“ ... big with the fate
Of Cato and of Rome.”
“'Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it.”
“Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury.”
“I think the Romans call it Stoicism.”
“My voice is still for war.”
“When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honour is a private station.”
Not to mention:—
“The woman who deliberates is lost,”
And the eternal:—
“Plato, thou reasonest well,”
which avenges, perhaps, on the public their neglect of the play!
“The lady was persuaded to marry him on terms much like those on which a Turkish princess is espoused—to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce, ‘Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave.’ The marriage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition to his happiness; it neither found them, nor made them, equal.... Rowe's ballad of The Despairing Shepherd is said to have been written, either before or after marriage, upon this memorable pair.”—Dr. Johnson.
“I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary of State with the less surprise, in that I knew that post was almost offered to him before. At that time he declined it, and I really believe that he would have done well to have declined it now. Such a post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic, and we may see the day when he will be heartily glad to resign them both.”—Lady Wortley Montagu to Pope. Works, Lord Wharncliffe's ed., vol. ii, p. 111.
The issue of this marriage was a daughter, Charlotte Addison, who inherited, on her mother's death, the estate of Bilton, near Rugby, which her father had purchased, and died, unmarried, at an advanced age. She was of weak intellect.
Rowe appears to have been faithful to Addison during his courtship, for his Collection contains “Stanzas to Lady Warwick, on Mr. Addison's going to Ireland”, in which her ladyship is called “Chloe”, and Joseph Addison, “Lycidas”; besides the ballad mentioned by the doctor, and which is entitled “Colin's Complaint”. But not even the interest attached to the name of Addison could induce the reader to peruse this composition, though one stanza may serve as a specimen:—