��Essay on
��of every mind. By him we are told, * Masterless passion sways us to the mood of what it likes or loaths V
It remains to enquire, whether in the lives before us the characters are partial, and too often drawn with malignity of misrepresentation. To prove this it is alleged, that Johnson has misrepresented the circumstances relative to the translation of the first Iliad, and maliciously ascribed that performance to Addison, instead of Tickell, with too much reliance on the testimony of Pope, taken from the account in the papers left by Mr. Spence 2 . For a refutation of the fallacy imputed to Addison, we are referred 3 to a note in the Biographia Britannica, written by the late Judge Blacks tone 4 , who, it is said, examined the whole matter with accuracy, and found that the first regular statement of the accusation against Addison was published by RufThead in his Life of Pope, from the materials which he received from Dr. Warburton. But, with all due deference to the learned Judge, whose talents deserve all praise, this account is by no means accurate.
Sir Richard Steele, in a dedication of the Comedy of the Drummer to Mr. Congreve, gave the first insight into that business. He says, in a style of anger and resentment, * If
��' For affection, Mistress of passion, sways it to
the mood/ &c. Merchant of Venice^ Act. iv.
sc. 1. 1. 50.
Some editors read * Master of passion.'
Johnson must have had these lines in mind when he described Gold smith as ' Sive risus essent movendi,
Sive lacrymae, Affectuum potens at lenis domi-
nator.' Life, iii. 83. 2 Works, viii. 87.
'Mr. Watts, the printer,' writes Dr. Warton, ' a man of integrity, assured a friend of Mr. Nicols
��[? Nichols] that the translation of the First Book of the Iliad was in Tickell's handwriting, but much cor rected and interlined by Addison.' Warton's Pope's Works t i. Preface,
p. 20.
3 By Dr. Towers, An Essay on the Life, &c., p. 91.
4 Dr. Kippis, editor of the Biog. Britan.) ed. 1778, thus introduces this note : ' We are now happy in having the difference between him and Mr. Pope very fully discussed by a gentleman of considerable rank, to whom the Public is obliged for works of much higher importance.' i. 56.
that
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