support this grave accusation? The
answer is short. There is absolutely none.

Was there any internal evidence which proved Addison to be the author of
this version? Was it a work which Tickell was incapable of producing?
Surely not. Tickell was a Fellow of a College at Oxford, and must be
supposed to have been able to construe the Iliad; and he was a better
versifier than his friend. We are not aware that Pope pretended to have
discovered any turns of expression peculiar to Addison. Had such turns
of expression been discovered, they would be sufficiently accounted for
by supposing Addison to have corrected his friend's lines, as he owned
that he had done.

Is there anything in the character of the accused persons which makes
the accusation probable? We answer confidently--nothing. Tickell was
long after this time described by Pope himself as a very fair and worthy
man. Addison had been, during many years, before the public. Literary
rivals, political opponents, had kept their eyes on him. But neither
envy nor faction, in their utmost rage, had ever imputed to him a single
deviation from the laws of honor and of social morality. Had he been
indeed a man meanly jealous of fame, and capable of stooping to base and
wicked arts for the purpose of injuring his competitors, would his vices
have remained latent so long? He was a writer of tragedy: had he ever
injured Rowe? He was a writer of comedy: had he not done ample justice
to Congreve, and given valuable help to Steele? He was a pamphleteer:
have not his good nature and generosity been acknowledged by Swift, his
rival in fame and his adversary in politics?

That Tickell should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highly
improbable. That Addison should have been guilty of a villainy seems to
us highly improbable. But that these two men should have conspired
together to commit a villainy seems to us improbable in a tenfold
degree. All that is known to us of their intercourse tends to prove that
it was not the intercourse of two accomplices in crime. These are some
of the lines in which Tickell poured forth his sorrow over the coffin of
Addison:--

"Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind,
A task well suited to thy gentle mind?
Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend,
To me thine aid, thou guardian genius, lend.
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms,
When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms,
In silent whisperings pur