to marry him, on terms much like thofe on which a Turkish princefs is efpoufed, to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce,

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Daughter, I give thee this man for thy "flave." The marriage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition to his happiness; it neither found them nor made them equal. She always remembered her own rank, and thought herself entitled to treat with very little ceremony the tutor of her fon. Rowe's ballad of the Defpairing Shepherd is faid to have been written, either before or after marriage, upon this memorable pair; and it is certain that Addison has left behind him no encouragement for ambitious love.

The year after (1717) he rofe to his higheft elevation, being made fecretary of ftate. For this employment he might be juftly fuppofed qualified by long practice of bufinefs, and by his regular afcent through other offices; but expectation is often difappointed; it is univerially confeffed that he was unequal to the duties of his place. In the houfe of commons he could not fpeak, and therefore' was ufclefs to the defence of the

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vernment.

vernment. In the office, fays Pope*, he could not iffue an order without lofing his time in queft of fine expreffions. What he gained in rank, he loft in credit; and, finding by experience his own inability, was forced to folicit his difmiffion, with a pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year. His friends palliated this relinquishment, of which both friends and enemies knew the true reason, with an account of declining health, and the neceffity of recefs and quiet.

He now returned to his vocation, and began to plan literary occupations for his fu ture life. He purpofed a tragedy on the death of Socrates; a story of which, as Tickell remarks, the bafis 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.

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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 poetical verfion of the ePfalms.

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

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 guess it; no other mortal ever íufpected 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.

s. It is related, that he had once a defign to make an English Dictionary, and that he con

fidered Dr. Tillotfon as the writer of highest authority. There was formerly fent to me by Mr. Locker, clerk of the Leathersellers' Company, who was eminent for curiofity and literature, a collection of examples felected from Tillotfon's works, as Locker faid, by Addison. It came too late to be of use, so I inspected it but flightly, and remember it indiftinctly. I thought the paffages too fhort.

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

It fo happened that (1718-19) a controverfy was agitated with great vehemence between those friends of long continuance, Addison and Steele. It may be asked, in the language of Homer, what power or what caufe fhould fet them at variance. The fubject of their difpute was of great importance. The earl of Sunderland proposed an act called The Peerage Bill; by which the number of Peers should be fixed, and the king refrained 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 pof feffions of the crown, had been perfuaded to. confent. The only difficulty was found among the commons, who were not likely to approve the perpetual exclufion of themselves and their pofterity. The bill therefore was eagerly opposed, and among others by Sir Robert Walpole, whofe fpeech was publifhed.

The lords might think their dignity diminifhed by improper advancements, and parti cularly by the introduction of twelve new peers at once, to produce a majority of Tories in the laft reign; an act of authority violent enough, yet certainly legal, and by no means to be compared with that contempt of national right with which, fome time afterwards, by the inftigation of Whiggifm, the commons, chofen by the people for three years, chose themselves for feven. But, whatever might be the difpofition of the lords, the people had no wish to increase their power. The tendency of the bill, as Steele obferved in a letter to the

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