of his mother's cousin, Mr. Addison, who, in 1710, took him with him to Ireland, as one of his clerks, when appointed secretary to the lord-lieutenant. He commenced his career, as an author, by contributing various papers to The Spectator; in the first seven volumes of which, all those marked X, to the number of twenty-eight, are attributed to him. He is also said to have been the only co-operator of Addison in the eighth volume; but, according to Boswell, Dr. Johnson affirmed that Budgell's papers were either written by Addison, or so much improved by him that they were made in a manner his own. One of them, a humorous epilogue to The Distrest Mother, was received with such applause, that it was called for, by the audience, during the whole run of that tragedy. This is also attributed, by Johnson, to Addison; a fact rendered probable by the lavish praises bestowed upon it in Budgell's papers in The Spectator, and by his publicly calling for its repetition during the performance of the play; though, it is to be observed, his vanity was fully equal to conduct of this sort. He, however, acquired a reputation as one of the wits of the day; and, in 1711, succeeding, by the death of his father, to a fortune. slightly encumbered, of £950 per annum, he had the prudence not to alter his mode of living, nor to resign his official situation, the duties of which he strictly performed. In 1714, he published a translation from the Greek of Theophrastus's Characters, dedicated to his patron, the Earl of Halifax; in praise of which, Addison, in the thirty-ninth paper of The Lover, has not said more than was warranted by its real ingenuity and elegance. In the same year, our author became under secretary of state to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and was likewise made chief secretary to the lords justices, and deputy clerk of the council in that kingdom; and, shortly afterwards, being elected a member of the Irish parliament, he distinguished himself as an able speaker. In 1717, he was appointed, through the influence of Addison, then secretary of state, accomptant and comptrollergeneral of Ireland, and he now seemed to be wafted with the full tide of prosperity, when the appointment of the Duke of Bolton to the vice-royalty caused a fatal change in his fortune. This was in consequence of the duke's favourite and secretary insisting on quartering one of his friends upon Budgell; who, attacking, in a lampoon, both the secretary and the duke. was, in consequence, removed from his accomptant's place. Budgell, almost in a state of delirium, declared his life was not safe in Ireland, and proceeding to London, published, against the advice of Addison, an account of his case, which appeared in 1718, and being read with great interest, only increased the resentment of his enemies. His sole patron now in government favour was the Earl of Sunderland, whom, in the following year, he mortally offended by his popular pamphlet against the famous peerage bill; and, not long afterwards, the death of Addison put a decisive blow to his future hopes of success at court. His fortune was at this time sufficient to have enabled him to live in comfortable independence; but excited by the restlessness of his mind, he was unfortunate enough to hazard his money in the South Sea scheme, by which he lost £20,000, and was brought to the verge of ruin. He then vented his indignation by some clever pamphlets against the South Sea Company, which attracting the attention of the Duke of Portland, who had been a great sufferer, that nobleman, on his appointment to the governorship of Jamaica, offered to take Budgell with him as his secretary. He was making preparations for his departure, when the Duke of Portland was informed by the secretary of state that he might take any man in England for his secretary, excepting Mr. Budgell, but that he must not take him. Irritated beyond measure at this oppressive conduct, he completed his ruin by spending £5,000 in vain attempts to get into parliament; wrote virulent pamphlets against Sir Robert Walpole and his ministry; and at length completed the destruction of his character, as well as his fortune, by attempting to substantiate the will of Dr. Matthew Tindal, on the setting aside of which he was deprived of a legacy of £2,100, under strong suspicions that forgery had been the only ground of his claim. About this time, he was engaged in editing The Bee, after the extinction of which, becoming involved in lawsuits from his expensive habits, he, as a last resource, took to practising at the bar; but failing in his object, his situation grew so insupportable, that he came to the resolution of destroying himself. Accordingly, after having in vain attempted to persuade a natural daughter of his to share the same fate, he took a boat at Somerset Stairs, on the 4th of May, 1737, and threw himself into the Thames. As some excuse, probably, to the world, for this deed, he left a slip of paper upon his bureau, upon which was written, "What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." His As a writer, Budgell holds a conspicuous place among the wits of his time, and was sufficiently lively, ingenious, and interesting, to be considered the best imitator of Addison. essays are certainly much in the style of his celebrated contemporary, but with a looser contexture of thought, and a want of similar dignity. According to Cibber, he assisted in The Tatler as well as The Spectator; but this is ascertained with less certainty than his contributions to The Craftsman, which are distinguished by an asterisk. He was thought worthy the satire of Pope, who mentions him in several parts of his works, and, in allusion to the affair of Dr. Tindal, has the tollowing lines: Let Budgell charge low Grub Street on my quill, And write whate er be please-except my will. In his private character, Budgell appears in no very estimable light. Pride, vanity, and disappointment, accompanied with ungovernable passions, appear to have destroyed, in him, a mind naturally noble, and a generous and benevolent heart. Acting, however, from impulse instead of principle, he became a sceptic in his opinions, and a profligate in his manners, and died lamented by few and respected by none. Of his epigrams, the following, on a company of bad dancers to excellent music, is worth recording: But ill the motion with the music suits: AARON HILL AARON HILL was born in London, in 1685, and received the rudiments of education at Westminster School, which he was compelled to quit, at the age of fourteen, in consequence of the death of his father, a gentleman of estate in Wiltshire, who left him almost unprovided for. His relation, Lord Paget, being ambassador at Constantinople, he ventured, uninvited, to join him; and being received with kindness, though surprise, a tutor was provided for him, under whose care he travelled through Palestine, Egypt, and various parts of the east. In 1703, he returned to England, and, on the death of Lord Paget, being disappointed in his expectation of a provision for life, he was left to become the architect of his own fortune. After travelling for three years with Sir William Wentworth, of Yorkshire, he published, in 1709, A History of the Ottoman Empire, partly from materials collected in Turkey; a work which attracted much notice, although the author himself regarded it, in his maturer judgment, as a crude and puerile performance. In the same year, he wrote a poem, called Camillus, in honour of the Earl of Peterborough, just returned from Spain, which led to his appointment of secretary to that nobleman, and introduced him to the notice of the heads of the Tory party. Not long afterwards, he married a lady of beauty and fortune; and, about the same time, he became manager of Drury Lane Theatre, where he produced his first tragedy, entitled, Elfrid, or the Fair Inconstant; a work begun and finished in the space of ten days. In 1710, he became master of the Opera House, in the Haymarket; at which time he wrote his opera of Rinaldo, which, with the music by Handel, met with great success. Upon some misunderstanding with the ford chamberlain, he soon gave up his management of Drury Lane Theatre, which he had conducted much to the satisfaction of the public, and turned projector. His first scheme was to form a company of subscribers for carrying into effect a patent which he had obtained for extracting oil from beechnuts as sweet as that from olives. This, after a trial of three years, failed, and was succeeded by another for establishing a plantation in Georgia, which was equally unproductive of benefit. Still continuing to write for the stage, he, in 1716, brought out, at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, The Fatal Vision, or the Fall of Siam; and, in 1718, he published a poem, called The Northern Star, a panegyric upon the great Czar Peter; for which he, some time afterwards, received a gold medal from the Empress Catharine. He was also to have written the life of the czar from his own papers, which were to have been sent him for the purpose; but the design proved abortive by the czarina's death. In 1723, his tragedy of King Henry the Fifth was played at Drury Lane Theatre; and, in 1724, he commenced a periodical paper, called The Plain Dealer, in conjunction with Mr. Bond; and the two authors were called, by Mr. Savage," the two contending powers of light and darkness." They wrote by turns, each six essays; and the character of the work, says Dr. Johnson, was observed regularly to rise in Mr. Hill's weeks, and fall in Mr. Bond's. In 1728, he made a journey into the north of Scotland, for the purpose of cutting timber on the estates of the York Buildings Company, and floating it down the river Spey, in which he met with too many obstacles to carry on his project with sufficient profit either to the Company or himself. In 1731, he received a severe shock from the death of his wife, who had brought him nine children, four of whom survived him; and, in the same year, he produced his tragedy of Athelwold, which was another version of his Elfrid, and the difference between them proved the progress of his judgment and poetical powers. He afterwards translated, in succession, and adapted for the English stage, The Zara, Alzira, and Merope of Voltaire; in which tasks, says Dr. Aikin, he displayed a command of language and a knowledge of the stage, which placed nin much above the common importers of foreign literary inanu!acture. In 1738, he retired to Plaistow, in Essex, where he composed several small poems, and occupied himself with various schemes of commercial improvement; in one of which, the art of making potash equal to the Russians, he is said to have succeeded. He had been for some time in a declining state of health, and, during the rehearsal of his Merope, in which there are some lines prophetic of his own approaching dissolution, he was seized with an illness, which deprived him of life, in February, 1749. He was interred in the same grave with his wife, in the great cloisters in Westminster Abbey, near the tomb of Lord Godolphin. The person of Mr. Hill is described, by Cibber, as extremely fair and handsome; his eyes were a dark blue, both bright and penetrating; brown hair, and oval visage, which was enlivened by a smile the most agreeable in conversation, where his address was affably engaging: to which was joined a dignity that rendered him at once respected and admired by those of either sex who were acquainted with him. He was a finished gentleman, and few possessed a more benevolent disposition, or have been more beloved; he both assisted and patronised merit wherever he found it, and Thomson and Savage owed much of their early success to his zealous exertions in their behalf. The former says, in one of his letters, that "next to the approbation of heaven he wishes for Hill's." Notwithstanding he is termed, by Dr. Warton, "a fustian and affected writer," his natural talents were considerable, though he would doubtless have attained a higher rank in literature, had he confined himself to any single pursuit. Pope's attack upon him, in the Dunciad, is rather a compliment than otherwise; but Hill thought proper to retaliate upon him in a piece called The Progress of Wit; in some lines which, for polished keenness, are worthy of Pope himself. ALEXANDER POPE. his versification, which might be said to be formed, surpassed his original; "but this," says Johnson," is a small part of his praise; he discovered such acquaintance both with human and public affairs, as is not easily conceived to have been attainable by a boy of fourteen, in Windsor Forest." In 1703, he passed some time in London, in the study of the French and Italian languages; and, on his return to Binfield, wrote a comedy, a tragedy, an epic poem, with panegyrics on all the princes of Europe, and, as he confesses, 66 thought himself the greatest genius that ever was." Many of the productions upon which he founded this idea of himself, he subsequently de ALEXANDER POPE was born in Lombard Street, London, of Roman catholic parents, on the 22nd of May, 1688. He was, according to Johnson, more willing to show what his father was not, than what he was; but his principal biographers make him the son of a linen-draper, who had grown rich enough to retire from business to Binfield, near Windsor. Alexander was deformed from his birth, and of so delicate a constitution, and such weakness of body, that he constantly wore stays; and when taking the air on the water, had a sedan-chair in the boat, in which he sat with the glasses down. He received the early part of his education at home, and, when about eight, was placed under the care of one Taver-stroyed; nor is it from an earlier period ner, a Romish priest, who taught him the rudiments of Latin and Greek. His taste for poetry was first excited by the perusal of Ogilby's Homer and Sandy's Ovid; and, on his removal to school at Twyford, near Winchester, he exercised his talents in verse, by lampooning the master. He was next sent to a school in the vicinity of Hyde Park Corner, whence his occasional visits to the playhouse induced such a fondness for theatrical exhibitions, that he composed a play from Ogilby's Iliad, with some verses of his own intermixed, which was acted by his schoolfellows. About twelve years of age, when he wrote his earliest production, The Ode on Solitude, he was called by his father to Binfield, where he improved himself by translating into verse the Latin classics, and in reading the English poets. The versification of Dryden particularly struck him, and he conceived such a veneration for the genius of that poet, that he persuaded some friends to take him to the coffeehouse which he frequented, and pleased himself with having seen him. early as 1702, he had put into more elegant verse Chaucer's January and May, and The Prologue to the Wife of Bath; and, in the same year, he translated the epistle of Sappho to Phaon, from Ovid. At this time, the smoothness of As His than 1705, that his life, as an author, is properly to be computed. In that year, he wrote his Pastorals, which, together with the very elegant and learned preface, received the praise of all the poets and critics of the time; to whose society he, in the following year, more particularly introduced himself, by attending Will's Coffee-house, in London, where most of them used to assemble. Pastorals did not appear until 1709, and in the same year he wrote, and in 1711 published, his Essay on Criticism, which he seems to have considered either so learned or so obscure, as to declare that "not one gentleman in sixty, even of a liberal education, could understand it." The piece was translated into French and German, and however overrated may have been the author's estimation of it, has not been inadequately praised by Johnson, who observes that it displayed extent of comprehension, nicety of distinction, acquaintance with mankind, and knowledge both of ancient and modern learning, not often attained by the maturest age and longest experience. The essay, however. was not without opponents, and was attacked in a bitter and elaborate pamphlet, by Dennis, in consequence of some lines applied to him by Pope, whom he designated as "a little affected hypocrite, who had nothing in his mouth at the same time but truth, candour, friendship, good-nature, humanity, and magnanimity." In this year, he also wrote his Messiah, first published in The Spectator, and his verses on The Unfortunate Lady, who, we are told by Ruffhead, having been removed by her guardian into a foreign country to avoid the addresses of Pope, put an end to her life by stabbing herself with a sword. 66 His next production was The Rape of the Lock, which is considered the most airy, the most ingenious, and the most delightful of all his compositions. The origin of it is too well known to need repetition here; but it is doubtful, as generally asserted, whether it had the effect of reconciling the parties whose conduct gave rise to the subject. On its first appearance, Addison called it a delicious little thing, and urged Pope not to alter it: he was, however, too confident of improving it to follow this advice, and considerably altered, and added to, the poem. "His attempt," says Johnson, was justified by its success: The Rape of the Lock stands forward in the classes of literature as the most exquisite example of ludicrous poetry." In 1712, he published The Temple of Fame, and, about the same period, his Eloise to Abelard; to the composition of which he was led, according to Savage, by the perusal of Prior's Nut-brown Maid. In 1713, appeared his Windsor Forest, the conclusion of which is said to have given pain to Addison, both as a poet and politician; but this is doubted by Johnson, who, in proof of the apparent friendship that continued to exist between the two poets, refers to the prologue of Cato, written by Pope, and also to a defence of that tragedy against the attacks of Dennis. About this time, the subject of our memoir is said to have studied painting, under Jervis, and to have made progress enough to take the portraits of several of his friends. He now turned his attention to the completion of his Iliad, which he offered to subscribers in six quarto volumes, for six guineas. The subscription soon rose to an amount that, while it gratified, at the same time alarmed him, when he thought of the extent of his undertaking; which, he says, disturbed him in his dreams at night, and made him wish that somebody would hang him. It was also given out, by some of his enemies, that he was deficient in Greek; and Addison, who does certainly, in this instance, seem to have been jealous of the fame of Pope, hinted to the Whigs, with a view to impede the subscription, that he was too much of a Tory; whilst this suspected him to be of the other party, in consequence of his contributions to Steele's Guardian. His genius, however, carried him above all difficulties; and, at the rate of about fifty lines per day, he soon completed the whole of the volumes, though his repeated alterations delayed the appearance of the sixth until 1720. The clear profit which he gained by this work amounted to £5,324 4s.; a sum that relieved him from his present pecuniary difficulties, and enabled him to secure himself against future ones, by the purchase of considerable annuities. The Iliad, which is described by the author's biographer already mentioned, as not only one of the noblest versions of English poetry ever seem by the world, but, as one of the greatest events in the annals of learning, was a source of much annoyance to Pope, both during its progress and after its completion. Whilst it failed to gain him a patron, it also lost him a friend; the coldness of Addison he returned with indignation, and the overtures of Lord Halifax with indifference and contempt. He had taken umbrage at the conduct of the former, in endeavouring to create a rivalry between his translation of Homer and Tickell's; the appearance of which, at the same time with his own, he had good reasons for attributing to the instrumentality of Addison. A reconciliation between them was afterwards attempted to be brought about, by Steele; but the interview only increased their mutual dislike, which continued to the end of their lives. Another reason assigned for Pope's quarrel with Addison, is, that he had given one Gildon ten guineas to abuse the former in a letter, which was published respecting Wycherley. "On hearing of which," says Pope, "I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, to let him know that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his; that if I were to speak severely of him in return for it, it should |