Charles Montague, himself a poet of a certain small rank, and a man of
great general talents, became--along with Somers--the patron of Addison.
He diverted him from the Church, to which his own tastes seemed to
destine him, suggesting that civil employment had become very corrupt
through want of men of liberal education and good principles, and should
be redeemed from this reproach, and declaring that, though he had been
called an enemy of the Church, he would never do it any other injury than
keeping Mr Addison out of it. It is likely that the timid temperament of
our poet concurred with these suggestions of Montague in determining his
decision. His failure as a Parliamentary orator subsequently seems to
prove that the pulpit was not his vocation. After all, his Saturday
papers in the _Spectator_ are as fine as any sermons of that age, and he
perhaps did more good serving as a volunteer than had he been a regular
soldier in the army of the Christian faith.

Somers and Montague wished to employ their _protégé_ in public service
abroad. There was, however, one drawback. Addison had plenty of English,
Greek, and Latin, but he had little French. This he must be sent abroad
to acquire; and for the purpose of defraying the expenses of his travels,
a pension of £300 a-year was conferred upon him. Paid thus, as few
poets or writers of any kind are, in advance, and having his fellowship
besides, Addison, like a young nobleman, instead of a parson's son, set
out upon his tour. This was in the summer of 1699. He was twenty-seven
years of age, exactly one year younger than Byron, and three years
younger than Milton, when they visited the same regions. He went first to
Paris, and was received with great distinction by Montague's kinsman, the
Earl of Manchester, and his beautiful lady. He travelled with his eyes
quietly open, especially to the humorous aspects of things. In a letter
to Montague he says that he had not seen a _blush_ from his first landing
at Calais, and gives a sarcastic description of the spurious devotion