should send to him himself, which he promised.  Accordingly he prevailed upon Mr. Boyle, then chancellor of the exchequer, to go in his name to Mr. Addison, and communicate to him the business, which he did in so obliging a manner, that he readily entered upon the task [3].  The lord treasurer saw the Poem before it was finished, when the author had written no farther than the celebrated simile of the Angel, and was so much pleased with it, that he immediately made him commissioner of appeals, in the room of Mr. Locke, who was promoted to be one of the lords commissioners for trade, &c.

His Poem, entitled the Campaign, was received with loud and general applause:  It is addressed to the duke of Marlborough, and contains a short view of the military transactions in the year 1704, and a very particular description of the two great actions at Schellemberg and Blenheim.

In 1705 Mr. Addison attended the lord Hallifax to Hanover; and in the succeeding year he was made choice of for under-secretary to Sir Charles Hedges, then appointed secretary of state.  In the month of December, in the same year, the earl of Sunderland, who succeeded Sir Charles in that office, continued Mr. Addison in the post of under secretary.

Operas being now much in fashion, many people of distinction and true taste, importuned him to make a trial, whether sense and sound were really so incompatible, as some admirers of the Italian pieces would represent them.  He was at last prevailed upon to comply with their request, and composed his Rosamond:  This piece was inscribed to the duchess of Marlborough, and met with but indifferent success on the stage.  Many looked upon it as not properly an Opera; for considering what numbers of miserable productions had born that title, they were scarce satisfied that so superior a piece should appear under the same denomination About this time our author assisted Sir Richard Steel, in a play called the Tender Husband; to which he wrote a humorous Prologue.  Sir Richard, whose gratitude was as warm and ready as his wit, surprized him with a dedication, which may be considered as one of the few monuments of praise, not unworthy the great person to whose honour it was raised.

In 1709 he went over to Ireland, as secretary to the marquis of Wharton, appointed lord lieutenant of that kingdom.  Her majesty also, was pleased, as a mark of her peculiar favour, to augment the salary annexed to the keeper of the records in that nation, and bestow it upon him.  While he was in Ireland, his friend Sir Richard Steel published the Tatler, which appeared for the first time, on the 12th of April 1709:  Mr. Addison (says Tickell) discovered the author by an observation on Virgil he had communicated to him.  This discovery led him to afford farther assistance, insomuch, that as the author of the Tatler well exprest it, he fared by this means, like a distrest prince, who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid:  that is, he was undone by his auxiliary.