n of nine out of the body
of the Scotch nobility, to the then 16 sitting Peers; that six English
Peers should be added, and the peerage then remain fixed; the crown
being restrained from making any new lords, but upon the extinction of
families. This gave a great alarm to the nation, and many papers were
wrote with spirit against it; amongst the rest, one called the Plebeian,
now known to have been Sir Richard Steele's. In answer to this came out
the Old Whig N deg.. 1. on the State of the Peerage, with some Remarks on
the Plebeian. This controversy was carried on between the two friends,
Addison and Steele, at first without any knowledge of one another, but
before it was ended, it appears, from several expressions, that the
author of the Old Whig was acquainted with his antagonist.

Thus we have gone through the most remarkable passages of the life
of this great man, in admiration of whom, it is but natural to be
an Enthusiast, and whose very enemies expressed their dislike with
diffidence; nor indeed were his enemies, Mr. Pope excepted, (if it be
proper to reckon Mr. Pope Mr. Addison's enemy) in one particular case,
of any consequence. It is a true, and an old observation, that the
greatest men have sometimes failings, that, of all other human
weaknesses, one would not suspect them to be subject to. It is said of
Mr. Addison, that he was a slave to flattery, that he was jealous, and
suspicious in his temper, and, as Pope keenly expresses it,

Bore, like the Turk, no rival near the
throne.

That he was jealous of the fame of Pope, many have believed, and perhaps
not altogether without ground. He preferred Tickel's translation of the
first Book of Homer, to Pope's. His words are,

'the other has more of Homer',

when, at the same time, in a letter to Pope, he strenuously advises him
to undertake it, and tells him, there is none but he equal to it; which
circumstance has made some people conjecture, that Addison was himself
the author of the translation, imputed to Mr. Tickell: Be this as it
may, it is unpleasing to dwell upon the failings, and quarrels of great
men; let us rather draw a veil over all their errors, and only admire
their virtues, and their genius; of both which the author, the incidents
of whose life we have now been tracing, had a large possession. He added
much to the purity of the English stile in prose; his rhime is not so
flowing, nervous, or manly as some of his cotempo