ADDISON. JOSEPH ADDISON was born on the 1st of May 1672, at Milston-of which his father, Lancelot Addison, was then rector-near Ambrosbury, in Wiltshire, and appearing weak and unlikely to live, he was christened the same day. After the usual domestic education, which from the character of his father may be reasonably supposed to have given him strong impressions of piety, he was committed to the care of Mr Naish at Ambrosbury, and afterwards of Mr Taylor at Salisbury. 5 ΙΟ Not to name the school or the masters of men illustrious for literature is a kind of historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously diminished. I would therefore trace him through the whole process of his education. In 1683, in the beginning of his twelfth year, 15 his father being made Dean of Lichfield, naturally carried his family to his new residence, and, I believe, placed him for some time, probably not long, under Mr Shaw, then master of the school at Lichfield, father of the late Dr Peter Shaw. Of this interval his biographers 20 G 5 have given no account, and I know it only from a story of a barring-out, told me, when I was a boy, by Andrew Corbet of Shropshire, who had heard it from Mr Pigot, his uncle. The practice of barring-out was a savage licence, practised in many schools to the end of the last century, by which the boys, when the periodical vacation drew near, growing petulant at the approach of liberty, some days before the time of regular recess, took possession IO of the school, of which they barred the doors and bade their master defiance from the windows. It is not easy to suppose that on such occasions the master would do more than laugh; yet, if tradition may be credited, he often struggled hard to force or 15 surprise the garrison. The master, when Pigot was a schoolboy, was barred-out at Lichfield; and the whole operation, as he said, was planned and conducted by Addison. To judge better of the probability of this story, I 20 have inquired when he was sent to the Chartreux; but, as he was not one of those who enjoyed the founder's benefaction, there is no account preserved of his admission. At the school of the Chartreux, to which he was removed either from that of Salisbury or Lichfield, he 25 pursued his juvenile studies under the care of Dr Ellis, and contracted that intimacy with Sir Richard Steele which their joint labours have so effectually recorded. Of this memorable friendship the greater praise must be given to Steele. It is not hard to love those from whom nothing can be feared, and Addison never considered Steele as a rival; but Steele lived, as he confesses, under an habitual subjection to the predomi 30 |