e
have another bottle? I have still a couple in the cupboard, and of the
right sort. No more?--let us go abroad and take a turn on the Mall, or look
in at the theatre and see Dick's comedy. 'Tis not a masterpiece of wit;
but Dick is a good fellow, though he doth not set the Thames on fire."

Within a month after this day, Mr. Addison's ticket had come up a
prodigious prize in the lottery of life. All the town was in an uproar of
admiration of his poem, the _Campaign_, which Dick Steele was spouting at
every coffee-house in Whitehall and Covent Garden. The wits on the other
side of Temple Bar saluted him at once as the greatest poet the world had
seen for ages; the people huzza'ed for Marlborough and for Addison, and,
more than this, the party in power provided for the meritorious poet, and
Mr. Addison got the appointment of Commissioner of Excise, which the
famous Mr. Locke vacated, and rose from this place to other dignities and
honours; his prosperity from henceforth to the end of his life being
scarce ever interrupted. But I doubt whether he was not happier in his
garret in the Haymarket, than ever he was in his splendid palace at
Kensington; and I believe the fortune that came to him in the shape of the
countess his wife, was no better than a shrew and a vixen.

-------------------------------------

Gay as the town was, 'twas but a dreary place for Mr. Esmond, whether his
charmer was in it or out of it, and he was glad when his general gave him
notice that he was going back to his division of the army which lay in
winter quarters at Bois-le-Duc. His dear mistress bade him farewell with a
cheerful face; her blessing he knew he had always, and wheresoever fate
carried him. Mrs. Beatrix was away in attendance on her Majesty at Hampton
Court, and kissed her fair finger-tips to him, by way of adieu, when he
rode thither to take his leave. She received her kinsman in a waiting-room
where there were half a dozen more ladies of the Court, so that his
high-flown speeches, had he intended to make any (and very likely he did),
were impossible; and she announced to her friends that her cousin was
going to the army, in as easy a manner as she would have said he was going
to a chocolate-house. He asked with a rather rueful face, if she had any
orders for the army? and she was pleased to say that she would like a
mantle of Mechlin lace. She made him a saucy curtsy in reply to his own
dismal bow. She deigned to