Addison’s loyalty to the Whig party and his ability to serve it kept him in intimate relations with its leaders and bound him to its fortunes.  He served the Whig cause in Parliament, and filled many positions which required tact and judgment, attaining at last the very dignified post of Secretary of State.  A long attachment for the Countess of Warwick culminated in marriage in 1716, and Addison took up his residence in Holland House; a house famous for its association with men of distinction in politics and letters.  The marriage was not happy, if report is to be trusted.  The union of the ill-adapted pair was, in any event, short-lived; for three years later, in 1719, Addison died in his early prime, not yet having completed his forty-eighth year.  On his death-bed, Young tells us, he called his stepson to his side and said, “See in what peace a Christian can die.”  His body was laid in Westminster Abbey; his work is one of the permanent possessions of the English-speaking race; his character is one of its finest traditions.  He was, as truly as Sir Philip Sidney, a gentleman in the sweetness of his spirit, the courage of his convictions, the refinement of his bearing, and the purity of his life.  He was unspoiled by fortune and applause; uncorrupted by the tempting chances of his time; stainless in the use of gifts which in the hands of a man less true would have caught the contagion of Pope’s malice or of Swift’s corroding cynicism.

Hamilton W. Mabie

SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY AT THE PLAY

From the Spectator, No. 335

My friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we last met together at the Club, told me, that he had a great mind to see the new Tragedy with me, assuring me at the same time that he had not been at a Play these twenty Years.  The last I saw, said Sir Roger, was the Committee, which I should not have gone to neither, had not I been told beforehand that it was a good Church-of-England Comedy.  He then proceeded to enquire of me who this Distrest Mother was; and upon hearing that she was Hector’s Widow, he told me that her Husband was a brave Man, and that when he was a Schoolboy he had read his Life at the end of the Dictionary.  My friend asked me in the next place, if there would not be some danger in coming home late, in case the Mohocks[1] should be Abroad.  I assure you, says he, I thought I had fallen into their Hands last Night; for I observed two or three lusty black Men that follow’d me half way up Fleet-street, and mended their pace behind me, in proportion as I put on to get away from them.  You must know, continu’d the Knight with a Smile, I fancied they had a mind to hunt me; for I remember an honest Gentleman in my Neighbourhood, who was served such a trick in King Charles the Second’s time; for which reason he has not ventured himself in Town ever since.  I might have shown them very good Sport, had this been their Design;