ound for the theory so
zealously advocated by Chambers.

PART II.

THE PROSE WRITERS

CHAPTER IV.

JOSEPH ADDISON--SIR RICHARD STEELE.

As essayists, the writings of Addison and of Steele are familiar to all
readers of eighteenth-century literature. Their work in other
departments may be neglected without much loss; but the student who
disregards the _Tatler_, the _Spectator_, the _Guardian_, and some of
the essay-volumes which follow in their wake, will be blind to one of
the most significant literary features of the period.

The alliance between Addison and Steele was so intimate, that to judge
of one apart from the other, would be fair to neither. It may be well,
therefore, after giving the leading facts in the lives of the two
friends, to bring them together again while considering the work they
accomplished in their literary partnership. One point, I think, will
come out clearly in this examination, namely, that while Steele might,
under very inferior conditions, have produced the _Tatler_ and
_Spectator_ without Addison, it is highly improbable that Addison, as an
essayist, would have existed without Steele.

[Sidenote: Joseph Addison (1672-1719).]

Addison lives on the reputation of his prose works, but he thought that
he was a poet, and was regarded as a poet by his contemporaries. It was
by verse that he won his earliest reputation, and it was on his Pegasus
that he rose to be Secretary of State. He was born on May 1st, 1672, at
Milston, in Wiltshire, a parish of which his father was the rector, and
was educated at the Charterhouse, where he contracted his memorable
friendship with Steele. Thence, in 1687, at the boyish age of fifteen,
he went up to Queen's College, Oxford, and in a few months, thanks to
his Latin verses, gained a scholarship at Magdalen, of which college ten
years later he became a fellow.

While at Oxford he acquired, after the fashion of the day, what Johnson
calls 'the trade of a courtier.' His Latin poem on the _Peace of
Ryswick_ was dedicated to Montague, and two years later a pension of
L300 a year, gained through Somers and Montague, enabled him to travel,
in order that by gaining a knowledge of French and Italian, he might be
fitted for the diplomatic service. Some time after his return to England
he published his _Remarks on Several Parts of Italy_ (1705), and
dedicated the volume to Swift, 'the most agreeable companion, the truest
friend, and the greatest ge