never have admitted them to come into daylight but under fuch a fhelter. So that all which the Editor has faid, either out of defign or incapacity, Mr. Congreve must determine to end in this, that Steele has been fo candid and upright, that he owes nothing to Mr. Addifon as a writer; but whether he does or does not, whatever Steele owes to Mr. Addifon, the publick owes Addison to Steele. But the Editor has fuch a fantaftical and ignorant zeal for his patron, that he will not allow his correfpondents to conceal any thing of his, though in obedience to his commands. What I never did declare was Mr. Addison's, I had his direct injunctions to hide, against the natural warmth and paffion of my own temper towards my friends. Many of the writings now published as his, I have been very patiently traduced and calumniated for, as they were pleasantries and oblique ftrokes upon certain the wittieft men of the age, who will now reftore me to their good-will, in proportion to the abatement of wit which they thought I employed against them. But I was faying, that the Editor will not allow us to obey his patron's commands in any thing which he thinks would redound to his credit if difcovered. And because I would fhew a little wit in my anger, I shall have the difcretion to fhew you, that he has been guilty in this particular towards a much greater man than your humble fervant, and one whom

whom you are much more obliged to vindicate. Mr. Dryden, in his Virgil, after having acknowledged, that "a certain excellent young "man" had fhewed him many faults in the tranflation of Virgil, which he had endeavoured to correct, goes on to fay, "two other worthy "friends of mine, who defire to have their "names concealed, feeing me ftraitened in my "time, took pity on me, and gave me the Life "of Virgil, the two Prefaces to the Pastorals and "the Georgics, and all the Arguments in profe "to the whole tranflation." If Mr. Addison is one of the two friends, and the Preface to the Georgics be what the Editor calls the Effay upon the Georgics, as one may adventure to fay they are, from their being word for word the fame, he has caft an inhuman reflection upon Mr. Dryden, who, though tied down not to name Mr. Addifon, pointed at him, so as all mankind converfant in thefe matters knew him, with an elogium equal to the highest merit, confidering who it was that bestowed it. I could not avoid remarking upon this circumftance, out of juftice to Mr. Dryden, but confess, at the fame time, I took a great pleasure in doing it, becaufe I knew, in expofing this outrage, I made my court to Mr. Congreve.

I have obferved, that the Editor will not let me nor any one elfe obey Mr. Addison's commands in hiding any thing he defires should be concealed.

concealed. I cannot but take further notice, that the circumftance of marking his Spectators, which I did not know till I had done with the work, I made my own act; because I thought it too great a fenfibility in my friend, and thought it, fince it was done, better to be fuppofed marked by me than the author himself; the real state of which this zealot rafhly and injudiciously expofes. I afk the reader, Whether any thing but an earneftnefs to disparage me could provoke the Editor, in behalf of Mr. Addifon, to say that he marked it out of caution against me when I had taken upon me to fay it was I that did it out of tendernefs to him?

As the imputation of any the least attempt of arrogating to myself, or detracting from Mr. Addifon, is without any colour of truth; you will give me leave to go on in the fame ardour towards him, and resent the cold, unaffectionate, dry, and barren manner in which this gentleman gives an account of as great a benefactor as any one learned man ever had of another. Would any man, who had been produced from a college life, and pushed into one of the moft confiderable employments of the kingdom, as to its weight and truít, and greatly lucrative with. respect to a fellowship, and who had been daily and hourly with one of the greatest men of the age, be fatisfied with himself in faying nothing

of

of fuch a perfon, befides what all the world knew, except a particularity, and that to his difadvantage, which I, his friend from a boy, don't know to be true, to wit," that he never "had a regular pulfe ?" As for the facts and confiderable periods of his life, he either knew nothing of them, or injudiciously places them in a worse light than that in which they really ftood. When he speaks of Mr. Addison's declining to go into orders, his way of doing it is, to lament that his ferioufness and modefty, which might have recommended him, "proved "the chief obftacles to it. It feems, thofe qua"lities by which the priesthood is so much "adorned reprefented the duties of it as too "weighty for him, and rendered him still more

worthy of that honour which they made him "decline." Thefe, you know very well, were not the reafons which made Mr. Addison turn his thoughts to the civil world; and, as you were the inftrument of his becoming acquainted with my Lord Halifax, I doubt not but you remember the warm inftances that noble Lord made to the head of the college not to infift upon Mr. Addifon's going into orders; his arguments were founded upon the general pravity and corruption of men of bufinefs, who wanted liberal education. And I remember, as if I had read the letter yesterday, that my Lord ended with a compliment, "that, however he might

"be

"be reprefented as no friend to the Church, he "never would do it any other injury than keep"ing Mr. Addifon out of it."-The contention for this man, in his early youth, among the people of greateft power, Mr. Secretary Tickell, the executor for his fame, is pleased to afcribe. to a serious vifage and modefty of behaviour. When a writer is grofsly and effentially faulty, it were a jeft to take notice of a falfe expreffion, or a phrafe; otherwise Priesthood, in that place, might be observed upon as a term not used by the real well wifhers to Clergymen, except when they would exprefs fome folemn act, and not when that order is fpoken of as a profeffion among gentlemen. I will not therefore bufy myself about "the unconcerning parts of know

66

ledge, but be contented, like a reader of plain "fenfe without politenefs ;" and, fince Mr. Secretary will give us no account of this gentleman, "I admit the Alps and Apennines, instead "of his Editor, to be commentators of his "works, which," as the Editor fays, "have "raised a demand for correctnefs." This demand, by the way, ought to be more strong upon those who were moft about him, and had the greatest advantage of "his example." But our Editor fays, "that thofe who come the "nearest to exactness are but too often fond of "unnatural beauties, and aim at fomething better than perfection." Believe me, Sir,

Mr.