In 1697 appeared his Latin verses on the Peace of Ryswick, which he dedicated to Montague, and which was afterwards called, by Smith, "the best Latin poem since the Aeneid." Praise must not be too rigorously examined; but the performance cannot be denied to be vigorous and elegant.
Having yet no publick employment, he obtained, in 1699, a pension of three hundred pounds a year, that he might be enabled to travel. He staid a year at Blois[163], probably to learn the French language; and then proceeded in his journey to Italy, which he surveyed with the eyes of a poet.
While he was travelling at leisure, he was far from being idle; for he not only collected his observations on the country, but found time to write his Dialogues on Medals, and four acts of Cato. Such, at least, is the relation of Tickell. Perhaps he only collected his materials, and formed his plan.
Whatever were his other employments in Italy, he there wrote the letter to lord Halifax, which is justly considered as the most elegant, if not the most sublime, of his poetical productions[164]. But in about two years he found it necessary to hasten home; being, as Swift informs us, distressed by indigence, and compelled to become the tutor of a travelling squire, because his pension was not remitted[165].
At his return he published his travels, with a dedication to lord Somers. As his stay in foreign countries was short[166], his observations are such as might be supplied by a hasty view, and consist chiefly in comparisons of the present face of the country with the descriptions left us by the Roman poets, from whom he made preparatory collections, though he might have spared the trouble, had he known that such collections had been made twice before by Italian authors.
The most amusing passage of his book is his account of the minute republick of San Marino: of many parts it is not a very severe censure to say, that they might have been written at home. His elegance of language, and variegation of prose and verse, however, gains upon the reader; and the book, though awhile neglected, became, in time, so much the favourite of the publick, that before it was reprinted it rose to five times its price.
When he returned to England, in 1702, with a meanness of appearance which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power, and was, therefore, for a time, at full leisure for the cultivation of his mind; and a mind so cultivated gives reason to believe that little time was lost[167].
But he remained not long neglected or useless. The victory at Blenheim, 1704, spread triumph and confidence over the nation; and lord Godolphin, lamenting to lord Halifax, that it had not been celebrated in a manner equal to the subject, desired him to propose it to some better poet. Halifax told him, that there was no encouragement for genius; that worthless men were unprofitably enriched with publick money, without any care to find or employ those whose appearance might do honour to their country. To this Godolphin replied, that such abuses should, in time, be rectified; and that, if a man could be found capable of the task then proposed, he should not want an ample recompense. Halifax then named Addison; but required that the treasurer should apply to him in his own person. Godolphin sent the message by Mr. Boyle, afterwards lord Carleton; and Addison, having undertaken the work, communicated it to the treasurer, while it was yet advanced no farther than the simile of the angel, and was immediately rewarded by succeeding Mr. Locke in the place of commissioner of appeals.
In the following year he was at Hanover with lord Halifax: and the year after was made under-secretary of state, first to sir Charles Hedges, and in a few months more to the earl of Sunderland.
About this time the prevalent taste for Italian operas inclined him to try what would be the effect of a musical drama in our own language. He, therefore, wrote the opera of Rosamond, which, when exhibited on the stage, was either hissed or neglected[168]; but, trusting that the readers would do him more justice, he published it, with an inscription to the dutchess of Marlborough; a woman without skill, or pretensions to skill, in poetry or literature. His dedication was, therefore, an instance of servile absurdity, to be exceeded only by Joshua Barnes's dedication of a Greek Anacreon to the duke.