ART. IV.-Johnson's Lives of the English Poets. (Murray's British Classics.) Edited by PETER CUNNINGHAM, F.S.A. Murray.

THE readers of the biography of Addison in the above collection, of which as perfect and complete an edition has now been laid before the public as care and ability could make it, will probably not be sorry to hear that the "Works of Addison" will form a future portion of the series of which "Johnson's Lives" already constitutes so popular a part.

The prominent men of Addison's day were rendered all the more prominent, and have become all the more familiar with posterity, because of their alliances, sometimes because of their enmities, with one another. As Addison himself said of Virgil and Horace, that "neither would have gained so great reputation, had they not been the friends and admirers of each other," so may it be said of Addison himself and some of his contemporaries. There are cases in which posterity will gain little by this. The intimacy of Addison and Swift, (an intimacy which the former kept up at a time when to be faithful to friendship with such a man as Swift was to menace the fortunes of Addison,)—their intimacy when living is perhaps one of the causes why, in the series of the British Classics, the complete Works of Swift are to follow the complete works of Addison. This is a matter for regret rather than congratulation. Addison is welcome to our hearth, as an eloquent and refined visitor, from whose conversation there is always something to be learned, and who, if he be, indeed, worldly, is ever decent. Swift, on the other hand, is a man for the master of the house to see privately in his library, if he really need to hold conference at all with such a writer; but Swift is not a man to be made welcome to the circle at our fireside. Doubtless, even the elegant Addison had his faults, and the coarse and selfish Dean was not entirely destitute of all the virtues. Never, however, can he be esteemed, Christian Minister as he called himself, as "the friend of the family." He will be found, in turns, in fierce antagonism against all. He is no gentle instructor of the young; he has as little reverence for the feelings of the aged as he has respect for the modest fair. Addison raised the character of woman, and paid homage to what he had so raised. Swift coarsely laughed at the moralist for this act, which was done less in a spirit of gallantry than one of civilization. A consideration, briefly held, of the life of Addison will not, perhaps, be accounted as supererogatory, previous to the appearance of his Works. We shall not consider the same course necessary the case of the Dean of Saint Patrick's.

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In the latter half of the seventeenth century, the living of

Milston, in Wiltshire, worth some £120 per annum, was occupied by a learned, not an unwise, and a somewhat eccentric northcountry Clergyman, named Lancelot Addison. Lancelot was himself the son of an exceedingly poor Westmoreland "Parson;" and in the character of a "poor child," with favourable testimonials from the Grammar School of Appleby, he was received into Queen's College, Oxford. This was not the period when the wisdom heaped up at the University was satirically said to be great, for the alleged reason that most young men brought some with them, and were sure to leave it all behind them. It was a time when a gigantic labour was required to be spent before a small, but highly-prized, honour could be achieved, and "Detur digniori" was the device of the laurel crown.

Lancelot was as bold as, and a far better man than, his namesake in the old romaunt. He was a strong Church-and-King man, at an epoch when the University was governed by authorities which did not consider the Church as infallible, nor the Monarch as necessarily the "Lord's anointed." The chivalrous feelings of the young Bachelor of Arts led him to tilt against the authorities on the grave questions of monarchical and episcopal principles; and in his privileged character of Terræ Filius,—a sort of licensed buffoon, who had as much licence at a "Commencement," as a slave in the Saturnalia,—he bespattered the supporters of republican opinions, and the friends of religious reformation beyond that accomplished in the Church, with such a shower of loyal and orthodox arguments, and sarcasm not very choice of epithet, that his privilege was not respected. Very soon after we find him, no longer a member of the University, travelling from house to house in Sussex, giving private instruction in the "humanities," and political lessons, to the sons and daughters of orthodox Cavaliers. When Charles II. "got his own again," as it was called, and terribly abused what he so little merited, he rewarded the courageous Lancelot, by appointing him as Chaplain to the garrison at Dunkirk. This splendid piece of preferment was ultimately changed, in 1662, for a similar situation at Tangier.

The good man looked upon the change as a genuine "preferment." He was pleased with the novelty of his position, had a watchful eye, observed narrowly, and finally wrote a book upon Barbary and its inhabitants, which is full of quaint matter, knowledge useful and useless, much credulity, and a simplicity which endears the author to the reader. The reverend Chaplain had been eight years engaged in such duties as Chaplains were then expected to perform, when he applied for a "holiday," and by Government permission he visited England. He was in the full enjoyment of his relaxation when he heard that his post had been given to another. There was scant ceremony and much despotism employed in those days, and the ex-Chaplain

It was

found himself suddenly destitute, and without redress. private, not public or official, sympathy which conferred on him the little benefice which he met with in the living at Milston, and its £120 a year.

This pittance he found a Bishop's daughter willing to share with him. The lady was Jane, daughter of Dr. Gulstone, Bishop of Bristol. Three boys and three girls were the fruit of a union which was happy at the hearth, and productive of happiness through the district over which Lancelot presided. The modest Divine amused his leisure hours by literary labours; and in the year 1672, he became the author of "The First State of Mahometanism," and found himself the father of the to-becelebrated Joseph.

The other children of this union may be dismissed in a paragraph. Of the two younger brothers of Joseph, the elder, Gulstone, was wise enough to believe that a commercial career was not unworthy of a poor gentleman; and he flourished accordingly. The princely merchant became Governor of Fort St. George in India. The youngest son, Lancelot, vegetated as "Fellow" of Magdalen, at Oxford. Two of the daughters died young, and were by so much happier than the Dorothy who survived them, and whom Swift describes as "a kind of wit, and very like her brother."

As a child, Joseph Addison was remarkable for his reserve, his thoughtfulness, and his "sensibility." An illustration of the latter quality is afforded in the course which he took on being threatened by his country schoolmaster, Nash, of whom he was the youngest pupil, with punishment for some childish fault. He could face neither parent nor pedagogue when lying under such disgrace, and the boy fled into the woods, lived upon berries, lodged in a hollow tree, and was happily discovered before he had continued the course long enough to be productive of irremediable evil. The removal of his father to Salisbury, where he was raised to the dignity of Archdeacon and "D.D.," gave him better chances of receiving a profitable education. He was a student both at Salisbury and Lichfield, before he proceeded as a private pupil to the Charter-House, where he founded his friendship with a very worthless person, Mr. Richard Steele, and learned to express himself colloquially in Latin, if not in Greek, with a facility that would have astonished the young ladies who were trying to attain the same in French at Stratford-le-Bow.

Addison was a Charter-House pupil at what we may call a mid-way period between two men of very opposite character,Crashaw the poet, who was Romanist enough in his rhymes to induce Henrietta Maria to recommend him (very unsuccessfully) as the successor of Ben Jonson to the honours of the Laureateship; and John Wesley, who laid the foundation not

only of his learning, but of his health, at the Charter-House. Our readers will assuredly remember that Wesley imputed his after health and his lengthened life to his following out the paternal injunction to run round the Charter-House play-ground three times every morning before breakfast. Addison was even more delicate of constitution, as a child, than Wesley. This was so much the case, that he was baptized on the day of his birth, so great was the fear that he would never see the morrow.

Addison passed from under the ferule of the learned Dr. Ellis, to take up his residence at Queen's College, Oxford, when he was only fifteen years of age. His father was the Dean of Lichfield,-a dignity conferred on him in return for his services at Tangier. The Dean's son did not cross the threshold of the building founded by Queen Philippa's Confessor a "poor child," as his father had done. He was a young gentleman of good prospects and fine parts. He was, however, fashionable enough to sneer at the New-Year's gift and admonition of the Bursar made to every member, and consisting of a "needle and thread," and a warning to "Take this, and be thrifty." On the other hand, he had already Greek enough with him to serve all disputants as the old member of Queen's did the wild boar in Shotwear Forest. The student, "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," was reading Aristotle, when he was set upon by the savage swine. The beast came upon him open-mouthed, and the scholar, with true logical composure, thrust the volume into the animal's throat, and choked him therewith, shouting, "Porce, Græcum est!" Thence the boar's head at the table of Queen's on Christmas-Day.

Between the fifteenth and the eighteenth years of his age, Addison spent much time, and gained much reputation, by his Latin poems. They were on all subjects, from the wars of Monarchs to the feats of Punch. They are of rare elegance, considering the early period at which they were composed; and it is remarkable that what it took one boy to write, it required three men to translate. And, after all, the poems in English have none of the raciness, ease, and polish,-speaking of them generally,—which distinguish the originals. In the originals, indeed, that great art which consists in concealing art does not distinguish them. The smell of the lamp is there, and the labour expended on them must have been at the cost of health. Addison was unwise enough to apply closest to study after dinner, with which study should close for the day. In his age, indeed, the repast was taken at an earlier hour than it is now; but still his taxing the brain at a time when less noble organs had that to do, which they can do all the better for the brain being left in "idle vacuity of repose," was committing an onslaught on health, which probably effected both immediate harm and permanent injury.

Addison and Dryden.

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It should be mentioned that Addison was intended for the Church. The Latin poems of the theological student do not betray any predilection for the calling. Of the eight poems, one only has any decided reference to religion; and that is merely an illustration of the painted window in Magdalen Chapel, which has the Resurrection for its subject. Even in this piece, the "Resurrectio delineata," there is less spirit and not more genius than may be found in his "Sphæristerium," or poem on a "Bowling-Green." In the mean time, they served Addison's purpose. They helped to secure his election as a Demy of Magdalen in 1689. He became Fellow of the same College in 1697. During the intervening years, he appears to have been as much engaged in instructing others as in improving himself. His industry was worthy of all praise. "Maudlin's learned grove," as Pope calls the Elizabethan "water walk," which is now known by Addison's name, had no more earnest student perambulating beneath its leafy shade at evening-tide than the accomplished son of the old garrison Chaplain at Dunkirk.

Four years previous to his becoming a Fellow of Magdalen, Addison had tried his wing successfully in an English flight, in his eulogistic verses on Dryden. The old bard was pleased with the incense offered him by the younger poet, whose translation of the Fourth Georgic won the high commendation from Dryden, expressed in the congenial phrase, that, "after this, his own hive was hardly worth the swarming." Dryden paid him a still higher compliment by printing Addison's critical prefatory Essay on the Georgics, which was prefixed to Dryden's own translation of the poem. When it is remembered that the last-named author was the most accomplished writer of prefaces of whom English literature can boast, the compliment may be the better appreciated. Johnson truly says of Dryden's prefaces, that they were never thought tedious; and upon them Burke is said to have formed his own style. Dryden's critical remarks on Polybius the Historian will suffice to stand for proof of what is here asserted.

Johnson speaks slightingly of Addison's Greek; that is, he suspects, rather than affirms, that Addison's scholarship in this respect was not of a high quality. Yet Addison very early projected a translation of Herodotus,-a labour which demands a most accomplished scholar for its suitable execution. That the project was not realized, appears to have been determined, not by Addison's incapacity,-he translated two books,—but by Tonson the publisher's caprice.

Tonson probably conjectured that the public continued to prefer the free and comic rendering of ancient authors which was still in fashion. We may cite a passage from the translation of Herodotus, which was a favourite book in Addison's day. Thus one passage in the Euterpe, (169,) which may be