To judge better of the probability of this story, I have inquired
when he was sent to the Chartreux; but, as he was not one of those
who enjoyed the founder's benefaction, there is no account preserved
of his admission. At the school of the Chartreux, to which he was
removed either from that of Salisbury or Lichfield, he pursued his
juvenile studies under the care of Dr. Ellis, and contracted that
intimacy with Sir Richard Steele which their joint labours have so
effectually recorded.

Of this memorable friendship the greater praise must be given to
Steele. It is not hard to love those from whom nothing can be
feared; and Addison never considered Steele as a rival; but Steele
lived, as he confesses, under an habitual subjection to the
predominating genius of Addison, whom he always mentioned with
reverence, and treated with obsequiousness.

Addison, who knew his own dignity, could not always forbear to show
it, by playing a little upon his admirer; but he was in no danger of
retort; his jests were endured without resistance or resentment.
But the sneer of jocularity was not the worst. Steele, whose
imprudence of generosity, or vanity of profusion, kept him always
incurably necessitous, upon some pressing exigence, in an evil hour,
borrowed a hundred pounds of his friend probably without much
purpose of repayment; but Addison, who seems to have had other
notions of a hundred pounds, grew impatient of delay, and reclaimed
his loan by an execution. Steele felt with great sensibility the
obduracy of his creditor, but with emotions of sorrow rather than of
anger.

In 1687 he was entered into Queen's College in Oxford, where, in