THE

WORK S

OF THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE

JSEPH ADDISON,

COLLECTED

BY MR. TICKELL.

WITH A

COMPLETE INDEX.

IN SIX VOLUMES.

VOL. IV.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR VERNOR AND HOOD; JOHN WALKER;
AND MARTIN; W. J. AND J. RICHARDSON; LONGMAN
AND REES; R. LEA; AND J. AND A. ARCH.
J. Swan, printer, Angel Street, Newgate Street.

1804.

CUTHELL

THE

4 10

GUARDIAΝ.

No. 67. THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1713.

ne fortè pudori
Si tibi musa lyra solers, et cantor Apollo. HOR.

IT has been remarked, by curious observers, that

*

poets are generally long-lived, and run beyond the
usual age of man, if not cut off by some accident or
excess, as Anacreon, in the midst of a very merry old
age, was choaked with a grape-stone. The same re-
dundancy of spirits, that produces the poetical flame,
keeps up the vital warmth, and administers uncommon
fewel to life. I question not but several instances will
occur to my reader's memory, from Homer down to
Mr. Dryden. I shall only take notice of two who
have excelled in lyrics, the one an ancient and the
other a modern. The first gained an immortal repu-
tation by celebrating several jockeys in the Olympic
games; the last has signalised himself on the same
occasion, by the ode that begins with-To horse,
brave boys, to Newmarket, to horse. My reader will,
by this time, know that the two poets I have mention-
ed, are Pindar and Mr. d'Urfey. The former of these
is long since laid in his urn, after having, many years
together, endeared himself to all Greece by his tuneful
compositions. Our countryman is still living, and in
a blooming old age, that still promises many musical
productions; for, if I am not mistaken, our British
swan will sing to the last. The best judges, who have
VOL. IV.
.B

perused his last song on the Moderate Man, do not discover any decay in his parts, but think it deserves a place among the works with which he obliged the world in his more early years.

I am led into this subject by a visit which I lately received from my good old friend and contemporary. As we both flourished together in King Charles the Second's reign, we diverted ourselves with the remembrance of several particulars that passed in the world before the greatest part of my readers were born, and could not but smile to think how insensibly we were grown into a couple of venerable, old gentlemen. Tom observed to me, that after having written more odes than Horace, and about four times as many comedies as Terence, he was reduced to great difficulties by the importunities of a set of men, who, of late years, have furnished him with the accommodations of life, and would not, as we say, be paid with à song. In order to extricate my old friend, I immediately sent for the three directors of the playhouse, and desired them that they would, in their turn, do a good office for a man, who, in Shakespear's phrase, had often filled their mouths, I mean with pleasantry and popular conceits. They very generously listened to my proposal, and agreed to act the Plotting-Sisters, (a very taking play of my old friend's composing) on the 15th of the next month, for the benefit of the author.

My kindness to the agreeable Mr. d'Urfey will be imperfect, if, after having engaged the players in his favor, I do not get the town to come into it. I must therefore heartily recommend to all the young ladies, my disciples, the case of my old friend, who has often made their grandmothers merry, and whose sonnets have perhaps lulled asleep many a present toast, when she lay in her cradle.

I have already prevailed upon my Lady Lizard to be at the house in one of the front boxes, and design, if I am in town, to lead her in myself at the head of