Lives of the Poets | Page 3

seems to have had other notions of a hundred pounds, grew
impatient of delay, and reclaimed his loan by an execution. Steele felt
with great sensibility the obduracy of his creditor, but with emotions of
sorrow rather than of anger.
In 1687 he was entered into Queen's College in Oxford, where, in 1689,
the accidental perusal of some Latin verses gained him the patronage of
Dr. Lancaster, afterwards Provost of Queen's College; by whose
recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as a demy, a
term by which that society denominates those who are elsewhere called
scholars: young men who partake of the founder's benefaction, and
succeed in their order to vacant fellowships. Here he continued to
cultivate poetry and criticism, and grew first eminent by his Latin
compositions, which are indeed entitled to particular praise. He has not
confined himself to the imitation of any ancient author, but has formed
his style from the general language, such as a diligent perusal of the
productions of different ages happened to supply. His Latin
compositions seem to have had much of his fondness, for he collected a
second volume of the "Musae Anglicanae" perhaps for a convenient
receptacle, in which all his Latin pieces are inserted, and where his
poem on the Peace has the first place. He afterwards presented the
collection to Boileau, who from that time "conceived," says Tickell,
"an opinion of the English genius for poetry." Nothing is better known
of Boileau than that he had an injudicious and peevish contempt of
modern Latin, and therefore his profession of regard was probably the
effect of his civility rather than approbation.
Three of his Latin poems are upon subjects on which perhaps he would
not have ventured to have written in his own language: "The Battle of
the Pigmies and Cranes," "The Barometer," and "A Bowling-green."
When the matter is low or scanty, a dead language, in which nothing is
mean because nothing is familiar, affords great conveniences; and by
the sonorous magnificence of Roman syllables, the writer conceals
penury of thought, and want of novelty, often from the reader and often
from himself.

In his twenty-second year he first showed his power of English poetry
by some verses addressed to Dryden; and soon after published a
translation of the greater part of the Fourth Georgic upon Bees; after
which, says Dryden, "my latter swarm is scarcely worth the hiving."
About the same time he composed the arguments prefixed to the
several books of Dryden's Virgil; and produced an Essay on the
Georgics, juvenile, superficial, and uninstructive, without much either
of the scholar's learning or the critic's penetration. His next paper of
verses contained a character of the principal English poets, inscribed to
Henry Sacheverell, who was then, if not a poet, a writer of verses; as is
shown by his version of a small part of Virgil's Georgics, published in
the Miscellanies; and a Latin encomium on Queen Mary, in the "Musae
Anglicanae." These verses exhibit all the fondness of friendship; but,
on one side or the other, friendship was afterwards too weak for the
malignity of faction. In this poem is a very confident and discriminate
character of Spenser, whose work he had then never read; so little
sometimes is criticism the effect of judgment. It is necessary to inform
the reader that about this time he was introduced by Congreve to
Montague, then Chancellor of the Exchequer: Addison was then
learning the trade of a courtier, and subjoined Montague as a poetical
name to those of Cowley and of Dryden. By the influence of Mr.
Montague, concurring, according to Tickell, with his natural modesty,
he was diverted from his original design of entering into holy orders.
Montague alleged the corruption of men who engaged in civil
employments without liberal education; and declared that, though he
was represented as an enemy to the Church, he would never do it any
injury but by withholding Addison from it.
Soon after (in 1695) he wrote a poem to King William, with a rhyming
introduction addressed to Lord Somers. King William had no regard to
elegance or literature; his study was only war; yet by a choice of
Ministers, whose disposition was very different from his own, he
procured, without intention, a very liberal patronage to poetry. Addison
was caressed both by Somers and Montague.
In 1697 appeared his Latin verses on the Peace of Ryswick, which he
dedicated to Montague, and which was afterwards called, by Smith,

"the best Latin poem since the 'AEneid.'" Praise must not be too
rigorously examined; but the performance cannot be denied to be
vigorous and elegant. Having yet no public employment, he obtained
(in 1699) a pension of three hundred pounds a year, that he might be
enabled to travel. He stayed a year at