wledged
that Swift, having observed that his election passed without a contest,
adds that if he proposed himself for King he would hardly have been
refused. His zeal for his party did not extinguish his kindness for the
merit of his opponents; when he was Secretary in Ireland, he refused to
intermit his acquaintance with Swift. Of his habits or external manners,
nothing is so often mentioned as that timorous or sullen taciturnity,
which his friends called modesty by too mild a name. Steele mentions
with great tenderness "that remarkable bashfulness which is a cloak that
hides and muffles merit;" and tells us "that his abilities were covered
only by modesty, which doubles the beauties which are seen, and gives
credit and esteem to all that are concealed." Chesterfield affirms that
"Addison was the most timorous and awkward man that he ever saw." And
Addison, speaking of his own deficiency in conversation, used to say of
himself that, with respect to intellectual wealth, "he could draw bills
for a thousand pounds, though he had not a guinea in his pocket." That
he wanted current coin for ready payment, and by that want was often
obstructed and distressed; and that he was often oppressed by an
improper and ungraceful timidity, every testimony concurs to prove; but
Chesterfield's representation is doubtless hyperbolical. That man cannot
be supposed very unexpert in the arts of conversation and practice of
life who, without fortune or alliance, by his usefulness and dexterity
became Secretary of State, and who died at forty-seven, after having not
only stood long in the highest rank of wit and literature, but filled
one of the most important offices of State.

The time in which he lived had reason to lament his obstinacy of
silence; "for he was," says Steele, "above all men in that talent called
humour, and enjoyed it in such perfection that I have often reflected,
after a night spent with him apart from all the world, that I had had
the pleasure of conversing with an intimate acquaintance of Terence and
Catullus, who had all their wit and nature, heightened with humour more
exquisite and delightful than any other man ever possessed." This is the
fondness of a friend; let us hear what is told us by a rival. "Addison's
conversation," says Pope, "had something in it more charming than I
have found in any other man. But this was only when familiar: before
strangers, or perhaps a single stranger, he preserved his dignity by a
st