Historical Characters in the Reign of Queen AnneOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
History
Historical Characters in the Reign of Queen Anne
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Addison, Joseph, 1672-1719; Anne, Queen of Great Britain, 1665-1714; Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731; Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745
correct as any other criminal passion that could arise in his mind.”
Such a paternity and training does something to account for the
prevailing gentleness of Addison’s temper and judgments.
Dr. Addison had seen the world not in a very brilliant or luxurious way.
He had been chaplain at Dunkirk, and afterward at Tangier among the
Moors, upon which latter strange experience he wrote a book: and he rose
afterward to be Dean of Lichfield, a dignified clergyman. One of the
brothers went to India, and attained to some eminence; the other was
eventually, like Joseph, a fellow of Magdalen. They dispersed themselves
in the world as the children of a clergyman might very well do at the
present day, and it is evident belonged distinctly to the caste of
gentlemen. The sons, or at least the son with whom we have specially to
do, after sundry local schoolings went to Charterhouse, which he left at
fifteen for Oxford, perhaps because of his unusual advancement, more
probably because the custom of the time sent boys earlier to the
university, as is still the practice in Scotland. Addison was much
distinguished in that elegant branch of learning, the writing of Latin
verse, a kind of distinction which remains dear to the finest minds, in
spite of all the remarks concerning its inutility and the time wasted
in acquiring the art, which the rest of the world has so largely
indulged in. A copy of verses upon the accession of King William,
written while he was still a very youthful scholar at Queen’s College,
no more than seventeen, got him his first promotion. The boy’s verses
came--perhaps from some proud tutor at Queen’s, boasting what could be
done under the cupola in the High street, finer than anything attempted
in more distinguished seats of learning--into the hands of the Provost
of Magdalen, to the amazement and envy of that more learned corporation.
There had been no election of scholars in the previous year, during the
melancholy time when the college was embroiled with King James, and the
courtly Quaker Penn had all the disturbed and troubled fellows under his
heel; but now that freedom had returned with the revolution and the
heaven-sent William, there was room for a double number of distinguished
poor demies. Dr. Lancaster of Magdalen decided at once that to leave
such Latinity as that of the young author of these verses to a college
never very great in such gifts would be a sin against his own: and young
Addison was accordingly elected to all the privileges of a Magdalen
demyship. It is with this beautiful college that his name is connected
in Oxford. There could be no more fit association. The noble trees and
velvet lawns of Magdalen speckled with deer, shy yet friendly creatures
that embellish the retired and silent glades--the long-winding walk by
the Cherwell round the meadows where the fritillaries grow, the
time-worn dignity of the place with its graceful old-world architecture
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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