im
strong impressions of piety, he was committed to the care of Mr. Naish
at Ambrosebury, and afterwards of Mr. Taylor at Salisbury.

Not to name the school or the masters of men illustrious for literature,
is a kind of historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously
diminished: I would therefore trace him through the whole process of his
education. In 1683, in the beginning of his twelfth year, his father,
being made Dean of Lichfield, naturally carried his family to his new
residence, and, I believe, placed him for some time, probably not long,
under Mr. Shaw, then master of the school at Lichfield, father of the
late Dr. Peter Shaw. Of this interval his biographers have given no
account, and I know it only from a story of a BARRING-OUT, told me, when
I was a boy, by Andrew Corbet, of Shropshire, who had heard it from Mr.
Pigot, his uncle.

The practice of BARRING-OUT was a savage licence, practised in many
schools to the end of the last century, by which the boys, when the
periodical vacation drew near, growing petulant at the approach of
liberty, some days before the time of regular recess, took possession
of the school, of which they barred the doors, and bade their master
defiance from the windows. It is not easy to suppose that on such
occasions the master would do more than laugh; yet, if tradition may be
credited, he often struggled hard to force or surprise the garrison. The
master, when Pigot was a schoolboy, was BARRED OUT at Lichfield; and the
whole operation, as he said, was planned and conducted by Addison.

To judge better of the probability of this story, I have inquired
when he was sent to the Chartreux; but, as he was not one of those who
enjoyed the founder's benefaction, there is no account preserved of
his admission. At the school of the Chartreux, to which he was removed
either from that of Salisbury or Lichfield, he pursued his juvenile
studies under the care of Dr. Ellis, and contracted that intimacy
with Sir Richard Steele which their joint labours have so effectually
recorded.

Of this memorable friendship the greater praise must be given to Steele.
It is not hard to love those from whom nothing can be feared; and
Addison never considered Steele as a rival; but Steele lived, as he
confesses, under an habitual subjection to the predominating genius
of Addison, whom he always mentioned with reverence, and treated with
obsequiousness.

Addison, who knew his own dignity, could not alwa