[3] Addison had already distinguished himself as a man of letters, and as an admirer of Dryden, by a copy of verses addressed to our author, and by a translation of the Fourth Book of the Georgics, exclusive of the story of Aristæus. This last performance is liberally commended by Dryden in the Postscript to Virgil. The following Essay, which has been much admired for judicious criticism contained in elegant language, was sent by him to our author, but without permission to prefix the writer's name. This circumstance led Tickell to throw some reflection on Dryden, as if he had meant to assume to himself the merit of the composition. This charge was refuted by Steele, in a letter to Congreve, prefixed to an edition of the comedy of "The Drummer," in 1722, who proves, that the Essay was the same paper which Dryden calls the Preface to the Georgics, and which he acknowledges to have been sent by a friend, whose name he was not at liberty to make public. See the article _Addison_ in the "Biographia Britannica." GEORGICS. BOOK I. ARGUMENT. _The poet, in the beginning of this book, propounds the general design of each Georgic: and, after a solemn invocation of all the gods, who are any way related to his subject, he addresses himself, in particular, to Augustus, whom he compliments with divinity; and, after, strikes into his business. He shows the different kinds of tillage proper to different soils; traces out the original of agriculture; gives a catalogue of the husbandman's tools; specifies the employments peculiar to each season; describes the changes of the weather, with the signs in heaven and earth that forbode them; instances many of the prodigies that happened near the time of Julius Cæsar's death; and shuts up all with a supplication to the gods for the safety of Augustus, and the preservation of Rome._[4]