JOSEPH ADDISON, ESQ. BIOGRAPHY, in the wide memorials of huma existence, never expatiated upon a fairer life, tha that of this amiable Author. While the writer this sketch laments the penury of common at ticles which he will not repeat, he regrets mo feelingly his want of power to add to the memori bilia of so great a man. The few circumstances recorded of him are upon the minds of ALL-and very becomingly are they so; for they furnish out a lesson by which all may learn to LIVE WELL. He has had the best praise of poetry, and the superior tribute of prose, solemn and sublime, for it is the prose of YOUNG. The great Author of the Night Thoughts hangs with religious rapture upon the death-bed of ADDISON, as the consummation of his character-the edifying close of Christian resignation. "He teaches ноw to die." There is but one event in the life of ADDISON which calls upon me for investigation or remark -" that conduct towards POPE, which produced "the famous portrait of ATTICUs." The charges are serious; and, if substantiated by evidence, leave us nothing to plead in bar of sentence but, "that last infirmity of noble minds," jealousy of a rival's fame. Let the great writer who has not felt this pour down alone his censure upon ADDISON. But from whom does the sarcasm proceed?-From POPE!-from him who provoked the memorable severity of HILL? who, Poorly accepted FAME he ne'er repaid; Unborn to cherish, sneakingly approv'd, And wanted SOUL to spread the worth he lov'd. from Is it not something more than problematic, that this conduct, of which HILL so keenly complains, HE alone might not have felt, and that the coolness of ADDISON might have sprung the petulance of POPE? Let any man, after impartially scanning either the lives or writings of these writers, pronounce from whom he conceives the offensive conduct originally sprung. The beauty of Pope's COMPOSITIONS have in no trifling degreee decorated his LIFE with a beauty which it wanted. He who lives in a state of inadequate ENMITY, who, in the language of SHAKSPERE spurns enviously at straws, was more likely to be irritated by the successful SAGE he revered than the degraded DUNCE he delighted to deride. LUCIA, Daughter to Lucius, Women. Mrs. Hartley. Mrs. Jackson. SCENE, A Hall in the Governor's Palace in Utica. THE dawn is over-cast, the morning low'rs, And close the scene of blood. Already Cæsar Marc. Thy steady temper, Portius, Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar, In the calm lights of mild philosophy; I'm tortur'd, ev'n to madness, when I think On the proud victor: ev'ry time he's nam'd Th' insulting tyrant prancing o'er the field, Strew'd with Rome's citizens, and drench'd in slaugh ter, His horse's hoofs wet with patrician blood! Por. Believe me, Marcus, 'tis an impious greatness, Of honour, virtue, liberty, and Rome. His sword ne'er fell, but on the guilty head; Marc. Who knows not this! But what can Cato do Against a world, a base, degen'rate world, That courts the yoke, and bows the neck to Cæsar ? Pent up in Utica, he vainly forins A poor epitome of Roman greatness, And, cover'd with Numidian guards, directs Remnants of mighty battles fought in vain. By Heav'n, such virtues, join'd with such success, |