memoration of it which poured from the press. Their feeling was
sincerely that which Byron affected in reference to Wellington and
Waterloo--

"I wish your bards would sing it rather better."

They bethought themselves of Addison, and sent Boyle to request him to
write some verses on the subject. He readily undertook the task, and when
he had half-finished the "Campaign," he shewed it to Godolphin, who
was delighted, especially with the Angel, and in gratitude, instantly
appointed the lucky poet to a commissionership worth about L200 a-year,
and assured him that this was only a foretaste of greater favours to
come. The poem soon after appeared. It was received with acclamation, and
Addison felt that his fortune and his fame were both secured.

Yet, in truth, the "Campaign" is not a great poem, nor, properly
speaking, if we except the Angel, a poem at all. It is simply a _Gazette_
done into tolerable rhyme; and its chief inspiration comes from its
zealous party-feeling. Marlborough, though a first-rate marshal, was
not a great man, not by any means so great as Wellington, far less as
Napoleon; and how can a heroic poem be written without a hero? Yet the
poem fell in with the humour of the times, and was cried up as though it
had been another book of the Iliad. Shortly afterwards he published
his "Travels," which were thought rather cold and classical. To them
succeeded the opera of "Rosamond," which, being ill-set to music, failed
on the stage; but became, and is still, a favourite in the closet. It
is in the lightest and easiest style of Dryden,--that in which he wrote
"Alexander's Feast," and some other of his lyrics,--but is sustained for
some fifteen hundred lines with an energy and a grace which we doubt if
even Dryden could have equalled. Its verses not only move but dance. The
spirit is genial and sunny, and above the mazy motions shines the light
of genuine poetry. Johnson truly says, that if Addison had cultivated
this style he would have excelled.

From the date of the "Campaign," Addison's life became an ascending
scale of promotion. We find him first in Hanover with Lord Halifax, then
appointed under-secretary to Sir Charles Hodges, and in a few months
after to the Earl of Sunderland. In 1708 he was elected member for
Malmesbury, and the next year he accompanied Thomas, Earl of Wharton,
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, to that country as his secretary, and became
Keeper of the Records in Birmingham's Tower,--