Bramston was admitted at Westminster School; in 1713 he was elected to a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford; and in 1723-25 he became vicar of Lurgashall and Harting in Sussex. His two principal poems are good essays in the style of Pope's and Young's satires. The following is the conclusion of his Art of Politics: Parliamenteering is a sort of itch, That will too oft unwary knights bewitch. Men that have votes, and women that have none; Swift's whims and jokes for my resentment call, Of market, university, and court: Thomson, write blank; but know that for that reason, Rhyme binds and beautifies the poet's lays, In the same poem he parodies: Musick has charms to soothe a savage beast, To give is wrong, but it is wronger still, I'll please the maids of honour if I can ; at Oxford and Cambridge are not worth one farthing, Compared to Haymarket and Convent-garden. This is true taste, and whoso likes it not Is blockhead, coxcomb, puppy, fool, and sot. Laurence Echard (c. 1670-1730), born Barsham rectory in Suffolk, and bred at Christ's, Cambridge, held a succession of Lincolnshire and Suffolk livings, and died Archdeacon of Stow. Of nearly a score of publications, educational, classical, geographical, and historical, the most important was his History of England (1707-20) from the Romans to William and Mary, which was the standard work thenceforward till it was superseded by Rapin's. The 'historic method' has long since banished some of the elements which in Echard's day were available for enlivening the records of the past. After the battle of Worcester Cromwell in his letter to the Parliament tells them,' says Echard, that the dimensions of this Mercy were above his thoughts, and that it was a Crowning Mercy.' There was, however, another side to the story, Echard thought, and adds accordingly this tale of Cromwell and the Devil. But others accounted it an infernal judgment; concerning which we have a strange story in the last part of the History of Independency, which the author says he received from a person of quality, viz. 'It was believ'd, and that not without some good cause, that Cromwell the same morning that he defeated the King's army at Worcester, had conference personally with the devil, with whom he made a contract, that to have his will then, and in all things else for seven years from that day, he should, at the expiration of the said years, have him at his command, to do at his pleasure, both with his soul and body.' This is also related in other printed books; but we have receiv'd a more full account never yet publish'd, which is here inserted as a thing more wonderful than probable, and therefore more for the diversion than satisfaction of the reader. It is a rela tion or narrative of a valiant officer call'd Lindsey, an intimate friend of Cromwell's, the first captain of his regiment, and therefore commonly called Colonel Lindsey; which is to this effect. On the third of September in the morning, Cromwell took this officer to a wood side not far from the army, and bid him alight, and follow him into that wood, and to take particular notice of what he saw and heard. After they had both alighted, and secur'd their horses, and walk'd some small way into the wood, Lindsey began to turn pale, and to be seiz'd with horror from some unknown cause: upon which Cromwell ask'd him how he did, or how he felt himself. He answer'd, that he was in such a trembling and consternation, that he never felt the like in all the conflicts and battels he had been engag'd in; but whether it proceeded from the gloominess of the place, or the temperament of his body, he knew not. How now, said Cromwell, what, troubled with vapours? come forwards, man! They had not gone above twenty yards, before Lindsey on a sudden stood still, and cry'd out, by all that's good, he was seiz'd with such unaccountable terror and astonishment, that it was impossible for him to stir one step further. Upon which Cromwell call'd him faint-hearted fool, and bid him stand there and observe, or be witness; and then advancing to some distance from him, he met with a grave elderly man with a roll of parchment in his hand, who deliver'd it to Cromwell, who eagerly perus'd it. Lindsey, a little recover'd from his fear, heard several loud words between them: particularly Cromwell said, this is but for seven years; I was to have had it for one and twenty, and it must and shall be so. The other told him positively, it could not be for above seven; upon which Cromwell cry'd with great fierceness it should however be for fourteen years. But the other peremptorily declar'd it could not possibly be for any longer time; and if he would not take it so, there were others who would accept of it. Upon which Cromwell at last took the parchment, and returning to Lindsey with great joy in his countenance, he cry'd, now, Lindsey, the battel is our own! I long to be engag'd. Returning out of the wood, they rode to the army, Cromwell with a resolution to engage as soon as possible, and the other with a design of leaving the army as soon. After the first charge Lindsey deserted his post, and rode away with all possible speed, day and night, till he came into the county of Norfolk, to the house of an intimate friend, one Mr Thorowgood, minister of the parish of Cromwell as soon as he miss'd him, sent all ways after him, with a promise of a great reward to any that should bring him alive or dead.' Thus far the narrative of Lindsey himself; but something further is to be remember'd, to compleat and confirm the story. When Mr Thorow good saw his friend Lindsey come into his yard, his horse and himself just tired, in a sort of a maze, said, How now, Colonel! we hear there is like to be a battel shortly; what, fled from your colours? A battel! said the other; yes there has been a battel, and I am sure the King is beaten; but if ever I strike a stroak for Cromwell again, may I perish eternally: For I am sure he has made a league with the devil, and the devil will have him in due time. Then desiring his protection from Cromwell's inquisitors, he went in and related to him the whole story, and all the circumstances, concluding with these remarkable words, that Cromwell would certainly dye that day seven years that the battel was fought. The strangeness of the relation caus'd Mr Thorowgood to order his son John, then about twelve years of age, to write it in full length in his commonplace book, and to take it from Lindsey's own mouth. This common-place book, and likewise the same story written in other books, I am assured is still preserv'd in the family of the Thorowgoods. But how far Lindsey is to be believ'd, and how far the story is to be accounted incredible, is left to the reader's faith and judgment, and not to any determination of our own. Simon Ockley (1678-1720), orientalist and historian, was born at Exeter of good Norfolk stock, studied at Queen's College, Cambridge, and as vicar of the small living of Swavesey in the county of Cambridge earned repute as the most eminent Arabist in England-insomuch that in 1711 he was made professor of Arabic at Cambridge. Most of his short life was spent in dire poverty; and in the debtors' prison of Cambridge he actually found a leisure for finishing his opus magnum denied him amidst the worries of his vicarage. He translated a number of Arabic books and Italian and other treatises about the East. But the one work for which he is remembered is his Conquest of Syria, Persia, and Egypt by the Saracens (3 vols. 1708-57), commonly called 'The History of the Saracens.' It was mainly based on an Arabic manuscript now not regarded as quite a sound authority. But unlike his predecessor Pocock, Ockley wrote in English, and made his subject interesting to educated men generally. Gibbon obviously had Ockley's history constantly at hand, and speaks of the author as 'a learned and spirited interpreter of Arabic authorities,' and as 'an original in every sense, who had opened his eyes.' The Life of Mohammed usually prefixed was not from his own pen, but was added by Dr Long, Master of Pembroke College, to the third volume, published long after Ockley's death. In Ockley's work nothing is more relevant to the history of literature than the traditional story of the burning of the Alexandrian Library at the conquest of Egypt in 641 by Amrou ('Amr ibn elAsi), General of the Caliph Omar; Egypt having till then been held for the Eastern Emperor Heraclius by the Coptic governor Mokaukas (Mukowkis). Some have denied that any such destruction as Ockley records took place; the general opinion is, that in the seventh century the library was in a very dilapidated condition, and that the Arabs only completed what neglect and Christian fanaticism had already well-nigh accomplished. No doubt Ockley's authorities absurdly exaggerated the extent of the destruction in the account they give and he repeats of The Burning of the Alexandrian Library. The inhabitants of Alexandria were then polled, and upon this the whole of Egypt followed the fortune and example of its metropolis, and the inhabitants compounded for their lives, fortunes, and free exercise of their religion, at the price of two ducats a head yearly. This head-money was to be paid by all without distinction, except in the case of a man holding land, farms, or vineyards, for in such cases he paid proportionably to the yearly value of what he held. This tax brought in a most prodigious revenue to the caliph. After the Saracens were once arrived to this pitch, it is no wonder if they went further, for what would not such a revenue do in such hands? For they knew very well how to husband their money, being at that time sumptuous in nothing but their places of public worship. Their diet was plain and simple. Upon their tables appeared neither wine nor any of those dainties, the products of modern luxury, which pall the stomach and enfeeble the constitution. Their chief drink was water; their food principally milk, rice, or the fruits of the earth. The Arabians had as yet applied themselves to no manner of learning, nor the study of anything but their vernacular poetry, which, long before Mohammed's time, they understood very well after their way, and prided themselves upon. They were altogether ignorant of the sciences, and of every language but their own. Amrou, however, though no scholar, was a man of quick parts and of good capacity, and one who in the intervals of business was more delighted with the conversation of the learned, and with rational and philosophical discourses, than it is usual for men of his education to be. There was at that time in Alexandria one John, sirnamed 'The grammarian,' an Alexandrian by birth, of the sect of the Jacobites, and was the same that afterwards denied the Trinity, and being admonished by the bishops of Egypt to renounce his erroneous opinions, he was, upon his refusal, excommunicated. He was, however, a man eminent for learning, and Amrou was greatly pleased with his conversation; not only taking delight in frequently hearing him discourse on several sciences, but also occasionally asking him questions. This person, perceiving the great respect shown him by Amrou, ventured one day to petition him for the books in the Alexandrian Library, telling him 'That he perceived he had taken an account of all things which he thought valuable in the city, and sealed up all the repositories and treasuries, but had taken no notice of the books; that, if they would have been any way useful to him, he would not have been so bold as to ask for them, but since they were not, he desired he might have 'Rag' Smith held to be 'the best poem since the Eneid, but we can admit its elegance, as we may concede the humour of the Machine Gesticulantes (à propos of Powell's famous puppet-show) or the devotional spirit of the Resurrectio. In this Latin miscellany we have a forecast, as complete as them.' Amrou told him, 'That he had asked a thing juvenile wit will allow, of the later faculty and which was altogether out of his power to grant, and that Joseph Addison* A was born on 1st May 1672 at Milston, Amesbury (Wilts), where his father, the Rev. Lancelot Addison (1632-1703), afterwards Dean of Lichfield, was rector. His mother was Jane, daughter of Dr Nathaniel Gulston and sister of William Gulston, Bishop of Bristol. He passed from Amesbury School to Salisbury School; thereafter, in 1683, to the Grammar-School of Lichfield, whither the family had removed on his father's appointment to the Deanery; and, later, to Charterhouse, where his future friend, Richard Steele, was a pupil. In 1687 he was admitted a commoner of Queen's College, Oxford; but in 1689 his success with some Latin verses (Inauguratio Regis Gulielmi) procured his election to a demyship at Magdalen College. He took his Master's degree in 1693, and five years later obtained a Fellowship at his college. graces of Mr Spectator. Mox fundamenta futurae Substravit pictor tabulae. -Resurrectio, l. 9-10. Addison's first English poem was a short piece To Mr Dryden (2nd June 1693), which secured the favour of the poet, and through him, or Congreve, or both, an introduction to the Whig leaders Somers and Montagu, and to the bookseller Jacob Tonson. Dryden thought so highly of Addison's translation of the Fourth Georgic that he referred to it in his critical Postscript to the Reader (after his Bees, my latter swarm is scarcely worth the hiving'), and he honoured his young friend by printing his Essay on the Georgics (1693) as an introduction to his own translation of Virgil. Addison continued to reside at Oxford, and appears to have been preparing to take holy orders; but he was dissuaded from this intention by his political friends, who had discovered in him a useful literary ally in the conflict of parties. He commended himself further to Somers and Montagu by his praise of the latter in a verse Account of the Greatest English Poets (1694), and by his dedication to the former of A Poem to His Majesty (1695); and by their united influence he obtained, in 1699, a pension of three hundred pounds a year for purposes of travel and general preparation in public affairs. His Grand Tour-which included France, Italy, Austria, Germany, and Holland, and extended over four years-was not the conventional escapade of the 'gentlemen that were just come wild out of their country' (Letter to Stanyan, Blois, February 1700). In Dr Johnson's phrase, 'he proceeded in his journey to Italy, which he surveyed with the eyes of a poet.' And the good Abbé Philippeaux at Blois admitted, with implied astonishment, that during his year at Blois his friend had had no amour, and added, 'I think I should have known it if he had had any.' Incidental references in his Letters show that he was making some historical inquiries about treaties and other matters, but his stronger likings lay in scholarly associations with the places which he visited, or in the æsthetic problems which their variety suggested. From Geneva he addressed his Letter from Italy (February 1702) to Montagu, now Lord Halifax-a prelude, in his happiest verse, to the more elaborate prose Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, which he prepared in 1705 from notes made during his tour. In these, as well as in the Dialogues on Medals, which he wrote during his visit to Vienna (1702), he shows his predisposition to that amiable reflection which characterises the more perfect *Copyright 1902 by J. B. Lippincott Company to the poem “Italy's Misfortune," page 216. In his undergraduate efforts Addison confined himself to Latin: in verse, in the Inauguratio, already referred to, and the Gratulatio pro exoptato serenissimi Regis Gulielmi ex Hibernia reditu (1690); and in prose, in a short dissertation, De Insignioribus Romanorum Poetis (1692), which was frequently reprinted together with a continuation translated by one of Curll's hacks from the English of an ingenious Major Pack. These pieces, and his contributions of occasional verse to the two volumes of Musa Anglicane (1691, 1699), are interesting solely as formative evidence of Addison's political bias and literary method. We cannot share the enthusiasm of his contemporaries for the Pax Gulielmi (1697), which the judicial work of the Spectator. The Letter from Italy, in which his technique is perhaps at its best, was much admired by Pope, and frequently quoted and imitated by him. The undated Discourse on Ancient and Modern Learning, which has been reasonably ascribed to him, may have been written about this time. The death of William III. and his patrons' loss of office deprived Addison of his travelling pension. Shortly after his return (September 1703) he was elected a member of the Kit-Cat Club, by means of which he extended his acquaintance with the leading Whigs. Halifax still stood by him, and had an opportunity of recommending him to Godolphin and of securing a Commissionership of Appeals for him, as a reward for a panegyric on the victory of Blenheim (August 1704). In this poem, The Campaign, which describes the progress of Marlborough's plan, his marches and sieges, we are reminded of the literary manner of the Letter from Italy. Addison wisely refrained from the 'flute and trumpet' style of his Ode for St Cecilia's Day (1699), and although he laid himself open to the gibe that he had produced a 'gazette in rhyme,' he won by the very calmness and plainness of his verse the political and personal success which was desired. From the publication of the Campaign till the fall of the Whigs in 1710 Addison was absorbed in politics, in the duties of an Under Secretary of State (1706), of Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1709), of Keeper of Records, of a member of Parliament, or of a party-writer in such ventures as the short tract on The Present State of the War (1707) or The Whig Examiner (Nos. I.-V., 14th September to 12th October 1710). His only literary work was the unfortunate attempt to write an English opera on the subject of Rosamond (March 1707), and some friendly collaboration with Steele in his Tender Husband. He had already, from May 1709, contributed some papers to his friend's Tatler, but it was not till the following year that his political leisure gave him the opportunity of writing the essays upon which his reputation now chiefly rests. On the death of Queen Anne public affairs again engrossed his attention. All the work of this short period (1710-1714) is, with the exception of the tragedy Cato, in JOSEPH ADDISON. prose, and in the form of short essays; and Cato is hardly an exception, for though finished and produced at Drury Lane in 1713, it had been planned and almost entirely written during his Continental - tour. He contributed over sixty papers to the Tatler between 26th May 1709 and 2nd January 1711, when Steele brought the successful sheet to a sudden close, not because he, or his friend, had become to the public, as to Swift, 'cruel, dull, and dry,' but probably because Steele felt his Whiggism somewhat ungracious to Harley, who had generously allowed him to remain in his post Swift really sneered at (From an Old Copy from Sir Godfrey Kneller in the National Portrait Gallery.) at the Stamp Office. its politics, for there was no falling off in the paper, especially in the character-sketches of the Political Upholsterer Tom Folio, 'the broker in learning,' or Ned Softly, 'the very pretty poet,' which Addison contributed. Steele readily acknowledged Addison's assistance. I fared like a distressed Prince who calls in a powerful Neighbour to his aid; I was undone by my Auxiliary; when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without Dependance on him.' It is probable that the stoppage of the Tatler was hastened because the two friends had already made their plans for the daily sheet of The Spectator, which they issued within two months (1st March 1711). The new enterprise must be considered, as its promoters intended it to be, a continuation of the Tatler. Many of its apparently original characteristics, such as The Club, with its types of quidnuncs, or the topics of social satire, had been elaborated in the Tatler-a continuity of literary purpose which will be best appreciated by the reader who makes the most careful study of the allusions and personalia of the two publications. The success of these social and critical studies doubtless prompted the editor and his auxiliary' to avoid politics, but they made no serious promise to confine their 'Censorship of Great Britain' to the doings of the coffee-house, the tea-table, and the theatre; and, indeed, towards the end of the journal, they occasionally deviated into ingenious speculations which must have pleased their Whig subscribers. The Spectator was continued till 6th December 1712, and ran to five hundred and fifty-five numbers, of which Addison and Steele wrote over five hundred, in about equal proportions. A supplementary set (Nos. 556-635) appeared between 18th June and 20th December 1714. In this the majority of the contributions is by Addison, who edited them when they were reissued as the eighth volume of the Octavo, or First Collected, Edition of the Spectator. Between 28th May and 22nd September 1713 Addison wrote over fifty papers for The Guardian, which Steele had started within three months of his sudden stoppage of the Spectator proper. Addison fully maintained the intention of Mr Nestor Ironside to 'have nothing to manage with any person or party,' and, even after his editor had 'blazed into faction' in the famous Dunkirk letter (No. 128), continued his Oriental allegories and his discourses on Female Dress, Pride, and the Wisdom of the Ant. And when Steele, after his disastrous adventure with The Englishman-a rabid political sequel to the Guardian, which he, more suo, had suddenly suppressed-returned to the manner of Mr Spectator in the short-lived Lover, Addison obliged him with two papers, Nos. 10 and 39 (March, May 1714). He also contributed about this time two papers to The Reader (Nos. 3 and 4), another of Steele's literary sheets. The last year of his literary period (1713) was occupied in preparing a first portion of a treatise Of the Christian Religion, which remains unfinished, and in the less congenial task of combating the libels of Pope, who, prompted by jealousy, had made a series of unscrupulous attacks. Into the circumstances of this famous quarrel, which involved Dennis, Ambrose Philips, and Tickell, if not all the habitués of Button's, it is unnecessary to enter here (see the articles on Pope and Tickell in this volume; and Mr Courthope's Addison in 'English Men of Letters,' Chap. vii.). On the death of Queen Anne, Addison was appointed Secretary to the Lords-Justices who managed public affairs till the coming of George I. After the king's arrival, he was nominated for the second time as Chief Secretary for Ireland. He found his duties light, and composed and produced his comedy of The Drummer, which had but indifferent success (March 1716). The serious crisis in Whig politics caused by the Rising of the Fifteen forced Addison to undertake a special party defence in The Freeholder, for which he was rewarded (December 1716) with a Commissionership of Trade and Plantations. Yet even in the fifty-five papers of this partisan journal (23rd December 1715 to 29th June 1716) he pled the Whig cause with his wonted good-humour, and found opportunities to discuss the vagaries of the Female Sex, French Anglophobia, the Treatment of Authors, or his old topic of Wit and Humour. His methods of political persuasion, as illustrated in the case of the Tory Foxhunter (No. 47), were perhaps more successful than those of the most ardent members of his party, such as Steele, who preferred to drub the Jacobites into allegiance. The Freeholder was Addison's last literary undertaking, if we except two minor political essays the ascribed Arguments about the Alteration of Triennial Elections of Parliament (contributed to Boyer's Political State, April 1716) and two numbers of the Old Whig (19th March and 2nd April 1719) in reply to Steele's attack in The Plebeian on Sunderland's Peerage Bill. On 3rd August 1716 he married Sarah, Countess of Warwick, by whom he had one daughter. Pope's spiteful reference to his 'marrying discord' (Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, 393) has been too readily accepted by posterity, without proof, and in the face of indirect contrary evidence. He was appointed a Secretary of State on 16th April 1717, but was compelled to resign, on 14th March of the next year, on account of broken health. In his political quarrel with Steele's Plebeian he shows a diminished vigour, to which his impetuous friend, in ignorance of his physical condition, referred in no kindly manner, in his fourth paper (6th April 1719): 'The Plebeian has been obliged to object to the Old Whig one of the infirmities of age, viz. slowness; and he must now take notice of another, though he does it with great reluctance, that is, want of memory; for the old gentleman seems to have forgot,' &c. Addison was already threatened with dropsy, as a sequel to an incurable asthma, and, two months later (17th June 1719), succumbed to the disease at Holland House, Kensington. Addison's literary reputation, unlike that of other English classics, rests less upon the merit of individual pieces or of his work taken as a whole than upon its historical importance as an influence on letters and manners. There is nothing more fatal to his deservedly high position than to judge him by a few, even the best, of his verses and essays; and any selection of typical passages, such as are here printed, though it may show certain salient qualities of style, must fail to justify the opinion of later criticism. The same is true of the cumulative effect obtained by the perusal of his entire work. Consideration merely of such |