As a teacher of wisdom, he may be confidently fol lowed. His religion has nothing in it enthusiastick or fuperftitious: he appears neither weakly credulous nor wantonly sceptical; his morality is neither dangerously lax, nor impracticably rigid. All the enchantment of fancy, and all the cogency of argument, are employed to recommend to the reader his real intereft, the care of pleafing the Author of his being. Truth is fhewn fometimes as the phantom of a vifion, fometimes appears half-veiled in an allegory; fometimes attracts regard in the robes of fancy, and fometimes steps forth in the confidence of reafon. She wears a thousand dresses, and in all is pleasing.

Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter liabet.

His profe is the model of the middle style; on grave. fubjects not formal, on light occafions not grovelling; pure without fcrupulofity, and exact without apparent elaboration; always equable, and always eafy, without glowing words or pointed fentences. Addifon never deviates from his track to fnatch a grace; he feeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries no hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected fplendour.

It was apparently his principal endeavour to avoid all harshness and severity of diction; he is therefore fometimes verbofe in his tranfitions and connections, and fometimes defcends too much to the language of converfation; yet if his language had been lefs idiomatical, it might have loft fomewhat of its genuine Anglicifm. What he attempted, he performed; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetick; he is never rapid, and he never ftagnates. His fentences have neither ftudied amplitude, nor affected brevity:

his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarfe, and elegant but not oftentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

In a preceding note I have endeavoured to rescue from oblivion a fact respecting Mr. Addifon, that does honour to his moral character. With the fame view, I relate a fignal inftance of his difinterestedness in his official capacity, which feems to have escaped the notice of the latest of his biographers. Mr. Addison, while fecretary to lord Sunderland, as lord lieutenant of Ireland, had folicited a favour for major David Dunbar, and prevailed in his fuit, which was of fo beneficial a nature, that the major thought himself bound to a grateful acknowledgement of it, and accordingly sent him a present of a bank note for three hundred guineas, which Mr. Addison would by no means accept. The major upon this converted his prefent into another form, and made him a tender of a diamond ring of the fame value, which alfo was rejected. The reafons for this refufal will be beft explained by Mr. Addifon's own words, extracted from a letter which he thought proper to write on the occafion, and are as follows:

“And now, fir, believe me when I affure you I never did nor "ever will on any pretence whatsoever, take more than the stated "and cuftomary fees of my office. I might keep the contrary prac"tice concealed from the world were I capable of it, but I could "not from myself. And I hope I fhall always fear the reproaches

of my own heart more than thofe of all mankind. In the mean "time, if I can serve a gentleman of merit, and fuch a character as "you bear in the world, the fatisfaction I meet with on fuch an oc"cafion is always a fufficient, and the only reward to, fir,

"Your most obedient humble fervant."

HUGHES.

OHN HUGHES, the fon of a citizen in Lon

JOH

2

don, and' of Anne Burgefs, of an ancient family in Wiltshire, was born at Marlborough, July 29, 1677. He was educated at a private fchool; and though his advances in literature are in the Biographia very oftenratiously displayed, the name of his mafter is fomewhat ungratefully concealed *.

At

*This is very jufly observed by Dr. Johnson; but the secret has at last escaped, and we know now that he was educated in a diffenting academy, of which the rev. Mr. Thomas Rowe was tutor; and was a fellow ftudent there with Dr. Ifaac Watts, Mr. Samuel Say, and other perfons of eminence. In the "Hora Lyrica" of Dr. Watts is a peem to the memory of Mr. Rowe. Dr. Johnson once intimated to me a fufpicion, founded on his connections, that Mr. Hughes was a diffenter; but lived not to be certified of the fact. It feems by their filence as to the place of his education, and the name of his tutor, that his friends were ftudious to fupprefs that which furely it would have been no difgrace to reveal; but they are now both made known in the life of Mr. Say, in the Biographical Dictionary, vol. xi. p. 304.

At nineteen he drew the plan of a tragedy; and paraphrafed, rather too diffufely, the ode of Horace which begins Integer Vita. To poetry he added the fcience of mufick, in which he feems to have attained confiderable skill, together with the practice of defign, or rudiments of painting.

His ftudies did not withdraw him wholly from bufinefs, nor did business hinder him from ftudy. He had a place in the office of ordnance; and was fecretary to feveral commiffions for purchafing lands neceffary to fecure the royal docks at Chatham and Portsmouth ; yet found time to acquaint himself with modern languages.

In 1697 he published a poem on the Peace of Ryfwick; and in 1699 another piece, called The Court of Neptune, on the return of king William, which he addreffed to Mr. Montague, the general patron of the followers of the Mufes. The fame year he produced a fong on the duke of Gloucefter's birth-day.

He did not confine himself to poetry, but cultivated other kinds of writing with great fuccefs; and about this time fhewed his knowledge of human nature by an Efay on the Pleasure if being deceived. In 1702 he published, on the death of king William, a Pindarick ode called The Houfe of Naffau; and wrote another paraphrafe on the Otium Divos of Horace,

It is probable, as Mr. Hughes had no expectation of a patrimony, that he was educated for the diflenting miniftry. I am well informed, that Dr. Watts regretted his attachment to poetry, and was not pleafed that he wrote for the ftage. By the affiftance which he gave to many and various publications it fhould feem, that in the former part of his life at leaft, he was, like Johafon, a writer for the bookfellers.

In 1703 his ode on Mufick was performed at Stationers Hall; and he wrote afterwards fix cantatas, which were fet to mufick by the greatest master of that time, and feem intended to oppofe or exclude the Italian opera, an exotick and irrational entertainment, which has been always combated, and always has prevailed.

His reputation was now fo far advanced, that the publick began to pay reverence to his name; and he was folicited to prefix a preface to the tranflation of Boccalini, a writer whofe fatirical vein coft him his life in Italy; but who never, I believe, found many readers in this country, even though introduced by fuch powerful recommendation.

He tranflated Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead; and his version was perhaps read at that time, but is now neglected; for by a book not neceffary, and owing its reputation wholly to its turn of diction, little notice can be gained but from those who can enjoy the graces of the original. To the dialogues of Fontenelle he added two compofed by himself; and, though not only

*Mr. Hughes had no fuch intention. He was skilled in mufic, and admired Scarlatti and Bononcini, and other compofers of Italian operas. The writer of the account of Mr. Hughes, prefixed to his works, fays, that his fix cantatas, fet by Dr. Pepufch, were written before the introduction of the Italian opera on the English stage: this alfo is a mistake; for in the first of them, intituled "Alexis," are these lines,

"To fhining theatres he now repairs
"To learn Camilla's moving airs.”

i.e. the airs in the opera of Camilla, compofed by Bononcini, and performed at Drury Lane Theatre in 1708.

The cantata is an elegant fpecies of vocal mufic, refembling the opera, in that it is divided into air and recitative; it was invented by the Italians. Mr. Hughes wrote many cantatas: thofe above were fet by Dr. Pepufch; others that he wrote were fet by Mr. Handel and Mr. Galliard.