Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/83

 A D D I S O N. 4; ADDISON (JOSEPH), fon of Dr. Addifon mentioned in the laft article, was born May i, 1672, at Milfton near Am- brefbury, Wiltfliire, where his father was re<5lor. Appear- ing weak, and unlikely to live, he was cbriftencd tlic lame day. He received the firfl rudiments of his education at theJ hnfon * place of his nativity, under the reverend Mr. Naifh ; but was loon removed to Salisbury, under the care of Mr. Taylor ; and thence to LitchfuJd where his father placed him for fome time, probably not long, under Mr. Shaw then mafter of the fchool there, father of the late Dr. Peter Shaw. From Litch- field he was fent to the Charter-houfe, where he purfued his juvenile fludics under the care of Dr. Ellis, and contracted that intimacy with fir Richard Steele, which their joint labours have fo effectually recorded. In 1687 he was entered into Queen's College rn Oxford, where, in 1689, the acci- dental perufal of fome Latin verfes gained him the patronage of Dr. Lancafter, by whofe recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as Demy. Here he took the degree of M. A. Feb. 14, 1693; continued to cultivate poetry and criticifm, and grew firft eminent by his Latin com- pofitions, which are intitled to particular praife, and feem to have had much of his fondnefsj for he collected a fecond volume of the " Mufae Anglicanae," perhaps for a convenient receptacle, in which all his Latin pieces are in- (erted, and where his poem on the Peace has the firft plac?. He afterwards prefented the collection to Boileau, who from that time " conceived," fays Tickell, " an opinion of the " Englifli genius for poetry." In his 22d year he firft (hewed his power of Englifc poetry, by fome verfes addrefled to Dry- den ; and foon afterwards publifhed a tranflation of the greater part of the Fourth Georgick upon Bees. About the fame time he compofed the arguments prefixed to the feveral books of Dryden's Virgil; and produced an Efiay on the Georgicks, juvenile, fuperficial, and uninftruclive, without much either of the fcholar's learning or the critick's penetration. His next paper of verfes contained a character of the principal Englifli poets, infcribed to Henry Sacheverell, who was then, if not a poet, a writer of verfes j as is (hewn by his verfion of a fmall part of Virgil's Georaicks, publifhed in the Mifcellanies, and a Latin encomium on queen Mary, in the " Mufae Angli- but, on one fide or the other, friendfliip was too'weak for the malignity of faction. In this poem is a very confident and difcriminative character of Spenfer, whofe work he had -, then
 * cans." Thefe verfes exhibit all the fondnefs of friendftiip ;