killed with laughter.

Shortly after occurred his famous quarrel with Pope, to which we have
already referred in our life of that poet, and do not intend to recur.
Next year Addison's long courtship came to a successful close. He
wedded the Dowager Warwick, went to reside at Holland-house, and became
miserable for life. She was a proud, imperious woman, who, instead of
seeking to wean Addison from his convivial habits, (if such habits in
any excessive measure were his,) drove him deeper into the slough by her
bitter words and haughty carriage. The tavern, which had formerly been
his occasional resort, became now his nightly refuge. In 1717 he received
his highest civil honour, being made Secretary of State under Lord
Sunderland; but, as usual, the slave soon appeared in the chariot. His
health began to break down, and asthma soon obliged him to resign his
office, on receiving a retiring pension of £1500 a-year. Next Steele
and he, having taken opposite sides in politics, got engaged in a paper
war--Steele in the _Plebeian_, and Addison in the _Old Whig_; and
personalities of a disagreeable kind passed between the two friends. In
the meantime Addison was dying fast. Dropsy had supervened on asthma, and
the help of physicians was vain. He prepared himself, like a man and a
Christian, to meet the last stern foe. He sent for Gay and asked his
forgiveness for some act of unkindness he had done him. Gay granted it,
although utterly ignorant of what the offence had been. He had probably,
on account of his Toryism, been deprived, through Addison's means, of
some preferment. He entrusted his works to the care of Tickell, and
dedicated them to Craggs, his successor in the secretaryship, in a
touching and beautiful letter, written a few days before his death. He
called, it is said, the young Earl of Warwick, his wife's son, a very
dissipated young man, and of unsettled religious principles, to his
bedside, and said, "I have sent for you that you may see how a Christian