nental
scenes and manners in that day. Of the travels, Dr. Johnson said, "they
might have been written at home;" but he praised the poetical epistle as
the finest of Addison's poetical works.

Upon the accession of Queen Anne, he continued to pay his court in verse.
When the great battle of Blenheim was fought, in 1704, he at once
published an artificial poem called _The Campaign_, which has received the
fitting name of the _Rhymed Despatch_. Eulogistic of Marlborough and
descriptive of his army manoeuvres, its chief value is to be found in
its historical character, and not in any poetic merit. It was a political
paper, and he was rewarded for it by the appointment of Commissioner of
Appeals, in which post he succeeded the philosopher Locke.

The spirit of this poem is found in the following lines:

Fiction may deck the truth with spurious rays,
And round the hero cast a borrowed blaze;
Marlboro's exploits appear divinely bright,
And proudly shine in their own native light.

If we look for a contrast to this poem, indicating with it the two
political sides of the question, it may be found in Swift's tract on _The
Conduct of the Allies_, which asserts that the war had been maintained to
gratify the ambition and greed of Marlborough, and also for the benefit of
the Allies. Addison was appointed, as a reward for his poem,
Under-Secretary of State.

To this extent Addison was the historian by purpose. A moderate partisan,
he eulogized King William, Marlborough, Lord Somers, Lord Halifax, and
others, and thus commended himself to the crown; and in several elegant
articles in _The Spectator_, he sought to mitigate the fierce party spirit
of the time.

SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY.--But it is the unconscious historian with whom we
are most charmed, and by whom we are best instructed. It is in this
character that Addison presents himself in his numerous contributions to
_The Spectator_, _The Tatler_, and _The Guardian_. Amid much that is now
considered pedantic and artificial, and which, in those faults, marks the
age, are to be found as striking and truthful delineations of English life
and society in that day as Chaucer has given us of an earlier period.

Those who no longer read _The Spectator_ as a model of style and learning,
must continue to prize it for these rare historic teachings. The men and
women walk before us as in some antique representation in a social
festival, when grandmothers' brocades are