The last number * which Pope contributed to the Guardian, is a happy attempt to expose and ridicule the bad taste which at that time prevailed in gardening. Addison had led the way in N° 414 and N° 447 of the Spectator; and our author prosecuted the same design with great success, both in this paper and in his Epistle on False Taste, inscribed to Lord Burlington. son, in his English garden, thus celebrates these harbingers of picturesque beauty:

ADDISON,

Ma

Thou polish'd Sage, or shall I call thee Bard,
I see thee come: around thy temples play
The lambent flames of humour, bright'ning mild
Thy judgment into smiles; gracious thou com'st
With Satire at thy side, who checks her frown,
But not her secret sting. With bolder rage
POPE next advances: his indignant arm
Waves the poetic brand o'er Timon's shades,
And lights them to destruction: the fierce blaze
Sweeps through each kindred vista; groves to groves
Nod their fraternal farewell, and expire.

And now, elate with fair-earn'd victory,

The Bard retires, and on the bank of Thames
Erects his flag of triumph; wild it waves

In verdant splendour, and beholds, and hails
The King of Rivers, as he rolls along.

Since the efforts of Addison and Pope, to decorate and embellish their native island, the progress made in the creation of landscape has been

* N° 173.

great. The seats and plantations of our nobility and gentry have assumed a new aspect, moulded by the taste and abilities of Kent, Southcote, Shenstone, and Browne; of Walpole, Mason, Whateley, and Price.

The Latin verses in this number of the Guardian, Hinc et nexilibus, &c. are supposed by Warton to have been written by Pope; and that consequently his name may be added to the list of those English poets, who have likewise composed in Latin metre.

From the excellence of the papers which we have just enumerated, it were greatly to be wished that Pope had furnished a more ample portion to the Guardian. What chiefly prevented his further aid was the apprehension, as he confesses to Addison in a letter written about the close of 1713*, of being implicated by the public with Steele in his political sentiments and measures. Sir Richard was an enthusiastic Whig; and Pope, who had friends on both sides, but more particularly in the Tory interest, and who had likewise an aversion to assume the badge of any

*"An honest Jacobite," says Pope, in the letter alluded to, "spoke to me the sense, or nonsense, of the weak part of his party very fairly, that the good people took it ill of me that I writ with Steele, though upon never so indifferent subjects."

party, found it necessary to preserve the appearance of a strict neutrality. We had otherwise, it is probable, received numerous papers from his pen; and when we consider the style, the humour, and the wit of those which we do possess, we must once more pause to execrate the folly, the malevolence, and narrow views of that political spirit which could thus impede the exertions of genius in polite literature, merely because they were combined with those of a man whose ideas of government, though in a great degree constitutional, were not exactly similar to its own

* Vide Warton's Pope, vol. vii. p. 271.

PART IV.

BIOGRAPHICAL

ESSAY II.

AND CRITICAL SKETCHES OF THE OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENTS OF STEELE AND ADDISON.

In the preceding essay we have allotted a larger space to the Biography of Budgell, Hughes, Berkeley, and Pope, owing to the number and importance of their contributions, than can possibly be given to the characters who form the subjects of this and the following essay; for however ample their exertions might be in other departments of literature, as they brought not much assistance to the periodical works under our consideration, their claim for extended notice, cannot, in accordance with the plan which we have adopted, be great.

5. THOMAS TICKELL, son of the Rev. Richard Tickell, Vicar of Bridekirk, near Carlisle in Cumberland, was born in 1686. After a competent education in his native country, he entered

a member of Queen's College, Oxford, in April, 1701; was made Master of Arts in 1708, and was chosen Fellow in 1710. The statutes of the university, however, requiring orders previous to an admission to the fellowship, he obtained a dispensation from the Crown.

The genius and inclinations of Mr. Tickell appear to have early led him to a public and literary life; and his acquirements were such as were well calculated to forward and support his wishes. To considerable classical learning he added an elegant and correct taste, much skill in the art of versification, and a shrewdness and knowledge of human life fully adequate to the routine of political or diplomatic employment.

With these talents he was fortunate enough to obtain the patronage of Addison, through the medium of a copy of verses in praise of his Rosamond. The friendship thus obtained was never for a moment violated: Addison, it is said, had the affection of a father for Tickell, who, in return, loved and venerated this great man with a zeal which no filial duty could exceed.

An early consequence of this connection was the assistance of Tickell in the Spectator and Guardian, and an intimacy with Steele and his associates. During the progress of the first of these periodical papers, and while the public