election of Aldborough, upon the Report which was made this day. It was thought a very poor cause by many who voted for it, and, none of the Secret Committee being there, nor caring to appear in it, we were but 97 to 129. The chairman to the Committee of elections spoke against us. I am, sir, Your most faithful and most humble servant, TO MR. DELAFAYE,' SIR, (LORD SUNDERLAND'S PRIVATE SECRETARY.) (London,) June 18th, 1715. You see in yesterday's votes Mr. Walpole's motion relating to Prior, which passed without opposition. Several wish that it had been made sooner; for Ned Harley has been with him since his being taken into custody, as were the Earl of Oxford and his son the night before he was examined. The son's waiting upon his father on this occasion made it believed there were articles stipulated with the prisoner. When the order of the day was read, Mr. Bromley said they were still at a loss as to the matters contained in the Report, the printed copies not being yet given to the members, and the original having been removed from the table for some time, in order, as he supposed, to compare the printed copies with it. He therefore hoped the proceeding upon it would be put off to Monday or Tuesday next. Mr. Smith seconded this motion, not because the printed copies were not yet given out, which, he said, was but of late usage and unparliamentary, but because the original had been removed from the table. Mr. Walpole acquainted the House of some omissions and mistakes which had been made in the printed Report, and had delayed the giving of it out, as was intended, and moved the taking of it into consideration on Tuesday next. I send my Lord-Lieutenant a correct copy with the appendix by this post, there having been several errata of the press in that which I lately transmitted to His Excellency. 1 Charles de la Faye was appointed Earl Sunderland's private secretary Sept., 1714. I this night send away the warrant for appointing Mr. Gilbert Lord Chief Baron,1 the term being so near at hand, and the gentlemen of Ireland representing the necessity of such a despatch. I have enclosed a copy of it to my LordLieutenant. I this morning received a small packet from Ireland, which is likewise enclosed. I have great difficulties with myself in relation to the Duke of Ormond. When I was of the University, of which he is Chancellor, I was favoured with his countenance and encouragement. When he succeeded my Lord Wharton in Ireland he resisted many solicitations which were made for the place I have ever since enjoyed in that kingdom. I shall never pardon myself if I give a vote that may have a tendency to the taking off his head, and have reason to believe my Lord-Lieutenant would condemn me for such a piece of ingratitude. I do not remember that, since I have been in the House, I have separated from my friends in a single vote; and all I propose to do in this case, is to be absent as by accident, if this impeachment goes on. desire you to acquaint His Excellency with this particular, that it may not make any impression with him to my disadvantage. Mr. Delafaye. SIR, I am, sir, your most faithful IMPEACHMENT OF HARLEY.2 J. ADDISON. (Whitehall,) Thursday night, June 13th, 1717. I I am commanded by Mr. Secretary Addison to acquaint you that you are desired to meet some other members 1 Jeffrey Gilbert, then second Puisne Justice in Ireland, removed to England and made Chief Baron of the Exchequer. 2 Harley had been impeached, June 10, 1715, and committed to the Tower. On his way thither he was attended by an immense multitude, loudly exclaiming, "High Church and Oxford for ever." After having suffered two years' imprisonment he petitioned to be brought to trial, and to the great discomfiture of many of the Whigs, especially the Marlborough party, was honourably acquitted by his Peers, July 1, 1717. The circumstances are interesting; see them in Tindal, iv. 427, 546; Lord Mahon, vol. i. 415, &c of parliament at his office to-morrow at ten in the forenoon, to consult upon certain matters relating to the impeachment of the Earl of Oxford. I am Your most obedient and humble servant, Secretary's Office. To Mr. Walpole, comptroller. Sir Joseph Jekyll. Mr. Lechmere. Mr. Cooper. Mr. Carter. Mr. Baillie. Serjeant Pengelly. Serjeant Reynolds. Mr. Craggs, Secretary at War. CH. DELAFAYE. Mem. Sent Mr. Addison an account of; he being then at Hol land House. ADDISONIANA. ADDISON'S FATHER. "THE Reverend Lancelot Addison, though eclipsed by his more celebrated son, made some figure in the world, and occupies with credit two folio pages in the Biographia Britannica. Lancelot was sent up, as a poor scholar, from Westmoreland to Queen's College, Oxford, in the time of the Commonwealth, made some progress in learning, became, like most of his fellow-students, a violent Royalist, lampooned the heads of the University, and was forced to ask pardon on his bended knees. When he had left college, he earned a humble subsistence by reading the liturgy of the fallen church to the families of those sturdy squires whose manorhouses were scattered over the Wild of Sussex. After the Restoration, his loyalty was rewarded with the post of chaplain to the garrison of Dunkirk. When Dunkirk was sold to France, he lost his employment. But Tangier had been ceded by Portugal to England as part of the marriage-portion of the Infanta Catherine; and to Tangier Lancelot Addison was sent. A more miserable situation can hardly be conceived. It was difficult to say whether the unfortunate settlers were more tormented by the heats or by the rains, by the soldiers within the wall or by the Moors without it." Macaulay. He came back to England after some years of banishment about the beginning of 1671, and was soon after presented to the small rectory of Milston near Amesbury, in Wiltshire, whither he retired. (His son Joseph was born. here in 1672.) After this period he rose to eminence, and became one of the Royal Chaplains, a Doctor of Divinity, Archdeacon of Salisbury, and Dean of Lichfield. VOL. V. 2x STORY OF ADDISON WHEN A BOY. In the town where Addison was born is the following tradition of a curious excursion made by him when a boy: Being at a country school, he committed some slight fault; for which his fear of being corrected was so great, that he ran away from his father's house, and fled into the fields, where he lived upon fruits, and took up his lodging in a hollow tree, till, upon the publication of a reward to whoever should find him, he was discovered and restored to his parents. “If these stories be true," says Macaulay, "it would be curious to know by what moral discipline so mutinous and enterprising a lad was transformed into the gentlest and most modest of men." ADDISON'S SCHOOL FROLIC. DR. Johnson tells the following story of Addison, when a boy at school. "The practice of barring-out was a savage licence, practised in many schools to the end of the last century, by which the boys, when the periodical vacation drew near, growing petulant at the approach of liberty, some days before the time of regular recess took possession of the school, of which they barred the doors, and bade their master defiance from the windows. It is not easy to suppose that on such occasions the master would do more than laugh; yet, if tradition may be credited, he often struggled hard to force or surprise the garrison. The master, when Pigot was a school-boy, was barred-out at Lichfield, and the whole operation, as he said, was planned and conducted by Addison." ADDISON'S EARLY MERIT. MR. Addison became a demy of Magdalen College in Oxford, by merit, at the age of seventeen (July, 1689). He took the degree of Master of Arts, Feb. 14th, 1693, and obtained his fellowship in 1698. In the following year1 he set ' Addison set out from London in the autumn of 1699, and from Marseilles for Italy in December, 1700, as his letters show. But his own account has "On the 12th of December, 1699, I set out from Marseilles to Genoa," a slip of the pen which has escaped all Addison's editors and biographers, till pointed out by Mr. Macaulay. |