Our sketch has necessarily been personal rather than historical: a fuller account of the public life of Ximenes will be found in Robertson’s ‘Charles V.,’ as well as in the biographies of Flechier, Marsollier, and others. Barrett’s ‘Life of Ximenes’ appears to be a compressed translation from the Life by Flechier. We conclude with the short and comprehensive praise of Leibnitz, who said, that “If great men could be bought, Spain would have cheaply purchased such a minister by the sacrifice of one of her kingdoms.” [Illustration: _Engraved by J. Thomson._ ADDISON. _From a Picture copied by J. Thurston in the Possession of the Publisher._ Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge _London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._ ] [Illustration] ADDISON. Joseph Addison, the second of the six children of Dr. Launcelot Addison and Jane Gulstone, was born May 1, 1672, at Milston in Wiltshire. The feebleness of his infancy seems to have impaired his spirit as a boy; for, in the General Dictionary, Dr. Birch relates, that when at school in the country, he was so afraid of punishment as to have absconded, lodging in a hollow tree in the fields, till a hue and cry restored him to his parents. At the Charter-House was formed that friendship between him and Sir Richard Steele, which led to their close alliance in a new kind of literary undertaking. Addison could not but feel his own superiority; and Spence intimates, that the one was too fond of displaying, and the other too servile in acknowledging it. Steele occasionally availed himself not only of his friend’s pen, but of his purse. Johnson has given currency to the story, that Addison enforced the repayment of 100_l._ by an execution, and the fact is said to have been related by Steele himself, with tears in his eyes. Hooke, the Roman historian, professed to have received it from Pope. The biographer sarcastically remarks, that the borrower probably had not much purpose of repayment; but the lender, who “seems to have had other notions of 100_l._, grew impatient of delay.” Now no date is assigned to this anecdote; and Addison’s finances were so low during the greater part of his life, that he might have suffered greatly by the disappointment; nor does it detract from the character of a man in narrow circumstances, that he entertains serious notions of 100_l._