some letters to Lord Warwick, his future step-son, then a boy, and very anxious to get news about birds and birds'-nests, which Addison most cordially gives him. He then went to Ireland as chief secretary to the Earl of Wharton, on his appointment to the Lord-Lieutenancy, and resided for some time in that capacity in Dublin. After this, he removed to a lodging at Kensington, owing to his increasing intimacy at Holland-house, and was about this time a frequent guest at Northwick-park, with the first Lord Northwick, and there one of the best portraits of him, by Kneller, still remains.

In 1716, he married the Dowager Countess of Warwick; but five years before this, that is, in 1711, he had made the purchase of Bilton, as a suitable residence for a person of his position in the state, and of that high connexion towards which he was already looking. Before, however, we indulge ourselves with a view of Addison at Bilton, let us see the mode of his life in town, on the authority of Pope, Spence, and Johnson :-" Of the course of Addison's familiar day, before his marriage, Pope has given a detail. He had in the house with him Budgell, and perhaps Philips. His chief companions were Steele, Budgell, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Brett. With one or other of these he always breakfasted. He studied all morning; then dined at a tavern; and went afterwards to Button's.

"Button had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's family; who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a coffee-house on the north side of Russell-street, about two doors from Covent-garden. Here it was that the wits of that time used to assemble. It is said, when Addison had suffered any vexation from the countess, he withdrew the company from Button's house.

"From the coffee-house he went to a tavern, where he often sat late and drank too much wine. In the bottle, discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence. It is not unlikely that Addison was first seduced to excess by the manumission which he obtained from the servile timidity of his sober hours. He that feels oppression from the presence of those to whom he knows himself superior, will desire to set loose his powers of conversation; and who, that ever asked succours from Bacchus, was able to preserve himself from being enslaved by his auxiliary?

"Among those friends it was that Addison displayed the elegance of his colloquial accomplishments, which may easily be supposed such as Pope represents them. The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an evening in his company, declared that he was a parson in a tie-wig, can detract little from his character; he was always reserved to strangers, and was not incited to uncommon freedom by a character like that of Mandeville."—Johnson's Life of Addison.

The statement made by Dr. Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets, and by Spence, that Addison's marriage, like that of Dryden, was not a happy one, has lately been strongly argued against by Miss

Aikin. One would gladly be able to acquiesce in it, and if we could believe the painter as well as Miss Aikin, we should be inclined to believe the Countess of Warwick possessed both unusual sense and sweetness of temper. The current of tradition, however, runs strongly the other way; and I fear we have not now sufficient strength of evidence to divert it. As little do I anticipate that Miss Aikin will prove Addison a very sober man; the statements of his cotemporaries, and the voice of tradition, are against her. We must be content to take the man with his failings and his secret griefs, the foils to a great reputation and a great prosperity.

Addison purchased the estate of Bilton for 10,000l., and the money was principally advanced by his brother, Gulston Addison, governor of Fort St. George, at Madras. Thither he conveyed his paintings, his library, and his collection of medals, which, as connected with his Dialogues on Medals, was very valuable. Here it may be supposed that, during the five years previous to his marriage, he passed much of his leisure time. It was a beautiful retirement, well calculated to dispose to thought, and worthy of the author of the Spectator. If we are to believe tradition, that he planted most of the trees now standing around it, he must have taken great pleasure in its embellishment. On his death, he left it to his only child, Charlotte Addison, who could not have been much more than two years old. Here she spent her long life, from the death of her mother, the countess, dying in 1797, at about eighty years of age. Miss Addison -for she was never married-is said to have been of weak intellect; a fact traced by many to the want of real and spiritual union between her parents, a supposition which the researches of our own times into the nature of man tend greatly to confirm. With the usual effect of aristocratic prejudice on a feeble mind, she is said to have been especially proud of her mother, but to have rarely mentioned her father. Being left to the care and education of her mother, this does not very strongly corroborate the case which Miss Aikin labours to establish. It does not speak very eloquently for that true affection which she tells us the countess bore towards Addison, and which she endeavours to prove by his affection for her, as evidenced by his making her his sole executrix, and guardian of his child. By the fruits we must judge of the woman, as well as the tree: and the fruit of Lady Warwick's education of her child was, by all accounts, this, that she left her ashamed of her father the commoner, though an immortal man, and proud of her mother, a countess-and nothing more. There are many stories of the eccentricities and increasing fatuity of poor Miss Addison, floating in the village and neighbourhood of Bilton, which may as well die out with time. The disposal of her property marks the tendency of her feelings. Her grandfather, Dr. Lancelot Addison, was a native of Cumberland. There, at the time of Miss Addison making her will, still remained many near and poor relations, whom she entirely passed over, as she had done in her lifetime, and bequeathed Bilton to the Honourable John Bridgman Simpson, brother to Lord Bridgman, whose representative is now Earl of Bradford. This gentleman she chose to consider her nearest

relation, because her mother's relation, though very near he could not be. Her mother, the countess, was the daughter of Sir Thomas Middleton, of Chirk Castle, Denbighshire, by a daughter of Sir Orlando Bridgman; so that this Mr. Bridgman Simpson, a relative of her grandmother, could not be a very near relative of her own, while she must have had first cousins of the paternal line in plenty. Those relatives of her own name, and who would have handed down the property, bound up with the name of Addison, as a monument of their family fame, disputed her will, but ineffectually. She is buried in the chancel of the church.

Soon after Miss Addison's death, the library was removed to London, and in May, 1799, was sold by auction for 4561. 2s. 9d., and Addison's collection of medals for 921. 2s. 2d. The poet's screen, drinking cup, teapot, etc. are now in the possession of William Ferdinand Wratislaw, Esq. of Rugby, the descendant of one of the most ancient families in Europe,-no other than the royal family of Bohemia, of which our "good Queen Ann," the wife of Richard II., was a princess; and of which-that is, of Mr. Wratislaw, of Rugby, the present head of the house-the young Count Adam Wratislaw, allied to Queen Victoria by his aunt the Princess of Leiningen, is a near relative. They could not be in better hands.

Since Miss Addison's death, the house at Bilton has been successively occupied by Mrs. Brookes and Miss Moore; by Mr. Apperley, the well-known Nimrod of sporting literature; by Sir Charles Palmer, Bart.; by the Vernon family; by the Misses Boddington; and lastly, by Mr. Simpson himself. Mr. Simpson has considerably improved the house, rebuilding the back part facing the garden; but, on the other hand, he cut down a considerable part of a fine avenue of limes, stretching along one side of the garden down to a wood below, called Addison's Walk. This avenue is said to have been planted by Addison, and terminated in a clump of evergreens, where was an alcove, called Addison's Seat. It was not till about half this avenue was felled, that Mr. Simpson heard that it was Addison's Walk, and caused the destruction to stop. He was at the time of our visit a very old man, and had not resided at Bilton since the death of his wife. The house is, however, furnished; and after reading Miss Aikin's statement, that "a small number of pictures collected by Addison, still, it is believed, remain in the house, which are mostly portraits of his contemporaries, and intrinsically of small value," how great was my delight and surprise, to find what and how many these paintings were ! But let us make a more regular approach to this gem of an old house, to the actual country seat of our "dear short-face," the Spectator.

Issuing from Rugby, Bilton salutes you from the hill on the opposite side of the valley which you have to cross in order to reach it. A lofty mass of trees, on a fine airy elevation; a small grey church, with finely tapering spire in front of them, show you where Bilton lies; but house or village you do not discern till you are close upon them. It was not till I had approached within a few hundred yards of Addison's house, or the Hall, as it is called, that I saw the cottages

of the village stretching away to my right hand; and a carriage-road diverging to my left towards the church, brought me within view of the house; there it stood in the midst of the fine old trees. A villager informed me that no one lived there but the gardener, nor had done for years. The autumn had dyed all the trees with its rich and yet melancholy hues; leaves strewed the ground in abundance; and there was a feeling of solitude and desertion about the place which was by no means out of keeping, when I reflected that I was approaching the house of Addison, so long quitted by himself. A fine old avenue of lime-trees, winding with the carriage-drive, brought me to the front of the house. It is a true Elizabethan mansion, not too large for a poet, yet large enough for any country gentleman who is not overdone with his establishment. The front of the main portion is lofty, handsome, and in excellent repair. A projecting tower runs up from the porch to the roof. Over the door is cut, in freestone, that masonic sign-the circle enclosing two interlaced triangles, indicating the degree of the royal arch; and near the top is the date of 1623. On the right hand, a wing of lower buildings runs forward from the main erection, forming, as it were, one side of a court. These buildings turn their gables towards you, and are covered with ivy. On the left hand, but standing back in a stableyard, are the out-buildings, seeming, however, to balance the whole fabric, and giving it an air of considerable extent. All round, adjoining the buildings and along the avenue, grow evergreens in tall and luxuriant masses.

On the other side of the house lies the old garden, retaining all the characters of a past age. The centre consists of a fine lawn: the upper part of which, near the house, has recently been laid out in fancy flower-beds, in the form of a star, and corner beds to make up the square. The rest appears as it might be when Addison left it. On the right, a square-cut holly hedge divides it from the fields, which are scattered with lofty trees, amongst which are foreign oaks, said to be raised from acorns brought home by the poet. To the left, the garden is bounded by a still more massy square-clipped hedge of yew, opening halfway down into a large kitchen-garden, being at the same time at the upper end an old Dutch flower-garden. At the far side of this garden, opposite to the entrance through the yew hedge, is an alcove, and down that side extends the lime avenue called Addison's Walk. At the bottom of this garden are fishponds, and in the field below, an oak wood. Thus, amidst lofty trees, some of them strong, old, and crooked, presenting a scene worthy of a picture by Claude Lorraine, you look down over the garden to rich fields descending into the country below. At the bottom right-hand. corner is an alcove, shut in by a group of evergreen shrubs and pinetrees from the house, but overlooking the fields and woodlands, called Addison's Seat; and a very pleasant seat it is, full of quiet retirement. Such is the exterior of Bilton. The interior of the main part of the house consists principally of two large rooms, a dining and drawing room. These extend quite through, are lighted at each end, and the projection in front forms a sort of little cabinet in each

room. These two fine large rooms are hung round with the paintings placed here by Addison: whether they are few, and of no intrinsic value, will soon be seen.

In the dining-room are, first, full-lengths of James I, by Mark Garrard; Lord Crofts, Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, by Balthazar Gerbier; the Duke of Hamilton, Henry Rich, Earl of Warwick, Prince Rupert, and Prince Maurice, all by Vandyck; Sir Thomas Middleton, the Countess of Warwick's father, by Sir Peter Lely; and in the small division in front of the room, Chief Justice the Earl of Nottingham, by Michael Dahl; Mr. Secretary Craggs, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, a man of fair complexion, and handsome, amiable countenance, in a light bright blue dress; Sir John Vanburgh, by Verelst; and Lord Halifax, by Kneller. These are chiefly threequarter figures.

On the staircase is one of the four well-known equestrian Charles the Firsts, by Vandyck, the horse by Stone, one of which is at Hampton Court, and another at Warwick Castle. Opposite to it is a full-length figure of Anne of Austria, Queen of France, by Mignard.

In the drawing-room, a full-length figure of a lady, labelled as Lady Isabel Thynne, daughter of the Earl of Holland, behind which some artist had placed a paper, stating that at Knowle there is a precisely similar picture marked as Lady Frances Grenfield, daughter of the Earl of Middleton, and fifth Countess of Dorset; as well as a copy of it, likewise, at Knowle. Next to this is a singular picture, which might be one of Lely's, but bears no name of the artist. There is an exact fac-simile of it at Penshurst. It contains two half-length figures of Lady Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle, and Lady Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester, two of the most flattered and remarkable women of the day, and the latter the mother of Algernon Sidney; next is the Duke of Northumberland, their father, by Lely; and full lengths of the unfortunate Arabella Stuart, a very pretty and interesting-looking woman, and Rich, Earl of Holland, by Vandyck. On the opposite side of the room is the Countess of Warwick, Addison's wife, by Kneller, in a bright blue dress. She is here represented as decidedly handsome, having a high, broad forehead, dark hair falling in natural ringlets, and with a sweet expression of countenance. To her right is her son, Lord Warwick, as a boy of twelve or fourteen years old, also in a light-blue dress, and red scarf, by Dahl. On her left is a head of Lord Kensington, by Lely. A mother and daughter in two separate pictures, supposed to be by Lely; and the Earl of Warwick again as a boy.

Within the small department of the room, we find a half-length of Addison himself, also in light blue, which seems the almost universal colour of Kneller's drapery. He appears here about forty years of age, his figure fuller, and the countenance more fleshy and less spiritual than in either of the portraits at Holland-house and Northwick. Besides this, there is another portrait of the Earl of Warwick, by Kneller, as a young man; a head of Gustavus Adolphus, by Meirveldt; and lastly of the heiress of the house, Miss Addison herself. She is here a child, nor is there any one of her of a later