Pope had now an opportunity of courting the friendThip of Addison, by vilifying his old enemy, and could give refentment its full play without appearing to revenge himfelf. He therefore publifhed A Narra tive of the madness of John Dennis; a performance which left the objections to the play in their full force, and therefore discovered more defire of vexing the critick than of defending the poet.

Addison, who was no ftranger to the world, probably faw the selfishness of Pope's friendship; and, refolving that he should have the confequences of his officioufnefs to himself, informed Dennis by Steele, that he was forry for the infult; and that, whenever he fhould think fit to answer his remarks, he would do it in a manner to which nothing could be objected.

The greatest weakness of the play is in the fcenes of love, which are faid by Pope to have been added to the original plan upon a fubfequent review, in compliance with the popular practice of the ftage. Such an authority it is hard to reject; yet the love is fo intimately mingled with the whole action, that it cannot easily be thought extrinsick and adventitious; for if it were taken away, what would be left? or how were the four acts filled in the first draught?

At the publication the Wits feemed proud to pay their attendance with encomiaftick verfes. The best are from an unknown hand, which will perhaps lofe fomewhat of their praise when the author is known to be Jeffreys.

Cato had yet other honours. It was cenfured as a party-play by a Scholar of Oxford, and defended in a favourable examination by Dr. Sewel. It was tranfla

ted by Salvini into Italian, and acted at Florence; and by the Jefuits of St. Omer's into Latin, and played by their pupils. Of this verfion a copy was fent to Mr. Addison: it is to be wished that it could be found, for the fake of comparing their version of the foliloquy with that of Bland.

A tragedy was written on the fame fubject by Des Champs, a French poet, which was tranflated, with a criticism on the English play. But the tranflator and the critick are now forgotten.

Dennis lived on unanfwered, and therefore little read: Addison knew the policy of literature too well to make his enemy important, by drawing the attention of the publick upon a criticifm, which, though fometimes intemperate, was often irrefragable,

While Cato was upon the stage, another daily paper, called The Guardian, was published by Steele. To this, Addison gave great affistance, whether occafionally or by previous engagement is not known.

The character of Guardian was too narrow and too ferious it might properly enough admit both the duties and the decencies of life, but feemed not to include literary fpeculations, and was in fome degree violated by merriment and burlefque. What had the Guardian of the Lizards to do with clubs of tall or of little men, with nefts of ants, or with Strada's prolufions?

Of this paper nothing is neceffary to be faid, but that it found many contributors, and that it was a continuation of the Spectator, with the fame elegance, and the fame variety, till fome unlucky sparkle from a Tory paper fet Steele's politicks on fire, and wit at once blazed into faction. He was foon too hot for neutral

3

neutral topicks, and quitted the Guardian to write the Englishman.

The papers of Addison are marked in the Spectator by one of the Letters in the name of Clio, and in the Guardian by a hand; whether it was, as Tickell pretends to think, that he was unwilling to afurp the praise of others, or as Steele, with far greater likelihood, infinuates, that he could not without discontent impart to others any of his own. I have heard that his avidity did not fatisfy itself with the air of renowi, but that with great eagerness he laid hold on his proportion of the profits.

Many of these papers were written with powers truly comick, with nice difcrimination of characters, and accurate obfervation of natural or accidental deviations from propriety; but it was not supposed that he had tried a comedy on the ftage, till Steele, after his death, declared him the author of the Drummer *; this

It has never, as far as I can recollect, been noticed, that the agency of a drummer in this comedy was probably fuggefted by that ftory of the Demon of Tedworth in Wiltshire, Mr. Addifon's native county, which induced a belief in the reality of apparitions in fome of the graveft men, and ablest divines of the last age; and among them of Dr. Henry More, a relation whereof was published by the Rev. Jofeph Glanvill, fitft in a fmall tract, entitled the Demon of Tedworth, and after that in his Sadducifmus triumphatus,' to this effect, that a fellow who had been a foldier in Cromwell's army, and under a pretended pass had gone about with a drum, demanding money of the constables, had been treated as a vagrant by a magiftrate, and his drum fent to Mr. Mompeffon's of Tedworth ;that the family of this gentleman were for many months after dif turbed by ftrange noifes, and most of all with the frequent beating of a drum in the night, and threats that they should never cease till the drum was restored. The circumstances of this strange story are too many for a note; but are worth looking at in the book abovementioned. The fellow was afterwards convicted of felony, and fentenced to transportation; but the noises were never accounted for.

however

however Steele did not know to be true by any direct teftimony; for when Addifon put the play into his hands, he only told him, it was the work of a Gentle man in the Company; and when it was received, as is confeffed, with cold difapprobation, he was probably lefs willing to claim it. Tickell omitted it in his collection; but the teftimony of Steele, and the total filence of any other claimant, has determined the publick to affign it to Addison, and it is now printed with his other poetry. Steele carried the Drummer to the playhouse, and afterwards to the prefs, and fold the copy for fifty guineas.

To the opinion of Steele may be added the proof fupplied by the play itself, of which the characters are fuch as Addison would have delineated, and the tendency fuch as Addison would have promoted. That it should have been ill received would raise wonder, did we not daily fee the capricious diftribution of theatrical praise.

He was not all this time an indifferent spectator of publick affairs. He wrote, as different exigences required (in 1707), The prefent State of the War, and the Neceffity of an Augmentation; which, however judicious, being written on temporary topicks, and exhibiting no peculiar powers, laid hold on no attention, and has naturally funk by its own weight into neglect. This cannot be faid of the few papers entitled The Whig Examiner, in which is employed all the force of gay malevolence and humorous fatire. Of this paper, which just appeared and expired, Swift remarks, with exultations, that it is now down among the dead men*. He

From a Tory fong in vogue at the time, the burthen whereof is,
And he that will this health deny,
Down among the dead men let him lie

might

might well rejoice at the death of that which he could not have killed. Every reader of every party, fince perfonal malice is past, and the papers which once inflamed the nation are read only as effufions of wit, must wifh for more of the Whig Examiners; for on no occa hon was the genius of Addifon more vigoroufly exerted, and on none did the fuperiority of his powers more evidently appear. His Trial of Count Tariff, written to expose the Treaty of Commerce with France, lived no longer than the question that produced it.

Not long afterwards an attempt was made to revive the Spectator, at a time indeed by no means favourable to literature, when the fucceffion of a new family to the throne filled the nation with anxiety, difcord, and confufion; and either the turbulence of the times; or the fatiety of the readers, put a stop to the publication, after an experiment of eighty numbers, which were afterwards collected into an eighth volume, perhaps more valuable than any one of those that went before it. Addifon produced more than a fourth part ; and the other contributors are by no means unworthy of appearing as his affociates. The time that had paffed during the fufpenfion of the Spectator, though it had not leffened his power of humour, feems to have increased his difpofition to seriousness: the proportion of his religious to his comick papers is greater than in the former feries.

The Spectator, from its recommencement, was published only three times a week; and no difcriminative marks were added to the papers. To Addifon Tickell has afcribed twenty-three*.

* Numb. 556. 557. $58. 559. 561. 562. 565. 567. 568. 56ģi 57%. 574 575 579. 580. 582. 583 584 585. 590. 592. 598. 600.

The