nocent mischief.

Such were Addison's talents for conversation. But his rare gifts were
not exhibited to crowds or to strangers. As soon as he entered a large
company, as soon as he saw an unknown face, his lips were sealed, and
his manners became constrained. None who met him only in great
assemblies would have been able to believe that he was the same man who
had often kept a few friends listening and laughing round a table, from
the time when the play ended, till the clock of St. Paul's in Covent
Garden struck four. Yet, even at such a table, he was not seen to the
best advantage. To enjoy his conversation in the highest perfection, it
was necessary to be alone with him, and to hear him, in his own phrase,
think aloud. "There is no such thing," he used to say, "as real
conversation, but between two persons."

This timidity, a timidity surely neither ungraceful nor unamiable, led
Addison into the two most serious faults which can with justice be
imputed to him. He found that wine broke the spell which lay on his fine
intellect, and was therefore too easily seduced into convivial excess.
Such excess was in that age regarded, even by grave men, as the most
venial of all peccadilloes, and was so far from being a mark of
ill-breeding that it was almost essential to the character of a fine
gentleman. But the smallest speck is seen on a white ground; and almost
all the biographers of Addison have said something about this failing.
Of any other statesman or writer of Queen Anne's reign, we should no
more think of saying that he sometimes took too much wine, than that he
wore a long wig and a sword.

To the excessive modesty of Addison's nature, we must ascribe another
fault which generally arises from a very different cause. He became a
little too fond of seeing himself surrounded by a small circle of
admirers, to whom he was as a king or rather as a god. All these men
were far inferior to him in ability, and some of them had very serious
faults. Nor did those faults escape his observation; for, if ever there
was an eye which saw through and through men, it was the eye of Addison.
But, with the keenest observation, and the finest sense of the
ridiculous, he had a large charity. The feeling with which he looked on
most of his humble companions was one of benevolence, slightly
tinctured with contempt. He was at perfect ease in their company; he
was grateful for their devoted attachment; and he loaded them with
benefits. The