to treat my subject, that is in itself very bare of ornaments, as divertingly as I could. I have proposed to myself such a way of instructing as that in the dialogues on the Plurality of Worlds. The very owning of this design will, I believe, look like a piece of vanity, though I know I am guilty of a much greater in offering what I have wrote to your perusal. I am, sir, &c.

To Mr. Stepney, Envoy at the Court of Vienna. November, 1702.

XXVII. то MR. STEPNEY.

SIR-If I trouble you with another letter so soon after my last, you must impute it to the frequency of the favors I receive from you. It is to them we owe all the pleasures we find at Dresden, as well as what we met with at Vienna. Since our leaving Prague we have seen nothing but a great variety of winter pieces, so that all the account I can give you of the country is, that it abounds very much in snow. If it has any other beauties in it, this is not a time of year to look for them when almost every thing we see is of the same color, and scarce any thing we meet with except our sheets and napkins that is not white. &c. &c.

January 3d, 1702-3.

XXVIII. TO THE EARL OF WINCHELSEA.

[Charles, third Earl of Winchelsea, probably an Oxford acquaintance, is thus spoken of by a contemporary:—“He hath neither genius nor gusto for business; loves hunting and a bottle; was an opposer to his power of the measures of King William's reign; and is zealous for the monarchy and the church in the highest degree. He loves jests and puns, and that sort of low wit." "He was brought into the government by the Earl of Nottingham, and held some appointments at the beginning of Queen Anne's reign."-G.]

MY LORD-I can no longer deny myself the honor of troubling your lordship with a letter, though Hamburgh has yet fur

nished me with very few materials for it. The great business of the place is commerce and drinking: as their chief commodity, at least that which I am best acquainted with, is Rhenish Wine. This they have in such prodigious quantities that there is yet no sensible diminution of it, though Mr. Perrot and myself have been among them above a week. The principal curiosity of the town, and what is more visited than any other I have met with in my travels, is a great cellar filled with this kind of liquor. It holds more hogsheads than others can bottles, and I believe is capable of receiving into it a whole vintage of the Rhine. By this cellar stands the little English chapel, which your lordship may well suppose is not altogether so much frequented by our countrymen as the other. I must, however, do them the justice,. as they are all of them loyal sons of the church of England, to assure your lordship that her majesty can have no subjects in any part of her dominions that pray more heartily for her health, or drink to it oftener. We are this evening to take a bottle with Mr. Wyche and Stratford. To draw us in they tell us it shall be to my Lord Winchelsea's health. I dare not let you know, my lord, how often we have already made this an excuse for a meeting, lest at the same time that I would show our zeal for your lordship, I should give you a very small opinion of our sobriety but as all here are extremely disappointed in not having the honor of your company at Hamburgh, they think this is the only way they have left of showing their high esteem for your lordship. I hoped my stay at Hamburgh would have given me occasion to have written a much longer letter, but as I can find no better a subject to entertain your lordship with, I am sensible I have already made it too long. I am, my lord, with all possible respect, your lordship's, &c.

To the Right Honorable the Earl of Winchelsea,

Envoy Extraordinary to Hanover. March, 1702-3.

XXIX. TO MR. WYCHE.

[A diplomatist of note, whose acquaintance Addison formed at Hamburgh, where he was employed as English resident.-G.]

DEAR SIR-My hand at present begins to grow steady enough for a letter, so that the properest use I can put it to, is to thank the honest gentleman that set it a shaking. I have had this morning a desperate design in my head to attack you in verse, which I should certainly have done could I have found out a rhyme to rummer. But though you have escaped for the present, you are not yet out of danger, if I can a little recover my talent at crambo. I am sure in whatever way I write to you, it will be impossible for me to express the deep sense I have of the many favors you have lately shown me. I shall only tell you that Hamburgh has been the pleasantest stage I have met with in my travels. If any of my friends wonder at me for living so long in that place, I dare say it will be thought a very good excuse when I tell them Mr. Wyche was there. As your company made our stay at Hamburgh agreeable, your wine has given us all the satisfaction that we have found in our journey through Westphalia. If drinking your health will do you any good, you may expect to be as long-lived as Methuselah, or to use a more familiar instance, as the oldest hock in the cellar. I hope the two pair of legs that we left a swelling behind us, are by this time come to their shapes again. I cannot forbear troubling you with my hearty respects to the owners of them, and desiring you to believe me always, dear sir, yours, &c.

To Mr. Wyche, her Majesty's Resident at Hamburgh. May, 1703.

ΧΧΧ. TO ALLEYN BATHURST, ESQ.

[Created Baron Bathurst at the creation of the twelve peers by Queen Anne, in 1711-probably an Oxford acquaintance.-G.]

DEAR SIR-This letter will find you wholly taken up with the ladies and states-general, and dividing your time between ombre and politics. I question not but the Odyhs and the Opdams will follow the example of the Hohenzollerns; for I cannot believe any heart impregnable to one that has already carried his conquests farther than ever Cæsar did, and make captives among a people that would not be slaves to the Roman empire. I do not suppose you are yet willing to change your assemblies for anatomy schools, and to quit your beauties of the Hague for the skeletons of Leyden. When you have a mind to take a walk among dead men's bones, honor me with a line, and I will not fail to meet you. Your company will, I am sure, make me think even such a place agreeable. I drank your health to-day with Sir Richard Shirly, and desire you to believe nobody wishes it more heartily than, dear sir, &c.

To Alleyn Bathurst, Esq., at the Hague.

XXXI. TO MR. TONSON.

[The following letters throw much light upon an interesting point of Addison's life. But we give the whole correspondence, with extracts, from Miss Aikin's valuable memoirs.-G.]

"On the arrival of Addison in Holland, we find him associating on familiar terms with the most distinguished of the English general officers whom he found there, occupied in concerting with the Dutch commanders and others of the allies the business of the campaign; but himself unemployed, and apparently seeking for some engagement. At Rotterdam he unexpectedly encountered his old acquaintance Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, who had issued proposals for publishing by subscription a splendid edition of Cæsar's Commentaries, and in furtherance, as it appears, of this object, had passed over into Holland in May, 1703.

'As secretary of the Kitcat club, Tonson was familiarly acquainted with all the leaders of the Whig party who were its members; he even appears to have been himself regarded as somewhat of a political character, at least if we may regard as more than jest a passage in a letter addressed to him at this time by Congreve: 'Do you know, the Tories (even the wisest of them) have been very grave upon your going to Holland. They often say, with a nod, that Cæsar's Commentaries might have been carried through withont a voyage to Holland. There were meanings in that subscription: and that list of names may serve for further engagements than paying three guineas a piece for a book.'

"A short note written by Addison to Tonson proves the zeal with which he entered into the projects of the bookseller, as well as the intimate terms on which he associated with persons of note on the Whig side.'”

"I have shown your letter to Mr. Cunningham. He will speak to the bookseller about the Tableau des Muses.

I should have answered your letter sooner, had I not been two days at Rotterdam, whence I returned yesterday with Colonel Stanhope, whom I found unexpectedly at Pennington's. If I can possibly, I will come and see you at Amsterdam to-morrow for a day. As I dined with my Lord Cutts the other day I talked of your Cæsar, and let him know the two German generals had subscribed. He asked me who had the taking of the subscriptions, and told me he believed he could assist you, if they were not full," &c.

Mr. D. Pultney writes from Utrecht to Tonson at Amsterdam, "Give my services to Mr. Addison, and the enclosed Terræ filius's speech, which may perhaps afford him half an hour's amusement, when your business calls you from him;" from which it should appear that these parties were then domesticated together. They had indeed an affair of some consequence to discuss.

Tonson, we find, had been commissioned by no less a personage than that Duke of Somerset commonly designated as the Proud, to make inquiry for a proper person to undertake the office of travelling tutor to his son, Algernon, Earl of Hertford, then in his nineteenth year. He had the good judgment to recommend Addison, to whom he opened the business by letter before he embarked for Holland. The very remarkable particulars of the subsequent negotiation explain themselves in the original correspond

ence.