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"He kept with princes due decorum;
Yet never stood in awe before 'em.
He follow'd David's lesson just,—
In princes never put his trust:
And, would you make him truly sour,
Provoke him with a slave in power.
The Irish senate if you nam'd,
With what impatience he declaim'd !
Fair LIBERTY was all his cry;
For her he stood prepar'd to die;
For her he boldly stood alone;
For her he oft expos'd his own.
Two kingdoms, just as faction led,
Had set a price upon his head ;1
But not a traitor could be found,
To sell him for six hundred pound.

"Had he but spar'd his tongue and pen,
He might have rose like other men:
But power was never in his thought,
And wealth he valued not a groat;
Ingratitude he often found,

And pity'd those who meant the wound;
But kept the tenor of his mind,

To merit well of human-kind;

Nor made a sacrifice of those

Who still were true, to please his foes.

"In exile, with a steady heart,

He spent his life's declining part,
Where folly, pride, and faction sway,
Remote from St John, Pope, and Gay."

Alas, poor Dean! his only scope

Was to be held a misanthrope.

This into general odium drew him,

Which if he lik'd, much good may't do him.

His zeal was not to lash our crimes,

But discontent against the times:
For, had we made him timely offers,
To raise his post, or fill his coffers,

1 In England for the publication of "The Public Spirit of the Whigs:" in Ireland for his" Proposal for the univeral use of Irish Manufactures, &c. ;" and for the "Drapier's' fourth letter. Of the Dean's stern independence of character under these proscriptions more than one anecdote is related. See Scott's Life of Swift, pp. 296, 297.

Perhaps he might have truckled down,
Like other brethren of his gown;

For party he would scarce have bled:-
I say no more-because he's dead.-
What writings has he left behind?"

"I hear they're of a different kind :
A few in verse; but most in prose❞—
"Some high-flown pamphlets, I suppose :-
All scribbled in the worst of times,

To palliate his friend Oxford's crimes;
To praise Queen Anne, nay more, defend her,
As never favouring the Pretender:
Or libels yet conceal'd from sight,
Against the court to show his spite:
Perhaps his travels, part the third;
A lie at every second word-
Offensive to a loyal ear :-

But not one sermon, you may swear.'
"He knew an hundred pleasing stories,
With all the turns of Whigs and Tories:
Was cheerful to his dying day;

And friends would let him have his way.
"As for his works in verse or prose,
I own myself no judge of those.

Nor can I tell what critics thought them;
But this I know, all people bought them,
As with a moral view design'd
To please and to reform mankind :
And, if he often miss'd his aim,
The world must-own it to their shame,
The praise is his, and theirs the blame.
He gave the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
To show, by one satiric touch,
No nation wanted it so much.
That kingdom he hath left his debtor;
I wish it soon may have a better.
And, since you dread no further lashes,
Methinks you may forgive his ashes."

(6
FROM POETRY A RHAPSODY."

All human race would fain be wits,
And millions miss for one that hits.
Young's universal passion, pride,1
Was never known to spread so wide.
Say, Britain, could you ever boast
Three poets in an age at most?
Our chilling climate hardly bears

1 See Young's Satires on the Love of Fame, the Universal Passion.

A sprig of bays in fifty years;
While every fool his claim alleges,
As if it grew in common hedges.
What reason can there be assign'd
For this perverseness in the mind?
Brutes find out where their talents lie:
A bear will not attempt to fly;
A founder'd horse will oft debate,
Before he tries a five-barr'd gate;
A dog by instinct turns aside,
Who sees the ditch too deep and wide.
But man we find the only creature
Who, led by folly, combats nature;
Who, when she loudly cries, forbear,
With obstinacy fixes there;

And, where his genius least inclines,
Absurdly bends his whole designs.

*

*

Hobbes clearly proves that every creature
Lives in a state of war by nature.1
The greater for the smallest watch,
But meddle seldom with their match.
A whale of moderate size will draw
A shoal of herrings down his maw;
A fox with geese his belly crams;
A wolf destroys a thousand lambs:
But search among the rhyming race,
The brave are worried by the base.
If on Parnassus' top you sit,
You rarely bite, are always bit.
Each poet of inferior size
On you shall rail and criticise,

And strive to tear you limb from limb;

While others do as much for him.

The vermin only tease and pinch

Their foes superior by an inch.

So, naturalists observe, a flea

Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;

And these have smaller still to bite 'em,

And so proceed ad infinitum.

Thus every poet in his kind

Is bit by him that comes behind :

Who, though too little to be seen,

Can tease, and gall, and give the spleen.

1 See the "Leviathan," chap. xiii.

А Я

JOSEPH ADDISON.

(1672-1719.)

ADDISON was the son of a clergyman, and was born in Wiltshire. His success at the University of Oxford, the friendships he had formed, and the elegance of his accomplishments, brought him early into the sphere of fortunate patronage. In reward for some complimentary verses on King William, through the interest of his friends, Somers and Montague, he obtained a pension of L.300 a-year. This enabled him to travel. His epistle from Italy to Montague (then Lord Halifax) displays great splendour of versification, and the enthusiasm of a scholar and a poet.. On the accession of Queen Anne his pension ceased, but, a year or two after, the victory of Blenheim afforded to his muse another opportunity of preferment. Halifax recommended Addison to the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, for the celebration of Marlborough's triumph. His poem, "the Campaign," was rewarded with the post of Commissioner of Appeals. He afterwards went to Ireland as Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, the Marquis of Wharton. While he was in Ireland the "Tatler" was started by his friend Steele. The publication of this periodical and its successors, the Spectator and the Guardian, stretches over the years between 1709 and 1714. Addison and Steele contributed the greater portion of the papers. The year 1713 was what Johnson calls the "grand climacteric of Addison's reputation," by the production of his tragedy of" Cato." This piece, a great part of which had been finished for several years, was reluctantly yielded to the stage by the author, in consequence of the party zeal of his Whig friends, during their exclusion from power in the latter years of Anne's reign. It was vehemently applauded by both political parties; and as vehemently abused, especially by the cynical critic John Dennis, who seemed to dog the heels of every great reputation of his time. (See Johnson's Life of Addison.)

Shortly after the accession of George I., Addison gave his literary services to the new government in the conduct of a political periodical, the "Freeholder." In 1716 he married, after a long probation of courtship, the Countess Dowager of Warwick. Addison, like Dryden, was unhappy in the possession of his noble spouse. His domestic discomfort is said to have forced him in his later years into the convivial enjoyments of a tavern life, the effects of which on his constitution shortened his days. In 1717 he became Secretary of State; but from the shrinking timidity of his character, and in particular from his total want of the power of fluent oratory, he soon felt himself unfitted for the office. He retired on the plea of declining health, with a pension of L.1500 a year. He died in 1719. The interesting anecdote of his last words to his dissolute step-son Lord Warwick, is said to rest on doubtful authority.

As a prose writer. Addison holds the first rank for elegance and purity of style. He and Steele may be called the fathers of our periodical literature, at least in the shape of general popular instruction. Addison may also be distinguished as the founder of popular literary criticism. As a poet he is not estimated very highly by Johnson. "His poetry," says the critic, "is polished and pure, the product of a mind too judicious to commit faults, but not sufficiently vigorous to attain excellence." Their sweetness and beauty of sentiment, however, have made several of his smaller pieces permanent portions of our literature. "Cato," as a drama, abounds in faults of plot

and character; it should be read simply as a poem embodying a series of elevated and noble sentiments.

Addison's Latin poetry is praised, and he indulged to a considerable extent in the taste of the age for classical translation.

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FROM THE LETTER FROM ITALY," ADDRESSED TO LORD HALIFAX.

Wheresoe'er I turn my ravished eyes,

Gay gilded scenes in shining prospect rise;
Poetic fields encompass me around,
And still I seem to tread on classic ground;
For here the muse so oft her harp has strung,
That not a mountain rears its head unsung;
Renowned in verse each shady thicket grows,
And every stream in heavenly numbers flows.
How am I pleased to search the hills and woods,
For rising springs and celebrated floods;
To view the Nar tumultuous in his course,
And trace the smooth Clitumnus to his source;
To see the Mincio draw his watery store,
Through the long windings of a fruitful shore;
And hoary Albula's infected tide

O'er the warm bed of smoking sulphur glide!
Fired with a thousand raptures, I survey
Eridanus through flowery meadows stray,
The king of floods! that, rolling o'er the plains,
The towering Alps of half their moisture drains,
And, proudly swoln with a whole winter's snows,
Distributes wealth and plenty where he flows.

Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng,
I look for streams immortalized in song,
That lost in silence and oblivion lie,

(Dumb are their fountains and their channels dry),
Yet run for ever by the muse's skill,

And in the smooth description murmur still.

ΗΥΜΝ.1

How are thy servants blest, oh Lord!
How sure is their defence!

Eternal wisdom is their guide,

Their help Omnipotence.

In foreign realms and lands remote,
Supported by thy care,

Through burning climes I passed unhurt,
And breathed the tainted air.2

A thanksgiving for preservation during his continental travels.
The Italian malaria.

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