vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honour is a private station."

Not to mention:--

"The woman who deliberates is lost,"

And the eternal:--

"Plato, thou reasonest well,"

which avenges, perhaps, on the public their neglect of the play!

89 "The lady was persuaded to marry him on terms much like those on
which a Turkish princess is espoused--to whom the Sultan is reported
to pronounce, 'Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave.' The
marriage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition
to his happiness; it neither found them, nor made them, equal....
Rowe's ballad of _The Despairing Shepherd_ is said to have been
written, either before or after marriage, upon this memorable
pair."--DR. JOHNSON.

"I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary of
State with the less surprise, in that I knew that post was almost
offered to him before. At that time he declined it, and I really
believe that he would have done well to have declined it now. Such a
post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in
prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic, and we may see the
day when he will be heartily glad to resign them both."--LADY WORTLEY
MONTAGU to POPE. _Works_, Lord Wharncliffe's ed., vol. ii, p. 111.

The issue of this marriage was a daughter, Charlotte Addison, who
inherited, on her mother's death, the estate of Bilton, near Rugby,
which her father had purchased, and died, unmarried, at an advanced
age. She was of weak intellect.

Rowe appears to have been faithful to Addison during his courtship,
for his Collection contains "Stanzas to Lady Warwick, on Mr.
Addison's going to Ireland", in which her ladyship is called
"Chloe", and Joseph Addison, "Lycidas"; besides the ballad mentioned
by the doctor, and which is entitled "Colin's Complaint". But not
even the interest attached to the name of Addison could induce the
reader to peruse this composition, though one stanza may serve as a
specimen:--

What though I have skill to complain--
Though the Muses my temples have crowned;
What though, when they hear my sweet strain,
The Muses sit weeping around.

Ah, Colin! thy hopes are in vain;
Thy pipe and thy laurel res