occasion of this last vice it ruined him. A lady had commended and desired to have a copy of his Verses once, and he sent them, with these lines on the first leaf—

  Lucretius hence thy maxim I abjure
  Nought comes from nought, nothing can nought procure.

  If to these lines your approbation's join'd,
  Something I'm sure from nothing has been coin'd.

This gentleman died unmarried, a little after his brother Eustace, at Exeter; having lived in a very disreputable manner for some time, and having degenerated into such excessive indolence, that he usually picked up some boy in the streets, and carried him into the coffee-house to read the news-papers to him. He had taken deacon's orders some years before his death, but had always been averse to that kind of life; and therefore became it very ill, and could never be prevailed upon to be a priest.

The third brother William, fellow of New-College in Oxford, died (as I mentioned before) one of the clerks in the Irish secretary of state's office, very young. He had been deputy accomptant general, both to his brother and his successor; and likewise deputy to Mr. Addison, as keeper of the records in Birmingham-Tower. Had he lived, 'tis probable he would have made a considerable figure, being a man of sound sense and learning, with great prudence and honour. His cousin Dr. Downes, then bishop of London-Derry, was his zealous friend, and Dr. Lavington the present bishop of Exeter, his fellow-collegian, was his intimate correspondent. Of the two sisters, the eldest married captain Graves of Thanks, near Saltash in Cornwall, a sea-officer, and died in 1738, leaving some children behind her; and the other is still alive, unmarried. The father Dr. Gilbert Budgell, was esteemed a sensible man, and has published a discourse upon Prayer, and some Sermons[6].

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Budgell's Letter to Cleomenes. Appendix p. 79.

[2] See The Bee, vol. ii. p. 854.

[3] 'Till then it was usual to discontinue an epilogue after the sixth night. But this was called for by the audience, and continued for the whole run of this play: Budgell did not scruple to sit in the it, and call for it himself.

[4] Vide Bee, Vol. II. page 1105.

[5] Alluding to Cato's destroying himself.

[6] There is an Epigram of our author's, which I don't remember to have seen published any where, written upon the death of a very fine young lady.

  She was, she is,
  (What can theremore be said)
  On Earth [the] first,
  In Heav'n the second Maid.
[Transcriber's note: Print unclear, word in square bracket assumed.]

    See a Song of our author's in Steele's Miscellanies, published in
    1714. Page 210.

    There is an Epigram of his printed in the same book and in many
    collections, Upon a Company of bad Dancers to good Music.

  How ill the motion with the music suits!
  So fiddled Orpheus—and so danc'd the Brutes.

* * * * *

THOMAS TICKELL, Esq.

This Gentleman, well known, to the world by the friendship and intimacy which subsisted between him and Mr. Addison, was the son of the revd. Mr. Richard Tickell, who enjoy'd a considerable preferment in the North of England. Our poet received his education at Queen's-College in Oxford, of which he was a fellow.

While he was at that university, he wrote a beautiful copy of verses addressed to Mr. Addison, on his Opera of Rosamond. These verses contained many elegant compliments to the author, in which he compares his softness to Corelli, and his strength to Virgil[1].

  The Opera first Italian masters taught,
  Enrich'd with songs, but innocent of thought;
  Britannia's learned theatre disdains
  Melodious trifles, and enervate strains;
  And blushes on her injur'd stage to see,
  Nonsense well tun'd with sweet stupidity.

  No charms are wanting to thy artful song
  Soft as Corelli, and as Virgil strong.

These complimentary lines, a few of which we have now quoted, so effectually recommended him to Mr. Addison, that he held him in esteem ever afterwards; and when he himself was raised to the dignity of secretary of state, he appointed Mr. Tickell his under-secretary. Mr. Addison being obliged to resign on account of his ill-state of health, Mr. Craggs who succeeded him, continued Mr. Tickell in his place, which he held till that gentleman's death. When Mr. Addison was appointed secretary, being a diffident man, he consulted with his friends about disposing such places as were immediately dependent on him. He communicated to Sir Richard Steele, his design of preferring Mr. Tickell to be his under-secretary, which Sir Richard, who considered him as a petulant man, warmly opposed. He observed that Mr. Tickell was of a temper too enterprising to be governed, and as he had no opinion of his honour, he did not know what might be the consequence, if by insinuation and flattery, or by bolder means, he ever had an opportunity of raising himself. It holds pretty generally true, that diffident people under the appearance of distrusting their own opinions, are frequently positive, and though they pursue their resolutions with trembling, they never fail to pursue them. Mr. Addison had a little of this temper in him. He could not be persuaded to set aside Mr. Tickell, nor even had secrecy enough to conceal from him Sir Richard's opinion. This produced a great animosity between Sir Richard and Mr. Tickell, which subsisted during their lives.

Mr. Tickell in his life of Addison, prefixed to his own edition of that great man's works, throws out some unmannerly reflexions against Sir Richard, who was at that time in Scotland, as one of the commissioners on the forfeited estates. Upon Sir Richard's return to London, he dedicates to Mr. Congreve, Addison's Comedy, called the Drummer, in which he takes occasion very smartly to retort upon Tickell, and clears himself of the imputation laid to his charge, namely that of valuing himself upon Mr. Addison's papers in the Spectator.

In June 1724 Mr. Tickell was appointed secretary to the Lords Justices in Ireland, a place says Mr. Coxeter, which he held till his death, which happened in the year 1740.

It does not appear that Mr. Tickell was in any respect ungrateful to Mr. Addison, to whom he owed his promotion; on the other hand we find him take every opportunity to celebrate him, which he always performs with so much zeal, and earnestness, that he seems to have retained the most lasting sense of his patron's favours. His poem to the earl of Warwick on the death of Mr. Addison, is very pathetic. He begins it thus,

  If dumb too long, the drooping Muse hath stray'd,
  And left her debt to Addison unpaid,
  Blame not her silence, Warwick, but bemoan,
  And judge, O judge, my bosom by your own.
  What mourner ever felt poetic fires!
  Slow comes the verse, that real woe inspires:
  Grief unaffected suits but ill with art,
  Or flowing numbers with a bleeding heart.

Mr. Tickell's works are printed in the second volume of the Minor Poets, and he is by far the most considerable writer amongst them. He has a very happy talent in versification, which much exceeds Addison's, and is inferior to few of the English Poets, Mr. Dryden and Pope excepted. The first poem in this collection is addressed