he loft in credit; and, finding by experience his own inability, was forced to folicit his difmiffion, with a

pen

a mixture of wit and indignation, got up and faid: "The honour"able gentleman oppofite me has twice informed the house, that "he conceives; I fhould be glad to know when he means to bring "forth."

I know that this impotence of fpeech is frequently gloffed with the name of mod fly; but whether juftly or not let my author decide, who, fpeaking of Mr. Addifon's habits or external manners, tays of them; " Nothing is fo often mentioned as that timorous or fullen "taciturnity which his friends called modefty, by too mild a name."

The editors have now before them, befides an egregious example of Mr. Addifor's inability as a parliamentary fpeaker, a defcription of that deficiency mentioned by them as the reafon for declining the office which he afterwards accepted; and whether they will, with me, call it timidity even to fleepifbuefs, or, with Dr. Jobrjon, own that it was a timorous or fullen taciturnity, 100 mildly by his friends called modefty, is left to their choice; but is of fmall importance to the argument: however, till they can fhew that both deferiptions are falfe, they will fail in the proof of their affertion, that my charge is extremely unj jt.

He that cannot fpeak in public is fit only for private life; a dumb fenator is no very reíplendent character; but a modeft, a bafful fecretary of state is an object of contempt. How fhall he, who is either fullenly or timidly filent, be able to look a foreign ambaffador, fuch a one as Gondomar for inftance, in the face? or be able

to unfold

The drift of hollow ftates, hard to be spell'd?

Milton's Sonnet to Sir Henry Vane the younger.

But waving all other evidence, I reft the proof of Mr. Addison's general inability to discharge the duties of his station, upon the traditional character of him which yet exifts in the offices of both the fecretaries of state, and is never likely to be effaced; and I will add, that he is the only perfon who ever held the employment, of whom fuch a memorial is there remaining.

The fact recorded by Dr. Johnson of Mr. Addison's embarrassment in the drawing up of an official dispatch, my adverfaries may think of as they please: I fhall only obferve, that it is an historical relation accompanied with names, times, and collateral circumftances, which, added to the teftimony of Mr. Pope, that he could not iffue

an

penfion of fifteen hundred pounds a year. His friends palliated this relinquifhment, of which both friends

and

an order without lofing his time in queft of fine expreffions, is as good evidence of the fact in question as any we have for half the particulars recorded in "The mirror or looking-glafs both for Saints "and Sinners, by Sa. Clark, Paftor in Bennet Fink, London ;" Dr. Calamy's Account of the ejected ministers," or Mr. Neal's "Hiftory of the Puritans."

His removal from the office is alfo a fact that neceffarily followed from his incapacity; and, though my adverfaries have called it a refignation, cannot properly be fo termed; for no man can with truth be faid to refign that which he cannot hold. Dr. Johns fon faw through the fallacy of the term, when he faid, that his friends palliated this relinquishment, of which both friends and cnemies knew the true reason, with an account of declining health, and the neceffity of recefs and quiet, and when he afferted, as he has done in his life of Prior, that " Ad"dison exalted to a high place, was forced into degradation by the sense of " his own incapaci1y."

To prove it was what these gentleman will have it to be, they have adduced the following curious argument, viz. that he afterwards zealously supported in the houfe of cominons the ministry that then took place. Now, it is not ftrange, that Mr. Addifon, a whig by principle, fhould vote with a whig adminiftration; but, in the name of wonder, let me afk, What fort of fupport it was that Mr. Addison gave them, and whether, without a tongue, to speak in an affembly where eloquence alone is power, it could poffibly be any other than that of his bare vote?

I have farther incurred the difpleafure of thefe gentlemen, by recording a faying of Dr. Mandeville's refpecting Mr. Addijon, which, though they affect to doubt it as coming from a mufical knight, Dr. Johnfon has honoured with a place in his page, and which will go down to posterity, viz. that in an evening's converfation at lord chief juftice Parker's, he seemed a parfon in a tyr-wig, and in terms not the moft handfome, as they feem to draw into question the veracity of him who relates it, am called upon to produce my authority. This I am now ready to do, though I fee not how it can profit either them or their argument, and, with more civility than they make the demand, i here inform them and the public, that the ftory was related to me by a gentleman of worth and unquestionable veracity, Mr. Henry Hatjell, a barrister of the Temple, the fon of a baron of the exchequer, con temporary

F4

and enemies knew the true reafon, with an account of declining health, and the neceffity of receís and quiet.

He now returned to his vocation, and began to plan literary occupations for his future life. He purpofed a tragedy on the death of Socrates; a ftory of which,

temporary with the chief justice above-named, and who very probably might have had it from his lordship himself.

It was not my intention, in the account which I gave of him in the Hiftory of Mufic, to take from Mr. Addijon any part of the praise due to his character: on the contrary, I have ascribed to him those talents for which he is justly celebrated. I was formerly acquainted with a perfon next in office under him, the father of the late lady Rochford, from whom I had feveral particulars respecting him, that have given me greater reason for esteeming him, than all that flattery with which thofe who have prefumed to reprehend me have befmeared his memory; but I did not think myself bound, by the confideration that he is the idol of the whigs, to fupprefs a fact which is only provoking, because it is true. I meant not the difądvantage of Mr. Addifon, when I related that he and Dr. Mandeville met at lord chief justice Parker's, and that the Doctor faid of him, that he thought him a parfon in a tye-wig: fuch an expreffion imports no crime, and, as Johnjon juftly obferves, can detract little from his character. It was likely to come from fuch a man as Mandeville, of whom it is notorious, that he entertained no respect for the clergy, and little reverence for religion, and might have been occafioned either by the fubjects of their converfation, or the decency and gravity of Mr. Addifon's deportment; nor do I think my credit, in any fenfe of the word, affected by the publication of it. I take no pleafure in the difparagement of exalted characters, but am ever difpofed to yield honour to whom honour is due: and whether my affertions are not as well digefted, and better fupported than thofe which thefe uninformed hiftorians and feeble reafoners have thrown out in a note of more than fix folio columns, let the readers of both determine.

The business of this note has hitherto been to justify the character I had given of Mr. Addifon in my work. Having, as I am fatisfied, done that, I may now oppose to the eulogium which thefe writers have bestowed on him, the facts related by my author, all tending to the fame point, and leave them to get rid as they can of the charge of his unfitnefs for an office, to which the abilities of a Cecil, or a Walfingham, were not more than adequate.

as

as Tickell remarks, the basis is narrow, and to which I know not how love could have been appended. There would however have been no want either of virtue in the fentiments, or elegance in the language.

He engaged in a nobler work, a defence of the Chriftian Religion, of which part was published after his death; and he defigned to have made a new poctical verfion of the Pfalms.

Thefe pious compofitions Pope imputed to a felfifh motive, upon the credit, as he owns, of Tonfon; who having quarrelled with Addison, and not loving him, said, that, when he laid down the secretary's office, he intended to take orders, and obtain a bishoprick; for, faid he, I always thought him a pricft in his

beart.

That Pope fhould have thought this conjecture of Tonfon worth remembrance, is a proof, but indeed fo far as I have found, the only proof, that he retained fome malignity from their ancient rivalry. Tonfon pretended but to guefs it; no other mortal ever fufpected it; and Pope might have reflected, that a man who had been fecretary of ftate, in the miniftry of Sunderland, knew a nearer way to a bishoprick than by defending Religion, or tranflating the Pfalms.

It is related that he had once a defign to make an English Dictionary, and that he confidered Dr. Tillotfon as the writer of highest authority. There was formerly fent to me by Mr. Locker, clerk of the Leatherfellers Company, who was eminent for curiofity and literature, a collection of examples felected from Tillotson's works, as Locker faid, by Addison. It came too late to be of ufe, fo I inspected it but flightly,

and remember it indiftinctly. I thought the paffages too short.

Addifon however did not conclude his life in peaceful ftudies; but relapíed, when he was near his end, to a political difpute.

It fo happened that (1718-19) a controverfy was agitated with great vehemence between thofe friends of long continuance, Addison and Steele. It may be afked, in the language of Homer, what power or what caufe could fet them at variance. The fubject of their difpute was of great importance. The earl of Sunderland propofed an act called The Peerage Bill; by which the number of peers fhould be fixed, and the king restrained from any new creation of nobility, unlefs when an old family fhould be extinct. To this the lords would naturally agree; and the king, who was yet little acquainted with his own prerogative, and, as is now well known, almoft indifferent to the poffeffions of the Crown, had been perfuaded to confent. The only dif ficulty was found among the commons, who were not likely to approve the perpetual exclufion of themfelves and their pofterity. The bill therefore was eagerly oppofed, and among others by Sir Robert Walpole, whofe fpeech was published.

The lords might think their dignity diminished by improper advancements, and particularly by the introduction of twelve new peers at once, to produce a majority of Tories in the laft reign; an act of authority violent chough, yet certainly legal, and by no means to be compared with that contempt of national right, with which fome time afterwards, by the instigation of Whiggifm, the commons, chofen by the people for three years, chofe themselves for feven.

But,