rd of April, 1709. Addison soon after became a contributor; his first paper formed part of No. 20, which appeared on the 26th of May, and he soon took a larger share in the work than any other writer, except Steele. In his preface to the first collected edition, Steele acknowledged his obligations with his characteristic generosity and warmth of expression: "I have only one gentleman, who will be nameless, to thank for any frequent assistance to me, which, indeed, it would have been barbarous in him to have denied to one with whom he has lived in an intimacy from childhood, considering the great ease with which he is able to despatch the most entertaining pieces of this nature. This good office he performed with such force of genius, humour, wit, and learning, that I fared like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid I was undone by my auxiliary; when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him." Yet Addison's contributions to the Tatler'

scarcely amount to a fourth part of Steele's. We may here complete the account of the literary partnership of the two friends in the other periodical papers to which the success of this first undertaking in that line gave birth. The 'Tatler,' published thrice a week, was dropped with the 271st number, published the 2nd of January, 1711; the first number of the 'Spectator' appeared on the 1st of March following, and it was continued at the rate of a paper every day, except Sundays, till the 6th of December, 1712, when it was concluded with No. 555. The quantity of Addison's contributions to this first series of the 'Spectator' probably rather exceeds that of Steele's, and does not amount to much less than half of the work. To the first volume of the 'Guardian,' extending also at the rate of six papers a week, from the 12th of March, 1713, to the 15th of June in the same year, he contributed one paper only; but of the ninety-two papers composing the second and concluding volume, about fifty are assigned to Addison. The Guardian' terminated with No. 175, published the 1st of October, 1713; and then the Spectator' was revived on the 18th of June, 1714, and carried on, as a thrice-a-week paper, till the 20th of December. Of the eighty papers composing the second series of the 'Spectator (to which Steele did not contribute), Addison is understood to have written twenty-four, all published before the 1st of October; he is not supposed to have had any concern with the work for the remaining three months of its existence.

A change in the political world had left him abundant leisure for literature during the greater part of the time that these publications were going on. The ministerial revolution which took place in the summer of 1710, although it was not completed till the dismissal of Godolphin in the beginning of August, appears to have jerked Addison out of office at the first shock: a new board of commissioners of appeal was appointed on the 25th of May, from which he was left out, and we may conjecture that he lost his Irish secretaryship and his place of keeper of the records about the same time. From this date he remained without any public employment for more than

of

four years; which interval, however, offers a few matters requiring notice besides his connexion with the ‘Tatler,' 'Spectator,' and 'Guardian.' In September and October, 1710, he took his revenge on the new Tory ministry in a series of anonymous papers, five in all, published under the title of The Whig Examiner,' which are, all the effusions of his wit and humour, perhaps the most exuberant and the most caustic. In 1711 he purchased an estate at Bilton, in Warwickshire, for 10,000l.: it is difficult to understand where he got the money, or any part of it, although he is said to have been assisted by his brother Gulston, who was governor of Madras. Gulston had obtained the appointment, according to Oldmixon, through his brother's interest; and this writer adds that when he died Addison got six or seven thousand pounds by the sale of his effects. "The first printed account of Addison's," says Tyers, alluding perhaps to the article in the General Biographical Dictionary,” “ supposes that the death of his brother in the East Indies put him into plentiful circumstances. Early in 1712 his acquaintance with Pope commenced; he had already lived on intimate terms with Pope's friend Swift, while in Ireland, notwithstanding the opposition of their politics; and Pope and he were probably now brought together by Steele. In April, 1713, occurred one of the most memorable events in Addison's history-the performance and publication of his tragedy of Cato.' The Biographia Britannica,' Johnson, and most of the accounts state that it had a run of thirty-five successive nights; but, according to Baker's' Biographia Dramatica' (Reed's edition), the number of times it was acted during its first run was only eighteen. Be this as it may, there is no doubt about its having been received with immense applause; to which it is equally undoubted that the political feeling of the moment contributed no inconsiderable share. "The Whigs," as Johnson puts it, 66 applauded every line in which liberty was mentioned, as a satire on the Tories; and the Tories echoed every clap to show that the satire was unfelt." This year, too, Addison wrote another political pamphlet, The late Trial and Conviction of Count Tariff,' an

6

attack upon the French commercial treaty, which, although published without his name, has been authenticated as his by being included in the complete edition of his works published by his executor after his death.

After the death of Queen Anne, in August, 1714, he was appointed secretary to the lords of the regency ; and when King George came over it is said that there was some thought of making him secretary of state, if he could have been prevailed upon to accept the post. This is distinctly asserted by Tyers, and some particulars are given confirmatory of the story in his Historical Essay,' pp. 53-55. He was, in fact, reappointed in the first instance to his former office of secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, now the Earl of Sunderland, under whom he had already served in another department; and when this arrangement was broken up by the almost immediate removal of Sunderland, Addison was made one of the lords of trade early in 1715. It was in the month of June of that year that the memorable incident occurred of the publication by Tickell of a translation of the first book of the Iliad, suspected to have been written by Addison, at the same moment at which the first volume of Pope's translation came out; a proceeding which turned a coldness that had for some time subsisted between Addison and Pope into a complete separation, and is understood to have prompted the well-known lines in which the character of Addison is sketched with so much severity by Pope, now inserted in the Prologue to the Satires, which was not published till after Addison's death, although this particular passage was certainly written and also handed about some years before that event. The most minute and elaborate investigation of the circumstances of this curious affair is contained in a long note on the article' Addison' in Kippis's edition of the Biographia Britannica,' which is known to have been drawn up by Sir William Blackstone. (See also Spence's Anecdotes,' pp. 146-149.) In this same year (1715), too, was published, and likewise brought out on the stage, though with no success, the comedy of The

་

Drummer, or the Haunted House,' which Addison gave to Steele, and which the latter reprinted in 1722, with a preface addressed to Congreve, stating his conviction of its being by Addison, after it had been omitted in Tickell's collection. No doubt is now entertained that Addison is really the author of this piece: indeed, we have direct evidence of his having acknowledged it as his; Theobald, in a note upon the first act of Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady,' speaking of the character of Savil, states that Addison told him he had sketched out his character of Vellum in 'The Drummer'

purely from that model. These speculations on the public discernment, however, did not occupy all his leisure. On the 23rd of September in this year, soon after the breaking out of the rebellion, he commenced a political periodical paper, in defence of the established government, under the title of The Freeholder,' which he kept up with great spirit, at the rate of two numbers a week, till the 29th of June in the next year. On the 2nd of August, 1716, he married Charlotte, Countess Dowager of Warwick and Holland (who had been a widow for fifteen years), after a long suit, which Johnson quotes Spence's MS. as representing to have commenced in Addison's acting as tutor to her son, the young earl; although it does not appear at what time of his life he could well have been employed in that capacity, unless, indeed, we are to adopt the notion of Tyers, who seems to think that the earl may have been the person to whom Swift speaks of Addison having acted as travelling tutor before his return from Italy in 1702. In the printed edition of Spence's Anecdotes,' all that we find (p. 48) is an assertion of Tonson, the bookseller, that he had thoughts of getting the lady "from his first being recommended into the family. The marriage made him nominal master of the mansion now called Holland House, but is understood to have added nothing to his happiness; the countess, it seems, holding it to be her right, or her duty, to make up for her condescension in giving him her hand by never

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