The scope of the Bill was this, that in place of 16 Peers sitting in Parliament, as Representatives of the Peerage of Scotland, there were for the future to be twenty five hereditary Peers, by the junction of nine out of the body of the Scotch nobility, to the then 16 sitting Peers; that six English Peers should be added, and the peerage then remain fixed; the crown being restrained from making any new lords, but upon the extinction of families.  This gave a great alarm to the nation, and many papers were wrote with spirit against it; amongst the rest, one called the Plebeian, now known to have been Sir Richard Steele’s.  In answer to this came out the Old Whig N deg.. 1. on the State of the Peerage, with some Remarks on the Plebeian.  This controversy was carried on between the two friends, Addison and Steele, at first without any knowledge of one another, but before it was ended, it appears, from several expressions, that the author of the Old Whig was acquainted with his antagonist.

Thus we have gone through the most remarkable passages of the life of this great man, in admiration of whom, it is but natural to be an Enthusiast, and whose very enemies expressed their dislike with diffidence; nor indeed were his enemies, Mr. Pope excepted, (if it be proper to reckon Mr. Pope Mr. Addison’s enemy) in one particular case, of any consequence.  It is a true, and an old observation, that the greatest men have sometimes failings, that, of all other human weaknesses, one would not suspect them to be subject to.  It is said of Mr. Addison, that he was a slave to flattery, that he was jealous, and suspicious in his temper, and, as Pope keenly expresses it,

Bore, like the Turk, no rival near the
throne.

That he was jealous of the fame of Pope, many have believed, and perhaps not altogether without ground.  He preferred Tickel’s translation of the first Book of Homer, to Pope’s.  His words are,

‘the other has more of Homer’,

when, at the same time, in a letter to Pope, he strenuously advises him to undertake it, and tells him, there is none but he equal to it; which circumstance has made some people conjecture, that Addison was himself the author of the translation, imputed to Mr. Tickell:  Be this as it may, it is unpleasing to dwell upon the failings, and quarrels of great men; let us rather draw a veil over all their errors, and only admire their virtues, and their genius; of both which the author, the incidents of whose life we have now been tracing, had a large possession.  He added much to the purity of the English stile in prose; his rhime is not so flowing, nervous, or manly as some of his cotemporaries, but his prose has an original excellence, a smoothness and dignity peculiar to it.  His poetry, as well as sentiments, in Cato, cannot be praised enough.

Mr. Addison was stedfast to his principles, faithful to his friends, a zealous patriot, honourable in public stations, amiable in private life, and as he lived, he died, a good man, and a pious Christian.