Addison left off at a good moment. That simile was pronounced to be of the greatest ever produced in poetry. That angel, that good angel, flew off with Mr. Addison, and landed him in the place of Commissioner of Appeals—vice Mr. Locke providentially promoted, In the following year, Mr. Addison went to Hanover with Lord Halifax, and the year after was made Under-Secretary of State. O angel visits! you come "few and far between" to literary gentlemen's lodgings! Your wings seldom quiver at second-floor windows now!
You laugh? You think it is in the power of few writers now-a-days to call up such an angel? Well perhaps not; but permit us to comfort ourselves by pointing out that there are in the poem of the "Campaign" some as bad lines as heart can desire: and to hint that Mr. Addison did very wisely in not going further with my Lord Godolphin than that angelical simile. Do allow me, just for a little harmless mischief, to read you some of the lines which follow. Here is the interview between the Duke and the King of the Romans after the battle:—
"Austria's young monarch, whose imperial sway
Sceptres and thrones are destined to obey,
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."—Johnson (Lives of the Poets).
