CONTENTS. ESSAY 1. BIOGRAPHICAL & Critical Sketches of the Occasional Correspondents 1. Eustace Budgell.................... ESSAY 2. 5. Thomas Tickell.. Page 123 ESSAYS, BIOGRAPHICAL, CRITICAL, AND HISTORICAL. PART IV. ESSAY I. BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES OF THE OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENTS OF STEELE AND To works of such celebrity as were the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, and written in a form which very readily admitted, and indeed almost required, numerous contributions from numerous individuals, it. might naturally be expected that' many, either from motives of fame or interest, would be eager to offer their assistance. Of these, (to whom priority of enumeration will, in this place, be given, in proportion to the number of papers which they respectively produced,) EUSTACE BUDGELL takes the lead. He was the son of Gilbert Budgell, D. D. of St. Thomas near Exeter, and was born in 1685. His mother, only daughter of Dr. William Gulston, Bishop of Bristol, was sister to the lady of Dean Addison, and consequently a relationship, which proved of essential service to young Budgell, subsisted between him and the principal author of the Spectator. Having shown considerable facility in the acquisition of classical learning, he was at an earlier period than usual sent to Christ Church, Oxford, of which college he became a member in the year 1700. After a residence of some years in this university, he relinquished it to embrace, at the request of his father, the profession of the law, and, for this purpose, was entered of the Inner Temple. This was a designation, however, by no means agreeable to the wishes or the views of Budgell. He had acquired a decided taste for elegant literature; and the chief object of his ambition was, to be the associate and companion of those who figured as the leaders of the literary world. Nothing could be better calculated for the gratification of his desires than an introduction to Addison; this, as a relation, he easily obtained, and he exhibited so many proofs of ability and classical proficiency, that, when this accomplished scholar was appointed secretary to the Earl of Wharton, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he hesitated not to make an offer to his young friend of a clerkship in his office. |