Addison still continued in the service of the State, and wrote more or less in a political way.  The strain of carrying on the “Spectator” and the stress of political affairs had tired the man.  The spring had gone out of his intellect, and he began to talk of some quiet retreat in the country.  In Seventeen Hundred Sixteen, in his forty-fourth year, he married the Countess of Warwick, a widow of fifteen years’ standing.  We have reason to believe that the worthy widow did the courting and literally took our good man captive.  He was depressed and worn, and longed for rest and gentle, sympathetic companionship.  She promised all these—­the buxom creature—­and married him, taking him to her home at Holland House.  Yes, it would be unjust to blame her; doubtless she wished to do for the man what was best; and so report has it that she exercised a discipline over his hours of work and recreation and curtailed a little there and issued orders here, until the poor patient rebelled and fled to the coffeehouses.  There he found the rollicking society that he so despised—­and loved, for there was comradeship in it, and comradeship was what he prayed for.  His wife did not comprehend that delicate, spiritual quality of his heart:  that craving for sympathy which came after he had given out so much.  He wanted peace, quiet and rest; but she wished to take him forth and exhibit him to the throng.  Yet all of her admonitions that he “brace up” were in vain.  His work was done.  He foresaw the end, and grew impatient that it did not come.  Placid, resigned, sane to the last hour, he passed away at Holland House, June Seventeenth, Seventeen Hundred Nineteen, aged forty-seven.  His body, lying in state, was viewed by more than ten thousand people, and then it was laid to rest in the Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey.

ROBERT SOUTHEY

                         Let no man write
    Thy epitaph, Emmett; thou shalt not go
    Without thy funeral strain!  O young and good,
    And wise, though erring here, thou shalt not go
    Unhonored or unsung.  And better thus
    Beneath that undiscriminating stroke,
    Better to fall, than to have lived to mourn,
    As sure thou wouldst, in misery and remorse,
    Thine own disastrous triumph * * * *
    How happier thus, in that heroic mood
    That takes away the sting of death, to die,
    By all the good and all the wise forgiven! 
    Yea, in all ages by the wise and good
    To be remembered, mourned, and honored still!
                                  —­Southey to Robert Emmett

[Illustration:  Robert Southey]

Most generally, when I travel, I go alone—­this to insure being in good company.  To travel with another is a terrible risk:  it puts a great strain on the affections.

I once made the tour of Scotland with a man who was traveling for his health.  He had kidney-trouble belief.  I had known the man in a casual way for several years, and we started out the best of friends, anticipating a good time.  We were gone three weeks, and when we got back I hated the fellow thoroughly, and I have every reason to believe that he fully reciprocated the sentiment.