re Mr. Addison. We loved good poetry at Cambridge as
well as at Oxford; and I have some of yours by heart, though I have put
on a red coat. . . . 'O qui canoro blandius Orpheo vocale ducis carmen;'
shall I go on, sir?" says Mr. Esmond, who, indeed, had read and loved
the charming Latin poems of Mr. Addison, as every scholar of that time
knew and admired them.

"This is Captain Esmond who was at Blenheim," says Steele.

"Lieutenant Esmond," says the other, with a low bow, "at Mr. Addison's
service.

"I have heard of you," says Mr. Addison, with a smile; as, indeed,
everybody about town had heard that unlucky story about Esmond's dowager
aunt and the Duchess.

"We were going to the 'George' to take a bottle before the play," says
Steele: "wilt thou be one, Joe?"

Mr. Addison said his own lodgings were hard by, where he was still rich
enough to give a good bottle of wine to his friends; and invited the
two gentlemen to his apartment in the Haymarket, whither we accordingly
went.

"I shall get credit with my landlady," says he, with a smile, "when she
sees two such fine gentlemen as you come up my stair." And he politely
made his visitors welcome to his apartment, which was indeed but a
shabby one, though no grandee of the land could receive his guests with
a more perfect and courtly grace than this gentleman. A frugal dinner,
consisting of a slice of meat and a penny loaf, was awaiting the owner
of the lodgings. "My wine is better than my meat," says Mr. Addison;
"my Lord Halifax sent me the Burgundy." And he set a bottle and glasses
before his friends, and ate his simple dinner in a very few minutes,
after which the three fell to, and began to drink. "You see," says Mr.
Addison, pointing to his writing-table, whereon was a map of the action
at Hochstedt, and several other gazettes and pamphlets relating to the
battle, "that I, too, am busy about your affairs, Captain. I am engaged
as a poetical gazetteer, to say truth, and am writing a poem on the
campaign."

So Esmond, at the request of his host, told him what he knew about the
famous battle, drew the river on the table aliquo mero, and with the aid
of some bits of tobacco-pipe showed the advance of the left wing, where
he had been engaged.

A sheet or two of the verses lay already on the table beside our bottles
and glasses, and Dick having plentifully refreshed himself from the
latter, took up the pages of manuscript, writ out with scarce a blot or
correctio