"bellum plusquam CIVILE," as Lucan expresses it. Why could not
faction find other advocates? But among the uncertainties of the
human state, we are doomed to number the instability of friendship.
Of this dispute I have little knowledge but from the "Biographia
Britannica." "The Old Whig" is not inserted in Addison's works:
nor is it mentioned by Tickell in his Life; why it was omitted, the
biographers doubtless give the true reason--the fact was too recent,
and those who had been heated in the contention were not yet cool.

The necessity of complying with times, and of sparing persons, is
the great impediment of biography. History may be formed from
permanent monuments and records: but lives can only be written from
personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short
time is lost for ever. What is known can seldom be immediately
told; and when it might be told, it is no longer known. The
delicate features of the mind, the nice discriminations of
character, and the minute peculiarities of conduct, are soon
obliterated; and it is surely better that caprice, obstinacy,
frolic, and folly, however they might delight in the description,
should be silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merriment and
unseasonable detection, a pang should be given to a widow, a
daughter, a brother, or a friend. As the process of these
narratives is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I begin to
feel myself "walking upon ashes under which the fire is not
extinguished," and coming to the time of which it will be proper
rather to say "nothing that is false, than all that is true."

The end of this useful life was now approaching. Addison had for
some time been oppressed by shortness of breath, which was now
aggravated by a dropsy; and, finding his danger pressing, he