the inhabitants; and in his letters hits at their drinking habits with a
mixture of severity and sympathy which is very characteristic. Toward the
close of 1703 he returned home, and, we doubt not, felt at first desolate
enough. His father was dead, his pension withdrawn, his political patrons
out of power, and his literary fame not yet fully established. But,
on the other hand, he was only thirty-one; he had made some new and
influential friends on the Continent, particularly the eminent Edward
Wortley Montague, husband of the still more celebrated Mary Wortley
Montague, and he had in his portfolio a volume of "Travels" of some mark
and likelihood, nearly ready for the press. Besides, the Whigs, low as
they were now in political influence, were still true to their party,
and they welcomed Addison, as one of their rising hopes, into the famous
"Kit-Cat Club," an _omniumgaiherum_ of all whose talents, learning,
accomplishments, wit, or wealth were thought useful to the Whig cause.

Addison's arrival in England seems to have synchronised or preceded the
great tempest of November 1703, to which we have already referred, and
to which he afterwards alludes in his simile of the Angel in "The
Campaign"--

"Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past."

Our readers will find a sketch of this terrific tempest in the
commencement of Ainsworth's "Jack Shepherd." Macaulay says of it, "It
was the only tempest which, in our latitude, has equalled the rage of
a tropical hurricane. No other tempest was ever in this country the
occasion of a Parliamentary address, or of a national fast. Whole fleets
had been cast away. Large mansions had been blown down; one prelate had
been buried beneath the ruins of his palace. London and Bristol had
presented the appearance of cities just sacked. Hundreds of families were