[ [70] Quære, rides and ties.
[ [71] Thomas Wharton, Earl of Wharton, appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, April 21, 1709. How Addison became the secretary of this Verres, as delineated by Swift,—or how Wharton, who professed to think virtue to be only a name, and would not have given a guinea as the purchase-price of the best reputation, obtained the appointment of the Queen's vicegerent in Ireland,—would be matters of perfect astoundment, were it not known that Wharton forced himself upon Lord Godolphin, by showing him a treasonable letter of that lord's to the abdicated family, of which he had contrived to become the possessor. Wharton's vice-regal power was but of short duration; he was recalled: Lords Justices were appointed in the September of the same year, and Wharton returned to England to make a bad use of the letter. Godolphin had, however, been too cunning for him, and procured an act of grace in his absence, which enabled him to set the vengeance of the Lord Lieutenant at defiance. As an apology for Addison's serving under such a man, it may be urged, that the acceptance of the office so proffered implied no approbation of his crimes; and that a subordinate officer is under no obligation to examine the opinions or conduct of those under whom he acts, excepting that he may not be made the actual tool of his atrocities or crimes.
[ [72] Addison's habitual taciturnity and fondness for the bottle are well known. There is a story, not yet forgotten, that the profligate Duke of Wharton, who was, perhaps, only the reputed or imputed son of this earl, afterwards Marquis of Wharton, once at table plied Addison so briskly with wine, in order to make him talk, that he could not retain it in his stomach. His grace is said to have observed, that "he could get wine, but not wit out of him."
[ [73] Lord Godolphin conferred on Addison, as a reward for his poem entitled The Campaign, commemorative of the battle of Blenheim, the place of Commissioner of Appeals, in the room of the celebrated Locke, who had been appointed a Lord of Trade. The year following, he attended Lord Halifax to Hanover; and, in the next, was appointed secretary to Sir Charles Hedges, and was continued in that office by his successor, Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland.
[ [74] Addison was a sound Whig. Bolingbroke records, that, after the peace which followed the ever memorable battle of Blenheim, he engaged with Addison in a two hours' conversation, and their politics differed toto cælo from each other.
[ [75] Budgell has recorded that he attended Lord Halifax and Addison in a barge to Greenwich to meet George the First from Hanover. Halifax said he expected to have the Treasurer's staff, and to have great influence; that he would endeavour to avoid some of the errors of late reigns, and make his master a great king, and would recommend Addison to be a secretary of state. Addison, as Budgell says, blushed, and thanked him for such honourable friendship, but declared that his merits and ambition did not carry him to so high a place. Halifax was, however, circumvented in all his speculations: Walpole acquired more influence, or succeeded by intrigue; and the effects mortified Lord Halifax so acutely, that a pulmonary fever was the consequence, and death soon put a quietus upon his lordship's unsuccessful struggle for power.
[ [76] Lowndes was secretary to the Lords of the Treasury.
[ [77] Congreve first introduced Addison to the notice of lord Halifax while being educated at Oxford for the church, when his lordship is said to have dedicated Addison to the state, and avowed he would never do the church any other harm than in keeping him out of it. The post which Addison here alludes to, was that of secretary to Lord Sunderland, who was then appointed to the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, but never went to Dublin to assume the vice-regal dignity. Addison evidently deemed that appointment a degradation, and much inferior to that of being secretary to the Lords Regent of the kingdom till the arrival of the new King. As to his having been in Lord Sunderland's employ formerly, it has reference to his being his lordship's secretary upon the earl's succeeding Sir Charles Hedges, as Secretary of State, in 1706.
[ [78] This assertion seems strange, when it is known that in 1711, long prior to his marriage with the Countess of Warwick, Addison had expended ten thousand pounds upon the purchase of the Bilton estate, near Rugby, in Warwickshire: and Oldmixon, in his History, says, Addison left by his will, in 1719, to his daughter and to Lady Warwick, his fortune, which was about twelve thousand pounds. His daughter, who resided at Bilton till her death, in 1797, enjoyed an income of more than twelve hundred pounds per annum.
[ [79] Addison sat in the two last parliaments of Queen Anne. The Commons' Journals record that on a petition against his election for Lestwithiel, in 1708, he was found not duly elected; but by Lord Wharton's interest at the general election, he was chosen member for Malmesbury: indeed, as Swift wrote to Stella, so popular had Addison then become, that "if he had stood for the kingship, he would have been chosen."