Addison, after the campaign of 1695, offered to the King the homage of a paper of verses on the capture of Namur, and presented them through Sir John Somers, then Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. To Lord Somers he sent with them a flattering dedicatory address. Somers, who was esteemed a man of taste, was not unwilling to 'receive the present of a muse unknown.' He asked Addison to call upon him, and became his patron. Charles Montagu, afterwards Earl of Halifax, critic and wit himself, shone also among the statesmen who were known patrons of letters. Also to him, who was a prince of patrons 'fed with soft dedication all day long,' Addison introduced himself. To him, in 1697, as it was part of his public fame to be a Latin scholar, Addison, also a skilful Latinist, addressed, in Latin, a paper of verses on the Peace of Ryswick. With Somers and Montagu for patrons, the young man of genius who wished to thrive might fairly commit himself to the service of the Church, for which he had been bred by his father; but Addison's tact and refinement promised to be serviceable to the State, and so it was that, as Steele tells us, Montagu made Addison a layman.
'His arguments were founded upon the general pravity and corruption of men of business, who wanted liberal education. And I remember, as if I had read the letter yesterday, that my Lord ended with a compliment, that, however he might be represented as no friend to the Church, he never would do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it.'
To the good offices of Montagu and Somers, Addison was indebted, therefore, in 1699, for a travelling allowance of £300 a year. The grant was for his support while qualifying himself on the continent by study of modern languages, and otherwise, for diplomatic service. It dropped at the King's death, in the spring of 1702, and Addison was cast upon his own resources; but he throve, and lived to become an Under-Secretary of State in days that made Prior an Ambassador, and rewarded with official incomes Congreve, Rowe, Hughes, Philips, Stepney, and others. Throughout his honourable career prudence dictated to Addison more or less of dependence on the friendship of the strong. An honest friend of the popular cause, he was more ready to sell than give his pen to it; although the utmost reward would at no time have tempted him to throw his conscience into the bargain. The good word of Halifax obtained him from Godolphin, in 1704, the Government order for a poem on the Battle of Blenheim, with immediate earnest of payment for it in the office of a Commissioner of Appeal in the Excise worth £200 a year. For this substantial reason Addison wrote the 'Campaign'; and upon its success, he obtained the further reward of an Irish Under-secretaryship.