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diff --git a/41496-0.txt b/41496-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f2a2929 --- /dev/null +++ b/41496-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5681 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41496 *** + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://archive.org/details/addison_00cour + + +Transcriber's note: + + Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). + + Text enclosed by curly brackets is superscripted + (example: y{e}). + + + + + +English Men of Letters + +Edited by John Morley + +ADDISON + +by + +W. J. COURTHOPE + + + + + + + +Harper & Brothers Publishers +New York and London +1902 + + * * * * * + +ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS. + +EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY. + + JOHNSON Leslie Stephen. + GIBBON J. C. Morison. + SCOTT R. H. Hutton. + SHELLEY J. A. Symonds. + HUME T. H. Huxley. + GOLDSMITH William Black. + DEFOE William Minto. + BURNS J. C. Shairp. + SPENSER R. W. Church. + THACKERAY Anthony Trollope. + BURKE John Morley. + MILTON Mark Pattison. + HAWTHORNE Henry James, Jr. + SOUTHEY E. Dowden. + CHAUCER A. W. Ward. + BUNYAN J. A. Froude. + COWPER Goldwin Smith. + POPE Leslie Stephen. + BYRON John Nichol. + LOCKE Thomas Fowler. + WORDSWORTH F. Myers. + DRYDEN G. Saintsbury. + LANDOR Sidney Colvin. + DE QUINCEY David Masson. + LAMB Alfred Ainger. + BENTLEY R. C. Jebb. + DICKENS A. W. Ward. + GRAY E. W. Gosse. + SWIFT Leslie Stephen. + STERNE H. D. Traill. + MACAULAY J. Cotter Morison. + FIELDING Austin Dobson. + SHERIDAN Mrs. Oliphant. + ADDISON W. J. Courthope. + BACON R. W. Church. + COLERIDGE H. D. Traill. + SIR PHILIP SIDNEY J. A. Symonds. + KEATS Sidney Colvin. + CARLYLE John Nichol. + +12mo, Cloth, 75 cents per volume. + +_Other volumes in preparation._ + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +_Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part +of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ + + * * * * * + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + CHAPTER I. + THE STATE OF ENGLISH SOCIETY AND LETTERS + AFTER THE RESTORATION 1 + + CHAPTER II. + ADDISON'S FAMILY AND EDUCATION 21 + + CHAPTER III. + ADDISON ON HIS TRAVELS 38 + + CHAPTER IV. + HIS EMPLOYMENT IN AFFAIRS OF STATE 53 + + CHAPTER V. + THE "TATLER" AND "SPECTATOR" 78 + + CHAPTER VI. + "CATO" 110 + + CHAPTER VII. + ADDISON'S QUARREL WITH POPE 125 + + CHAPTER VIII. + THE LAST YEARS OF HIS LIFE 139 + + CHAPTER IX. + THE GENIUS OF ADDISON 153 + + + + +ADDISON. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE STATE OF ENGLISH SOCIETY AND LETTERS AFTER THE RESTORATION. + + +Of the four English men of letters whose writings most fully embody the +spirit of the eighteenth century, the one who provides the biographer with +the scantiest materials is Addison. In his _Journal to Stella_, his social +verses, and his letters to his friends, we have a vivid picture of those +relations with women and that protracted suffering which invest with such +tragic interest the history of Swift. Pope, by the publication of his own +correspondence, has enabled us, in a way that he never intended, to +understand the strange moral twist which distorted a nature by no means +devoid of noble instincts. Johnson was fortunate in the companionship of +perhaps the best biographer who ever lived. But of the real life and +character of Addison scarcely any contemporary record remains. The formal +narrative prefixed to his works by Tickell is, by that writer's own +admission, little more than a bibliography. Steele, who might have told us +more than any man about his boyhood and his manner of life in London, had +become estranged from his old friend before his death. No writer has +taken the trouble to preserve any account of the wit and wisdom that +enlivened the "little senate" at Button's. His own letters are, as a rule, +compositions as finished as his papers in the _Spectator_. Those features +in his character which excite the greatest interest have been delineated +by the hand of an enemy--an enemy who possessed an unrivalled power of +satirical portrait-painting, and was restrained by no regard for truth +from creating in the public mind such impressions about others as might +serve to heighten the favourable opinion of himself. + +This absence of dramatic incident in Addison's life would lead us +naturally to conclude that he was deficient in the energy and passion +which cause a powerful nature to leave a mark upon its age. Yet such a +judgment would certainly be erroneous. Shy and reserved as he was, the +unanimous verdict of his most illustrious contemporaries is decisive as to +the respect and admiration which he excited among them. The man who could +exert so potent an influence over the mercurial Steele, who could +fascinate the haughty and cynical intellect of Swift, whose conversation, +by the admission of his satirist Pope, had in it something more charming +than that of any other man; of whom it was said that he might have been +chosen king if he wished it; such a man, though to the coarse perception +of Mandeville he might have seemed no more than "a parson in a tye-wig," +can hardly have been deficient in force of character. + +Nor would it have been possible for a writer distinguished by mere +elegance and refinement to leave a lasting impress on the literature and +society of his country. In one generation after another, men representing +opposing elements of rank, class, interest, and taste, have agreed in +acknowledging Addison's extraordinary merits. "Whoever wishes," says +Johnson--at the end of a biography strongly coloured with the +prepossessions of a semi-Jacobite Tory--"whoever wishes to attain an +English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, +must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." "Such a mark of +national respect," says Macaulay, the best representative of middle-class +opinion in the present century, speaking of the statue erected to Addison +in Westminster Abbey, "was due to the unsullied statesman, to the +accomplished scholar, to the master of pure English eloquence, to the +consummate painter of life and manners. It was due, above all, to the +great satirist who alone knew how to use ridicule without abusing it; who, +without inflicting a wound, effected a great social reform, and who +reconciled wit and virtue after a long and disastrous separation, during +which wit had been led astray by profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism." + +This verdict of a great critic is accepted by an age to which the grounds +of it are, perhaps, not very apparent. The author of any ideal creation--a +poem, a drama, or a novel--has an imprescriptible property in the fame of +his work. But to harmonise conflicting social elements, to bring order out +of chaos in the sphere of criticism, to form right ways of thinking about +questions of morals, taste, and breeding, are operations of which the +credit, though it is certainly to be ascribed to particular individuals, +is generally absorbed by society itself. Macaulay's eulogy is as just as +it is eloquent, but the pages of the _Spectator_ alone will hardly show +the reader why Addison should be so highly praised for having reconciled +wit with virtue. Nor, looking at him as a critic, will it appear a great +achievement to have pointed out to English society the beauties of +_Paradise Lost_, unless it be remembered that the taste of the preceding +generation still influenced Addison's contemporaries, and that in that +generation Cowley was accounted a greater poet than Milton. + +To estimate Addison at his real value we must regard him as the chief +architect of Public Opinion in the eighteenth century. But here again we +are met by an initial difficulty, because it has become almost a +commonplace of contemporary criticism to represent the eighteenth century +as a period of sheer destruction. It is tacitly assumed by a school of +distinguished philosophical writers that we have arrived at a stage in the +world's history in which it is possible to take a positive and scientific +view of human affairs. As it is of course necessary that from such a +system all belief in the supernatural shall be jealously excluded, it has +not seemed impossible to write the history of Thought itself in the +eighteenth century. And in tracing the course of this supposed continuous +stream it is natural that all the great English writers of the period +should be described as in one way or another helping to pull down, or +vainly to strengthen, the theological barriers erected by centuries of +bigotry against the irresistible tide of enlightened progress. + +It would be of course entirely out of place to discuss here the merits of +this new school of history. Those who consider that, whatever glimpses we +may obtain of the law and order of the universe, man is, as he always has +been and always will be, a mystery to himself, will hardly allow that the +operations of the human spirit can be traced in the dissecting-room. But +it is, in any case, obvious that to treat the great _imaginative_ writers +of any age as if they were only mechanical agents in an evolution of +thought is to do them grave injustice. Such writers are, above all things, +creative. Their first aim is to "show the very age and body of the time +his form and pressure." No work of the eighteenth century, composed in a +consciously destructive spirit, has taken its place among the acknowledged +classics of the language. Even the _Tale of a Tub_ is to be regarded as a +satire upon the aberrations of theologians from right reason, not upon the +principles of Christianity itself. The _Essay on Man_ has, no doubt, +logically a tendency towards Deism, but nobody ever read the poem for the +sake of its philosophy; and it is well known that Pope was much alarmed +when it was pointed out to him that his conclusions might be represented +as incompatible with the doctrines of revealed religion. + +The truth indeed seems to be the exact converse of what is alleged by the +scientific historians. So far from the eighteenth century in England being +an age of destructive analysis, its energies were chiefly devoted to +political, social, and literary reconstruction. Whatever revolution in +faith and manners the English nation had undergone had been the work of +the two preceding centuries, and though the historic foundations of +society remained untouched, the whole form of the superstructure had been +profoundly modified. + + "So tenacious are we," said Burke, towards the close of the last + century, "of our old ecclesiastical modes and fashions of institution + that very little change has been made in them since the fourteenth or + fifteenth centuries, adhering in this particular as in all else to our + old settled maxim never entirely nor at once to depart from antiquity. + We found these institutions on the whole favourable to morality and + discipline, and we thought they were susceptible of amendment without + altering the ground. We thought they were capable of receiving and + meliorating, and, above all, of preserving the accessories of science + and literature as the order of Providence should successively produce + them. And after all, with this Gothic and monkish education (for such + it is the groundwork), we may put in our claim to as ample and early + a share in all the improvements in science, in arts, and in literature + which have illuminated the modern world as any other nation in Europe. + We think one main cause of this improvement was our not despising the + patrimony of knowledge which was left us by our forefathers." + +All this is, in substance, true of our political as well as our +ecclesiastical institutions. And yet, when Burke wrote, the great feudal +and mediæval structure of England had been so transformed by the Wars of +the Roses, the Reformation, the Rebellion, and the Revolution, that its +ancient outlines were barely visible. In so far, therefore, as his words +seem to imply that the social evolution he describes was produced by an +imperceptible and almost mechanical process of national instinct, the +impression they tend to create is entirely erroneous. + +If we have been hitherto saved from such corruption as undermined the +republics of Italy, from the religious wars that so long enfeebled and +divided Germany, and from the Revolution that has severed modern France +from her ancient history, thanks for this are due partly, no doubt, to +favouring conditions of nature and society, but quite as much to the +genius of great individuals who prepared the mind of the nation for the +gradual assimilation of new ideas. Thus Langland and Wycliffe and their +numerous followers, long before the Reformation, had so familiarised the +minds of the people with their ideas of the Christian religion that the +Sovereign was able to assume the Headship of the Church without the shock +of a social convulsion. Fresh feelings and instincts grew up in the hearts +of whole classes of the nation without at first producing any change in +outward habits of life, and even without arousing a sense of their logical +incongruity. These mixed ideas were constantly brought before the +imagination in the works of the poets. Shakespeare abounds with passages +in which, side by side with the old feudal, monarchical, catholic, and +patriotic instincts of Englishmen, we find the sentiments of the Italian +Renaissance. Spenser conveys Puritan doctrines sometimes by the mouth of +shepherds, whose originals he had found in Theocritus and Virgil; +sometimes under allegorical forms derived from books of chivalry and the +ceremonial of the Catholic Church. Milton, the most rigidly Calvinistic of +all the English poets in his opinions, is also the most severely classical +in his style. + +It was the task of Addison to carry on the reconciling traditions of our +literature. It is his praise to have accomplished his task under +conditions far more difficult than any that his predecessors had +experienced. What they had done was to give instinctive and characteristic +expression to the floating ideas of the society about them; what Addison +and his contemporaries did was to found a public opinion by a conscious +effort of reason and persuasion. Before the Civil Wars there had been at +least no visible breach in the principle of Authority in Church and State. +At the beginning of the eighteenth century constituted authority had been +recently overthrown; one king had been beheaded, another had been +expelled; the Episcopalian form of Church Government had been violently +displaced in favour of the Presbyterian, and had been with almost equal +violence restored. Whole classes of the population had been drawn into +opposing camps during the Civil War, and still stood confronting each +other with all the harsh antagonism of sentiment inherited from that +conflict. Such a bare summary alone is sufficient to indicate the nature +of the difficulties Addison had to encounter in his efforts to harmonise +public opinion; but a more detailed examination of the state of society +after the Restoration is required to place in its full light the +extraordinary merits of the success that he achieved. + +There was, to begin with, a vehement opposition between town and country. +In the country the old ideas of Feudalism, modified by circumstances, but +vigorous and deep-rooted, still prevailed. True, the military system of +land-tenure had disappeared with the Restoration, but it was not so with +the relations of life, and the habits of thought and feeling which the +system had created. The features of surviving Feudalism have been +inimitably preserved for us in the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. +Living in the patriarchal fashion, in the midst of tenants and retainers, +who looked up to him as their chief, and for whose welfare and protection +he considered himself responsible, the country gentleman valued above all +things the principle of Loyalty. To the moneyed classes in the towns he +was instinctively opposed; he regarded their interests, both social and +commercial, as contrary to his own; he looked with dislike and suspicion +on the economical principles of government and conduct on which these +classes naturally rely. Even the younger sons of county families had in +Addison's day abandoned the custom, common enough in the feudal times, of +seeking their fortune in trade. Many a Will Wimble now spent his whole +life in the country, training dogs for his neighbours, fishing their +streams, making whips for their young heirs, and even garters for their +wives and daughters.[1] + +The country gentlemen were confirmed in these ideas by the difficulties of +communication. During his visit to Sir Roger de Coverley the _Spectator_ +observed the extreme slowness with which fashions penetrated into the +country; and he noticed, too, that party spirit was much more violent +there than in the towns. The learning of the clergy, many of whom resided +with the country squires as chaplains, was of course enlisted on the Tory +side, and supplied it with arguments which the body of the party might +perhaps have found it difficult to discover, or at least to express, for +themselves. For Tory tastes undoubtedly lay generally rather in the +direction of sport than of books. Sir Roger seems to be as much above the +average level of his class as Squire Western is certainly below it: +perhaps the Tory fox-hunter of the _Freeholder_, though somewhat +satirically painted, is a fair representative of the society which had its +headquarters at the October Club, and whose favourite poet was Tom +D'Urfey. + +The commercial and professional classes, from whom the Whigs derived their +chief support, of course predominated in the towns, and their larger +opportunities of association gave them an influence in affairs which +compensated for their inferiority in numbers. They lacked, however, what +the country party possessed, a generous ideal of life. Though many of them +were connected with the Presbyterian system, their common sense made them +revolt from its rigidity, while at the same time their economical +principles failed to supply them with any standard that could satisfy the +imagination. Sir Andrew Freeport excites in us less interest than any +member of the Spectator's Club. There was not yet constituted among the +upper middle classes that mixed conception of good feeling, good breeding, +and good taste which we now attach to the name of "gentleman." + +Two main currents of opinion divided the country, to one of which a man +was obliged to surrender himself if he wished to enjoy the pleasures of +organised society. One of these was Puritanism, but this was undoubtedly +the less popular, or at least the less fashionable. A protracted +experience of Roundhead tyranny under the Long Parliament had inclined the +nation to believe that almost any form of Government was preferable to +that of the Saints. The Puritan, no longer the mere sectarian, as in the +days of Elizabeth and James I., somewhat ridiculous in the extravagance of +his opinions, but respectable from the constancy with which he maintained +them, had ruled over them as a taskmaster, and had forced them, as far as +he could by military violence, to practise the asceticism to which monks +and nuns had voluntarily submitted themselves. The most innocent as well +as the most brutal diversions of the people were sacrificed to his +spiritual pride. As Macaulay well says, he hated bear-baiting, not because +it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectator. +The tendency of his creed was, in fact, anti-social. Beauty in his eyes +was a snare, and pleasure a sin; the only mode of social intercourse which +he approved was a sermon. + +On the other hand, the habits of the Court, which gave the tone to all +polite society, were almost equally distasteful to the instincts of the +people. It was inevitable that the inclinations of Charles II. should be +violently opposed to every sentiment of the Puritans. While he was in the +power of the Scots he had been forced into feigned compliance with +Presbyterian rites; the Puritans had put his father to death, and had +condemned himself to many years of exile and hardship in Catholic +countries. He had returned to his own land half French in his political +and religious sympathies, and entirely so in his literary tastes. To +convert and to corrupt those of his subjects who immediately surrounded +him was an easy matter. "All by the king's example lived and loved." +Poets, painters, and actors were forward to promote principles viewed +with favour by their sovereign and not at all disagreeable to themselves. +An ingenious philosopher elevated Absolutism into an intellectual and +moral system, the consequence of which was to encourage the powerful in +the indulgence of every selfish instinct. As the Puritans had oppressed +the country with a system of inhuman religion and transcendental morality, +so now, in order to get as far from Puritanism as possible, it seemed +necessary for every one aspiring to be thought a gentleman to avow himself +an atheist or a debauchee. + +The ideas of the man in the mode after the Restoration are excellently hit +off in one of the fictitious letters in the _Spectator_: + + "I am now between fifty and sixty, and had the honour to be well with + the first men of taste and gallantry in the joyous reign of Charles + the Second. As for yourself, Mr. Spectator, you seem with the utmost + arrogance to undermine the very fundamentals upon which we conducted + ourselves. It is monstrous to set up for a man of wit and yet deny + that honour in a woman is anything but peevishness, that inclination + is not the best rule of life, or virtue and vice anything else but + health and disease. We had no more to do but to put a lady in a good + humour, and all we could wish followed of course. Then, again, your + Tully and your discourses of another life are the very bane of mirth + and good humour. Prythee, don't value thyself on thy reason at that + exorbitant rate and the dignity of human nature; take my word for it, + a setting dog has as good reason as any man in England."[2] + +While opinions, which from different sides struck at the very roots of +society, prevailed both in the fashionable and religious portions of the +community, it was inevitable that Taste should be hopelessly corrupt. All +the artistic and literary forms which the Court favoured were of the +romantic order, but it was romance from which beauty and vitality had +utterly disappeared. Of the two great principles of ancient chivalry, Love +and Honour, the last notes of which are heard in the lyrics of Lovelace +and Montrose, one was now held to be non-existent, and the other was +utterly perverted. The feudal spirit had surrounded woman with an +atmosphere of mystical devotion, but in the reign of Charles II. the +passion of love was subjected to the torturing treatment then known as +"wit." Cowley and Waller seem to think that when a man is in love the +energy of his feelings is best shown by discovering resemblances between +his mistress and those objects in nature to which she is apparently most +unlike. + +The ideal of Woman, as she is represented in the _Spectator_, adding +grace, charity, and refinement to domestic life, had still to be created. +The king himself, the presumed mirror of good taste, was notoriously under +the control of his numerous mistresses; and the highest notion of love +which he could conceive was gallantry. French romances were therefore +generally in vogue. All the casuistry of love which had been elaborated by +Mademoiselle de Scudery was reproduced with improvements by Mrs. Aphra +Behn. At the same time, as usually happens in diseased societies, there +was a general longing to cultivate the simplicity of the Golden Age, and +the consequence was that no person, even in the lower grades of society, +who pretended to any reading, ever thought of making love in his own +person. The proper tone of feeling was not acquired till he had invested +himself with the pastoral attributes of Damon and Celadon, and had +addressed his future wife as Amarantha or Phyllis. + +The tragedies of the period illustrate this general inclination to +spurious romance. If ever there was a time when the ideal of monarchy was +degraded, and the instincts of chivalrous action discouraged, it was in +the reign of Charles II. Absorbed as he was in the pursuit of pleasure, +the king scarcely attempted to conceal his weariness when obliged to +attend to affairs of State. He allowed the Dutch fleet to approach his +capital and to burn his own ships of war on the Thames; he sold Dunkirk to +the French; hardly any action in his life evinces any sense of patriotism +or honour. And yet we have only to glance at Johnson's _Life of Dryden_ to +see how all the tragedies of the time turn on the great characters, the +great actions, the great sufferings of princes. The Elizabethan drama had +exhibited man in every degree of life and with every variety of character; +the playwright of the Restoration seldom descended below such themes as +the conquest of Mexico or Granada, the fortunes of the Great Mogul, and +the fate of Hannibal. This monotony of subject was doubtless in part the +result of policy, for in pitying the fortunes of Montezuma the imagination +of the spectator insensibly recalled those of Charles the Second. + +Everything in these tragedies is unreal, strained, and affected. In order +to remove them as far as possible from the language of ordinary life they +are written in rhyme, while the astonishment of the audience is raised +with big swelling words, which vainly seek to hide the absence of genuine +feeling. The heroes tear their passion to tatters because they think it +heroic to do so; their flights into the sublime generally drop into the +ridiculous; instead of holding up the mirror to nature, their object is to +depart as far as possible from common sense. Nothing exhibits more +characteristically the utterly artificial feeling, both of the dramatists +and the spectators, than the habit which then prevailed of dismissing the +audience after a tragic play with a witty epilogue. On one occasion, Nell +Gwynne, in the character of St. Catherine, was, at the end of the play, +left for dead upon the stage. Her body having to be removed, the actress +suddenly started to her feet, exclaiming, + + "Hold! are you mad? you damned confounded dog, + I am to rise and speak the epilogue!"[3] + +By way of compensation, however, the writers of the period poured forth +their real feelings without reserve in their comedies. So great, indeed, +is the gulf that separates our own manners from theirs, that some critics +have endeavoured to defend the comic dramatists of the Restoration against +the moralists on the ground that their representations of Nature are +entirely devoid of reality. Charles Lamb, who loved all curiosities, and +the Caroline comedians among the number, says of them: + + "They are a world of themselves almost as much as fairy-land. Take one + of their characters, male or female (with few exceptions they are + alike), and place it in a modern play, and my virtuous indignation + shall rise against the profligate wretch as warmly as the Catos of the + pit could desire, because in a modern play I am to judge of the right + and the wrong. The standard of _police_ is the measure of _political + justice_. The atmosphere will blight it; it cannot live here. It has + got into a moral world, where it has no business, from which it must + needs fall headlong--as dizzy and incapable of making a stand as a + Swedenborgian bad spirit that has wandered unawares into his sphere of + Good Men or Angels. But in its own world do we feel the creature is so + very bad? The Fainalls and Mirabels, the Dorimants and Lady + Touchwoods, in their own sphere do not offend my moral sense; in fact, + they do not appeal to it at all. They seem engaged in their proper + element. They break through no laws or conscientious restraints. They + know of none. They have got out of Christendom into the land of-what + shall I call it?--of cuckoldry--the Utopia of gallantry, where + pleasure is duty and the manners perfect freedom. It is altogether a + speculative scene of things, which has no reference whatever to the + world that is." + +This is a very happy description of the manner in which the plays of +Etherege, Shadwell, Wycherley, and Congreve affect us to-day; and it is no +doubt superfluous to expend much moral indignation on works which have +long since lost their power to charm: comedies in which the reader finds +neither the horseplay of Aristophanes, nor the nature of Terence, nor the +poetry of Shakespeare; in which there is not a single character that +arouses interest, or a situation that spontaneously provokes laughter; in +which the complications of plot are produced by the devices of fine +gentlemen for making cuckolds of citizens, and the artifices of wives to +dupe their husbands; in which the profuse wit of the dialogue might excite +admiration, if it were possible to feel the smallest interest in the +occasion that produced it. But to argue that these plays never represented +any state of existing society is a paradox which chooses to leave out of +account the contemporary attack on the stage made by Jeremy Collier, the +admissions of Dryden, and all those valuable glimpses into the manners of +our ancestors which are afforded by the prologues of the period. + +It is sufficient to quote against Lamb the witty and severe criticism of +Steele in the _Spectator_, upon Etherege's _Man of the Mode_: + + "It cannot be denied but that the negligence of everything which + engages the attention of the sober and valuable part of mankind + appears very well drawn in this piece. But it is denied that it is + necessary to the character of a fine gentleman that he should in that + manner trample upon all order and decency. As for the character of + Dorimant, it is more of a coxcomb than that of Fopling. He says of one + of his companions that a good correspondence between them is their + mutual interest. Speaking of that friend, he declares their being much + together 'makes the women think the better of his understanding, and + judge more favourably of my reputation. It makes him pass upon some + for a man of very good sense, and me upon others for a very civil + person.' This whole celebrated piece is a perfect contradiction to + good manners, good sense, and common honesty; and as there is nothing + in it but what is built upon the ruin of virtue and innocence, + according to the notion of virtue in this comedy, I take the shoemaker + to be in reality the fine gentleman of the play; for it seems he is an + atheist, if we may depend upon his character as given by the + orange-woman, who is herself far from being the lowest in the play. + She says of a fine man who is Dorimant's companion, 'there is not such + another heathen in the town except the shoemaker.' His pretension to + be the hero of the drama appears still more in his own description of + his way of living with his lady. 'There is,' says he, 'never a man in + the town lives more like a gentleman with his wife than I do. I never + mind her motions; she never inquires into mine. We speak to one + another civilly; hate one another heartily; and, because it is vulgar + to lie and soak together, we have each of us our several settle-beds.' + + "That of 'soaking together' is as good as if Dorimant had spoken it + himself; and I think, since he puts human nature in as ugly a form as + the circumstances will bear, and is a staunch unbeliever, he is very + much wronged in having no part of the good fortune bestowed in the + last act. To speak plain of this whole work, I think nothing but being + lost to a sense of innocence and virtue can make any one see this + comedy without observing more frequent occasion to move sorrow and + indignation than mirth and laughter. At the same time I allow it to be + nature, but it is nature in its utmost corruption and degeneracy."[4] + +The truth is, that the stage after the Restoration reflects only too +faithfully the manners and the sentiments of the only society which at +that period could boast of anything like organisation. The press, which +now enables public opinion to exercise so powerful a control over the +manners of the times, had then scarcely an existence. No standard of +female honour restrained the license of wit and debauchery. If the clergy +were shocked at the propagation of ideas so contrary to the whole spirit +of Christianity, their natural impulse to reprove them was checked by the +fear that an apparent condemnation of the practices of the Court might end +in the triumph of their old enemies, the Puritans. All the elements of an +old and decaying form of society that tended to atheism, cynicism, and +dissolute living, exhibited themselves, therefore, in naked shamelessness +on the stage. The audiences in the theatres were equally devoid of good +manners and good taste; they did not hesitate to interrupt the actors in +the midst of a serious play, while they loudly applauded their obscene +allusions. So gross was the character of comic dialogue that women could +not venture to appear at a comedy without masks, and under these +circumstances the theatre became the natural centre for assignations. In +such an atmosphere women readily cast off all modesty and reserve; indeed, +the choicest indecencies of the times are to be found in the epilogues to +the plays, which were always assigned to the female actors. + +It at first sight seems remarkable that a society inveterately corrupt +should have contained in itself such powers of purification and vitality +as to discard the literary garbage of the Restoration period in favour of +the refined sobriety which characterises the writers of Queen Anne's +reign. But, in fact, the spread of the infection was confined within +certain well-marked limits. The Court moved in a sphere apart, and was +altogether too light and frivolous to exert a decided moral influence on +the great body of the nation. The country gentlemen, busied on their +estates, came seldom to town; the citizens, the lawyers, and the members +of the other professions steadily avoided the theatre, and regarded with +equal contempt the moral and literary excesses of the courtiers. Among +this class, unrepresented at present in the world of letters, except, +perhaps, by antiquarians like Selden, the foundations of sound taste were +being silently laid. The readers of the nation had hitherto been almost +limited to the nobility. Books were generally published by subscription, +and were dependent for their success on the favour with which they were +received by the courtiers. But, after the subsidence of the Civil War, the +nation began to make rapid strides in wealth and refinement, and the +moneyed classes sought for intellectual amusement in their leisure hours. +Authors by degrees found that they might look for readers beyond the +select circle of their aristocratic patrons; and the book-seller, who had +hitherto calculated his profits merely by the commission he might obtain +on the sale of books, soon perceived that they were becoming valuable as +property. The reign of Charles II. is remarkable not only for the great +increase in the number of the licensed printers in London, but for the +appearance of the first of the race of modern publishers, Jacob Tonson. + +The portion of society whose tastes the publishers undertook to satisfy +was chiefly interested in history, poetry, and criticism. It was this for +which Dryden composed his _Miscellany_, this to which he addressed the +admirable critical essays which precede his _Translations from the Latin +Poets_ and his _Versifications of Chaucer_, and this which afterwards gave +the main support to the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_. Ignorant of the +writings of the great classical authors, as well as of the usages of +polite society, these men were nevertheless robust and manly in their +ideas, and were eager to form for themselves a correct standard of taste +by reference to the best authorities. Though they turned with repugnance +from the playhouse and from the morals of the Court, they could not +avoid being insensibly affected by the tone of grace and elegance which +prevailed in Court circles. And in this respect, if in no other, our +gratitude is due to the Caroline dramatists, who may justly claim to be +the founders of the _social_ prose style in English literature. Before +them English prose had been employed, no doubt, with music and majesty by +many writers; but the style of these is scarcely representative; they had +used the language for their own elevated purposes, without, however, +attempting to give it that balanced fineness and subtlety which makes it a +fitting instrument for conveying the complex ideas of an advanced stage of +society. Dryden, Wycherley, and their followers, impelled by the taste of +the Court to study the French language, brought to English composition a +nicer standard of logic and a more choice selection of language, while the +necessity of pleasing their audiences with brilliant dialogue made them +careful to give their sentences that well-poised structure which Addison +afterwards carried to perfection in the _Spectator_. + +By this brief sketch the reader may be enabled to judge of the distracted +state of society, both in politics and taste, in the reign of Charles II. +On the one side, the Monarchical element in the Constitution was +represented by the Court Party, flushed with the recent restoration; +retaining the old ideas and principles of absolutism which had prevailed +under James I., without being able to perceive their inapplicability to +the existing nature of things; feeding its imagination alternately on +sentiments derived from the decayed spirit of chivalry, and on artistic +representations of fashionable debauchery in its most open form--a party +which, while it fortunately preserved the traditions of wit, elegance, and +gaiety of style, seemed unaware that these qualities could be put to any +other use than the mitigation of an intolerable _ennui_. On the other +side, the rising power of Democracy found its representatives in austere +Republicans opposed to all institutions in Church and State that seemed to +obstruct their own abstract principles of government; gloomy fanatics, +who, with an intense intellectual appreciation of eternal principles of +religion and morality, sought to sacrifice to their system the most +permanent and even innocent instincts of human nature. Between the two +extreme parties was the unorganised body of the nation, grouped round old +customs and institutions, rapidly growing in wealth and numbers, conscious +of the rise in their midst of new social principles, but perplexed how to +reconcile these with time-honoured methods of religious, political, and +literary thought. To lay the foundations of sound opinion among the people +at large; to prove that reconciliation was possible between principles +hitherto exhibited only in mutual antagonism; to show that under the +English Constitution monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy might all be +harmonised, that humanity was not absolutely incompatible with religion or +morality with art, was the task of the statesmen, and still more of the +men of letters, of the early part of the eighteenth century. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +ADDISON'S FAMILY AND EDUCATION. + + +Joseph Addison was born on the 1st of May, 1672. He was the eldest son of +Lancelot Addison, at the time of his birth rector of Milston, near +Amesbury, in Wiltshire, and afterwards Dean of Lichfield. His father was a +man of character and accomplishments. Educated at Oxford, while that +University was under the control of the famous Puritan Visitation, he made +no secret of his contempt for principles to which he was forced to submit, +or of his preferences for Monarchy and Episcopacy. His boldness was not +agreeable to the University authorities, and being forced to leave Oxford, +he maintained himself for a time near Petworth, in Sussex, by acting as +chaplain or tutor in families attached to the Royalist cause. After the +Restoration he obtained the appointment of chaplain to the garrison of +Dunkirk, and when that town was ceded to France in 1662, he was removed in +a similar capacity to Tangier. Here he remained eight years, but, +venturing on a visit to England, his post was bestowed upon another, and +he would have been left without resources had not one of his friends +presented him with the living of Milston, valued at £120 a year. With the +courage of his order he thereupon took a wife, Jane, daughter of Dr. +Nathaniel Gulston, and sister of William Gulston, Bishop of Bristol, by +whom he had six children, three sons and three daughters, all born at +Milston. In 1675 he was made a prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral and +Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the King; and in 1683 he was promoted to the +Deanery of Lichfield, as a reward for his services at Tangier, and out of +consideration of losses which he had sustained by a fire at Milston. His +literary reputation stood high, and it is said that he would have been +made a bishop, if his old zeal for legitimacy had not prompted him to +manifest in the Convocation of 1689 his hostility to the Revolution. He +died in 1703. + +Lancelot was a writer at once voluminous and lively. In the latter part of +his life he produced several treatises on theological subjects, the most +popular of which was called _An Introduction to the Sacrament_. This book +passed through many editions. The doctrine it contains leans rather to the +Low Church side. But much the most characteristic of his writings were his +works on Mahommedanism and Judaism, the results of his studies during his +residence in Barbary. These show not only considerable industry and +research and powers of shrewd observation, but that genuine literary +faculty which enables a writer to leave upon a subject of a general nature +the impression of his own character. While there is nothing forced or +exaggerated in his historical style, a vein of allegory runs through the +narrative of the _Revolutions of the Kingdoms of Fez and Morocco_, which +must have had a piquant flavour for the orthodox English reader of that +day. Recollections of the Protectorate would have taken nothing of its +vividness from the portrait of the Moorish priest who "began to grow into +reputation with the people by reason of his high pretensions to piety and +fervent zeal for their law, illustrated by a stubborn rigidity of +conversation and outward sanctity of life." When the Zeriffe, with +ambitious designs on the throne, sent his sons on a pilgrimage to Mecca, +the religious buffooneries practised by the young men must have recalled +to the reader circumstances more recent and personal than those which the +author was apparently describing. "Much was the reverence and reputation +of holiness which they thereby acquired among the superstitious people, +who could hardly be kept from kissing their garments and adoring them as +saints, while they failed not in their parts, but acted as much devotion +as high contemplative looks, deep sighs, tragical gestures, and other +passionate interjections of holiness could express. 'Allah, allah!' was +their doleful note, their sustenance the people's alms." And when these +impostors had inveigled the King of Fez into a religious war, the +description of those who "mistrusted their own safety, and began, but too +late, to repent their approving of an armed hypocrisy," was not more +applicable to the rulers of Barbary than to the people of England. "Puffed +up with their successes, they forgot their obedience, and these saints +denied the king the fifth part of their spoils.... By which it appeared +that they took up arms, not out of love for their country and zeal for +their religion, but out of desire of rule." There is, indeed, nothing in +these utterances which need have prevented the writer from consistently +promoting the Revolution of 1688; yet his principles seem to have carried +him far in the opposite direction; and it is interesting to remember that +the assertor in Convocation of the doctrine of indefeasible hereditary +right was the father of the author of the _Whig Examiner_ and the +_Freeholder_. However decidedly Joseph may have dissented from his +father's political creed, we know that he entertained admiration and +respect for his memory, and that death alone prevented him from +completing the monument afterwards erected in Lancelot's honour in +Lichfield Cathedral. + +Of Addison's mother nothing of importance is recorded. His second brother, +Gulston, became Governor of Fort St. George, in the East Indies; and the +third, Lancelot, followed in Joseph's footsteps so far as to obtain a +Fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford. His sisters, Jane and Anna, died +young; but Dorothy was twice married, and Swift records in her honour that +she was "a kind of wit, and very like her brother." We may readily believe +that a writer so lively as Lancelot would have had clever children, but +Steele was perhaps carried away by the zeal of friendship or the love of +epigram when he said, in his dedication to the _Drummer_: "Mr. Dean +Addison left behind him four children, each of whom, for excellent talents +and singular perfections, was as much above the ordinary world as their +brother Joseph was above them." But that Steele had a sincere admiration +for the whole family is sufficiently shown by his using them as an example +in one of his early _Tatlers_: + + "I remember among all my acquaintance but one man whom I have thought + to live with his children with equanimity and a good grace. He had + three sons and one daughter, whom he bred with all the care imaginable + in a liberal and ingenuous way. I have often heard him say he had the + weakness to love one much better than the other, but that he took as + much pains to correct that as any other criminal passion that could + arise in his mind. His method was to make it the only pretension in + his children to his favour to be kind to each other, and he would tell + them that he who was the best brother he would reckon the best son. + This turned their thoughts into an emulation for the superiority in + kind and tender affection towards each other. The boys behaved + themselves very early with a manly friendship; and their sister, + instead of the gross familiarities and impertinent freedoms in + behaviour usual in other houses, was always treated by them with as + much complaisance as any other young lady of their acquaintance. It + was an unspeakable pleasure to visit or sit at a meal in that family. + I have often seen the old man's heart flow at his eyes with joy upon + occasions which would appear indifferent to such as were strangers to + the turn of his mind; but a very slight accident, wherein he saw his + children's good-will to one another, created in him the god-like + pleasure of loving them because they loved each other. This great + command of himself in hiding his first impulse to partiality at last + improved to a steady justice towards them, and that which at first was + but an expedient to correct his weakness was afterwards the measure of + his virtue."[5] + +This, no doubt, is the set description of a moralist, and to an age in +which the liberty of manners has grown into something like license it may +savour of formalism and priggishness; but when we remember that the writer +was one of the most warm-hearted of men, and that the subject of his +panegyric was himself, full of vivacity and impulse, it must be admitted +that the picture which it gives us of the Addison family in the rectory of +Milston is a particularly amiable one. + +Though the eighteenth century had little of that feeling for natural +beauty which distinguishes our own, a man of Addison's imagination could +hardly fail to be impressed by the character of the scenery in which his +childhood was passed. No one who has travelled on a summer's day across +Salisbury plain, with its vast canopy of sky and its open tracts of +undulating downland, relieved by no shadows except such as are thrown by +the passing cloud, the grazing sheep, and the great circle of Stonehenge, +will forget the delightful sense of refreshment and repose produced by the +descent into the valley of the Avon. The sounds of human life rising from +the villages after the long solitude of the plain, the shade of the deep +woods, the coolness of the river, like all streams rising in the chalk, +clear and peaceful, are equally delicious to the sense and the +imagination. It was, doubtless, the recollection of these scenes that +inspired Addison in his paraphrase of the twenty-third Psalm: + + "The Lord my pasture shall prepare, + And feed me with a shepherd's care. + + * * * * * + + When in the sultry glebe I faint, + Or on the thirsty mountain pant, + To fertile vales and dewy meads + My weary wandering steps he leads, + Where peaceful rivers, soft and slow, + Amid the verdant landscape flow." + +At Amesbury he was first sent to school, his master being one Nash; and +here, too, he probably met with the first recorded adventure of his life. +It is said that having committed some fault, and being fearful of the +consequences, he ran away from school, and, taking up his abode in a +hollow tree, maintained himself as he could till he was discovered and +brought back to his parents. He was removed from Amesbury to Salisbury, +and thence to the Grammar School at Lichfield, where he is said to have +been the leader in a "barring out." From Lichfield he passed to the +Charter House, then under the charge of Dr. Ellis, a man of taste and +scholarship. The Charter House at that period was, after Westminster, the +best-known school in England, and here was laid the foundation of that +sound classical taste which perfected the style of the essays in the +_Spectator_. + +Macaulay labours with much force and ingenuity to prove that Addison's +classical acquirements were only superficial, and, in his usual +epigrammatic manner, hazards the opinion that "his knowledge of Greek, +though doubtless such as was, in his time, thought respectable at Oxford, +was evidently less than that which many lads now carry away every year +from Eton and Rugby." That Addison was not a scholar of the class of +Bentley or Porson may be readily admitted. But many scattered allusions in +his works prove that his acquaintance with the Greek poets of every +period, if cursory, was wide and intelligent: he was sufficiently master +of the language thoroughly to understand the spirit of what he read; he +undertook while at Oxford a translation of Herodotus, and one of the +papers in the _Spectator_ is a direct imitation of a _jeu d'esprit_ of +Lucian's. The Eton or Rugby boy who, in these days, with a normal appetite +for cricket and football, acquired an equal knowledge of Greek literature, +would certainly be somewhat of a prodigy. + +No doubt, however, Addison's knowledge of the Latin poets was, as Macaulay +infers, far more extensive and profound. It would have been strange had it +been otherwise. The influence of the classical side of the Italian +Renaissance was now at its height, and wherever those ideas became +paramount Latin composition was held in at least as much esteem as poetry +in the vernacular. Especially was this the case in England, where certain +affinities of character and temperament made it easy for writers to adopt +Roman habits of thought. Latin verse composition soon took firm root in +the public schools and universities, so that clever boys of the period +were tolerably familiar with most of the minor Roman poets. Pope, in the +Fourth Book of the _Dunciad_, vehemently attacked the tradition as +confining the mind to the study of words rather than of things; but he had +himself had no experience of a public school, and only those who fail to +appreciate the influence of Latin verse composition on the style of our +own greatest orators, and of poets like Milton and Gray, will be inclined +to undervalue it as an instrument of social and literary training. + +Proficiency in this art may at least be said to have laid the foundation +of Addison's fortunes. Leaving the Charter House in 1687, at the early age +of fifteen, he was entered at Queen's College, Oxford, and remained a +member of that society for two years, when a copy of his Latin verses fell +into the hands of Dr. Lancaster, then Fellow and afterwards Provost of the +College. Struck with their excellence, Lancaster used his influence to +obtain for him a demyship at Magdalen. The subject of this fortunate set +of verses was "Inauguratio Regis Gulielmi," from which fact we may +reasonably infer that even in his boyhood his mind had acquired a Whig +bias. Whatever inclination he may have had in this direction would have +been confirmed by the associations of his new college. The fluctuations of +opinion in Magdalen had been frequent and extraordinary. Towards the close +of Elizabeth's reign it was notorious for its Calvinism, but under the +Chancellorship of Laud it appears to have adopted, with equal ardour, the +cause of Arminianism, for it was among the colleges that offered the +stoutest opposition to the Puritan visitors in 1647-48. The despotic +tendencies of James II., however, again cooled its loyalty, and its +spirited resistance to the king's order for the election of a Roman +Catholic President had given a mortal blow to the Stuart dynasty. Hough +was now President, but in consequence of the dispute with the king there +had been no election of demies in 1688, so that twice the usual number was +chosen in the following year, and the occasion was distinguished by the +name of the "golden election." From Magdalen Addison proceeded to his +master's degree in 1693; the College elected him probationary Fellow in +1697, and actual Fellow the year after. He retained his Fellowship till +1711. + +Of his tastes, habits, and friendships at Oxford there are few records. +Among his acquaintance were Boulter, afterwards Archbishop of +Dublin--whose memory is unenviably perpetuated, in company with Ambrose +Phillips, in Pope's _Epistle to Arbuthnot_, + + "Does not one table Bavius still admit, + Still to one Bishop Phillips seem a wit?"-- + +and possibly the famous Sacheverell.[6] He is said to have shown in the +society of Magdalen some of the shyness that afterwards distinguished him; +he kept late hours, and read chiefly after dinner. The walk under the +well-known elms by the Cherwell is still connected with his name. Though +he probably acted as tutor in the college, the greater part of his quiet +life at the University was doubtless occupied in study. A proof of his +early maturity is seen in the fact that, in his nineteenth year, a young +man of birth and fortune, Mr. Rushout, who was being educated at Magdalen, +was placed under his charge. + +His reputation as a scholar and a man of taste soon extended itself to the +world of letters in London. In 1693, being then in his twenty-second year, +he wrote his _Account of the Greatest English Poets_; and about the same +time he addressed a short copy of verses to Dryden, complimenting him on +the enduring vigour of his poetical faculty, as shown in his translations +of Virgil and other Latin poets, some of which had recently appeared in +Tonson's _Miscellany_. The old poet appears to have been highly gratified, +and to have welcomed the advances thus made to him, for he returned +Addison's compliment by bestowing high and not unmerited praise on the +translation of the Fourth Book of the _Georgics_, which the latter soon +after undertook, and by printing, as a preface to his own translation, a +discourse written by Addison on the _Georgics_, as well as arguments to +most of the books of the _Æneid_. + +Through Dryden, no doubt, he became acquainted with Jacob Tonson. The +father of English publishing had for some time been a well-known figure in +the literary world. He had purchased the copyright of _Paradise Lost_; he +had associated himself with Dryden in publishing before the Revolution two +volumes of _Miscellanies_; encouraged by the success which these obtained, +he put the poet, in 1693, on some translations of Juvenal and Persius, and +two new volumes of _Miscellanies_; while in 1697 he urged him to undertake +a translation of the whole of the works of Virgil. Observing how strongly +the public taste set towards the great classical writers, he was anxious +to employ men of ability in the work of turning them into English; and it +appears from existing correspondence that he engaged Addison, while the +latter was at Oxford, to superintend a translation of Herodotus. He also +suggested a translation of Ovid. Addison undertook to procure coadjutors +for the work of translating the Greek historian. He himself actually +translated the books called _Polymnia_ and _Urania_, but for some +unexplained reason the work was never published. For Ovid he seems, on the +whole, to have had less inclination. At Tonson's instance he translated +the Second Book of the _Metamorphoses_, which was first printed in the +volume of _Miscellanies_ that appeared in 1697; but he wrote to the +publisher that "Ovid had so many silly stories with his good ones that he +was more tedious to translate than a better poet would be." His study of +Ovid, however, was of the greatest use in developing his critical faculty; +the excesses and want of judgment in that poet forced him to reflect, and +his observations on the style of his author anticipate his excellent +remarks on the difference between True and False Wit in the sixty-second +number of the _Spectator_. + +Whoever, indeed, compares these notes with the _Essay on the Georgics_, +and with the opinions expressed in the _Account of the English Poets_, +will be convinced that the foundations of his critical method were laid at +this period (1697). In the _Essay on the Georgics_ he seems to be timid in +the presence of Virgil's superiority; his _Account of the English Poets_, +besides being impregnated with the principles of taste prevalent after the +Restoration, shows deficient powers of perception and appreciation. The +name of Shakespeare is not mentioned in it, Dryden and Congreve alone +being selected to represent the drama. Chaucer is described as "a merry +bard," whose humour has become obsolete through time and change; while the +rich pictorial fancy of the _Faery Queen_ is thus described: + + "Old Spenser next, warmed with poetic rage, + In ancient tales amused a barbarous age-- + An age that yet uncultivate and rude, + Where'er the poet's fancy led pursued, + Through pathless fields and unfrequented floods, + To dens of dragons and enchanted woods. + But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore, + Can charm an understanding age no more; + The long-spun allegories fulsome grow, + While the dull moral lies too plain below." + +According to Pope--always a suspicious witness where Addison is +concerned--he had not read Spenser when he wrote this criticism on him.[7] + +Milton, as a legitimate successor of the classics, is of course +appreciated, but not at all after the elaborate fashion of the +_Spectator_; to Dryden, the most distinguished poet of the day, deserved +compliments are paid, but their value is lessened by the exaggerated +opinion which the writer entertains of Cowley, who is described as a +"mighty genius," and is praised for the inexhaustible riches of his +imagination. Throughout the poem, in fact, we observe a remarkable +confusion of various veins of thought; an unjust depreciation of the +Gothic grandeur of the older English poets; a just admiration for the +Greek and Roman authors; a sense of the necessity of good sense and +regularity in writings composed for an "understanding age;" and at the +same time a lingering taste for the forced invention and far-fetched +conceits that mark the decay of the spirit of mediæval chivalry. + +With the judgments expressed in this performance it is instructive to +compare such criticisms on Shakespeare as we find in No. 42 of the +_Spectator_, the papers on "Chevy Chase" (73, 74), and particularly the +following passage: + + "As true wit consists in the resemblance of ideas, and false wit in + the resemblance of words, according to the foregoing instances, there + is another kind of wit which consists partly in the resemblance of + ideas and partly in the resemblance of words, which, for distinction's + sake, I shall call mixed wit. This kind of wit is that which abounds + in Cowley more than in any author that ever wrote. Mr. Waller has + likewise a great deal of it. Mr. Dryden is very sparing in it. Milton + has a genius much above it. _Spenser is in the same class with + Milton._ The Italians even in their epic poetry are full of it. + Monsieur Boileau, who formed himself upon the ancient poets, has + everywhere rejected it with scorn. If we look after mixed wit among + the Greeks, we shall find it nowhere but in the epigrammatists. There + are, indeed, some strokes of it in the little poem ascribed to Musæus, + which by that, as well as many other marks, betrays itself to be a + modern composition. If we look into the Latin writers we find none of + this mixed wit in Virgil, Lucretius, or Catullus; very little in + Horace, but a great deal of it in Ovid, and scarce anything else in + Martial." + +The stepping-stone from the immaturity of the early criticisms in the +_Account of the Greatest English Poets_ to the finished ease of the +_Spectator_ is to be found in the notes to the translation of Ovid.[8] + +The time came when he was obliged to form a decision affecting the entire +course of his life. Tonson, who had a wide acquaintance, no doubt +introduced him to Congreve and the leading men of letters in London, and +through them he was presented to Somers and Montague. Those ministers +perhaps persuaded him, as a point of etiquette, to write, in 1695, his +_Address to King William_, a poem composed in a vein of orthodox +hyperbole, all of which must have been completely thrown away on that most +unpoetical of monarchs. Yet in spite of those seductions Addison lingered +at Oxford. To retain his Fellowship it was necessary for him to take +orders. Had he done so, there can be no doubt that his literary skill and +his value as a political partizan would have opened for him a road to the +highest preferment. At that time the clergy were far from thinking it +unbecoming to their cloth to fight in the political arena or to take part +in journalism. Swift would have been advanced to a bishopric, as a reward +for his political services, if it had not been for the prejudice +entertained towards him by Queen Anne; Boulter, rector of St. Saviour's, +Southwark, having made himself conspicuous by editing a paper called the +_Freethinker_, was raised to the Primacy of Ireland; Hoadley, the +notorious Bishop of Bangor, edited the _London Journal_; the honours that +were awarded to two men of such second-rate intellectual capacity would +hardly have been denied to Addison. He was inclined in this direction by +the example and advice of his father, who was now Dean of Lichfield, and +who was urgent on his son to rid himself of the pecuniary embarrassments +in which he was involved by embracing the Church as a profession. A few +years before he had himself seemed to look upon the Church as his future +sphere. In his _Account of the Greatest English Poets_ he says: + + "I leave the arts of poetry and verse + To them that practise them with more success. + Of greater truths I'll now propose to tell, + And so at once, dear friend and muse, farewell." + +Had he followed up his intention we might have known the name of Addison +as that of an artful controversialist, and perhaps as a famous writer of +sermons; but we should, in all probability, have never heard of the +_Spectator_. + +Fortunately for English letters, other influences prevailed to give a +different direction to his fortunes. It is true that Tickell, Addison's +earliest biographer, states that his determination not to take orders was +the result of his own habitual self-distrust, and of a fear of the +responsibilities which the clerical office would involve. But Steele, who +was better acquainted with his friend's private history, on reading +Tickell's Memoir, addressed a letter to Congreve on the subject, in which +he says: + + "These, you know very well, were not the reasons which made Mr. + Addison turn his thoughts to the civil world; and, as you were the + instrument of his becoming acquainted with Lord Halifax, I doubt not + but you remember the warm instances that noble lord made to the head + of the College not to insist upon Mr. Addison's going into orders. 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 a friend to the Church, he never + would do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it." + +No doubt the real motive of the interest in Addison shown by Lord Halifax, +at that time known as Charles Montague, was an anxiety which he shared +with all the leading statesmen of the period, and of which more will be +said presently, to secure for his party the services of the ablest +writers. Finding his _protégé_ as yet hardly qualified to transact affairs +of State, he joined with Lord Somers, who had also fixed his eyes on +Addison, in soliciting for him from the Crown, in 1699, a pension of £300 +a year, which might enable him to supplement his literary accomplishments +with the practical experience of travel. Addison naturally embraced the +offer. He looked forward to studying the political institutions of foreign +countries, to seeing the spots of which he had read in his favourite +classical authors, and to meeting the most famous men of letters on the +Continent. + +It is characteristic both of his own tastes and of his age that he seems +to have thought his best passport to intellectual society abroad would be +his Latin poems. His verses on the _Peace of Ryswick_, written in 1697 +and dedicated to Montague, had already procured him great reputation, and +had been praised by Edmund Smith--a high authority--as "the best Latin +poem since the _Æneid_." This gave him the opportunity of collecting his +various compositions of the same kind, and in 1699 he published from the +Sheldonian Press a second volume of the _Musæ Anglicanæ_--the first having +appeared in 1691--containing poems by various Oxford scholars. Among the +contributors were Hannes, one of the many scholarly physicians of the +period; J. Philips, the author of the _Splendid Shilling_; and Alsop, a +prominent antagonist of Bentley, whose Horatian humour is celebrated by +Pope in the _Dunciad_.[9] + +But the most interesting of the names in the volume is that of the once +celebrated Edmond, commonly called "Rag," Smith, author of the _Ode on the +Death of Dr. Pocock_, who seems to have been among Addison's intimate +acquaintance, and deserves to be recollected in connection with him on +account of a certain similarity in their genius and the extraordinary +difference in their fortunes. "Rag" was a man of fine accomplishments and +graceful humour, but, like other scholars of the same class, indolent and +licentious. In spite of great indulgence extended to him by the +authorities of Christ Church, he was expelled from the University in +consequence of his irregularities. His friends stood by him, and, through +the interest of Addison, a proposal was made to him to undertake a history +of the Revolution, which, however, from political scruples he felt himself +obliged to decline. Like Addison, he wrote a tragedy modelled on classical +lines; but, as it had no political significance, it only pleased the +critics, without, like "Cato," interesting the public. Like Addison, too, +he had an opportunity of profiting by the patronage of Halifax, but +laziness or whim prevented him from keeping an appointment which the +latter had made with him, and caused him to miss a place worth £300 a +year. Addison, by his own exertions, rose to posts of honour and profit, +and towards the close of his life became Secretary of State. Smith envied +his advancement, and, ignoring the fact that his own failure was entirely +due to himself, murmured at fortune for leaving him in poverty. Yet he +estimated his wants at £600 a year, and died of indulgence when he can +scarcely have been more than forty years of age. + +Addison's compositions in the _Musæ Anglicanæ_ are eight in number. All of +them are distinguished by the ease and flow of the versification, but they +are generally wanting in originality. The best of them is the +_Pygmæo-Gerano-Machia_, which is also interesting as showing traces of +that rich vein of humour which Addison worked out in the _Tatler_ and +_Spectator_. The mock-heroic style in prose and verse was sedulously +cultivated in England throughout the eighteenth century. Swift, Pope, +Arbuthnot, and Fielding, developed it in various forms; but Addison's +Latin poem is perhaps the first composition in which the fine fancy and +invention afterwards shown in the _Rape of the Lock_ and _Gulliver's +Travels_ conspicuously displayed itself. + +A literary success of this kind at that epoch gave a writer a wider +reputation than he could gain by compositions in his own language. Armed, +therefore, with copies of the _Musæ Anglicanæ_ for presentation to +scholars, and with Halifax's recommendatory letters to men of political +distinction, Addison started for the Continent. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ADDISON ON HIS TRAVELS. + + +Travelling in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries involved an amount +of thought and precaution which would have seemed inconvenient to the +tourist accustomed to abandon himself to the authority of guide-books, +couriers, and railway companies. By ardent spirits like Roderick Random it +was regarded as the sphere of enterprise and fortune, and not without +reason, in days when adventures were to be met with on almost every road +in the country, and in the streets and inns of the towns. The graver +portion of society, on the other hand, considered it as part of the +regular course of education through which every young man of position +ought to pass before entering into active life. French was the universally +recognised language of diplomacy. French manners and conversation were +considered to be the best school for politeness, while Italy was held in +the highest respect by the northern nations as the source of revived art +and letters. Some of the most distinguished Englishmen of the time looked, +it is true, with little favour on this fashionable training. "Lord +Cowper," says Spence, on the information of Dr. Conybeare, "on his +death-bed ordered that his son should never travel (it is by the absolute +desire of the Queen that he does). He ordered this from a good deal of +observation on its effects; he had found that there was little to be +hoped, and much to be feared, from travelling. Atwell, who is the young +lord's tutor abroad, gives but a very discouraging account of it, too, in +his letters, and seems to think that people are sent out too young, and +are too hasty to find any great good from it." + +On some of the stronger and more enthusiastic minds the chief effect of +the grand tour was to produce a violent hatred of all foreign manners. +Dennis, the critic, for instance, who, after leaving Cambridge, spent some +time on the Continent, returned with a confirmed dislike to the French, +and ostentatiously displayed in his writings how much he held "dragoons +and wooden shoes in scorn;" and it is amusing to find Addison at a later +date making his Tory fox-hunter declare this anti-Gallican temper to be +the main fruits of foreign travel. + +But, in general, what was intended to be a school for manners and +political instruction proved rather a source of unsettlement and +dissipation; and the vigorous and glowing lines in which Pope makes the +tutor describe to Dullness the doings of the "young Æneas" abroad, may be +taken as a faithful picture of the travelled pupil of the period: + + "Intrepid then o'er seas and land he flew; + Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too. + There all thy gifts and graces we display, + Thou, only thou, directing all our way! + To where the Seine, obsequious as she runs, + Pours at great Bourbon's feet her silken sons; + Or Tyber, now no longer Roman, rolls, + Vain of Italian arts, Italian souls: + To happy convents bosomed deep in vines, + Where slumber abbots purple as their wines: + To isles of fragrance, lily-silvered vales, + Diffusing languor in the panting gales: + To lands of singing or of dancing slaves, + Love-whispering woods, and lute-resounding waves. + But chief her shrine where naked Venus keeps, + And Cupids ride the lion of the deeps; + Where, eased of fleets, the Adriatic main + Wafts the smooth eunuch and enamoured swain. + Led by my hand, he sauntered Europe round, + And gathered every vice on Christian ground; + Saw every court, heard every king declare + His royal sense of operas or the fair; + The stews and palace equally explored, + Intrigued with glory, and with spirit whored; + Tried all _hors-d'oeuvres_, all liqueurs defined, + Judicious drank, and greatly daring dined; + Dropped the dull lumber of the Latin store, + Spoiled his own language, and acquired no more; + All classic learning lost on classic ground; + And last turned air, the echo of a sound." + +It is needless to say that Addison's experiences of travel were of a very +different kind. He left England in his twenty-eighth year, with a mind +well equipped from a study of the best authors, and with the intention of +qualifying himself for political employment at home, after familiarising +himself with the languages and manners of foreign countries. His sojourn +abroad extended over four years, and his experience was more than usually +varied and comprehensive. Crossing from Dover to Calais, some time in the +summer of 1699, he spent nearly eighteen months in France making himself +master of the language. In December, 1700, he embarked at Marseilles for a +tour in Italy, and visited in succession the following places: Monaco, +Genoa, Pavia, Milan, Brescia, Verona, Padua, Venice, Ferrara, Ravenna, +Rimini, S. Marino, Pesaro, Fano, Sinigaglia, Ancona, Loreto, Rome (where, +as it was his intention to return, he only visited St. Peter's and the +Pantheon), Naples, Capri, whence he came back to Rome by sea, the various +towns in the neighbourhood of Rome, Siena, Leghorn, Pisa, Lucca, Florence, +Bologna, Modena, Parma, and Turin. Thus, in the course of this journey, +which lasted exactly a twelvemonth, he twice crossed the Apennines, and +made acquaintance with all the more important cities in the northern part +of the Peninsula. In December, 1701, he passed over Mont Cenis to Geneva, +proceeding then by Fribourg, Berne, Soleure, Zurich, St. Gall, Linden, +Insbruck, Hall, to Vienna, where he arrived in the autumn of 1702. After +making a brief stay in the Austrian capital he turned his face homewards, +and having visited the Protestant cities of Germany, and made a rather +longer stay in Hamburg than in any other, he reached Holland in the spring +of 1703, and remained in that country till his return to England, some +time in the autumn of the same year. + +During his journey he made notes for his _Remarks on Italy_, which he +published immediately on his return home, and he amused himself, while +crossing Mont Cenis, with composing his _Letter to Lord Halifax_, which +contains, perhaps, the best verses he ever wrote. Though the ground over +which he passed was well trodden, and though he possessed none of the +special knowledge which gives value to the observations of travellers like +Arthur Young, yet his remarks on the people and places he saw are the +product of an original mind, and his illustrations of his route from the +Latin poets are remarkably happy and graceful. It is interesting, also, to +observe how many of the thoughts and suggestions which occurred to him on +the road are afterwards worked up into papers for the _Spectator_. + +When Addison landed in France, in 1699, the power of Louis XIV., so long +the determined enemy of the English Revolution of 1688, had passed its +climax. The Peace of Ryswick, by which the hopes of the Jacobites were +finally demolished, was two years old. The king, disappointed in his +dreams of boundless military glory, had fallen into a fit of devotion, and +Addison, arriving from England with a very imperfect knowledge of the +language, was astonished to find the whole of French literature saturated +with the royal taste. "As for the state of learning," says he, in a letter +to Montague, dated August, 1699, "there is no book comes out at present +that has not something in it of an air of devotion. Dacier has bin forced +to prove his Plato a very good Christian before he ventures upon his +translation, and has so far comply'd with y{e} tast of the age that his +whole book is overrun with texts of Scripture, and y{e} notion of +præ-existence, supposed to be stolen from two verses of y{e} prophets. +Nay, y{e} humour is grown so universal that it is got among y{e} poets, +who are every day publishing Lives of Saints and Legends in Rhime." + +Finding, perhaps, that the conversation at the capital was not very +congenial to his taste, he seems to have hurried on to Blois, a town then +noted for the purity with which its inhabitants spoke the French language, +and where he had determined to make his temporary abode. His only record +of his first impressions of Paris is a casual criticism of "y{e} King's +Statue that is lately set up in the Place Vendome." He visited, however, +both Versailles and Fontainebleau, and the preference which he gives to +the latter (in a letter to Congreve) is interesting, as anticipating that +taste for natural as opposed to artificial beauty which he afterwards +expressed in the _Spectator_. + + "I don't believe, as good a poet as you are, that you can make finer + Lanskips than those about the King's houses, or with all yo{r} + descriptions build a more magnificent palace than Versailles. I am, + however, so singular as to prefer Fontainebleau to the rest. It is + situated among rocks and woods that give you a fine variety of Savage + prospects. The King has Humoured the Genius of the place, and only + made of so much art as is necessary to Help and regulate Nature, + without reforming her too much. The Cascades seem to break through the + Clefts and Cracks of Rocks that are covered over with Moss, and look + as if they were piled upon one another by Accident. There is an + artificial wildness in the Meadows, Walks, and Canals, and y{e} + Garden, instead of a Wall, is Fenced on the Lower End by a Natural + Mound of Rock-work that strikes the eye very agreeably. For my part, I + think there is something more charming in these rude heaps of Stone + than in so many Statues, and wou'd as soon see a River winding through + Woods and Meadows as when it is tossed up in such a variety of figures + at Versailles."[10] + +Here and there, too, his correspondence exhibits traces of that delicate +vein of ridicule in which he is without a rival, as in the following +inimitable description of Le Brun's paintings at Versailles: + + "The painter has represented his most Xtian Majesty under y{e} figure + of Jupiter throwing thunderbolts all about the ceiling, and striking + terror into y{e} Danube and Rhine, that lie astonished and blasted a + little above the Cornice." + +Of his life at Blois a very slight sketch has been preserved by the Abbe +Philippeaux, one of the many gossipping informants from whom Spence +collected his anecdotes: + + "Mr. Addison stayed above a year at Blois. He would rise as early as + between two and three in summer, and lie abed till between eleven and + twelve in the depth of winter. He was untalkative while here, and + often thoughtful; sometimes so lost in thought that I have come into + his room and have stayed five minutes there before he has known + anything of it. He had his masters generally at supper with him, kept + very little company beside, and had no amour whilst here that I know + of, and I think I should have known it if he had had any." + +The following characteristic letter to a gentleman of Blois, with whom he +seems to have had an altercation, is interesting as showing the mixture of +coolness and dignity, the "blood and judgment well commingled" which +Hamlet praised in Horatio, and which are conspicuous in all Addison's +actions as well as in his writings: + + "Sir,--I am always as slow in making an Enemy as a Friend, and am + therefore very ready to come to an Accommodation with you; but as for + any satisfaction, I don't think it is due on either side when y{e} + Affront is mutual. You know very well that according to y{e} opinion + of y{e} world a man would as soon be called a Knave as a Fool, and I + believe most people w{d} be rather thought to want Legs than Brains. + But I suppose whatever we said in y{e} heat of discourse is not y{e} + real opinion we have of each other, since otherwise you would have + scorned to subscribe yourself as I do at present, S{r}, y{r} very, + etc. + + A. Mons{r} L'Espagnol, + Blois, 10{br} 1699." + +The length of Addison's sojourn at Blois seems to have been partly caused +by the difficulty he experienced, owing to the defectiveness of his +memory, in mastering the language. Finding himself at last able to +converse easily, he returned to Paris some time in the autumn of 1700, in +order to see a little of polite society there before starting on his +travels in Italy. He found the best company in the capital among the men +of letters, and he makes especial mention of Malebranche, whom he +describes as solicitous about the adequate rendering of his works into +English; and of Boileau, who, having now survived almost all his literary +friends, seems, in his conversation with Addison, to have been even more +than usually splenetic in his judgments on his contemporaries. The old +poet and critic was, however, propitiated with the present of the _Musæ +Anglicanæ_; and, according to Tickell, said "that he did not question +there were excellent compositions in the native language of a country that +possessed the Roman genius in so eminent a degree." + +In general, Addison's remarks on the French character are not +complimentary. He found the vanity of the people so elated by the +elevation of the Duke of Anjou to the throne of Spain that they were +insupportable, and he felt no reluctance to quit France for Italy. His +observations on the national manners, as seen at Blois, are +characteristic: + + "Truly, by what I have yet seen, they are the Happiest nation in the + world. 'Tis not in the pow'r of Want or Slavery to make 'em miserable. + There is nothing to be met with in the Country but Mirth and Poverty. + Ev'ry one sings, laughs, and starves. Their Conversation is generally + Agreeable; for if they have any Wit or Sense they are sure to show it. + They never mend upon a Second meeting, but use all the freedom and + familiarity at first Sight that a long Intimacy or Abundance of wine + can scarce draw from an Englishman. Their Women are perfect Mistresses + in this Art of showing themselves to the best Advantage. They are + always gay and sprightly, and set off y{e} worst faces in Europe with + y{e} best airs. Ev'ry one knows how to give herself as charming a look + and posture as S{r} Godfrey Kneller c{d} draw her in."[11] + +He embarked from Marseilles for Genoa in December, 1700, having as his +companion Edward Wortley Montague, whom Pope satirises under the various +names of Shylock, Worldly, and Avidien. It is unnecessary to follow him +step by step in his travels, but the reader of his _Letter to Lord +Halifax_ may still enjoy the delight and enthusiasm to which he gives +utterance on finding himself among the scenes described in his favourite +authors: + + "Poetic fields encompass me around, + And still I seem to tread on classic ground; + For here the Muse so oft her harp has strung, + That not a mountain rears its head unsung; + Renowned in verse each shady thicket grows, + And every stream in heavenly numbers flows."[12] + +The phrase "classic ground," which has become proverbial, is first used in +these verses, and, as will have been observed, Pope repeats it with +evident reference to the above passage in his satire on the travels of the +"young Æneas." Addison seems to have carried the Latin poets with him, and +his quotations from them are abundant and apposite. When he is driven into +the harbour at Monaco, he remembers Lucan's description of its safety and +shelter; as he passes under Monte Circeo, he feels that Virgil's +description of Æneas's voyage by the same spot can never be sufficiently +admired; he recalls, as he crosses the Apennines, the fine lines of +Claudian recording the march of Honorius from Ravenna to Rome; and he +delights to think that at the falls of the Velino he can still see the +"angry goddess" of the _Æneid_ (Alecto) "thus sinking, as it were, in a +tempest, and plunging herself into Hell" amidst such a scene of horror and +confusion. + +His enthusiastic appreciation of the classics, which caused him in judging +any work of art to look, in the first place, for regularity of design and +simplicity of effect, shows it self characteristically in his remarks on +the Lombard and German styles of architecture in Italy. Of Milan Cathedral +he speaks without much admiration, but he was impressed with the wonders +of the Certosa near Pavia. "I saw," says he, "between Pavia and Milan the +convent of the Carthusians, which is very spacious and beautiful. Their +church is very fine and curiously adorned, _but_ of a Gothic structure." +His most interesting criticism, however, is that on the Duomo at Siena: + + "When a man sees the prodigious pains and expense that our forefathers + have been at in these barbarous buildings, one cannot but fancy to + himself what miracles of architecture they would have left us had they + only been instructed in the right way; for, when the devotion of those + ages was much warmer than that of the present, and the riches of the + people much more at the disposal of the priests, there was so much + money consumed on these Gothic cathedrals as would have finished a + greater variety of noble buildings than have been raised either before + or since that time. One would wonder to see the vast labour that has + been laid out on this single cathedral. The very spouts are loaden + with ornaments, the windows are formed like so many scenes of + perspective, with a multitude of little pillars retiring behind one + another, the great columns are finely engraven with fruits and + foliage, that run twisting about them from the very top to the bottom; + the whole body of the church is chequered with different lays of black + and white marble, the pavement curiously cut out in designs and + Scripture stories, and the front covered with such a variety of + figures, and overrun with so many mazes and little labyrinths of + sculpture, that nothing in the world can make a prettier show to those + who prefer false beauties and _affected ornaments_ to a noble and + majestic simplicity."[13] + +Addison had not reached that large liberality in criticism afterwards +attained by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who, while insisting that in all art +there was but _one_ true style, nevertheless allowed very high merit to +what he called the _characteristic_ styles. Sir Joshua would never have +fallen into the error of imputing affectation to such simple and honest +workmen as the early architects of Northern Italy. The effects of +Addison's classical training are also very visible in his descriptions of +natural scenery. There is in these nothing of that craving melancholy +produced by a sense of the infinity of nature which came into vogue after +the French Revolution; no projection of the feelings of the spectator into +the external scene on which he gazes; nor, on the other hand, is there any +attempt to rival the art of the painter by presenting a landscape in words +instead of in colours. He looks on nature with the same clear sight as the +Greek and Roman writers, and in describing a scene he selects those +particulars in it which he thinks best adapted to arouse pleasurable +images in the mind of the reader. Take, for instance, the following +excellent description of his passage over the Apennines: + + "The fatigue of our crossing the Apennines, and of our whole journey + from Loretto to Rome, was very agreeably relieved by the variety of + scenes we passed through. For, not to mention the rude prospect of + rocks rising one above another, of the deep gutters worn in the sides + of them by torrents of rain and snow-water, or the long channels of + sand winding about their bottoms that are sometimes filled with so + many rivers, we saw in six days' travelling the several seasons of the + year in their beauty and perfection. We were sometimes shivering on + the top of a bleak mountain, and a little while afterwards basking in + a warm valley, covered with violets and almond-trees in blossom, the + bees already swarming over them, though but in the month of February. + Sometimes our road led us through groves of olives, or by gardens of + oranges, or into several hollow apartments among the rocks and + mountains, that look like so many natural greenhouses, as being always + shaded with a great variety of trees and shrubs that never lose their + verdure."[14] + +Though his thoughts during his travels were largely occupied with objects +chiefly interesting to his taste and imagination, and though he busied +himself with such compositions as the _Epistle from Italy_, the _Dialogue +on Medals_, and the first four acts of _Cato_, he did not forget that his +experience was intended to qualify him for taking part in the affairs of +State. And when he reached Geneva, in December, 1701, the door to a +political career seemed to be on the point of opening. He there learned, +as Tickell informs us, that he had been selected to attend the army under +Prince Eugene as secretary from the King. He accordingly waited in the +city for official confirmation of this intelligence; but his hopes were +doomed to disappointment. William III. died in March, 1702; Halifax, on +whom Addison's prospects chiefly depended, was struck off the Privy +Council by Queen Anne; and the travelling pension ceased with the life of +the sovereign who had granted it. Henceforth he had to trust to his own +resources; and though the loss of his pension does not seem to have +compelled him at once to turn homewards, as he continued on his route to +Vienna, yet an incident that occurred towards the close of his travels +shows that he was prepared to eke out his income by undertaking work that +would have been naturally irksome to him. + +At Rotterdam, on his return towards England, he met with Jacob Tonson, the +bookseller, for whom, as has been said, he had already done some work as a +translator. Tonson was one of the founders of the Kit-Kat Club, and in +that capacity was brought into frequent and intimate connection with the +Whig magnates of the day. Among these was the Duke of Somerset, who, +through his wife, then high in Queen Anne's favour, exercised considerable +influence on the course of affairs. The Duke required a tutor for his +son, Lord Hertford, and Tonson recommended Addison. On the Duke's approval +of the recommendation, the bookseller seems to have communicated with +Addison, who expressed himself, in general terms, as willing to undertake +the charge of Lord Hertford, but desired to know more particulars about +his engagement. These were furnished by the Duke in a letter to Tonson, +and they are certainly a very curious illustration of the manners of the +period. "I ought," says his Grace, "to enter into that affair more freely +and more plainly, and tell you what I propose, and what I hope he will +comply with--viz., I desire he may be more on the account of a companion +in my son's travels than as a governor, and that as such I shall account +him: my meaning is, that neither lodging, travelling, nor diet shall cost +him sixpence, and over and above that my son shall present him at the +year's end with a hundred guineas, as long as he is pleased to continue in +that service to my son, by his personal attendance and advice, in what he +finds necessary during his time of travelling." + +To this not very tempting proposal Addison replied: "I have lately +received one or two advantageous offers of y{e} same nature, but as I +should be very ambitious of executing any of your Grace's commands, so I +can't think of taking y{e} like employ from any other hands. As for y{e} +recompense that is proposed to me, I must take the liberty to assure your +Grace that I should not see my account in it, but in y{e} hope that I have +to recommend myself to your Grace's favour and approbation." This reply +proved highly offensive to the Duke, who seems to have considered his own +offer a magnificent one. "Your letter of the 16th," he writes to Tonson, +on June 22, 1703, "with one from Mr. Addison, came safe to me. You say he +will give me an account of his readiness of complying with my proposal. I +will set down his own words, which are thus: 'As for the recompense that +is proposed to me, I must confess I can by no means see my account in it,' +etc. All the other parts of his letter are compliments to me, which he +thought he was bound in good breeding to write, and as such I have taken +them, and no otherwise; and now I leave you to judge how ready he is to +comply with my proposal. Therefore, I have wrote by this first post to +prevent his coming to England on my account, and have told him plainly +that I must look for another, which I cannot be long a-finding." + +Addison's principal biographer, Miss Aikin, expresses great contempt for +the niggardliness of the Duke, and says that, "Addison must often have +congratulated himself in the sequel on that exertion of proper spirit by +which he had escaped from wasting, in an attendance little better than +servile, three precious years, which he found means of employing so much +more to his own honour and satisfaction, and to the advantage of the +public." Mean as the Duke's offer was, it is nevertheless plain that +Addison really intended to accept it, and, this being so, he can scarcely +be congratulated on having on this occasion displayed his usual tact and +felicity. Two courses appear to have been open to him. He might either +have simply declined the offer "as not finding his account in it," or he +might have accepted it in view of the future advantages which he hoped to +derive from the Duke's "favour and approbation;" in which case he should +have said nothing about finding the "recompense" proposed insufficient. By +the course that he took he contrived to miss an appointment which he seems +to have made up his mind to accept, and he offended an influential +statesman whose favour he was anxious to secure. + +To his pecuniary embarrassments was soon added domestic loss. At Amsterdam +he received news of his father's death, and it may be supposed that the +private business in which he must have been involved in consequence of +this event brought him to England, where he arrived some time in the +autumn of 1703. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +HIS EMPLOYMENT IN AFFAIRS OF STATE. + + +Addison's fortunes were now at their lowest ebb. The party from which he +had looked for preferment was out of office; his chief political patron +was in particular discredit at Court; his means were so reduced that he +was forced to adopt a style of living not much more splendid than that of +the poorest inhabitants of Grub Street. Yet within three years of his +return to England he was promoted to be an Under-Secretary of State--a +post from which he mounted to one position of honour after another till +his final retirement from political life. That he was able to take +advantage of the opportunity that offered itself was owing to his own +genius and capacity; the opportunity was the fruit of circumstances which +had produced an entire revolution in the position of English men of +letters. + +Through the greater part of Charles II.'s reign the profession of +literature was miserably degraded. It is true that the King himself, a man +of wit and taste, was not slow in his appreciation of art; but he was by +his character insensible to what was serious or elevated, and the poetry +of gallantry, which he preferred, was quite within reach of the courtiers +by whom he was surrounded. Rochester, Buckingham, Sedley, and Dorset are +among the principal poetical names of the period; all of them being well +qualified to shine in verse, the chief requirements of which were a +certain grace of manner, an air of fashionable breeding, and a complete +disregard of the laws of decency. Besides these "songs by persons of +quality," the principal entertainment was provided by the drama. But the +stage, seldom a lucrative profession, was then crowded with writers whose +fertile, if not very lofty, invention kept down the price of plays. Otway, +the most successful dramatist of his time, died in a state of indigence, +and as some say, almost of starvation, while playwrights of less ability, +if the house was ill-attended on the third night, when the poet received +all the profits of the performance, were forced, as Oldham says, "to +starve or live in tatters all the year."[15] + +Periodical literature, in the shape of journals and magazines, had as yet +no existence; nor could the satirical poet or the pamphleteer find his +remuneration in controversial writing the strong reaction against +Puritanism having raised the monarchy to a position in which it was +practically secure against the assaults of all its enemies. The author of +the most brilliant satire of the period, who had used all the powers of a +rich imagination to discredit the Puritan and Republican cause, was paid +with nothing more solid than admiration, and died neglected and in want. + + "The wretch, at summing up his misspent days, + Found nothing left but poverty and praise! + Of all his gains by verse he could not save + Enough to purchase flannel and a grave! + Reduced to want he in due time fell sick, + Was fain to die, and be interred on tick; + And well might bless the fever that was sent + To rid him hence, and his worse fate prevent."[16] + +In the latter part of this reign, however, a new combination of +circumstances produced a great change in the character of English +literature and in the position of its professors. The struggle of Parties +recommenced. Wearied with the intolerable rule of the Saints, the nation +had been at first glad to leave its newly-restored King to his pleasures, +but, as the memories of the Commonwealth became fainter, the people +watched with a growing feeling of disgust the selfishness and extravagance +of the Court, while the scandalous sale of Dunkirk and the sight of the +Dutch fleet on the Thames made them think of the patriotic energies which +Cromwell had succeeded in arousing. At the same time the thinly-disguised +inclination of the King to Popery, and the avowed opinions of his brother, +raised a general feeling of alarm for the Protestant liberties of the +nation. On the other hand, the Puritans, taught moderation by adversity, +exhibited the really religious side of their character, and attracted +towards themselves a considerable portion of the aristocracy, as well as +of the commercial and professional classes in the metropolis--a +combination of interests which helped to form the nucleus of the Whig +party. The clergy and the landed proprietors, who had been the chief +sufferers from Parliamentary rule, naturally adhered to the Court, and +were nicknamed by their opponents Tories. Violent party conflicts ensued, +marked by such incidents as the Test Act, the Exclusion Bill, the +intrigues of Monmouth, the Popish Plot, and the trial and acquittal of +Shaftesbury on the charge of high treason. + +Finding his position no longer so easy as at his restoration, Charles +naturally bethought him of calling literature to his assistance. The +stage, being completely under his control, seemed the readiest instrument +for his purpose; the order went forth, and an astonishing display of +monarchical fervour in all the chief dramatists of the time--Otway, +Dryden, Lee, and Crowne--was the result. Shadwell, who was himself +inclined to the Whig interest, laments the change: + + "The stage, like old Rump pulpits, is become + The scene of News, a furious Party's drum." + +But the political influence of the drama and the audience to which it +appealed being necessarily limited, the King sought for more powerful +literary artillery, and he found it in the serviceable genius of Dryden, +whose satirical and controversial poems date from this period. The wide +popularity of _Absalom and Achitophel_, written against Monmouth and +Shaftesbury; of _The Medal_, satirising the acquittal of Shaftesbury; of +_The Hind and Panther_, composed to advance the Romanising projects of +James II.; points to the vast influence exercised by literature in the +party struggle. Nevertheless, in spite of all that Dryden had done for the +Royal cause, in spite of the fact that he himself had more than once +appealed to the poet for assistance, the ingratitude or levity of Charles +was so inveterate that he let the poet's services go almost unrequited. +Dryden, it is true, held the posts of Laureate and Royal Historiographer, +but his salary was always in arrears, and the letter which he addressed to +Rochester, First Lord of the Treasury, asking for six months' payment of +what was due to him, tells its own story. + +James II. cared nothing for literature, and was probably too dull of +apprehension to understand the incalculable service that Dryden had +rendered to his cause. He showed his appreciation of the Poet-Laureate's +genius by deducting £100 from the salary which his brother had promised +him, and by cutting off from the emoluments of the office the +time-honoured butt of canary! + +Under William III. the complexion of affairs again altered. The Court, in +the old sense of the word, ceased to be a paramount influence in +literature. William III. derived his authority from Parliament; he knew +that he must support it mainly by his sword and his statesmanship. A +stranger to England, its manners and its language, he showed little +disposition to encourage letters. Pope, indeed, maliciously suggests that +he had the bad taste to admire the poetry of Blackmore, whom he knighted; +but, as a matter of fact, the honour was conferred on the worthy Sir +Richard in consequence of his distinction in medicine, and he himself +bears witness to William's contempt for poetry. + + "Reverse of Louis he, example rare, + Loved to deserve the praise he could not bear. + He shunned the acclamations of the throng, + And always coldly heard the poet's song. + Hence the great King the Muses did neglect, + And the mere poet met with small respect."[17] + +Such political verse as we find in this reign generally consists, like +Halifax's _Epistle to Lord Dorset_, or Addison's own _Address to King +William_, of hyperbolical flattery. Opposition was extinct, for both +parties had for the moment united to promote the Revolution, and the only +discordant notes amid the chorus of adulation proceeded from Jacobite +writers concealed in the garrets and cellars of Grub Street. Such an +atmosphere was not favorable to the production of literature of an +elevated or even of a characteristic order. + +Addison's return to England coincided most happily with another remarkable +turn of the tide. Leaning decidedly to the Tory party, who were now +strongly leavened with the Jacobite element, Anne had not long succeeded +to the throne before she seized an opportunity for dismissing the Whig +Ministry whom she found in possession of office. The Whigs, equally +alarmed at the influence acquired by their rivals, and at the danger which +threatened the Protestant succession, neglected no effort to +counterbalance the loss of their sovereign's favour by strengthening their +credit with the people. Having been trained in a school which had at least +qualified them to appreciate the influence of style, the aristocratic +leaders of the party were well aware of the advantages they would derive +by attracting to themselves the services of the ablest writers of the day. +Hence they made it their policy to mingle with men of letters on an equal +footing, and to hold out to them an expectation of a share in the +advantages to be reaped from the overthrow of their rivals. + +The result of this union of forces was a great increase in the number of +literary-political clubs. In its half-aristocratic, half-democratic +constitution the club was the natural product of enlarged political +freedom, and helped to extend the organisation of polite opinion beyond +the narrow orbit of Court society. Addison himself, in his simple style, +points out the nature of the fundamental principle of Association which he +observed in operation all around him. "When a set of men find themselves +agree in any particular, though never so trivial, they establish +themselves into a kind of fraternity, and meet once or twice a week upon +the account of such a fantastic resemblance."[18] Among these societies, +in the first years of the eighteenth century, the most celebrated was, +perhaps, the Kit-Kat Club. It consisted of thirty-nine of the leading men +of the Whig party; and, though many of these were of the highest rank, it +is a characteristic fact that the founder of the club should have been the +bookseller Jacob Tonson. It was probably through his influence, joined to +that of Halifax, that Addison was elected a member of the society soon +after his return to England. Among its prominent members was the Duke of +Somerset, the first meeting between whom and Addison, after the +correspondence that had passed between them, must have been somewhat +embarrassing. The club assembled at one Christopher Catt's, a pastry-cook, +who gave his name both to the society and the mutton-pies which were its +ordinary entertainment. Each member was compelled to select a lady as his +toast, and the verses which he composed in her honour were engraved on the +wine-glasses belonging to the club. Addison chose the Countess of +Manchester, whose acquaintance he had made in Paris, and complimented her +in the following lines: + + "While haughty Gallia's dames, that spread + O'er their pale cheeks an artful red, + Beheld this beauteous stranger there, + In native charms divinely fair, + Confusion in their looks they showed, + And with unborrowed blushes glowed." + +Circumstances seemed now to be conspiring in favour of the Whigs. The +Tories, whose strength lay mainly in the Jacobite element, were jealous of +Marlborough's ascendency over the Queen; on the other hand, the Duchess of +Marlborough, who was rapidly acquiring the chief place in Anne's +affections, intrigued in favour of the opposite faction. In spite, too, of +her Tory predilections, the Queen, finding her throne menaced by the +ambition of Louis XIV., was compelled in self-defence to look for support +to the party which had most vigorously identified itself with the +principles of the Revolution. She bestowed her unreserved confidence on +Marlborough, and he, in order to counterbalance the influence of the +Jacobites, threw himself into the arms of the Whigs. Being named +Captain-General in 1704, he undertook the campaign which he brought to so +glorious a conclusion on the 2d of August in that year at the battle of +Blenheim. + +Godolphin, who, in the absence of Marlborough, occupied the chief place in +the Ministry, moved perhaps by patriotic feeling, and no doubt also by a +sense of the advantage which his party would derive from this great +victory, was anxious that it should be commemorated in adequate verse. He +accordingly applied to Halifax as the person to whom the _sacer vates_ +required for the occasion would probably be known. Halifax has had the +misfortune to have his character transmitted to posterity by two poets who +hated him either on public or private grounds. Swift describes him as the +would-be "Mæcenas of the nation," but insinuates that he neglected the +wants of the poets whom he patronised: + + "Himself as rich as fifty Jews, + Was easy though they wanted shoes." + +Pope also satirises the vanity and meanness of his disposition in the +well-known character of Bufo. Such portraits, though they are justified to +some extent by evidence coming from other quarters, are not to be too +strictly examined as if they bore the stamp of historic truth. It is, at +any rate, certain that Halifax always proved himself a warm and zealous +friend to Addison, and when Godolphin applied to him for a poet to +celebrate Blenheim, he answered that, though acquainted with a person who +possessed every qualification for the task, he could not ask him to +undertake it. Being pressed for his reasons, he replied "that while too +many fools and blockheads were maintained in their pride and luxury at the +public expense, such men as were really an honour to their age and country +were shamefully suffered to languish in obscurity; that, for his own +share, he would never desire any gentleman of parts and learning to employ +his time in celebrating a Ministry who had neither the justice nor the +generosity to make it worth his while." In answer to this the Lord +Treasurer assured Halifax that any person whom he might name as equal to +the required task, should have no cause to repent of having rendered his +assistance; whereupon Halifax mentioned Addison, but stipulated that all +advances to the latter must come from Godolphin himself. Accordingly, +Boyle, Chancellor of the Exchequer, afterwards Lord Carleton, was +despatched on the embassy, and, if Pope is to be trusted, found Addison +lodged up three pair of stairs over a small shop. He opened to him the +subject, and informed him that, in return for the service that was +expected of him, he was instructed to offer him a Commissionership of +Appeal in the Excise, as a pledge of more considerable advancement in the +future. The fruits of this negotiation were _The Campaign_. + +Warton disposes of the merits of _The Campaign_ with the cavalier +criticism, so often since repeated, that it is merely "a gazette in +rhyme." In one sense the judgment is no doubt just. As a poem, _The +Campaign_ shows neither loftiness of invention nor enthusiasm of personal +feeling, and it cannot therefore be ranked with such an ode as Horace's +_Qualem ministrum_, or with Pope's very fine _Epistle_ to the Earl of +Oxford after his disgrace. Its methodical narrative style is scarcely +misrepresented by Warton's sarcastic description of it; but it should be +remembered that this style was adopted by Addison with deliberate +intention. "Thus," says he, in the conclusion of the poem, + + "Thus would I fain Britannia's wars rehearse + In the smooth records of a faithful verse; + That, if such numbers can o'er time prevail, + May tell posterity the wondrous tale. + When actions unadorned are faint and weak + Cities and countries must be taught to speak; + Gods may descend in factions from the skies, + And rivers from their oozy beds arise; + Fiction may deck the truth with spurious rays, + And round the hero cast a borrowed blaze. + Marlbro's exploits appear divinely bright, + And proudly shine in their own native light; + Raised in themselves their genuine charms they boast, + And those that paint them truest praise them most." + +The design here avowed is certainly not poetical, but it is eminently +business-like and extremely well adapted to the end in view. What +Godolphin wanted was a set of complimentary verses on Marlborough. +Addison, with infinite tact, declares that the highest compliment that can +be paid to the hero is to recite his actions in their unadorned grandeur. +This happy turn of flattery shows how far he had advanced in literary +skill since he wrote his address _To the King_. He had then excused +himself for the inadequate celebration of William's deeds on the plea +that, great though these might be, they were too near the poet's own time +to be seen in proper focus. A thousand years hence, he suggests, some +Homer may be inspired by the theme, "and Boyne be sung when it has ceased +to flow." This could not have been very consolatory to a mortal craving +for contemporary applause, and the apology offered in _The Campaign_ for +the prosaic treatment of the subject is far more dexterous. Bearing in +mind the fact that it was written to order, and that the poet deliberately +declined to avail himself of the aid of fiction, we must allow that the +construction of the poem exhibits both art and dignity. The allusion to +the vast slaughter at Blenheim, in the opening paragraph-- + + "Rivers of blood I see and hills of slain, + An Iliad rising out of one campaign"-- + +is not very fortunate; but the lines describing the ambition of Louis XIV. +are weighty and dignified, and the couplet indicating, through the single +image of the Danube, the vast extent of the French encroachments, shows +how thoroughly Addison was imbued with the spirit of classical poetry: + + "The rising Danube its long race began, + And half its course through the new conquests ran." + +With equal felicity he describes the position and intervention of England, +seizing at the same time the opportunity for a panegyric on her free +institutions: + + "Thrice happy Britain, from the kingdoms rent + To sit the guardian of the Continent! + That sees her bravest sons advanced so high + And flourishing so near her prince's eye; + Thy favourites grow not up by fortune's sport, + Or from the crimes and follies of a court: + On the firm basis of desert they rise, + From long-tried faith and friendship's holy ties, + Their sovereign's well-distinguished smiles they share, + Her ornaments in peace, her strength in war; + The nation thanks them with a public voice, + By showers of blessings Heaven approves their choice; + Envy itself is dumb, in wonder lost, + And factions strive who shall applaud them most." + +He proceeds in a stream of calm and equal verse, enlivened by dexterous +allusions and occasional happy turns of expression, to describe the +scenery of the Moselle; the march between the Maese and the Danube; the +heat to which the army was exposed; the arrival on the Neckar; and the +track of devastation left by the French armies. The meeting between +Marlborough and Eugene inspires him again to raise his style: + + "Great souls by instinct to each other turn, + Demand alliance, and in friendship burn, + A sudden friendship, while with outstretched rays + They meet each other mingling blaze with blaze. + Polished in courts, and hardened in the field, + Renowned for conquest, and in council skilled, + Their courage dwells not in a troubled flood + Of mounting spirits and fermenting blood; + Lodged in the soul, with virtue overruled, + Inflamed by reason, and by reason cooled, + In hours of peace content to be unknown, + And only in the field of battle shown: + To souls like these in mutual friendship joined + Heaven dares entrust the cause of human kind." + +The celebrated passage describing Marlborough's conduct at Blenheim is +certainly the finest in the poem: + + "'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved + That in the shock of charging hosts unmoved, + Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, + Examined all the dreadful scenes of war; + In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed, + To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid, + Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, + And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. + So when an angel by divine command + With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, + Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past, + Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; + And pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform, + Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." + +Johnson makes some characteristic criticisms on this simile, which indeed, +he maintains, is not a simile, but "an exemplification." He says: +"Marlborough is so like the angel in the poem that the action of both is +almost the same, and performed by both in the same manner. Marlborough +'teaches the battle to rage;' the angel 'directs the storm;' Marlborough +is 'unmoved in peaceful thought;' the angel is 'calm and serene;' +Marlborough stands 'unmoved amid the shock of hosts;' the angel rides +'calm in the whirlwind.' The lines on Marlborough are just and noble; but +the simile gives almost the same images a second time." + +This judgment would be unimpeachable if the force of the simile lay solely +in the likeness between Marlborough and the angel, but it is evident that +equal stress is to be laid on the resemblance between the battle and the +storm. It was Addison's intention to raise in the mind of the reader the +noblest possible idea of composure and design in the midst of confusion: +to do this he selected an angel as the minister of the divine purpose, and +a storm as the symbol of fury and devastation; and, in order to heighten +his effect, he recalls with true art the violence of the particular +tempest which had recently ravaged the country. Johnson has noticed the +close similarity between the persons of Marlborough and the angel; but he +has exaggerated the resemblance between the actions in which they are +severally engaged. + +_The Campaign_ completely fulfilled the purpose for which it was written. +It strengthened the position of the Whig Ministry, and secured for its +author the advancement that had been promised him. Early in 1706 Addison, +on the recommendation of Lord Godolphin, was promoted from the +Commissionership of Appeals in Excise to be Under-Secretary of State to +Sir Charles Hedges. The latter was one of the few Tories who had retained +their position in the Ministry since the restoration of the Whigs to the +favour of their sovereign, and he, too, shortly vanished from the stage +like his more distinguished friends, making way for the Earl of +Sunderland, a staunch Whig, and son-in-law to the Duke of Marlborough. + +Addison's duties as Under-Secretary were probably not particularly +arduous. In 1705 he was permitted to attend Lord Halifax to the Court of +Hanover, whither the latter was sent to carry the Act for the +Naturalisation of the Electress Sophia. The mission also included +Vanbrugh, who, as Clarencieux King-at-Arms, was charged to invest the +Elector with the Order of the Garter; the party thus constituted affording +a remarkable illustration of the influence exercised by literature over +the politics of the period. Addison must have obtained during this journey +considerable insight into the nature of England's foreign policy, as, +besides establishing the closest relations with Hanover, Halifax was also +instructed to form an alliance with the United Provinces for securing the +succession of the House of Brunswick to the English throne. + +In the meantime his imagination was not idle. After helping Steele in the +composition of his _Tender Husband_, which was acted in 1705, he found +time for engaging in a fresh literary enterprise of his own. The +principles of operatic music, which had long been developed in Italy, had +been slow in making their way to this country. Their introduction had been +delayed partly by the French prejudices of Charles II., but more, perhaps, +by the strong insular tastes of the people, and by the vigorous forms of +the native drama. What the untutored English audience liked best to hear +was a well-marked tune, sung in a fine natural way: the kind of music +which was in vogue on the stage till the end of the seventeenth century +was simply the regular drama interspersed with airs; _recitative_ was +unknown; and there was no attempt to cultivate the voice according to the +methods practised in the Italian schools. But with the increase of wealth +and travel more exacting tastes began to prevail; Italian singers appeared +on the stage and exhibited to the audience capacities of voice of which +they had hitherto had no experience. In 1705 was acted at the Haymarket +_Arsinoe_, the first opera constructed in England on avowedly Italian +principles. The words were still in English, but the dialogue was +throughout in _recitative_. The composer was Thomas Clayton, who, though a +man entirely devoid of genius, had travelled in Italy, and was eager to +turn to account the experience which he had acquired. In spite of its +badness _Arsinoe_ greatly impressed the public taste; and it was soon +followed by _Camilla_, a version of an opera by Bononcini, portions of +which were sung in Italian, and portions in English--an absurdity on which +Addison justly comments in a number of the _Spectator_. His remarks on the +consequences of translating the Italian operas are equally humorous and +just. + + "As there was no great danger," says he, "of hurting the sense of + these extraordinary pieces, our authors would often make words of + their own which were entirely foreign to the meaning of the passages + they pretended to translate; their chief care being to make the + numbers of the English verse answer to those of the Italian, that both + of them might go to the same tune. Thus the famous song in _Camilla_, + + 'Barbara si t'intendo,' etc. + 'Barbarous woman, yes, I know your meaning,' + + which expresses the resentment of an angry lover, was translated into + that English lamentation, + + 'Frail are a lover's hopes,' etc. + + And it was pleasant enough to see the most refined persons of the + British nation dying away and languishing to notes that were filled + with the spirit of rage and indignation. It happened also very + frequently where the sense was rightly translated; the necessary + transposition of words, which were drawn out of the phrase of one + tongue into that of another, made the music appear very absurd in one + tongue that was very natural in the other. I remember an Italian verse + that ran thus, word for word: + + 'And turned my rage into pity,' + + which the English, for rhyme's sake, translated, + + 'And into pity turned my rage.' + + By this means the soft notes that were adapted to pity in the Italian + fell upon the word 'rage' in the English; and the angry sounds that + were turned to rage in the original were made to express pity in the + translation. It oftentimes happened likewise that the finest notes in + the air fell upon the most insignificant word in the sentence. I have + known the word 'and' pursued through the whole gamut; have been + entertained with many a melodious 'the;' and have heard the most + beautiful graces, quavers, and divisions bestowed upon 'then,' 'for,' + and 'from,' to the eternal honour of our English particles."[19] + +Perceiving these radical defects, Addison seems to have been ambitious of +showing by example how they might be remedied. "The great success this +opera (_Arsinoe_) met with produced," says he, "some attempts of forming +pieces upon Italian plans, which should give a more natural and reasonable +entertainment than what can be met with in the elaborate trifles of that +nation. This alarmed the poetasters and fiddlers of the town, who were +used to deal in a more ordinary kind of ware, and therefore laid down an +established rule, which is received as such to this day, 'That nothing is +capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.'"[20] The +allusion to the failure of the writer's own opera of _Rosamond_ is +unmistakable. The piece was performed on the 2d of April, 1706, but was +coldly received, and after two or three representations was withdrawn. + +The reasons which the _Spectator_ assigns for the catastrophe betray +rather the self-love of the author than the clear perception of the +critic. _Rosamond_ failed because, in the first place, it was very bad as +a musical composition. Misled by the favour with which _Arsinoe_ was +received, Addison seems to have regarded Clayton as a great musician, and +he put his poem into the hands of the latter, thinking that his score +would be as superior to that of _Arsinoe_ as his own poetry was to the +words of that opera. Clayton, however, had no genius, and only succeeded +in producing what Sir John Hawkins, quoting with approbation the words of +another critic, calls "a confused chaos of music, the only merit of which +is its shortness."[21] + +But it may be doubted whether in any case the most skilful composer could +have produced music of a high order adapted to the poetry of _Rosamond_. +The play is neither a tragedy, a comedy, nor a melodrama. It seems that +Eleanor did not really poison Fair Rosamond, but only administered to her +a sleeping potion, and, as she takes care to explain to the King, + + "The bowl with drowsy juices filled, + From cold Egyptian drugs distilled, + In borrowed death has closed her eyes." + +This information proves highly satisfactory to the King, not only because +he is gratified to find that Rosamond is not dead, but also because, even +before discovering her supposed dead body, he had resolved, in consequence +of a dream sent to him by his guardian angel, to terminate the relations +existing between them. The Queen and he accordingly arrange, in a +business-like manner, that Rosamond shall be quietly removed in her trance +to a nunnery; a reconciliation is then effected between the husband and +wife, who, as we are led to suppose, live happily ever after. + +The main motive of the opera in Addison's mind appears to have been the +desire of complimenting the Marlborough family. It is dedicated to the +Duchess; the warlike character of Henry naturally recalls the prowess of +the great modern captain; and the King is consoled by his guardian angel +for the loss of Fair Rosamond with a vision of the future glories of +Blenheim: + + "To calm thy grief and lull thy cares, + Look up and see + What, after long revolving years, + Thy bower shall be! + When time its beauties shall deface, + And only with its ruins grace + The future prospect of the place! + Behold the glorious pile ascending, + Columns swelling, arches bending, + Domes in awful pomp arising, + Art in curious strokes surprising, + Foes in figured fights contending, + Behold the glorious pile ascending." + +This is graceful enough, but it scarcely offers material for music of a +serious kind. Nor can the Court have been greatly impressed by the +compliment paid to its morality, as contrasted with that of Charles II., +conveyed as it was by the mouth of Grideline, one of the comic characters +in the piece-- + + "Since conjugal passion + Is come into fashion, + And marriage so blest on the throne is, + Like a Venus I'll shine, + Be fond and be fine, + And Sir Trusty shall be my Adonis." + +The ill success of _Rosamond_ confirmed Addison's dislike to the Italian +opera, which he displayed both in his grave and humorous papers on the +subject in the _Spectator_. The disquisition upon the various actors of +the lion in _Hydaspes_ is one of his happiest inspirations; but his +serious criticisms are, as a rule, only just in so far as they are +directed against the dramatic absurdities of the Italian opera. As to his +technical qualifications as a critic of music, it will be sufficient to +cite the opinion of Dr. Burney: "To judges of music nothing more need be +said of Mr. Addison's abilities to decide concerning the comparative +degrees of national excellence in the art, and the merit of particular +masters, than his predilection for the productions of Clayton, and +insensibility to the force and originality of Handel's compositions in +_Rinaldo_."[22] + +In December, 1708, the Earl of Sunderland was displaced to make room for +the Tory Lord Dartmouth, and Addison, as Under-Secretary, following the +fortunes of his superior, found himself again without employment. +Fortunately for him the Earl of Wharton was almost immediately afterwards +made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and offered him the lucrative post of +Secretary. The Earl, who was subsequently created a Marquis, was the +father of the famous Duke satirised in Pope's first _Moral Essay_; he was +in every respect the opposite of Addison--a vehement Republican, a +sceptic, unprincipled in his morals, venal in his methods of Government. +He was nevertheless a man of the finest talents, and seems to have +possessed the power of gaining personal ascendency over his companions by +a profound knowledge of character. An acquaintance with Addison, doubtless +commencing at the Kit-Kat Club, of which both were members, had convinced +him that the latter had eminent qualifications for the task, which the +Secretary's post would involve, of dealing with men of very various +conditions. Of the feelings with which Addison on his side regarded the +Earl we have no record. "It is reasonable to suppose," says Johnson, "that +he counteracted, as far as he was able, the malignant and blasting +influence of the Lieutenant; and that, at least, by his intervention some +good was done and some mischief prevented." Not a shadow of an imputation, +at any rate, rests upon his own conduct as Secretary. He appears to have +acted strictly on that conception of public duty which he defines in one +of his papers in the _Spectator_. Speaking of the marks of a corrupt +official, "Such an one," he declares, "is the man who, upon any pretence +whatsoever, receives more than what is the stated and unquestioned fee of +his office. Gratifications, tokens of thankfulness, despatch money, and +the like specious terms, are the pretences under which corruption very +frequently shelters itself. An honest man will, however, look on all these +methods as unjustifiable, and will enjoy himself better in a moderate +fortune, that is gained with honour and reputation, than in an overgrown +estate that is cankered with the acquisitions of rapine and exaction. Were +all our offices discharged with such an inflexible integrity, we should +not see men in all ages, who grow up to exorbitant wealth, with the +abilities which are to be met with in an ordinary mechanic."[23] His +friends perhaps considered that his impartiality was somewhat +overstrained, since he always declined to remit the customary fees in +their favour. "For," said he, "I may have forty friends, whose fees may be +two guineas a-piece; then I lose eighty guineas, and my friends gain but +two a-piece." + +He took with him as his own Secretary, Eustace Budgell, who was related to +him, and for whom he seems to have felt a warm affection. Budgell was a +man of considerable literary ability, and was the writer of the various +papers in the _Spectator_ signed "X," some of which succeed happily in +imitating Addison's style. While he was under his friend's guidance his +career was fairly successful, but his temper was violent, and when, at a +later period of his life, he served in Ireland under a new Lieutenant and +another Secretary, he became involved in disputes which led to his +dismissal. A furious pamphlet against the Lord-Lieutenant, the Duke of +Bolton, published by him in spite of Addison's remonstrances, only +complicated his position, and from this period his fortunes steadily +declined. He lost largely in the South Sea Scheme; spent considerable sums +in a vain endeavour to obtain a seat in Parliament; and at last came under +the influence of his kinsman, Tindal, the well-known deist, whose will he +is accused of having falsified. With his usual infelicity he happened to +rouse the resentment of Pope, and was treated in consequence to one of +the deadly couplets with which that great poet was in the habit of +repaying real or supposed injuries: + + "Let Budgell charge low Grub Street on his quill, + And write whate'er he pleased--except his will." + +The lines were memorable, and were doubtless often quoted, and the +wretched man finding his life insupportable, ended it by drowning himself +in the Thames. + +During his residence in Ireland Addison firmly cemented his friendship +with Swift, whose acquaintance he had probably made after _The Campaign_ +had given him a leading position in the Whig party, on the side of which +the sympathies of both were then enlisted. Swift's admiration for Addison +was warm and generous. When the latter was on the point of embarking on +his new duties, Swift wrote to a common friend, Colonel Hunter, "Mr. +Addison is hurrying away for Ireland, and I pray too much business may not +spoil _le plus honnete homme du monde_." To Archbishop King he wrote: "Mr. +Addison, who goes over our first secretary, is a most excellent person, +and being my intimate friend I shall use all my credit to set him right in +his notions of persons and things." Addison's duties took him occasionally +to England, and during one of his visits Swift writes to him from Ireland: +"I am convinced that whatever Government come over you will find all marks +of kindness from any parliament here with respect to your employment, the +Tories contending with the Whigs which should speak best of you. In short, +if you will come over again when you are at leisure we will raise an army +and make you King of Ireland. Can you think so meanly of a kingdom as not +to be pleased that every creature in it, who hath one grain of worth, has +a veneration for you?" In his _Journal to Stella_ he says, under date of +October 12, 1710: "Mr. Addison's election has passed easy and undisputed; +and I believe if he had a mind to be chosen king he would hardly be +refused." On his side Addison's feelings were equally warm. He presented +Swift with a copy of his _Remarks on Several Parts of Italy_, inscribing +it--"To the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the greatest +genius of his age." + +This friendship, founded on mutual respect, was destined to be impaired by +political differences. In 1710 the credit of the Whig Ministry had been +greatly undermined by the combined craft of Harley and Mrs. Masham, and +Swift, who was anxious as to his position, on coming over to England to +press his claims on Somers and Halifax, found that they were unable to +help him. He appears to have considered that their want of power proceeded +from want of will; at any rate, he made advances to Harley, which were of +course gladly received. The Ministry were at this time being hard pressed +by the _Examiner_, under the conduct of Prior, and at their instance +Addison started the _Whig Examiner_ in their defence. Though this paper +was written effectively and with admirable temper, party polemics were +little to the taste of its author, and, after five numbers, it ceased to +exist on the 8th of October. Swift, now eager for the triumph of the +Tories, expresses his delight to Stella by informing her, in the words of +a Tory song, that "it was down among the dead men." He himself wrote the +first of his _Examiners_ on the 2d of the following November, and the +crushing blows with which he followed it up did much to hasten the +downfall of the Ministry. As was natural, Addison was somewhat displeased +at his friend's defection. In December Swift writes to Stella, "Mr. +Addison and I are as different as black and white, and I believe our +friendship will go off by this d---- business of party. He cannot bear +seeing me fall in so with the Ministry; but I love him still as much as +ever, though we seldom meet." In January, 1710-11, he says: "I called at +the coffee-house, where I had not been in a week, and talked coldly awhile +with Mr. Addison; all our friendship and dearness are off; we are civil +acquaintance, talk words, of course, of when we shall meet, and that's +all. Is it not odd?" Many similar entries follow; but on June 26, 1711, +the record is: "Mr. Addison and I talked as usual, and as if we had seen +one another yesterday." And on September 14, he observes: "This evening I +met Addison and pastoral Philips in the Park, and supped with them in +Addison's lodgings. We were very good company, and I yet know no man half +so agreeable to me as he is. I sat with them till twelve." + +It was perhaps through the influence of Swift, who spoke warmly with the +Tory Ministry on behalf of Addison, that the latter, on the downfall of +the Whigs in the autumn of 1710, was for some time suffered to retain the +Keepership of the Records in Bermingham's Tower, an Irish place which had +been bestowed upon him by the Queen as a special mark of the esteem with +which she regarded him, and which appears to have been worth £400 a +year.[24] In other respects his fortunes were greatly altered by the +change of Ministry. "I have within this twelvemonth," he writes to Wortley +on the 21st of July, 1711, "lost a place of £2000 per ann., an estate in +the Indies worth £14,000, and, what is worse than all the rest, my +mistress.[25] Hear this and wonder at my philosophy! I find they are going +to take away my Irish place from me too; to which I must add that I have +just resigned my fellowship, and that stocks sink every day." In spite of +these losses his circumstances were materially different from those in +which he found himself after the fall of the previous Whig Ministry in +1702. Before the close of the year 1711 he was able to buy the estate of +Bilton, near Rugby, for £10,000. Part of the purchase money was probably +provided from what he had saved while he was Irish Secretary, and had +invested in the funds; and part was, no doubt, made up from the profits of +the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_. Miss Aikin says that a portion was +advanced by his brother Gulston; but this seems to be an error. Two years +before, the Governor of Fort St. George had died, leaving him his executor +and residuary legatee. This is no doubt "the estate in the Indies" to +which he refers in his letter to Wortley, but he had as yet derived no +benefit from it. His brother had left his affairs in great confusion; the +trustees were careless or dishonest; and though about £600 was remitted to +him in the shape of diamonds in 1713, the liquidation was not complete +till 1716, when only a small moiety of the sum bequeathed to him came into +his hands.[26] + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE _TATLER_ AND _SPECTATOR_. + + +The career of Addison, as described in the preceding chapters, has +exemplified the great change effected in the position of men of letters in +England by the Restoration and the Revolution; it is now time to exhibit +him in his most characteristic light, and to show the remarkable service +the eighteenth century essayists performed for English society in creating +an organised public opinion. It is difficult for ourselves, who look on +the action of the periodical press as part of the regular machinery of +life, to appreciate the magnitude of the task accomplished by Addison and +Steele in the pages of the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_. Every day, week, +month, and quarter now sees the issue of a vast number of journals and +magazines intended to form the opinion of every order and section of +society; but in the reign of Queen Anne the only centres of society that +existed were the Court, with the aristocracy that revolved about it, and +the clubs and coffee-houses, in which the commercial and professional +classes met to discuss matters of general interest. The _Tatler_ and +_Spectator_ were the first organs in which an attempt was made to give +form and consistency to the opinion arising out of this social contact. +But we should form a very erroneous idea of the character of these +publications if we regarded them as the sudden productions of individual +genius, written in satisfaction of a mere temporary taste. Like all +masterpieces in art and literature, they mark the final stage of a long +and painful journey, and the merit of their inventors consists largely in +the judgment with which they profited by the experience of many +predecessors. + +The first newspaper published in Europe was the _Gazzetta_ of Venice, +which was written in manuscript, and read aloud at certain places in the +city, to supply information to the people during the war with the Turks in +1536. In England it was not till the reign of Elizabeth that the increased +facilities of communication and the growth of wealth caused the purveyance +of news to become a profitable employment. Towards the end of the +sixteenth century newsmongers began to issue little pamphlets reporting +extraordinary intelligence, but not issued at regular periods. The titles +of these publications, which are all of them that survive, show that the +arts with which the framers of the placards of our own newspapers +endeavour to attract attention are of venerable antiquity: "Wonderful and +Strange newes out of Suffolke and Essex, where it rained wheat the space +of six or seven miles" (1583); "Lamentable newes out of Monmouthshire, +containinge the wonderfull and fearfull accounts of the great overflowing +of the waters in the said countrye" (1607).[27] + +In 1622 one Nathaniel Butter began to publish a newspaper bearing a fixed +title and appearing at stated intervals. It was called the _Weekly Newes +from Italy and Germanie, etc._, and was said to be printed for _Mercurius +Britannicus_. This novelty provided much food for merriment to the poets, +and Ben Jonson in his _Staple of News_ satirises Butter, under the name +of Nathaniel, in a passage which the curious reader will do well to +consult, as it shows the low estimation in which newspapers were then +held.[28] + +Though it might appear from Jonson's dialogue that the newspapers of that +day contained many items of domestic intelligence, such was scarcely the +case. Butter and his contemporaries, as was natural to men who confined +themselves to the publication of news without attempting to form opinion, +obtained their materials almost entirely from abroad, whereby they at once +aroused more vividly the imagination of their readers, and doubtless gave +more scope to their own invention. Besides, they were not at liberty to +retail home news of that political kind which would have been of the +greatest interest to the public. For a long time the evanescent character +of the newspaper allowed it to escape the attention of the licenser, but +the growing demand for this sort of reading at last brought it under +supervision, and so strict was the control exercised over even the reports +of foreign intelligence that its weekly appearance was frequently +interrupted. + +In 1641, however, the Star-chamber was abolished, and the heated political +atmosphere of the times generated a new species of journal, in which we +find the first attempt to influence opinion through the periodical press. +This was the newspaper known under the generic title of _Mercury_. Many +weekly publications of this name appeared during the Civil Wars on the +side of both King and Parliament, _Mercurius Anlicus_ being the +representative organ of the Royalist cause, and _Mercurius Pragmaticus_ +and _Mercurius Politicus_ of the Republicans. Party animosities were thus +kept alive, and proved so inconvenient to the Government that the +Parliament interfered to curtail the liberty of the press. In 1647 an +ordinance passed the House of Lords, prohibiting any person from "making, +writing, printing, selling, publishing, or uttering, or causing to be +made, any book, sheet, or sheets of news whatsoever, except the same be +licensed by both or either House of Parliament, with the name of the +author, printer, and licenser affixed." In spite of this prohibition, +which was renewed by Act of Parliament in 1662, many unlicensed +periodicals continued to appear, till in 1663 the Government, finding +their repressive measures insufficient, resolved to grapple with the +difficulty by monopolising the right to publish news. + +The author of this new project was the well-known Roger L'Estrange, who in +1663 obtained a patent assigning to him "all the sole privilege of +writing, printing, and publishing all Narratives, Advertisements, +Mercuries, Intelligencers, Diurnals, and other books of public +intelligence." L'Estrange's journal was called the _Public Intelligencer_; +it was published once a week, and in its form was a rude anticipation of +the modern newspaper, containing as it did an obituary, reports of the +proceedings in Parliament and in the Court of Claims, a list of the +circuits of the judges, of sheriffs, Lent preachers, etc. After being +continued for two years it gave place first, in 1665, to the _Oxford +Gazette_, published at Oxford, whither the Court had retired during the +plague; and in 1666 to the _London Gazette_, which was under the immediate +control of an Under-Secretary of State. The office of Gazetteer became +henceforth a regular ministerial appointment, and was viewed with +different eyes according as men were affected towards the Government. +Steele, who held it, says of it: "My next appearance as a writer was in +the quality of the lowest Minister of State--to wit, in the office of +Gazetteer; where I worked faithfully according to order, without ever +erring against the rule observed by all Ministers, to keep that paper very +innocent and very insipid." Pope, on the other hand, who regarded it as an +organ published to influence opinion in favour of the Government, is +constant in his attacks upon it, and has immortalised it in the memorable +lines in the _Dunciad_ beginning, "Next plunged a feeble but a desperate +pack," etc. + +In 1679 the Licensing Act passed in 1662 expired, and the Parliament +declined to renew it. The Court was thus left without protection against +the expression of public opinion, which was daily becoming more bold and +outspoken. In his extremity the King fell back on the servility of the +judges, and, having procured from them an opinion that the publishing of +any printed matter without license was contrary to the common law, he +issued his famous Proclamation (in 1680) "to prohibit and forbid all +persons whatsoever to print or publish any news, book, or pamphlets of +news, not licensed by his Majesty's authority." + +Disregard of the proclamation was treated as a breach of the peace, and +many persons were punished accordingly. This severity produced the effect +intended. The voice of the periodical press was stifled, and the _London +Gazette_ was left almost in exclusive possession of the field of news. +When Monmouth landed in 1685 the King managed to obtain from Parliament a +renewal of the Licensing Act for seven years, and even after the +Revolution of 1688 several attempts were made by the Ministerial Whigs to +prolong or to renew the operation of the Act. In spite, however, of the +violence of the organs of "Grub Street," which had grown up under it, +these attempts were unsuccessful; it was justly felt that it was wiser to +leave falsehood and scurrility to be gradually corrected by public +opinion, as speaking through an unfettered press, than to attack them by a +law which they had proved themselves able to defy. From 1682 the freedom +of the press may therefore be said to date, and the lapse of the Licensing +Act was the signal for a remarkable outburst of journalistic enterprise +and invention. Not only did the newspapers devoted to the report of +foreign intelligence reappear in greatly increased numbers, but, whereas +the old _Mercuries_ had never been published more than once in the same +week, the new comers made their appearance twice and sometimes even three +times. In 1702 was printed the first daily newspaper, _The Daily Courant_. +It could only at starting provide material to cover one side of a half +sheet of paper; but the other side was very soon covered with printed +matter, in which form its existence was prolonged till 1735. + +The development of party government of course encouraged the controversial +capacities of the journalist, and many notorious, and some famous names +are now found among the combatants in the political arena. On the side of +the Whigs the most redoubtable champions were Daniel Defoe, of the +_Review_, who was twice imprisoned and once set in the pillory for his +political writings; John Tutchin, of the _Observator_; and Ridpath, of the +_Flying Post_--all of whom have obtained places in the _Dunciad_. The old +Tories appear to have been satisfied during the early part of Queen Anne's +reign with prosecuting the newspapers that attacked them; but Harley, who +understood the power of the press, engaged Prior to harass the Whigs in +the _Examiner_, and was afterwards dexterous enough to secure the +invaluable assistance of Swift for the same paper. In opposition to the +_Examiner_ in its early days the Whigs, as has been said, started the +_Whig Examiner_, under the auspices of Addison, so that the two great +historical parties had their cases stated by the two greatest +prose-writers of the first half of the eighteenth century. + +Beside the Quidnunc and the party politician, another class of reader now +appeared demanding aliment in the press. Men of active and curious minds, +with a little leisure and a large love of discussion, loungers at Will's +or at the Grecian Coffee-Houses, were anxious to have their doubts on all +subjects resolved by a printed oracle. Their tastes were gratified by the +ingenuity of John Dunton, whose strange account of his _Life and Errors_ +throws a strong light on the literary history of this period. In 1690 +Dunton published his _Athenian Gazette_, the name of which he afterwards +altered to the _Athenian Mercury_. The object of this paper was to answer +questions put to the editor by the public. These were of all kinds--on +religion, casuistry, love, literature, and manners--no question being too +subtle or absurd to extract a reply from the conductor of the paper. The +_Athenian Mercury_ seems to have been read by as many distinguished men of +the period as _Notes and Queries_ in our own time, and there can be no +doubt that the quaint humours it originated gave the first hint to the +inventors of the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_. + +Advertisements were inserted in the newspapers at a comparatively early +period of their existence. The editor acted as middleman between the +advertiser and the public, and made his announcements in a style of easy +frankness which will appear to the modern reader extremely refreshing. +Thus, in the "Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade" +(1682), there are the following: + + "If I can meet with a sober man that has a counter-tenor voice, I can + help him to a place worth thirty pound the year or more. + + "If any noble or other gentleman wants a porter that is very lusty, + comely, and six foot high and two inches, I can help. + + "I want a complete young man that will wear a livery, to wait on a + very valuable gentleman; but he must know how to play on a violin or + flute. + + "I want a genteel footman that can play on the violin, to wait on a + person of honour."[29] + +Everything was now prepared for the production of a class of newspaper +designed to form and direct public opinion on rational principles. The +press was emancipated from State control; a reading public had constituted +itself out of the _habitués_ of the coffee-houses and clubs; nothing was +wanted but an inventive genius to adapt the materials at his disposal to +the circumstances of the time. The required hero was not long in making +his appearance. + +Richard Steele, the son of an official under the Irish Government, was, +above all things, "a creature of ebullient heart." Impulse and sentiment +were with him always far stronger motives of action than reason, +principle, or even interest. He left Oxford, without taking a degree, from +an ardent desire to serve in the army, thereby sacrificing his prospect of +succeeding to a family estate; his extravagance and dissipation while +serving in the cavalry were notorious; yet this did not dull the clearness +of his moral perceptions, for it was while his excesses were at their +height that he dedicated to his commanding officer, Lord Cutts, his +_Christian Hero_. Vehement in his political, as in all other feelings, he +did not hesitate to resign the office he held under the Tory Government in +1711 in order to attack it for what he considered its treachery to the +country; but he was equally outspoken, and with equal disadvantage to +himself, when he found himself at a later period in disagreement with the +Whigs. He had great fertility of invention, strong natural humour, true +though uncultivated taste, and inexhaustible human sympathy. + +His varied experience had made him well acquainted with life and +character, and in his office of Gazetteer he had had an opportunity of +watching the eccentricities of the public taste, which, now emancipated +from restraint, began vaguely to feel after new ideals. That, under such +circumstances, he should have formed the design of treating current events +from a humorous point of view was only natural, but he was indebted for +the form of his newspaper to the most original genius of the age. Swift +had early in the eighteenth century exercised his ironical vein by +treating the everyday occurrences of life in a mock-heroic style. Among +his pieces of this kind that were most successful in catching the public +taste were the humorous predictions of the death of Partridge, the +astrologer, signed with the name of Isaac Bickerstaff. Steele, seizing on +the name and character of Partridge's fictitious rival, turned him with +much pleasantry into the editor of a new journal, the design of which he +makes Isaac describe as follows: + + "The state of conversation and business in this town having long been + perplexed with Pretenders in both kinds, in order to open men's minds + against such abuses, it appeared no unprofitable undertaking to + publish a Paper, which should observe upon the manners of the + pleasurable, as well as the busy part of mankind. To make this + generally read, it seemed the most proper method to form it by way of + a Letter of Intelligence, consisting of such parts as might gratify + the curiosity of persons of all conditions and of each sex.... The + general purposes of this Paper is to expose the false arts of life, to + pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and to + recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and our + behaviour."[30] + +The name of the _Tatler_, Isaac informs us, was "invented in honour of the +fair sex," for whose entertainment the new paper was largely designed. It +appeared three times a week, and its price was a penny, though it seems +that the first number, published April 12, 1709, was distributed _gratis_ +as an advertisement. In order to make the contents of the paper varied it +was divided into five portions, of which the editor gives the following +account: + + "All accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment, shall be + under the article of White's Chocolate-House; Poetry under that of + Will's Coffee-House; Learning under the title of Grecian; Foreign and + Domestic News you will have from Saint James' Coffee-House; and what + else I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from my own + apartment."[31] + +In this division we see the importance of the coffee-houses as the natural +centres of intelligence and opinion. Of the four houses mentioned, St. +James' and White's, both of them in St. James' Street, were the chief +haunts of statesmen and men of fashion, and the latter had acquired an +infamous notoriety for the ruinous gambling of its _habitués_. Will's, in +Russell Street, Covent Garden, kept up the reputation which it had +procured in Dryden's time as the favourite meeting-place of men of +letters; while the Grecian, in Devereux Court in the Strand, which was the +oldest coffee-house in London, afforded a convenient _rendezvous_ for the +learned Templars. At starting, the design announced in the first number +was adhered to with tolerable fidelity. The paper dated from St. James' +Coffee-House was always devoted to the recital of foreign news; that from +Will's either criticised the current dramas, or contained a copy of +verses from some author of repute, or a piece of general literary +criticism; the latest gossip at White's was reproduced in a fictitious +form and with added colour. Advertisements were also inserted; and half a +sheet of the paper was left blank, in order that at the last moment the +most recent intelligence might be added in manuscript, after the manner of +the contemporary news-letters. In all these respects the character of the +newspaper was preserved; but in the method of treating news adopted by the +editor there was a constant tendency to subordinate matter of fact to the +elements of humour, fiction, and sentiment. In his survey of the manners +of the time, Isaac, as an astrologer, was assisted by a familiar spirit, +named Pacolet, who revealed to him the motives and secrets of men; his +sister, Mrs. Jenny Distaff, was occasionally deputed to produce the paper +from the wizard's "own apartment;" and Kidney, the waiter at St. James' +Coffee-House, was humorously represented as the chief authority in all +matters of foreign intelligence. + +The mottoes assumed by the _Tatler_ at different periods of its existence +mark the stages of its development. On its first appearance, when Steele +seems to have intended it to be little more than a lively record of news, +the motto placed at the head of each paper was + + "Quidquid agunt homines, + nostri est farrago libelli." + +It soon became evident, however, that its true function was not merely to +report the actions of men, but to discuss the propriety of their actions; +and by the time that sufficient material had accumulated to constitute a +volume, the essayists felt themselves justified in appropriating the words +used by Pliny in the preface to his _Natural History_: + + "Nemo apud nos qui idem tentaverit: equidem sentio peculiarem in + studiis causam corum esse, qui difficultatibus victis, utilitatem + juvandi, protulerunt gratiæ placendi. Res ardua vetustis novitatem + dare, novis auctoritatem, obsoletis nitorem, fastidiis gratiam, dubiis + fidem, omnibus vero naturam, et naturæ suæ omnia. Itaque NON ASSECUTIS + _voluisse_, abunde pulchrum atque magnificum est." + +The disguise of the mock astrologer proved very useful to Steele in his +character of moralist. It enabled him to give free utterance to his better +feelings, without the risk of incurring the charge of inconsistency or +hypocrisy, and nothing can be more honourable to him than the open manner +in which he acknowledges his own unfitness for the position of a moralist: +"I shall not carry my humility so far," says he, "as to call myself a +vicious man, but at the same time must confess my life is at best but +pardonable. With no greater character than this, a man would make but an +indifferent progress in attacking prevailing and fashionable vices, which +Mr. Bickerstaff has done with a freedom of spirit that would have lost +both its beauty and efficacy had it been pretended to by Mr. Steele."[32] + +As Steele cannot claim the sole merit of having invented the form of the +_Tatler_, so, too, it must be remembered that he could never have +addressed society in the high moral tone assumed by Bickerstaff if the +road had not been prepared for him by others. One name among his +predecessors stands out with a special title to honourable record. Since +the Restoration the chief school of manners had been the stage, and the +flagrant example of immorality set by the Court had been bettered by the +invention of the comic dramatists of the period. Indecency was the +fashion; religion and sobriety were identified by the polite world with +Puritanism and hypocrisy. Even the Church had not yet ventured to say a +word in behalf of virtue against the prevailing taste, and when at last a +clergyman raised his voice on behalf of the principles which he professed, +the blow which he dealt to his antagonists was the more damaging because +it was entirely unexpected. Jeremy Collier was not only a Tory but a +Jacobite, not only a High Churchman but a Nonjuror, who had been outlawed +for his fidelity to the principles of Legitimism; and that such a man +should have published the _Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of +the English Stage_, reflecting, as the book did, in the strongest manner +on the manners of the fallen dynasty, was as astounding as thunder from a +clear sky. Collier, however, was a man of sincere piety, whose mind was +for the moment occupied only by the overwhelming danger of the evil which +he proposed to attack. It is true that his method of attack was cumbrous, +and that his conclusions were far too sweeping and often unjust; +nevertheless, the general truth of his criticisms was felt to be +irresistible. Congreve and Vanbrugh each attempted an apology for their +profession; both, however, showed their perception of the weakness of +their position by correcting or recasting scenes in their comedies to +which Collier had objected. Dryden accepted the reproof in a nobler +spirit. Even while he had pandered to the tastes of the times, he had been +conscious of his treachery to the cause of true art, and had broken out in +a fine passage in his _Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Killigrew_: + + "O gracious God! how far have we + Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy! + Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, + Debased to each obscene and impious use! + + * * * * * + + "O wretched we! why were we hurried down + This lubrique and adulterous age + (Nay, added fat pollutions of our own) + To increase the streaming ordure of the stage?" + +When Collier attacked him he bent his head in submission. "In many +things," says he, "he has taxed me justly, and I have pleaded guilty to +all thought and expressions of mine which can be truly argued of +obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my +enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no +personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance."[33] + +The first blow against fashionable immorality having been boldly struck, +was followed up systematically. In 1690 was founded "The Society for the +Reformation of Manners," which published every year an account of the +progress made in suppressing profaneness and debauchery by its means. It +continued its operations till 1738, and during its existence prosecuted, +according to its own calculations, 101,683 persons. William III. showed +himself prompt to encourage the movement which his subjects had begun. The +_London Gazette_ of 27th February, 1698-99, contains a report of the +following remarkable order: + + "His Majesty being informed, That, notwithstanding an order made the + 4th of June, 1697, by the Earl of Sunderland, then Lord Chamberlain of + His Majesty's Household, to prevent the Prophaneness and Immorality of + the Stage, several Plays have been lately acted containing expressions + contrary to Religion and Good Manners: and whereas the Master of the + Revels has represented, That, in contempt of the said order, the + actors do often neglect to leave out such Prophane and Indecent + expressions as he has thought proper to be omitted. These are + therefore to signifie his Majesty's pleasure, that you do not + hereafter presume to act anything in any play contrary to Religion and + Good Manners as you shall answer it at your utmost peril. Given under + my Hand this 18th of February, 1698. In the eleventh year of his + Majesty's reign." + +It is difficult to realise, in reading the terms of this order, that only +thirteen years had elapsed since the death of Charles II., and undoubtedly +a very large share of the credit due for such a revolution in the public +taste is to be assigned to Collier. Collier, however, did nothing in a +literary or artistic sense to improve the character of English literature. +His severity, uncompromising as that of the Puritans, inspired Vice with +terror, but could not plead with persuasion on behalf of Virtue; his +sweeping conclusions struck at the roots of Art as well as of Immorality. +He sought to destroy the drama and kindred pleasures of the Imagination, +not to reform them. What the age needed was a writer to satisfy its +natural desires for healthy and rational amusement, and Steele, with his +strongly-developed twofold character, was the man of all others to bridge +over the chasm between irreligious licentiousness and Puritanical +rigidity. Driven headlong on one side of his nature towards all the tastes +and pleasures which absorbed the Court of Charles II., his heart in the +midst of his dissipation never ceased to approve of whatever was great, +noble, and generous. He has described himself with much feeling in his +disquisition on the _Rake_, a character which he says many men are +desirous of assuming without any natural qualifications for supporting it: + + "A Rake," says he, "is a man always to be pitied; and if he lives one + day is certainly reclaimed; for his faults proceed not from choice or + inclination, but from strong passions and appetites, which are in + youth too violent for the curb of reason, good sense, good manners, + and good nature; all which he must have by nature and education + before he can be allowed to be or to have been of this order.... His + desires run away with him through the strength and force of a lively + imagination, which hurries him on to unlawful pleasures before reason + has power to come in to his rescue." + +That impulsiveness of feeling which is here described, and which was the +cause of so many of Steele's failings in real life, made him the most +powerful and persuasive advocate of Virtue in fiction. Of all the +imaginative English essayists he is the most truly natural. His large +heart seems to rush out in sympathy with any tale of sorrow or exhibition +of magnanimity; and even in criticism, his true natural instinct, joined +to his constitutional enthusiasm, often raises his judgments to a level +with those of Addison himself, as in his excellent essay in the +_Spectator_ on Raphael's cartoons. Examples of these characteristics in +his style are to be found in the _Story of Unnion and Valentine_,[34] and +in the fine paper describing two tragedies of real life;[35] in the series +of papers on duelling, occasioned by a duel into which he was himself +forced against his own inclination;[36] and in the sound advice which +Isaac gives to his half-sister Jenny on the morrow of her marriage.[37] +Perhaps, however, the chivalry and generosity of feeling which make +Steele's writings so attractive are most apparent in the delightful paper +containing the letter of Serjeant Hall from the camp before Mons. After +pointing out to his readers the admirable features in the serjeant's +simple letter, Steele concludes as follows: + + "If we consider the heap of an army, utterly out of all prospect of + rising and preferment, as they certainly are, and such great things + executed by them, it is hard to account for the motive of their + gallantry. But to me, who was a cadet at the battle of Coldstream, in + Scotland, when Monk charged at the head of the regiment now called + Coldstream, from the victory of that day--I remember it as well as if + it were yesterday; I stood on the left of old West, who I believe is + now at Chelsea--I say to me, who know very well this part of mankind, + I take the gallantry of private soldiers to proceed from the same, if + not from a nobler, impulse than that of gentlemen and officers. They + have the same taste of being acceptable to their friends, and go + through the difficulties of that profession by the same irresistible + charm of fellowship and the communication of joys and sorrows which + quickens the relish of pleasure and abates the anguish of pain. Add to + this that they have the same regard to fame, though they do not expect + so great a share as men above them hope for; but I will engage + Serjeant Hall would die ten thousand deaths rather than that a word + should be spoken at the Red Lettice, or any part of the Butcher Row, + in prejudice to his courage or honesty. If you will have my opinion, + then, of the Serjeant's letter, I pronounce the style to be mixed, but + truly epistolary; the sentiment relating to his own wound in the + sublime; the postscript of Pegg Hartwell in the gay; and the whole the + picture of the bravest sort of men, that is to say, a man of great + courage and small hopes."[38] + +With such excellences of style and sentiment it is no wonder that the +_Tatler_ rapidly established itself in public favour. It was a novel +experience for the general reader to be provided three times a week with +entertainment that pleased his imagination without offending his sense of +decency or his religious instincts. But a new hand shortly appeared in the +_Tatler_, which was destined to carry the art of periodical essay-writing +to a perfection beside which even the humour of Steele appears rude and +unpolished. Addison and Steele had been friends since boyhood. They had +been contemporaries at the Charter House, and, as we have seen, Steele had +sometimes spent his holidays in the parsonage of Addison's father. He was +a postmaster at Merton about the same time that his friend was a Fellow of +Magdalen. The admiration which he conceived for the hero of his boyhood +lasted, as so often happens, through life; he exhibited his veneration for +him in all places, and even when Addison indulged his humour at his +expense he showed no resentment. Addison, on his side, seems to have +treated Steele with a kind of gracious condescension. The latter was one +of the few intimate friends to whom he unbent in conversation; and while +he was Under-Secretary of State he aided him in the production of _The +Tender Husband_, which was dedicated to him by the author. Of this play +Steele afterwards declared with characteristic impulse that many of the +most admired passages were the work of his friend, and that he "thought +very meanly of himself that he had never publicly avowed it." + +The authorship of the _Tatler_ was at first kept secret to all the world. +It is said that the hand of Steele discovered itself to Addison on reading +in the fifth number a remark which he remembered to have himself made to +Steele on the judgment of Virgil, as shown in the appellation of "Dux +Trojanus," which the Latin poet assigns to Æneas, when describing his +adventure with Dido in the cave, in the place of the usual epithet of +"pius" or "pater." Thereupon he offered his services as a contributor, and +these were of course gladly accepted. The first paper sent by Addison to +the _Tatler_ was No. 18, wherein is displayed that inimitable art which +makes a man appear infinitely ridiculous by the ironical commendation of +his offences against right, reason, and good taste. The subject is the +approaching peace with France, and it is noticeable that the article of +foreign news, which had been treated in previous _Tatlers_ with complete +seriousness, is here for the first time invested with an air of +pleasantry. The distress of the news-writers at the prospect of peace is +thus described: + + "There is another sort of gentlemen whom I am much more concerned for, + and that is the ingenious fraternity of which I have the honour to be + an unworthy member; I mean the news-writers of Great Britain, whether + Post-men or Post-boys, or by what other name or title soever dignified + or distinguished. The case of these gentlemen is, I think, more hard + than that of the soldiers, considering that they have taken more towns + and fought more battles. They have been upon parties and skirmishes + when our armies have lain still, and given the general assault to many + a place when the besiegers were quiet in their trenches. They have + made us masters of several strong towns many weeks before our generals + could do it, and completed victories when our greatest captains have + been glad to come off with a drawn battle. Where Prince Eugene has + slain his thousands Boyer has slain his ten thousands. This gentleman + can indeed be never enough commended for his courage and intrepidity + during this whole war: he has laid about him with an inexpressible + fury, and, like offended Marius of ancient Rome, made such havoc among + his countrymen as must be the work of two or three ages to repair.... + It is impossible for this ingenious sort of men to subsist after a + peace: every one remembers the shifts they were driven to in the reign + of King Charles the Second, when they could not furnish out a single + paper of news without lighting up a comet in Germany or a fire in + Moscow. There scarce appeared a letter without a paragraph on an + earthquake. Prodigies were grown so familiar that they had lost their + name, as a great poet of that age has it. I remember Mr. Dyer, who is + justly looked upon by all the foxhunters in the nation as the greatest + statesman our country has produced, was particularly famous for + dealing in whales, in so much that in five months' time (for I had the + curiosity to examine his letters on that occasion) he brought three + into the mouth of the river Thames, besides two porpusses and a + sturgeon." + +The appearance of Addison as a regular contributor to the _Tatler_ +gradually brought about a revolution in the character of the paper. For +some time longer, indeed, articles continued to be dated from the +different coffee-houses, but only slight efforts were made to distinguish +the materials furnished from White's, Will's, or Isaac's own apartment. +When the hundredth number was reached a fresh address is given at Shere +Lane, where the astrologer lived, and henceforward the papers from White's +and Will's grow extremely rare; those from the Grecian may be said to +disappear; and the foreign intelligence, dated from St. James', whenever +it is inserted, which is seldom, is as often as not made the text of a +literary disquisition. Allegories become frequent, and the letters sent, +or supposed to be sent, to Isaac at his home address furnish the material +for many numbers. The Essay, in fact, or that part of the newspaper which +goes to form public opinion, preponderates greatly over that portion which +is devoted to the report of news. Spence quotes from a Mr. Chute: "I have +heard Sir Richard Steele say that, though he had a greater share in the +_Tatlers_ than in the _Spectators_, he thought the news article in the +first of these was what contributed much to their success."[39] Chute, +however, seems to speak with a certain grudge against Addison, and the +statement ascribed by him to Steele is intrinsically improbable. It is not +very likely that, as the proprietor of the _Tatler_, he would have +dispensed with any element in it that contributed to its popularity, yet +after No. 100 the news articles are seldom found. The truth is that Steele +recognised the superiority of Addison's style, and with his usual +quickness accommodated the form of his journal to the genius of the new +contributor. + + "I have only one gentleman," says he, in the preface to the _Tatler_, + "who will be nameless, to thank for any frequent assistance to me, + which indeed it would have been barbarous in him to have denied to one + with whom he has lived in intimacy from childhood, considering the + great ease with which he is able to despatch the most entertaining + pieces of this nature. This good office he performed with such force + of genius, humour, wit, and learning that I fared like a distressed + prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid; I was undone by + my own auxiliary; when I had once called him in I could not subsist + without dependence on him." + +With his usual enthusiastic generosity, Steele, in this passage, unduly +depreciates his own merits to exalt the genius of his friend. A comparison +of the amount of material furnished to the _Tatler_ by Addison and Steele +respectively shows that out of 271 numbers the latter contributed 188 and +the former only 42. Nor is the disparity in quantity entirely balanced by +the superior quality of Addison's papers. Though it was, doubtless, his +fine workmanship and admirable method which carried to perfection the +style of writing initiated in the _Tatler_, yet there is scarcely a +department of essay-writing developed in the _Spectator_ which does not +trace its origin to Steele. It is Steele who first ventures to raise his +voice against the prevailing dramatic taste of the age on behalf of the +superior morality and art of Shakespeare's plays. + + "Of all men living," says he, in the eighth _Tatler_, "I pity players + (who must be men of good understanding to be capable of being such) + that they are obliged to repeat and assume proper gestures for + representing things of which their reason must be ashamed, and which + they must disdain their audience for approving. The amendment of these + low gratifications is only to be made by people of condition, by + encouraging the noble representation of the noble characters drawn by + Shakespeare and others, from whence it is impossible to return without + strong impressions of honour and humanity. On these occasions distress + is laid before us with all its causes and consequences, and our + resentment placed according to the merit of the person afflicted. + Were dramas of this nature more acceptable to the taste of the town, + men who have genius would bend their studies to excel in them." + +Steele, too, it was who attacked, with all the vigour of which he was +capable, the fashionable vice of gambling. So severe were his comments on +this subject in the _Tatler_ that he raised against himself the fierce +resentment of the whole community of sharpers, though he was fortunate +enough at the same time to enlist the sympathies of the better part of +society. "Lord Forbes," says Mr. Nichols, the antiquary, in his notes to +the _Tatler_, "happened to be in company with the two military gentlemen +just mentioned" (Major-General Davenport and Brigadier Bisset) "in St. +James' Coffee-House when two or three well-dressed men, all unknown to his +lordship or his company, came into the room, and in a public, outrageous +manner abused Captain Steele as the author of the _Tatler_. One of them, +with great audacity and vehemence, swore that he would cut Steele's throat +or teach him better manners. 'In this country,' said Lord Forbes, 'you +will find it easier to cut a purse than to cut a throat.' His brother +officers instantly joined with his lordship and turned the cut-throats out +of the coffee-house with every mark of disgrace."[40] + +The practice of duelling, also, which had hitherto passed unreproved, was +censured by Steele in a series of papers in the _Tatler_, which seemed to +have been written on an occasion when, having been forced to fight much +against his will, he had the misfortune dangerously to wound his +antagonist.[41] The sketches of character studied from life, and the +letters from fictitious correspondents, both of which form so noticeable +a feature in the _Spectator_, appear roughly, but yet distinctly, drafted +in the _Tatler_. Even the papers of literary criticism, afterwards so +fully elaborated by Addison, are anticipated by his friend, who may fairly +claim the honour to have been the first to speak with adequate respect of +the genius of Milton.[42] In a word, whatever was perfected by Addison was +begun by Steele; if the one has for ever associated his name with the +_Spectator_, the other may justly appropriate the credit of the _Tatler_, +a work which bears to its successor the same kind of relation that the +frescoes of Masaccio bear, in point of dramatic feeling and style, to +those of Raphael; the later productions deserving honour for finish of +execution, the earlier for priority of invention. + +The _Tatler_ was published till the 2d of January, 1710-11, and was +discontinued, according to Steele's own account, because the public had +penetrated his disguise, and he was therefore no longer able to preach +with effect in the person of Bickerstaff. It may be doubted whether this +was his real motive for abandoning the paper. He had been long known as +its conductor; and that his readers had shown no disinclination to listen +to him is proved, not only by the large circulation of each number of the +_Tatler_, but by the extensive sale of the successive volumes of the +collected papers at the high price of a guinea apiece. He was, in all +probability, led to drop the publication by finding that the political +element that the paper contained was a source of embarrassment to him. His +sympathies were vehemently Whig; the _Tatler_ from the beginning had +celebrated the virtues of Marlborough and his friends, both directly and +under cover of fiction; and he had been rewarded for his services with a +commissionership of the Stamp-office. When the Whig Ministry fell in +1710, Harley, setting a just value on the abilities of Steele, left him in +the enjoyment of his office and expressed his desire to serve him in any +other way. Under these circumstances, Steele no doubt felt it incumbent on +him to discontinue a paper which, both from its design and its traditions, +would have tempted him into the expression of his political partialities. + +For two months, therefore, "the censorship of Great Britain," as he +himself expressed it, "remained in commission," until Addison and he once +more returned to discharge the duties of the office in the _Spectator_, +the first number of which was published on the 1st of March, 1710-11. The +_Tatler_ had only been issued three times a week, but the conductors of +the new paper were now so confident in their own resources and in the +favour of the public that they undertook to bring out one number daily. +The new paper at once exhibited the impress of Addison's genius, which had +gradually transformed the character of the _Tatler_ itself. The latter was +originally, in every sense of the word, a newspaper, but the Spectator +from the first indulged his humour at the expense of the clubs of +Quidnuncs. + + "There is," says he, "another set of men that I must likewise lay a + claim to as being altogether unfurnished with ideas till the business + and conversation of the day has supplied them. I have often considered + these poor souls with an eye of great commiseration when I have heard + them asking the first man they have met with whether there was any + news stirring, and by that means gathering together materials for + thinking. These needy persons do not know what to talk of till about + twelve o'clock in the morning; for by that time they are pretty good + judges of the weather, know which way the wind sets, and whether the + Dutch mail be come in. As they lie at the mercy of the first man they + meet, and are grave or impertinent all the day long, according to the + notions which they have imbibed in the morning, I would earnestly + entreat them not to stir out of their chambers till they have read + this paper; and do promise them that I will daily instil into them + such sound and wholesome sentiments as shall have a good effect on + their conversation for the ensuing twelve hours."[43] + +For these, and other men of leisure, a kind of paper differing from the +_Tatler_, which proposed only to retail the various species of gossip in +the coffee-houses, was required, and the new entertainment was provided by +the original design of an imaginary club, consisting of several ideal +types of character grouped round the central figure of the Spectator. They +represent considerable classes or sections of the community, and are, as a +rule, men of strongly marked opinions, prejudices, and foibles, which +furnish inexhaustible matter of comment to the Spectator himself, who +delivers the judgments of reason and common-sense. Sir Roger de Coverley, +with his simplicity, his high sense of honour, and his old-world +reminiscences, reflects the country gentleman of the best kind; Sir Andrew +Freeport expresses the opinions of the enterprising, hard-headed, and +rather hard-hearted moneyed interest; Captain Sentry speaks for the army; +the Templar for the world of taste and learning; the clergyman for +theology and philosophy; while Will Honeycomb, the elderly man of fashion, +gives the Spectator many opportunities for criticizing the traditions of +morality and breeding surviving from the days of the Restoration. Thus, +instead of the division of places which determined the arrangement of the +_Tatler_, the different subjects treated in the _Spectator_ are +distributed among a variety of persons: the Templar is substituted for the +Grecian Coffee-House and Will's; Will Honeycomb takes the place of +White's; and Captain Sentry, whose appearances are rare, stands for the +more voluminous article on foreign intelligence published in the old +periodical, under the head of St. James's. The Spectator himself finds a +natural prototype in Isaac Bickerstaff, but his character is drawn with a +far greater finish and delicacy, and is much more essential to the design +of the paper which he conducts, than was that of the old astrologer. + +The aim of the Spectator was to establish a rational standard of conduct +in morals, manners, art, and literature. + + "Since," says he in one of his early numbers, "I have raised to myself + so great an audience, I shall spare no pains to make their instruction + agreeable and their diversion useful. For which reason I shall + endeavour to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with + morality, that my readers may, if possible, both ways find their + account in the speculation of the day. And to the end that their + virtue and discretion may not be short, transient, intermitting starts + of thought, I have resolved to refresh their memories from day to day + till I have recovered them out of that desperate state of vice and + folly into which the age has fallen. The mind that lies fallow but a + single day sprouts up in follies that are only to be killed by a + constant and assiduous culture. It was said of Socrates that he + brought Philosophy down from heaven to inhabit among men; and I shall + be ambitious to have it said of me that I have brought Philosophy out + of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and + assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses."[44] + +Johnson, in his _Life of Addison_, says that the task undertaken in the +_Spectator_ was "first attempted by Casa in his book of _Manners_, and +Castiglione in his _Courtier_; two books yet celebrated in Italy for +purity and elegance, and which, if they are now less read, are neglected +only because they have effected that reformation which their authors +intended, and their precepts now are no longer wanted." He afterwards +praises the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ by saying that they "adjusted, like +Casa, the unsettled practice of daily intercourse by propriety and +politeness, and, like La Bruyère, exhibited the characters and manners of +the age." This commendation scarcely does justice to the work of Addison +and Steele. Casa, a man equally distinguished for profligacy and +politeness, merely codified in his _Galateo_ the laws of good manners +which prevailed in his age. He is the Lord Chesterfield of Italy. +Castiglione gives instructions to the young courtier how to behave in such +a manner as to make himself agreeable to his prince. La Bruyère's +characters are no doubt the literary models of those which appear in the +_Spectator_. But La Bruyère merely described what he saw, with admirable +wit, urbanity, and scholarship, but without any of the earnestness of a +moral reformer. He could never have conceived the character of Sir Roger +de Coverley; and, though he was ready enough to satirise the follies of +society as an observer from the outside, to bring "philosophy out of +closets and libraries, to dwell in clubs and assemblies," was far from +being his ambition. He would probably have thought the publication of a +newspaper scarcely consistent with his position as a gentleman. + +A very large portion of the _Spectator_ is devoted to reflections on the +manners of women. Addison saw clearly how important a part the female sex +was destined to play in the formation of English taste and manners. +Removed from the pedestal of enthusiastic devotion on which they had been +placed during the feudal ages, women were treated under the Restoration as +mere playthings and luxuries. As manners became more decent they found +themselves secured in their emancipated position but destitute of serious +and rational employment. It was Addison's object, therefore, to enlist the +aid of female genius in softening, refining, and moderating the gross and +conflicting tastes of a half-civilised society. + + "There are none," he says, "to whom this paper will be more useful + than to the female world. I have often thought there has not been + sufficient pains taken in finding out proper employments and + diversions for the fair ones. Their amusements seem contrived for + them, rather as they are women than as they are reasonable creatures, + and are more adapted to the sex than to the species. The toilet is + their great scene of business, and the right adjustment of their hair + the principal employment of their lives. The sorting of a suit of + ribands is reckoned a very good morning's work; and if they make an + excursion to a mercer's or a toy shop, so great a fatigue makes them + unfit for anything else all the day after. Their more serious + occupations are sewing and embroidery, and their greatest drudgery the + preparations of jellies and sweetmeats. This, I say, is the state of + ordinary women, though I know there are multitudes of those of a more + elevated life and conversation that move in an exalted sphere of + knowledge and virtue, that join all the beauties of the mind to the + ornaments of dress, and inspire a kind of awe and respect, as well as + of love, into their male beholders. I hope to increase the number of + these by publishing this daily paper, which I shall always endeavour + to make an innocent, if not an improving entertainment, and by that + means, at least, divert the minds of my female readers from greater + trifles."[45] + +To some of the vigorous spirits of the age the mild and social character +of the _Spectator's_ satire did not commend itself. Swift, who had +contributed several papers to the _Tatler_ while it was in its infancy, +found it too feminine for his taste. "I will not meddle with the +_Spectator_," says he in his _Journal to Stella_, "let him _fair sex_ it +to the world's end." Personal pique, however, may have done as much as a +differing taste to depreciate the _Spectator_ in the eyes of the author +of the _Tale of a Tub_, for he elsewhere acknowledges its merits. "The +_Spectator_," he writes to Stella, "is written by Steele, with Addison's +help; it is often very pretty.... But I never see him (Steele) or +Addison." That part of the public to whom the paper was specially +addressed read it with keen relish. In the ninety-second number a +correspondent, signing herself "Leonora,"[46] writes: + + "Mr. Spectator,--Your paper is a part of my tea-equipage; and my + servant knows my humour so well that, calling for my breakfast this + morning (it being past my usual hour), she answered, the _Spectator_ + was not yet come in, but the tea-kettle boiled, and she expected it + every moment." + +In a subsequent number "Thomas Trusty" writes: + + "I constantly peruse your paper as I smoke my morning's pipe (though I + can't forbear reading the motto before I fill and light), and really + it gives a grateful relish to every whiff; each paragraph is fraught + either with useful or delightful notions, and I never fail of being + highly diverted or improved. The variety of your subjects surprises me + as much as a box of pictures did formerly, in which there was only one + face, that by pulling some pieces of isinglass over it was changed + into a grave senator or a merry-andrew, a polished lady or a nun, a + beau or a blackamoor, a prude or a coquette, a country squire or a + conjuror, with many other different representations very entertaining + (as you are), though still the same at the bottom."[47] + +The _Spectator_ was read in all parts of the country. + + "I must confess," says Addison, as his task was drawing to an end, + "that I am not a little gratified and obliged by that concern which + appears in this great city upon my present design of laying down this + paper. It is likewise with much satisfaction that I find some of the + most outlying parts of the kingdom alarmed upon this occasion, having + received letters to expostulate with me about it from several of my + readers of the remotest boroughs of Great Britain."[48] + +With how keen an interest the public entered into the humour of the paper +is shown by the following letter, signed "Philo-Spec:" + + "I was this morning in a company of your well-wishers, when we read + over, with great satisfaction, Tully's observations on action adapted + to the British theatre, though, by the way, we were very sorry to find + that you have disposed of another member of your club. Poor Sir Roger + is dead, and the worthy clergyman dying; Captain Sentry has taken + possession of a fair estate; Will Honeycomb has married a farmer's + daughter; and the Templar withdraws himself into the business of his + own profession."[49] + +It is no wonder that readers anticipated with regret the dissolution of a +society that had provided them with so much delicate entertainment. +Admirably as the club was designed for maintaining that variety of +treatment on which Mr. Trusty comments in the letter quoted above, the +execution of the design is deserving of even greater admiration. The skill +with which the grave speculations of the _Spectator_ are contrasted with +the lively observations of Will Honeycomb on the fashions of the age, and +these again are diversified with papers descriptive of character or +adorned with fiction, while the letters from the public outside form a +running commentary on the conduct of the paper, cannot be justly +appreciated without a certain effort of thought. But it may safely be said +that, to have provided society day after day, for more than two years, +with a species of entertainment which, nearly two centuries later, retains +all its old power to interest and delight, is an achievement unique in the +history of literature. Even apart from the exquisite art displayed in +their grouping, the matter of many of the essays in the _Spectator_ is +still valuable. The vivid descriptions of contemporary manners, the +inimitable series of sketches of Sir Roger de Coverley, the criticisms in +the papers on _True and False Wit_ and Milton's _Paradise Lost_, have +scarcely less significance for ourselves than for the society for which +they were immediately written. + +Addison's own papers were 274 in number, as against 236 contributed by +Steele. They were, as a rule, signed with one of the four letters C. L. +I. O., either because, as Tickell seems to hint in his _Elegy_, they +composed the name of one of the Muses, or, as later scholars have +conjectured, because they were respectively written from four different +localities--viz., Chelsea, London, Islington, and the Office. + +The sale of the _Spectator_ was doubtless very large relatively to the +number of readers in Queen Anne's reign. Johnson, indeed, computes the +number sold daily to have been only sixteen hundred and eighty, but he +seems to have overlooked what Addison himself says on the subject very +shortly after the paper had been started: "My publisher tells me that +there are already three thousand of them distributed every day."[50] This +number must have gone on increasing with the growing reputation of the +_Spectator_. When the Preface of the _Four Sermons_ of Dr. Fleetwood, +Bishop of Llandaff, was suppressed by order of the House of Commons, the +_Spectator_ printed it in its 384th number, thus conveying, as the Bishop +said in a letter to Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, "fourteen thousand copies +of the condemned preface into people's hands that would otherwise have +never seen or heard of it." Making allowance for the extraordinary +character of the number, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the usual +daily issue of the _Spectator_ to readers in all parts of the kingdom +would, towards the close of its career, have reached ten thousand copies. +The separate papers were afterwards collected into octavo volumes, which +were sold, like the volumes of the _Tatler_, for a guinea apiece. Steele +tells us that more than nine thousand copies of each volume were sold +off.[51] + +Nothing could have been better timed than the appearance of the +_Spectator_; it may indeed be doubted whether it could have been produced +with success at any other period. Had it been projected earlier, while +Addison was still in office, his thoughts would have been diverted to +other subjects, and he would have been unlikely to survey the world with +quite impartial eyes; had the publication been delayed it would have come +before the public when the balance of all minds was disturbed by the +dangers of the political situation. The difficulty of preserving +neutrality under such circumstances was soon shown by the fate of the +_Guardian_. Shortly after the _Spectator_ was discontinued this new paper +was designed by the fertile invention of Steele, with every intention of +keeping it, like its predecessor, free from the entanglements of party. +But it had not proceeded beyond the forty-first number when the vehement +partizanship of Steele was excited by the Tory _Examiner_; in the 128th +number appeared a letter, signed "An English Tory," calling for the +demolition of Dunkirk, while soon afterwards, finding that his political +feelings were hampered by the design on which the _Guardian_ was +conducted, he dropped it and replaced it with a paper called the +_Englishman_. Addison himself, who had been a frequent contributor to the +_Guardian_, did not aid in the _Englishman_, of the violent party tone of +which he strongly disapproved. A few years afterwards the old friends and +coadjutors in the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ found themselves maintaining an +angry controversy in the opposing pages of the _Old Whig_ and the +_Plebeian_. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +_CATO._ + + +It is a peculiarity in Addison's life that Fortune, as if conspiring with +the happiness of his genius, constantly furnished him with favourable +opportunities for the exercise of his powers. The pension granted him by +Halifax enabled him, while he was yet a young man, to add to his knowledge +of classical literature an intimate acquaintance with the languages and +governments of the chief European states. When his fortunes were at the +lowest ebb on his return from his travels, his introduction to Godolphin +by Halifax, the consequence of which was _The Campaign_, procured him at +once celebrity and advancement. The appearance of the _Tatler_, though due +entirely to the invention of Steele, prepared the way for development of +the genius that prevailed in the _Spectator_. But the climax of Addison's +good fortune was certainly the successful production of _Cato_, a play +which, on its own merits, might have been read with interest by the +scholars of the time, but which could scarcely have succeeded on the stage +if it had not been appropriated and made part of our national life by the +violence of political passion. + +Addison had not the genius of a dramatist. The grace, the irony, the +fastidious refinement which give him such an unrivalled capacity in +describing and criticising the humours of men as a _spectator_ did not +qualify him for imaginative sympathy with their actions and passions. But, +like most men of ability in that period, his thoughts were drawn towards +the stage, and even in Dryden's lifetime he had sent him a play in +manuscript, asking him to use his interest to obtain its performance. The +old poet returned it, we are told, "with many commendations, but with an +expression of his opinion that on the stage it would not meet with its +deserved success." Addison, nevertheless, persevered in his attempts, and +during his travels he wrote four acts of the tragedy of _Cato_, the design +of which, according to Tickell, he had formed while he was at Oxford, +though he certainly borrowed many incidents in the play from a tragedy on +the same subject which he saw performed at Venice.[52] It is +characteristic, however, of the undramatic mood in which he executed his +task that the last act was not written till shortly before the performance +of the play, many years later. As early as 1703 the drama was shown to +Cibber by Steele, who said that "whatever spirit Mr. Addison had shown in +his writing it, he doubted that he would ever have courage enough to let +his _Cato_ stand the censure of an English audience; that it had only been +the amusement of his leisure hours in Italy, and was never intended for +the stage." He seems to have remained of the same opinion on the very eve +of the performance of the play. "When Mr. Addison," says Pope, as reported +by Spence, "had finished his _Cato_ he brought it to me, desired to have +my sincere opinion of it, and left it with me for three or four days. I +gave him my opinion of it sincerely, which was, 'that I thought he had +better not act it, and that he would get reputation enough by only +printing it.' This I said as thinking the lines well written, but the +piece not theatrical enough. Some time after Mr. Addison said 'that his +own opinion was the same with mine, but that some particular friends of +his, whom he could not disoblige, insisted on its being acted.'"[53] + +Undoubtedly, Pope was right in principle, and anybody who reads the +thirty-ninth paper in the _Spectator_ may see not only that Addison was +out of sympathy with the traditions of the English stage, but that his +whole turn of thought disqualified him from comprehending the motives of +dramatic composition. "The modern drama," says he, "excels that of Greece +and Rome in the intricacy and disposition of the fable--but, what a +Christian writer would be ashamed to own, falls infinitely short of it in +the moral part of the performance." And the entire drift of the criticism +that follows relates to the thought, the sentiment, and the expression of +the modern drama, rather than to the really essential question, the nature +of the action. It is false criticism to say that the greatest dramas of +Shakespeare fail in morality as compared with those of the Greek +tragedians. That the manner in which the moral is conveyed is different in +each case is of course true, since the subjects of Greek tragedy were +selected from Greek mythology, and were treated by Æschylus and Sophocles, +at all events, in a religious spirit, whereas the plays of Shakespeare are +only indirectly Christian, and produce their effect by an appeal to the +individual conscience. None the less is it the case that _Macbeth_, +_Hamlet_, and _Lear_ have for modern audiences a far deeper moral meaning +than the _Agamemnon_ or the _Oedipus Tyrannus_. The tragic motive in Greek +tragedy is the impotence of man in the face of moral law or necessity; in +Shakespeare's tragedies it is the corruption of the will, some sin of the +individual against the law of God, which brings its own punishment. There +was nothing in this principle of which a Christian dramatist need have +been ashamed; and as regards Shakespeare, at any rate, it is evident that +Addison's criticism is unjust. + +It is, however, by no means undeserved in its application to the class of +plays which grew up after the Restoration. Under that _régime_ the moral +spirit of the Shakesperian drama entirely disappears. The king, whose +temper was averse to tragedy, and whose taste had been formed on French +models, desired to see every play end happily. "I am going to end a +piece," writes Roger, Earl of Orrery, to a friend, "in the French style, +because I have heard the King declare that he preferred their manner to +our own." The greatest tragedies of the Elizabethan age were transformed +to suit this new fashion; even King Lear obtained a happy deliverance from +his sufferings in satisfaction of the requirements of an effeminate Court. +Addison very wittily ridicules this false taste in the fortieth number of +the _Spectator_. He is not less felicitous in his remarks on the +sentiments and the style of the Caroline drama, though he does not +sufficiently discriminate his censure, which he bestows equally on the +dramatists of the Restoration and on Shakespeare. Two main characteristics +appear in all the productions of the former epoch--the monarchical spirit +and the fashion of gallantry. The names of the plays speak for themselves: +on the one hand, _The Indian Emperor_, _Aurengzebe_, _The Indian Queen_, +_The Conquest of Granada_, _The Fate of Hannibal_; on the other, _Secret +Love_, _Tyrannic Love_, _Love and Vengeance_, _The Rival Queens_, +_Theodosius, or the Power of Love_, and numberless others of the same +kind. In the one set of dramas the poet sought to arouse the passion of +pity by exhibiting the downfall of persons of high estate; in the other +he appealed to the sentiment of romantic passion. Such were the fruits of +that taste for French romance which was encouraged by Charles II., and +which sought to disguise the absence of genuine emotion by the turgid +bombast of its sentiment and the epigrammatic declamation of its rhymed +verse. + +At the same time, the taste of the nation having been once turned into +French channels, a remedy for these defects was naturally sought for from +French sources; and just as the school of Racine and Boileau set its face +against the extravagances of the romantic coteries, so Addison and his +English followers, adopting the principles of the French classicists, +applied them to the reformation of the English theatre. Hence arose a +great revival of respect for the poetical doctrines of Aristotle, regard +for the unities of time and place, attention to the proprieties of +sentiment and diction--in a word, for all those characteristics of style +afterwards summed up in the phrase "correctness." + +This habit of thought, useful as an antidote to extravagance, was not +fertile as a motive of dramatic production. Addison worked with strict and +conscious attention to his critical principles: the consequence is that +his _Cato_, though superficially "correct," is a passionless and +mechanical play. He had combated with reason the "ridiculous doctrine in +modern criticism, that writers of tragedy are obliged to an equal +distribution of rewards and punishments, and an impartial execution of +poetical justice."[54] But his reasoning led him on to deny that the idea +of justice is an essential element in tragedy. "We find," says he, "that +good and evil happen alike to all men on this side the grave; and, as the +principal design of tragedy is to raise commiseration and terror in the +minds of the audience, we shall defeat this great end if we always make +virtue and innocence happy and successful.... The ancient writers of +tragedy treated men in their plays as they are dealt with in the world, by +making virtue sometimes happy and sometimes miserable, as they found it in +the fable which they made choice of, or as it might affect their audience +in the most agreeable manner."[55] But it is certain that the fable which +the two greatest of the Greek tragedians "made choice of" was always of a +religious nature, and that the idea of Justice was never absent from it; +it is also certain that Retribution is a vital element in all the +tragedies of Shakespeare. The notion that the essence of tragedy consists +in the spectacle of a good man struggling with adversity is a conception +derived through the French from the Roman Stoics; it is not found in the +works of the greatest tragic poets. + +This, however, was Addison's central motive, and this is what Pope, in his +famous Prologue, assigns to him as his chief praise: + + "Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move + The hero's glory or the virgin's love; + In pitying love we but our weakness show, + And wild ambition well deserves its woe. + Here tears shall flow from a more generous cause, + Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws: + He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise, + And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes. + Virtue confessed in human shape he draws-- + What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was: + No common object to your sight displays, + But what with pleasure heav'n itself surveys; + A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, + And greatly falling with a falling state." + +A falling state offers a tragic spectacle to the thought and the reason, +but not one that can be represented on the stage so as to move the +passions of the spectators. The character of Cato, as exhibited by +Addison, is an abstraction, round which a number of other lay figures are +skilfully grouped for the delivery of lofty and appropriate sentiments. +Juba, the virtuous young prince of Numidia, the admirer of Cato's virtue, +Portius and Marcus, Cato's virtuous sons, and Marcia, his virtuous +daughter, are all equally admirable and equally lifeless. Johnson's +criticism of the play leaves little to be said: + + "About things," he observes, "on which the public thinks long it + commonly attains to think right; and of _Cato_ it has not been + unjustly determined that it is rather a poem in dialogue than a drama, + rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant language than a + representation of natural affections, or of any state probable or + possible in human life. Nothing here 'excites or assuages emotion;' + here is 'no magical power of raising fantastic terror or wild + anxiety.' The events are expected without solicitude, and are + remembered without joy or sorrow. Of the agents we have no care; we + consider not what they are doing or what they are suffering; we wish + only to know what they have to say. Cato is a being above our + solicitude; a man of whom the gods take care, and whom we leave to + their care with heedless confidence. To the rest neither gods nor men + can have much attention, for there is not one among them that strongly + attracts either affection or esteem. But they are made the vehicles of + such sentiments and such expressions that there is scarcely a scene in + the play which the reader does not wish to impress upon his memory." + +To this it may be added that, from the essentially undramatic bent of +Addison's genius, whenever he contrives a train of incident he manages to +make it a little absurd. Dennis has pointed out with considerable humour +the consequences of his conscientious adherence to the unity of place, +whereby every species of action in the play--love-making, conspiracy, +debating, and fighting--is made to take place in the "large hall in the +governor's palace of Utica." It is strange that Addison's keen sense of +the ridiculous, which inspired so happily his criticisms on the +allegorical paintings at Versailles,[56] should not have shown him the +incongruities which Dennis discerned; but, in truth, they pervade the +atmosphere of the whole play. All the actors--the distracted lovers, the +good young man, Juba, and the blundering conspirator, Sempronius--seem to +be oppressed with an uneasy consciousness that they have a character to +sustain, and are not confident of coming up to what is expected of them. +This is especially the case with Portius, a pragmatic young Roman, whose +praiseworthy but futile attempts to unite the qualities of Stoical +fortitude, romantic passion, and fraternal loyalty, exhibit him in a +position of almost comic embarrassment. According to Pope, "the love part +was flung in after, to comply with the popular taste;" but the removal of +these scenes would make the play so remarkably barren of incident that it +is a little difficult to credit the statement. + +The deficiencies of _Cato_ as an acting play were, however, more than +counterbalanced by the violence of party spirit, which insisted on +investing the comparatively tame sentiments assigned to the Roman +champions of liberty with a pointed modern application. In 1713 the rage +of the contending factions was at its highest point. The Tories were +suspected, not without reason, of designs against the Act of Settlement; +the Whigs, on the other hand, were still suffering in public opinion from +the charge of having, for their own advantage, protracted the war with +Louis XIV. Marlborough had been accused in 1711 of receiving bribes while +commander-in-chief, and had been dismissed from all his employments. +Disappointment, envy, revenge, and no doubt a genuine apprehension for the +public safety, inspired the attacks of the Whigs upon their rivals; and +when it was known that Addison had in his drawers an unfinished play on so +promising a subject as _Cato_, great pressure was put upon him by his +friends to complete it for the stage. Somewhat unwillingly, apparently, he +roused himself to the task. So small, indeed, was his inclination for it, +that he is said in the first instance to have asked Hughes, afterwards +author of the _Siege of Damascus_, to write a fifth act for him. Hughes +undertook to do so, but on returning a few days afterwards with his own +performance, he found that Addison had himself finished the play. In spite +of the judgment of the critics, _Cato_ was quickly hurried off for +rehearsal, doubtless with many fears on the part of the author. His +anxieties during this period must have been great. "I was this morning," +writes Swift to Stella on the 6th of April, "at ten, at the rehearsal of +Mr. Addison's play, called _Cato_, which is to be acted on Friday. There +was not half a score of us to see it. We stood on the stage, and it was +foolish enough to see the actors prompted every moment, and the poet +directing them, and the drab that acts Cato's daughter (Mrs. Oldfield) out +in the midst of a passionate part, and then calling out, 'What's next?'" + +Mrs. Oldfield not only occasionally forgot the poet's text, she also +criticised it. She seems to have objected to the original draft of a +speech of Portius in the second scene of the third act; and Pope, whose +advice Addison appears to have frequently asked, suggested the present +reading: + + "Fixt in astonishment, I gaze upon thee + Like one just blasted by a stroke from heaven + Who pants for breath, and _stiffens, yet alive_, + In dreadful looks: a monument of wrath."[57] + +Pope also proposed the alteration of the last line in the play from + + "And oh, 'twas this that ended Cato's life," + +to + + "And robs the guilty world of Cato's life;" + +and he was generally the cause of many modifications. "I believe," said he +to Spence, "Mr. Addison did not leave a word unchanged that I objected to +in his _Cato_."[58] + +On the 13th of April the play was ready for performance, and contemporary +accounts give a vivid picture of the eagerness of the public, the +excitement of parties, and the apprehensions of the author. "On our first +night of acting it," says Cibber, in his Apology, speaking of the +subsequent representation at Oxford, "our house was, in a manner, +invested, and entrance demanded by twelve o'clock at noon; and before one +it was not wide enough for many who came too late for their places. The +same crowds continued for three days together--an uncommon curiosity in +that place; and the death of Cato triumphed over the injuries of Cæsar +everywhere." The prologue--a very fine one--was contributed by Pope; the +epilogue--written, according to the execrable taste fashionable after the +Restoration, in a comic vein--by Garth. As to the performance itself, a +very lively record of the effect it produced remains in Pope's letter to +Trumbull of the 30th April, 1713: + + "Cato was not so much the wonder of Rome in his days as he is of + Britain in ours; and though all the foolish industry possible had been + used to make it thought a party play, yet what the author said of + another may the most properly be applied to him on this occasion: + + 'Envy itself is dumb, in wonder lost, + And factions strive who shall applaud him most!'[59] + + The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one side of + the theatre were echoed back by the Tories on the other, while the + author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause + proceeding more from the hand than the head. This was the case, too, + with the Prologue-writer, who was clapped into a staunch Whig at the + end of every two lines. I believe you have heard that, after all the + applauses of the opposite faction, my Lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, + who played Cato, into the box, between one of the acts, and presented + him with fifty guineas, in acknowledgment, as he expressed it, for + defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator. + The Whigs are unwilling to be distanced this way, and therefore design + a present to the same Cato very speedily; in the meantime they are + getting ready as good a sentence as the former on their side; so + betwixt them it is probable that Cato (as Dr. Garth expressed it) may + have something to live upon after he dies." + +The Queen herself partook, or feigned to partake, of the general +enthusiasm, and expressed a wish that the play should be dedicated to her. +This honour had, however, been already designed by the poet for the +Duchess of Marlborough, so that, finding himself unable under the +circumstances to fulfil his intentions, he decided to leave the play +without any dedication. _Cato_ ran for the then unprecedented period of +thirty-five nights. Addison appears to have behaved with great liberality +to the actors, and, at Oxford, to have handed over to them all the profits +of the first night's performance; while they in return, Cibber tells us, +thought themselves "obliged to spare no pains in the proper decorations" +of the piece. + +The fame of _Cato_ spread from England to the Continent. It was twice +translated into Italian, twice into French, and once into Latin; a French +and a German imitation of it were also published. Voltaire, to whom +Shakespeare appeared no better than an inspired barbarian, praises it in +the highest terms. "_The first English writer who composed a regular +tragedy_ and infused a spirit of elegance through every part of it was," +says he, "the illustrious Mr. Addison. His _Cato_ is a masterpiece, both +with regard to the diction and the harmony and beauty of the numbers. The +character of Cato is, in my opinion, greatly superior to that of Cornelia +in the _Pompey_ of Corneille, for Cato is great without anything of +fustian, and Cornelia, who besides is not a necessary character, tends +sometimes to bombast." Even he, however, could not put up with the +love-scenes: + + "Addison l'a déjà tenté; + C'étoit le poëte des sâges, + Mais il étoit trop concerté, + Et dans son Caton si vanté + Les deux filles en vérité, + Sont d'insipides personages. + Imitez du grand Addison + Seulement ce qu'il a de bon." + +There were, of course, not wanting voices of detraction. A graduate of +Oxford attacked _Cato_ in a pamphlet entitled _Mr. Addison turned Tory_, +in which the party spirit of the play was censured. Dr. Sewell, a +well-known physician of the day--afterwards satirised by Pope as "Sanguine +Sewell"--undertook Addison's defence, and showed that he owed his success +to the poetical, and not to the political, merits of his drama. A much +more formidable critic appeared in John Dennis, a specimen of whose +criticism on _Cato_ is preserved in Johnson's _Life_, and who, it must be +owned, went a great deal nearer the mark in his judgment than did +Voltaire. Dennis had many of the qualities of a good critic. Though his +judgment was often overborne by his passion, he generally contrived to +fasten on the weak points of the works which he criticised, and he at once +detected the undramatic character of _Cato_. His ridicule of the +absurdities arising out of Addison's rigid observance of the unity of +place is extremely humorous and quite unanswerable. But, as usual, he +spoiled his case by the violence and want of discrimination in his +censure, which betrayed too plainly the personal feelings of the writer. +It is said that Dennis was offended with Addison for not having adequately +exhibited his talents in the _Spectator_ when mention was made of his +works; and he certainly did complain in a published letter that Addison +had chosen to quote a couplet from his translation of Boileau in +preference to another from a poem on the battle of Ramilies, which he +himself thought better of. But the fact seems to have been overlooked that +Dennis had other grounds for resentment. In the 40th number of the +_Spectator_ the writer speaks of "a ridiculous doctrine of modern +criticism, that they (tragic writers) are obliged to an equal distribution +of rewards and punishments, and an impartial execution of poetical +justice." This was a plain stroke at Dennis, who was a well-known advocate +of the doctrine; and a considerable portion of the critic's gall was +therefore expended on Addison's violation of the supposed rule in _Cato_. + +Looking at _Cato_ from Voltaire's point of view--which was Addison's +own--and having regard to the spirit of elegance infused through every +part of it, there is much to admire in the play. It is full of pointed +sentences, such as-- + + "'Tis not in mortals to command success, + But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it." + +It has also many fine descriptive passages, the best of which, perhaps, +occurs in the dialogue between Syphax and Juba respecting civilised and +barbarian virtues: + + "Believe me, prince, there's not an African + That traverses our vast Numidian deserts + In quest of prey, and lives upon his bow, + But better practises these boasted virtues. + Coarse are his meals, the fortune of the chase; + Amidst the running streams he slakes his thirst, + Toils all the day, and at th' approach of night + On the first friendly bank he throws him down, + Or rests his head upon a rock till morn-- + Then rises fresh, pursues his wonted game, + And if the following day he chance to find + A new repast, or an untasted spring, + Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury." + +But in all those parts of the poem where action and not ornament is +demanded, we seem to perceive the work of a poet who was constantly +thinking of what his characters ought to say in the situation, rather than +of one who was actually living with them in the situation itself. Take +Sempronius' speech to Syphax, describing the horrors of the conspirator's +position: + + "Remember, Syphax, we must work in haste: + Oh think what anxious moments pass between + The birth of plots and their last fatal period. + Oh! 'tis a dreadful interval of time, + Filled up with horror all, and big with death! + Destruction hangs on every word we speak, + On every thought, till the concluding stroke + Determines all, and closes our design." + +Compare with this the language of real tragedy, the soliloquy of Brutus in +_Julius Cæsar_, on which Addison apparently meant to improve: + + "Since Cassius first did whet me against Cæsar + I have not slept. + Between the acting of a dreadful thing + And the first motion, all the interim is + Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream: + The genius and the mortal instruments + Are then in council; and the state of man, + Like to a little kingdom, suffers then + The nature of an insurrection." + +These two passages are good examples of the French and English ideals of +dramatic diction, though the lines from _Cato_ are more figurative than is +usual in that play. Addison deliberately aimed at this French manner. "I +must observe," says he, "that when our thoughts are great and just they +are often obscured by the sounding phrases, hard metaphors, and forced +expressions in which they are clothed. Shakespeare is often very faulty in +this particular."[60] Certainly he is; but who does not see that, in spite +of his metaphoric style, the speech of Brutus just quoted is far simpler +and more natural than the elegant "correctness" of Sempronius. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +ADDISON'S QUARREL WITH POPE. + + +It has been said that with _Cato_ the good fortune of Addison reached its +climax. After his triumph in the theatre, though he filled great offices +in the State and wedded "a noble wife," his political success was marred +by disagreements with one of his oldest friends; while with the Countess +of Warwick, if we are to believe Pope, he "married discord." Added to +which he was unlucky enough to incur the enmity of the most poignant and +vindictive of satiric poets, and a certain shadow has been for ever thrown +over his character by the famous verses on "Atticus." It will be +convenient in this chapter to investigate, as far as is possible, the +truth as to the quarrel between Pope and Addison. The latter has hitherto +been at a certain disadvantage with the public, since the facts of the +case were entirely furnished by Pope, and, though his account was +dissected with great acuteness by Blackstone in the _Biographia +Britannica_, the partizans of the poet were still able to plead that his +uncontradicted statements could not be disposed of by mere considerations +of probability. + +Pope's account of his final rupture with Addison is reported by Spence as +follows: "Philips seems to have been encouraged to abuse me in +coffee-houses and conversations. Gildon wrote a thing about Wycherley in +which he had abused both me and my relations very grossly. Lord Warwick +himself told me one day 'that it was in vain for me to endeavour to be +well with Mr. Addison; that his jealous temper would never admit of a +settled friendship between us; and, to convince me of what he had said, +assured me that Addison had encouraged Gildon to publish those scandals, +and had given him ten guineas after they were published.' The next day, +while I was heated with what I had heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison +to let him know 'that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his; +that, if I was to speak severely of him in return for it, it should not be +in such a dirty way; that I would rather tell him himself fairly of his +faults and allow his good qualities; and that it should be something in +the following manner.' I then subjoined the first sketch of what has since +been called my satire on Addison. He used me very civilly ever after; and +never did me any injustice, that I know of, from that time to his death, +which was about three years after."[61] + +Such was the story told by Pope in his own defence against the charge that +he had written and circulated the lines on Addison after the latter's +death. In confirmation of his evidence, and in proof of his own good +feeling for and open dealing with Addison, he inserted in the so-called +authorised edition of his correspondence in 1737 several letters written +apparently to Addison, while in what he pretended to be the surreptitious +edition of 1735 appeared a letter to Craggs, written in July, 1715, which, +as it contained many of the phrases and expressions used in the character +of Atticus, created an impression in the mind of the public that both +letter and verses were written about the same time. No suspicion as to the +genuineness of this correspondence was raised till the discovery of the +Caryll letters, which first revealed the fact that most of the pretended +letters to Addison had been really addressed to Caryll; that there had +been, in fact, no correspondence between Pope and Addison; and that, +therefore, in all probability, the letter to Craggs was also a fictitious +composition, inserted in the so-called surreptitious volume of 1735 to +establish the credit of Pope's own story. + +We must accordingly put aside, as undeserving of credence, the poet's +ingeniously constructed charge, at any rate in the particular shape in +which it is preferred, and must endeavour to form for ourselves such a +judgment as is rendered probable by the acknowledged facts of the case. +What is indisputable is that in 1715 a rupture took place between Addison +and Pope, in consequence of the injury which the translator of the _Iliad_ +conceived himself to have suffered from the countenance given to Tickell's +rival performance; and that in 1723 we find the first mention of the +satire upon Addison in a letter from Atterbury to Pope. The question is, +what blame attaches to Addison for his conduct in the matter of the two +translations; and what is the amount of truth in Pope's story respecting +the composition of the verses on Atticus. + +Pope made Addison's acquaintance in the year 1712. On the 20th of +December, 1711, Addison had noticed Pope's _Art of Criticism_ in the 253d +number of the _Spectator_--partly, no doubt, in consequence of his +perception of the merits of the poem, but probably at the particular +instigation of Steele, whose acquaintance with Pope may have been due to +the common friendship of both with Caryll. The praise bestowed on the +_Essay_ (as it was afterwards called) was of the finest and most liberal +kind, and was the more welcome because it was preceded by a censure +conveyed with admirable delicacy on "the strokes of ill-nature" which the +poem contained. Pope was naturally exceedingly pleased, and wrote to +Steele a letter of thanks under the impression that the latter was the +writer of the paper, a misapprehension which Steele at once hastened to +correct. "The paper," says he, "was written by one with whom I will make +you acquainted--which is the best return I can make to you for your +favour." + +These words were doubtless used by Steele in the warmth of his affection +for Addison, but they also express the general estimation in which the +latter was then held. He had recently established his man Button in a +coffee-house in Covent Garden, where, surrounded by his little senate, +Budgell, Tickell, Carey, and Philips, he ruled supreme over the world of +taste and letters. Something, no doubt, of the spirit of the coterie +pervaded the select assembly. Addison could always find a word of +condescending praise for his followers in the pages of the _Spectator_; he +corrected their plays and mended their prologues; and they on their side +paid back their patron with unbounded reverence, perhaps justifying the +satirical allusion of the poet to the "applause" so grateful to the ear of +Atticus: + + "While wits and Templars every sentence raise, + And wonder with a foolish face of praise." + +Pope, according to his own account, was admitted to the society, and left +it, as he said, because he found it sit too far into the night for his +health. It may, however, be suspected that the natures of the author of +the _Dunciad_ and of the creator of Sir Roger de Coverley, though touching +each other at many points, were far from naturally congenial; that the +essayist was well aware that the man who could write the _Essay on +Criticism_ had a higher capacity for poetry than either himself or any of +his followers; and that the poet, on his side, conscious of great if +undeveloped powers, was inclined to resent the air of patronage with which +he was treated by the King of Button's. Certain it is that the praise of +Pope by Addison in number 253 of the _Spectator_ is qualified (though by +no means unjustly), and that he is not spoken of with the same warmth as +Tickell and Ambrose Philips in number 523. "Addison," said Pope to Spence, +"seemed to value himself more upon his poetry than upon his prose, though +he wrote the latter with such particular ease, fluency, and +happiness."[62] This often happens; and perhaps the uneasy consciousness +that, in spite of the reputation which his _Campaign_ had secured for him, +he was really inferior to such men as John Philips and Tickell, made +Addison touchy at the idea of the entire circle being outshone by a new +candidate for poetical fame. + +Whatever jealousy, however, existed between the two was carefully +suppressed during the first year of their acquaintance. Pope showed +Addison the first draft of the _Rape of the Lock_, and, according to +Warburton (whose account must be received with suspicion), imparted to him +his design of adding the fairy machinery. If Addison really endeavoured to +dissuade the poet from making this exquisite addition, the latter was on +his side anxious that _Cato_, which, as has been said, was shown to him +after its completion, should not be presented on the stage; and his +advice, if tested by the result, would have been quite as open as +Addison's to an unfavourable construction. He wrote, however, for the play +the famous Prologue which Steele inserted, with many compliments, in the +_Guardian_. But not long afterwards the effect of the compliments was +spoiled by the comparatively cold mention of Pope's _Pastorals_ in the +same paper that contained a glowing panegyric on the _Pastorals_ of +Ambrose Philips. In revenge, Pope wrote his paper commending Philips' +performance and depreciating his own, the irony of which, it is said, +escaping the notice of Steele, was inserted by him in the _Guardian_, much +to the amusement of Addison and more to the disgust of Philips. + +The occasion on which Pope's pique against Addison began to develop into +bitter resentment is sufficiently indicated by the date which the poet +assigns to the first letter in the concocted correspondence--viz., July +20, 1713. This letter (which is taken, with a few slight alterations of +names, from one written to Caryll on November 19, 1712) opens as follows: + + "I am more joyed at your return than I should be at that of the sun, + so much as I wish for him this melancholy wet season; but it has a + fate too like yours to be displeasing to owls and obscure animals who + cannot bear his lustre. What puts me in mind of these night-birds was + John Dennis, whom I think you are best revenged upon, as the sun was + in the fable upon those bats and beastly birds above mentioned, only + by shining on. I am so far from esteeming it any misfortune, that I + congratulate you upon having your share in that which all the great + men and all the good men that ever lived have had their part of--envy + and calumny. To be uncensured and to be obscure is the same thing. You + may conclude from what I here say that it was never in my thoughts to + have offered you my pen in any direct reply to such a critic, but only + in some little raillery, not in defence of you, but in contempt of + him." + +The allusion is to the squib called _Dr. Norris' Narrative of the Frenzy +of John Dennis_, which, it appears, was shown to Addison by Pope before +its appearance, and after the publication of which Addison caused Steele +to write to Lintot in the following terms: + + "Mr. Lintot,--Mr. Addison desired me to tell you that he wholly + disapproves the manner of treating Mr. Dennis in a little pamphlet by + way of Mr. Norris' account. When he thinks fit to take notice of Mr. + Dennis' objections to his writings, he will do it in a way Mr. Dennis + shall have no just reason to complain of. But when the papers above + mentioned were offered to be communicated to him he said he could not, + either in honour or conscience, be privy to such a treatment, and was + sorry to hear of it.--I am, sir, your very humble servant." + +Pope's motive in writing the pamphlet was, as Johnson says, "to give his +resentment full play without appearing to revenge himself" for the attack +which Dennis had made on his own poems. Addison doubtless divined the +truth; but the wording of the letter which he caused a third person to +write to Lintot certainly seems studiously offensive to Pope, who had, +professedly at any rate, placed his pen at his service, and who had +connected his own name with _Cato_ by the fine Prologue he had written in +its praise. Lintot would of course have shown Pope Steele's letter, and we +may be sure that the lofty tone taken by Addison in speaking of the +pamphlet would have rankled bitterly in the poet's mind. + +At the same time Philips, who was naturally enraged with Pope on account +of the ridicule with which the latter had covered his _Pastorals_, +endeavoured to widen the breach by spreading a report that Pope had +entered into a conspiracy to write against the Whigs, and to undermine the +reputation of Addison. Addison seems to have lent a ready ear to these +accusations. At any rate Pope thought so; for when the good-natured +painter Jervas sought to bring about a composition, he wrote to him (27th +August, 1714): + + "What you mentioned of the friendly office you endeavoured to do + betwixt Mr. Addison and me deserves acknowledgment on my part. You + thoroughly know my regard to his character, and my propensity to + testify it by all ways in my power. You as thoroughly know the + scandalous meanness of that proceeding, which was used by Philips, to + make a man I so highly value suspect my disposition towards him. But + as, after all, Mr. Addison must be the judge in what regards himself, + and has seemed to be no very just one to me, so I must own to you I + expect nothing but civility from him, how much soever I wish for his + friendship. As for any offices of real kindness or service which it is + in his power to do me, I should be ashamed to receive them from any + man who had no better opinion of my morals than to think me a party + man, nor of my temper than to believe me capable of maligning or + envying another's reputation as a poet. So I leave it to time to + convince him as to both, to show him the shallow depths of those + half-witted creatures who misinformed him, and to prove that I am + incapable of endeavouring to lessen a person whom I would be proud to + imitate, and therefore ashamed to flatter. In a word, Mr. Addison is + sure of my respect at all times, and of my real friendship whenever he + shall think fit to know me for what I am." + +It is evident, from the tone of this letter, that all the materials for a +violent quarrel were in existence. On the one side was Addison, with +probably an instinctive dislike of Pope's character, intensified by the +injurious reports circulated against Pope in the "little senate" at +Button's; with a nature somewhat cold and reserved; and with something of +literary jealousy, partly arising from a sense of what was due to his +acknowledged supremacy, and partly from a perception that there had +appeared a very formidable "brother near the throne." On the side of Pope +there was an eager sensitiveness, ever craving for recognition and praise, +with an abnormal irritability prone to watch for, and reluctant to +forgive, anything in the shape of a slight or an injury. Slights and +injuries he already deemed himself to have received, and accordingly, when +Tickell, in 1715, published his translation of the First Book of the +_Iliad_ at the same time with his own translation of the first four books, +his smothered resentment broke into a blaze at what he imagined to be a +conspiracy to damage his poetical reputation. Many years afterwards, when +the quarrel between Addison and himself had become notorious, he arranged +his version of it for the public in a manner which is, indeed, far from +assisting us to a knowledge of the truth, but which enables us to +understand very clearly what was passing in his own mind at the time. + +The subscription for Pope's translation of the _Iliad_ was set on foot in +November, 1713. On the 10th October, 1714, having two books completed, he +wished to submit them--or at any rate he told the public so in 1735--to +Addison's judgment. This was at a date when, as he informed Spence, "there +had been a coldness between Mr. Addison and me" for some time. According +to the letter which appears in his published correspondence, he wrote to +Addison on the subject as follows: + + "I have been acquainted by one of my friends, who omits no + opportunities of gratifying me, that you have lately been pleased to + speak of me in a manner which nothing but the real respect I have for + you can deserve. May I hope that some late malevolences have lost + their effect?... As to what you have said of me I shall never believe + that the author of _Cato_ can speak one thing and think another. As a + proof that I account you sincere, I beg a favour of you: it is that + you would look over the two first books of my translation of Homer, + which are in the hands of Lord Halifax. I am sensible how much the + reputation of any poetical work will depend upon the character you + give it. It is therefore some evidence of the trust I repose in your + good will when I give you this opportunity of speaking ill of me with + justice, and yet expect you will tell me your truest thoughts at the + same time you tell others your most favourable ones."[63] + +Whether the facts reported in this letter were as fictitious as we have a +right to assume the letter itself to be, it is impossible to say; Pope at +any rate told Spence the following story, which is clearly meant to fall +in with the evidence of the correspondence: + + "On his meeting me there (Button's Coffee-House) he took me aside and + said he should be glad to dine with me at such a tavern if I would + stay till those people (Budgell and Philips) were gone. We went + accordingly, and after dinner Mr. Addison said 'that he had wanted for + some time to talk with me: that his friend Tickell had formerly, while + at Oxford, translated the first book of the _Iliad_. That he now + designed to print it, and had desired him to look it over: he must + therefore beg that I would not desire him to look over my first book, + because, if he did, it would have the air of double dealing.' I + assured him that I did not take it ill of Mr. Tickell that he was + going to publish his translation; that he certainly had as much right + to translate any author as myself; and that publishing both was + entering on a fair stage. I then added 'that I would not desire him to + look over my first book of the _Iliad_, because he had looked over Mr. + Tickell's, but could wish to have the benefit of his observations on + my second, which I had then finished, and which Mr. Tickell had not + touched upon.' Accordingly, I sent him the second book the next + morning; and in a few days he returned it with very high commendation. + Soon after it was generally known that Mr. Tickell was publishing the + first book of the _Iliad_ I met Dr. Young in the street, and, upon our + falling into that subject, the doctor expressed a great deal of + surprise at Tickell's having such a translation by him so long. He + said that it was inconceivable to him, and that there must be some + mistake in the matter; that he and Tickell were so intimately + acquainted at Oxford that each used to communicate to the other + whatever verses they wrote, even to the least things; that Tickell + could not have been busied in so long a work there without his knowing + something of the matter; and that he had never heard a single word of + it till this occasion."[64] + +It is scarcely necessary to say that, after the light that has been +thrown on Pope's character by the detection of the frauds he practised in +the publication of his correspondence, it is impossible to give any +credence to the tales he poured into Spence's ear, tending to blacken +Addison's character and to exalt his own. Tickell's MS. of the translation +is in existence, and all the evidence tends to show that he was really the +author of it. But the above statement may be taken to reflect accurately +enough the rage, the resentment, and the suspicion which disturbed Pope's +own mind on the appearance of the rival translation. We can scarcely doubt +that it was this, and this alone, which roused him to such glowing +indignation and inspired him to write the character of Atticus. When the +verses were made public, after Addison's death, he probably perceived that +the public would not consider the evidence for Addison's collusion with +Tickell to be sufficiently strong to afford a justification for the +bitterness of the satire. It was necessary to advance some stronger plea +for such retaliation, especially as rumour confidently asserted that the +lines had not been written till after Addison was dead. Hence the story +told by Pope to Spence, proving first that the lines were not only written +during Addison's lifetime, but were actually sent to Addison himself; and +secondly, that they were only composed after the strongest evidence had +been afforded to the poet of his rival's malignant disposition towards +him. Hence, too, the publication in 1735 of the letter to Craggs, which, +containing as it did many of the phrases and metaphors employed in the +verses, seemed to supply indirect evidence that both were written about +the same period. + +With regard to Pope's story, it is not too much to say that it entirely +breaks down on examination. He professes to give it on the authority of +Lord Warwick himself, reckoning, of course, that the evidence of +Addison's own step-son would be conclusive with the public. But Addison +was not married to the Countess of Warwick till August, 1716; and in the +previous May he had bestowed the most liberal praise on Pope's translation +in one of his papers in the _Freeholder_. For Lord Warwick, therefore, to +argue at that date that Addison's "_jealous temper_ could never admit of a +settled friendship" between him and Pope was out of the question. If, on +the other hand, Lord Warwick told his story to Pope before his mother's +marriage, the difficulty is equally great. The letter to Craggs, which, if +it was ever sent to the latter at all, must obviously have been written in +the same "heat" which prompted the satire on Atticus, is dated July 15, +1715. This fits in well enough with the date of the dispute about the +rival translations of the _Iliad_, but not with Lord Warwick's story, for +Wycherley, after whose death Gildon, we are told, was hired by Addison to +abuse Pope, did not die till the December of that year. + +Again, the internal evidence of the character itself points to the fact +that, when it was first composed, its "heat" was not caused by any +information the poet had received of a transaction between Addison and +Gildon. The following is the first published version of the satire: + + "If Dennis writes and rails in furious pet + I'll answer Dennis when I am in debt. + If meagre Gildon draw his meaner quill, + I wish the man a dinner and sit still. + But should there _One_ whose better stars conspire + To form a bard, and raise a genius higher, + Blest with each talent and each art to please, + And born to live, converse, and write with ease; + Should such a one, resolved to reign alone, + Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, + View him with jealous yet with scornful eyes, + Hate him for arts that caused himself to rise, + Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, + And without sneering teach the rest to sneer; + Alike reserved to blame or to commend, + A timorous foe and a suspicious friend, + Fearing e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, + And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; + Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, + Just hint the fault, and hesitate dislike, + _Who when two wits on rival themes contest, + Approves of both, but likes the worst the best_: + Like Cato, give his little senate laws + And sits attentive to his own applause; + While wits and templars every sentence praise + And wonder with a foolish face of praise: + Who would not laugh if such a man there be? + Who would not weep if Addison were he?" + +There is sufficient corroborative evidence to allow us to believe that +these lines were actually written, as Pope says, during Addison's +lifetime; and if they were, the character of the satire would naturally +suggest that its motive was Addison's supposed conduct in the matter of +the two translations of the _Iliad_. There is nothing in them to indicate +any connection in the poet's mind between Gildon and Addison; on the other +hand, the allusion to the "two wits" shows the special grievance that +formed the basis, in his imagination, of the whole character. Afterwards +we find that "meaner quill" is replaced by "_venal_ quill;" and the +couplet about the rival translations is suppressed. The inference is +plain. When Pope was charged with having written the character after +Addison's death, he found himself obliged, in self-defence, to furnish a +moral justification for the satire; and, after his own unfortunate manner, +he proceeded to build up for himself a position on a number of systematic +falsehoods. His story was probably so far true that the character was +really written while Addison was alive; on the other hand, it is not +unreasonable to conclude that the entire statement about Gildon and Lord +Warwick is fabulous; and, as the assertion that the lines were sent to +Addison immediately after their composition is associated with these +myths, this, too, may fairly be dismissed as equally undeserving of +belief. + +As to the truth of the character of Atticus, however, it by no means +follows, because Pope's account of its origin is false, that the portrait +itself is altogether untrue. The partizans of Addison endeavour to prove +that it is throughout malicious and unjust. But no one can fail to +perceive that the character itself is a very extraordinary picture of +human nature; and there is no reason to suppose that Addison was superior +to the weaknesses of his kind. On the contrary, there is independent +evidence to show that he was strongly influenced by that literary jealousy +which makes the groundwork of the ideal character. This the piercing +intelligence of Pope no doubt plainly discerned; his inflamed imagination +built up on this foundation the wonderful fabric that has ever since +continued to enchant the world. The reader who is acquainted with his own +heart will probably not find much difficulty in determining what elements +in the character are derived from the substantial truth of nature, and +what are to be ascribed to the exaggerated perceptions of Genius. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE LAST YEARS OF HIS LIFE. + + +The representation of _Cato_ on the stage was a turning point in the +political fortunes of the Whigs. In the same month the Queen announced, on +the meeting of Parliament, the signature of the Treaty of Utrecht. +Whatever were the merits or demerits of the policy embodied in this +instrument, it offered many points of attack to a compact and vigorous +Opposition. The most salient of these was, perhaps, the alleged sacrifice +of British commercial interests through the incompetence or corruption of +the negotiators, and on this question the Whigs accordingly raised +vehement and reiterated debates. Addison aided his political friends with +an ingenious pamphlet on the subject, called _The late Trial and +Conviction of Count Tariff_, containing a narrative of the lawsuit between +the Count and Goodman Fact, which is written with much spirit and +pleasantry. It is said that he also took the field in answer to the +Address to the Queen from the magistrates of Dunkirk, wherein Her Majesty +was requested to waive the execution of the article in the Treaty +providing for the demolition of the harbour and fortifications of that +town; but if he wrote on the subject the pamphlet has not been preserved +by Tickell. His old friend Steele was meanwhile involving himself in +difficulties through the heat and impetuosity of his party passions. +After the painful abstinence from partizanship imposed on him by the +scheme of the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ he had founded the _Guardian_ on +similar lines, and had carried it on in a nonpolitical spirit up to the +128th number, when his Whig feelings could restrain themselves no longer, +and he inserted a letter signed by "An English Tory," demanding the +immediate demolition of Dunkirk. Soon afterwards he published a pamphlet +called _The Crisis_, to excite the apprehensions of the nation with regard +to the Protestant succession, and, dropping the _Guardian_, started the +_Englishman_, a political paper of extreme Whig views. He further +irritated the Tory majority in Parliament by supporting the proposal of +Sir Thomas Hanmer, as Speaker of the House of Commons, in a speech +violently reflecting on the rejected Bill for a Treaty of Commerce with +France. A complaint was brought before the House against the _Crisis_, and +two numbers of the _Englishman_, and Steele was ordered to attend and +answer for his conduct. After the charge had been preferred against him, +he asked for time to arrange his defence; and this being granted him, +after a warm debate, he reappeared in his place a few days later, and made +a long and able speech, which is said to have been prepared for him by +Addison, acting under the instructions of the Kit-Kat Club. It did not, +however, save him from being expelled from the House. + +Addison himself stood aloof, as far as was possible, from the heated +atmosphere of party, occupying his time chiefly with the execution of +literary designs. In 1713 he began a work on the Evidences of +Christianity, which he never finished, and in the last half of the year +1714 he completed the eighth volume of the _Spectator_. So moderate was +his political attitude that Bolingbroke was not without hopes of bringing +him over to the Tory side; an interview, however, convinced him that it +was useless to dream of converting Addison's steady constitutional +principle to his own ambitious schemes. + +The condition of the Tory party was indeed rapidly becoming desperate. Its +leaders were at open variance with each other. Oxford, a veteran +intriguer, was desirous of combining with the Whigs; the more daring and +brilliant Bolingbroke aimed at the restoration of the exiled Stuarts. His +influence, joined to natural family affection, prevailed with the Queen, +who was persuaded to deprive Oxford of the Treasurer's staff. But her +health was undermined, and a furious and indecent dispute between the two +Tory leaders in her own presence completely prostrated her. She was +carried from the Council, and sinking into a state of unconsciousness from +which she never recovered, died on the 1st of August, 1714. + +Meantime the Whigs were united and prepared. On the meeting of the +Council, George I. was proclaimed King without opposition: Lord-Justices +were authorised to administer affairs provisionally, and Addison was +appointed their Secretary. It is said, though on no good authority, that +having, in discharge of his office, to announce to George I. the death of +the Queen, Addison was embarrassed in his choice of phrases for the +occasion, and that the duty to which the best writer in the _Spectator_ +proved unequal was performed by a common clerk. Had Addison been quite +unfamiliar with public life this story would have been more credible, but +his experience in Ireland must have made him acquainted with the +peculiarities of official English; and some surviving specimens of his +public correspondence prove him to have been a sufficient master in the +art of saying nothing in a magnificent way. + +On the arrival of the King in England, the Earl of Sunderland was +appointed to succeed the Duke of Shrewsbury as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, +and he once more offered Addison the post of Chief Secretary. In that +office the latter continued till the Earl's resignation of the +Lord-Lieutenancy in August, 1715. It would appear to have been less +lucrative to him than when he previously held it, and, indeed, than he +himself had expected; the cause of this deficiency being, as he states, +"his Lordship's absence from that kingdom, and his not being qualified to +give out military commissions."[65] He is said, nevertheless, to have +shown the strictest probity and honour in his official dealings, and some +of his extant correspondence (the authenticity of which, however, is +guaranteed only by the unsatisfactory testimony of Curll) shows him to +have declined, in a very high-minded manner, a present of money, evidently +intended to secure his interest on behalf of an applicant. He seems to +have been in London almost as much as in Dublin during his tenure of +office, and he found time in the midst of his public business to compose +another play for the stage. + +There appears to be no good reason for doubting that _The Drummer_ was the +work of Addison. It is true that it was not included by Tickell in his +edition of his friend's writings; and Steele, in the letter to Congreve +which he prefixed to the second edition of the play, only says that +Addison sent for him when he was a patentee of Drury Lane Theatre, and +told him "that a gentleman then in the room had written a play which he +was sure I should like, but it was to be a secret; and he knew I would +take as much pains, since he recommended it, as I would for him." But +Steele could, under such circumstances, hardly have been deceived as to +the real authorship of the play, and if confirmatory evidence is required, +it is furnished by Theobald, who tells us that Addison informed him that +he had taken the character of Vellum, the steward, from Fletcher's +_Scornful Lady_. Addison was probably not anxious himself to assert his +right of paternity to the play. It was acted at Drury Lane, and, the name +of the author being unknown, was coldly received; a second performance of +it after Addison's death, when the authorship was proclaimed, was +naturally more successful; but, in fact, the piece is, like _Cato_, a +standing proof of Addison's deficiency in dramatic genius. The plot is +poor and trivial; nor does the dialogue, though it shows in many passages +traces of its author's peculiar vein of humour, make amends by its +brilliancy for the tameness of the dramatic situation. + +He was soon, however, called upon to employ his pen on a task better +suited to his powers. In September, 1715, there was a rising in Scotland +and in the North of England on behalf of the Pretender. The rebellion was +put down with little difficulty, but the position of the House of +Brunswick was far more precarious than on the surface it seemed to be. It +could count, no doubt, on the loyalty of a House of Commons elected when +the Tories were momentarily stunned by the death of Queen Anne, on the +faith of the army, and on the support of the moneyed interest. On the +other hand, the two most important classes in the kingdom--the landed +proprietors and the clergy--were generally hostile to the new _régime_, +and the influence exercised by the latter was of course exceedingly great +in days when the pulpit was still the chief instrument in the formation of +public opinion. The weight of some powerful writer was urgently needed on +the Whig side, and Addison--who in the preceding August had been obliged +to vacate his office of Secretary in consequence of the resignation of the +Lord-Lieutenant--was by common consent indicated as the man best qualified +for the task. There were indeed hot political partizans who questioned his +capacity. Steele said that "the Government had made choice of a lute when +they ought to have taken a trumpet." But if by the "trumpet" he was +modestly alluding to himself, it may very well be doubted if the objects +of the Government would have been attained by employing the services of +the author of the _Englishman_. What was wanted was not party invective, +but the calm persuasiveness of reason; a pen that could _prove_ to all +Tory country gentlemen and thoroughgoing High Churchmen that the +Protestant succession was indispensable to the safety of the principles +which each respectively considered to be of vital importance. This was the +task which lay before Addison, and which he accomplished with consummate +skill in the _Freeholder_. + +The name of the new paper was selected by him in order to suggest that +property was the basis of liberty; and his main argument, which he +introduces under constantly varying forms, is that there could be no +safety for property under a line of monarchs who claimed the dispensing +power, and no security for the liberties of the Church under kings of an +alien religion. In order to secure variety of treatment, the exact social +position of the _Freeholder_ is not defined: + + "At the same time that I declare I am a freeholder I do not exclude + myself from any other title. A freeholder may be either a voter or a + knight of the shire, a wit or a fox-hunter, a scholar or a soldier, an + alderman or a courtier, a patriot or a stock-jobber. But I choose to + be distinguished by this denomination, as the freeholder is the basis + of all other titles. Dignities may be grafted upon it, but this is the + substantial stock that conveys to them their life, taste, and beauty, + and without which they are blossoms that would fall away with every + shake of wind."[66] + +By this means he was able to impart liveliness to his theme, which he +diversifies by philosophical disquisition; by good-natured satire on the +prejudices of the country gentlemen; by frequent papers on his favourite +subject, "the fair sex;" and by occasional glances at literature. Though +his avowed object was to prove the superiority of the Whig over the Tory +theory of the Constitution, his "native moderation" never deserts him, and +he often lets his disgust at the stupidity of faction, and his preference +for social over political writing, appear in the midst of his argument. +The best papers in the series are undoubtedly the "Memoirs of a Preston +Rebel" and the "Tory Foxhunter," both of which are full of the exquisite +humour that distinguishes the sketches of Sir Roger de Coverley. The +_Freeholder_ was only continued for six months (December 23, 1715, to June +9, 1716), being published every Friday and Monday, and being completed in +fifty-five numbers. In the last number the essayist described the nature +of his work, and gave his reasons for discontinuing it: + + "It would not be difficult to continue a paper of this kind if one + were disposed to resume the same subjects and weary out the reader + with the same thoughts in a different phrase, or to ramble through the + cause of Whig and Tory without any certain aim or method in every + particular discourse. Such a practice in political writers is like + that of some preachers taken notice of by Dr. South, who, being + prepared only upon two or three points of doctrine, run the same round + with their audience from one end of the year to the other, and are + always forced to tell them, by way of preface, 'These are particulars + of so great importance that they cannot be sufficiently inculcated.' + To avoid this method of tautology, I have endeavoured to make every + paper a distinct essay upon some particular subject, without deviating + into points foreign to the tenor of each discourse. They are, indeed, + most of them essays upon Government, but with a view to the present + situation of affairs in Great Britain, so that, if they have the good + fortune to live longer than works of this nature generally do, future + readers may see in them the complexion of the times in which they were + written. However, as there is no employment so irksome as that of + transcribing out of one's self next to that of transcribing out of + others, I shall let drop the work, since there do not occur to me any + material points arising from our present situation which I have not + already touched upon." + +It was probably in reward for his services in publishing the _Freeholder_ +that he was made one of the Commissioners for Trade and Colonies. Soon +after his appointment to this office he married Charlotte, Countess of +Warwick, daughter of Sir Thomas Myddleton, of Chirk Castle, Denbighshire. +His attachment to the Countess is said to have begun years before; and +this seems not unlikely, for, though the story of his having been tutor to +the young Earl is obviously groundless, two charming letters of his to the +latter are in existence which show that as early as 1708 he took a strong +interest in the family. These letters, which are written entirely on the +subject of birds, may, of course, have been inspired merely by an +affection for the boy himself; but it is not unreasonable to suppose that +the writer felt a yet stronger interest in the mother, though her +indifference, or his natural diffidence, led him to disguise his feelings; +perhaps, indeed, the episode of Sir Roger de Coverley's love passage with +the cruel widow may be founded on personal experience. We have seen him in +1711 reporting to a friend that the loss of his place had involved that of +his mistress. Possibly the same hard-hearted mistress condescended to +relent when she saw her former lover once more on the road to high State +preferment. + +Report says that the marriage was not a happy one. The tradition, however, +like so many others about the same person, seems to have been derived from +Pope, who, in his _Epistle to Arbuthnot_, congratulates himself--with an +evident glance at Addison--on "not marrying discord with a noble wife." An +innuendo of this kind, and coming from such a quarter, ought not to be +accepted as evidence without some corroboration; and the only +corroboration which is forthcoming is a letter of Lady Mary Wortley +Montagu, who writes from Constantinople in 1717: "I received the news of +Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary of State with the less surprise in +that I know the post was offered to him before. At that time he declined +it; and I really believe he would have done well to decline it now. Such a +post as that and such a wife as the Countess do not seem to be, in +prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic, and we may see the day +when he will be glad to resign them both." Lady Mary, however, does not +hint that Addison was _then_ living unhappily with his wife; her +expressions seem to be inspired rather by her own sharp wit and a personal +dislike of the Countess than by any knowledge of discord in the household. +On the other hand, Addison speaks of his wife in a way which is scarcely +consistent with what Johnson calls "uncontradicted report." On March 20th, +1718, he writes to Swift: "Whenever you see England your company will be +the most acceptable in the world at Holland House, where you are highly +esteemed by Lady Warwick and the young Lord." A henpecked husband would +hardly have invited the Dean of St. Patrick's to be the witness of his +domestic discomfort. Nor do the terms of his will, dated only a month +before his death, indicate that he regarded his wife with feelings other +than those of affection and respect: "I do make and ordain my said dear +wife executrix of this my last will; and I do appoint her to be guardian +of my dear child, Charlotte Addison, until she shall attain her age of +one-and-twenty, being well assured that she will take due care of her +education, and provide for her in case she live to be married." On the +whole, it seems reasonable to put positive evidence of this kind against +those vague rumours of domestic unhappiness which, however unsubstantial, +are so easily propagated and so readily believed. + +In April, 1717, the dissensions between the two sections of the Whig +Cabinet, led respectively by Townshend and Sunderland, reached a climax, +and Townshend being worsted, Sunderland became Prime Minister. He at once +appointed his old subordinate one of the Secretaries of State, and Addison +filled the office for eleven months. "It is universally confessed," says +Johnson, "that he was unequal to the duties of his place." Here again the +"universal confession" dwindles on examination to something very +different. As far as his conduct in administration required to be defended +in Parliament, his inaptitude for the place was no doubt conspicuous. He +had been elected member of Parliament for Lostwithiel in 1708, and when +that election was set aside he was chosen for Malmesbury, a seat which he +retained for the rest of his life. He made, however, but one effort to +address the House, when, being confused with the cheers which greeted him, +he was unable to complete his sentence, and, resuming his seat, never +again opened his lips. + +But in other respects the evidence of his official incapacity seems to +proceed solely from his enemies. "Mr. Addison," said Pope to Spence, +"could not give out a common order in writing from his endeavouring always +to word it too finely. He had too beautiful an imagination to make a man +of business."[67] Copies of official letters and despatches written by +Addison are, however, in existence, and prove him to have been a +sufficient master of a business style, so that, though his lack of ability +as a speaker may well have impaired his efficiency as a member of the +Government, Johnson has little warrant for saying that "_finding by +experience his own inability_, he was forced to solicit his dismission +with a pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year." As a matter of fact, +Addison's own petition to the King and his private correspondence prove +with sufficient clearness that his resignation was caused entirely by his +failing health; while the congratulatory Latin verses addressed to him by +Vincent Bourne, on his recovery from one of his seizures of asthma, show +that his illness was of the most serious nature. + +He resigned his post, however, in March, 1718, with cheerful alacrity, and +appears to have looked forward to an active period of literary work, for +we are told that he meditated a tragedy on the death of Socrates, as well +as the completion of his book on the Evidences of Christianity. But this +was not to be; the exigencies of the Ministry in the following year +demanded the services of his pen. A Peerage Bill, introduced by +Sunderland, the effect of which was to cause the sovereign to divest +himself of his prerogative of creating fresh peers, had been vehemently +attacked by Steele in a pamphlet called the _Plebeian_, published March +14, 1719, which Addison undertook to answer in the _Old Whig_ (March 19). +The _Plebeian_ returned to the attack with spirit and with some acrimony +in two numbers published March 29th and 30th, and the _Old Whig_ made a +somewhat contemptuous reply on April 2nd. "Every reader," says Johnson, +"surely must regret that these two illustrious friends, after so many +years passed in confidence and endearment, in unity of interest, +conformity of opinion, and fellowship of study, should finally part in +acrimonious opposition. Such a controversy was '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." + +The rupture seems the more painful when we find Steele, in his third and +last _Plebeian_, published April 6th, taunting his opponent with his +tardiness in taking the field, at the very moment when his former friend +and school-fellow--unknown to him of course--was dying. Asthma, the old +enemy that had driven Addison from office, had returned; dropsy +supervened, and he died, 17th June, 1719, at Holland House, at the early +age of forty-seven. We may imagine the grief, contrition, and remorse that +must have torn the affectionate heart of Steele when he had found he had +been vexing the last hours of one whom, in spite of all their differences, +he loved so well. He had always regarded Addison with almost religious +reverence, which did not yield even to acts of severity on his friend's +part that would have estranged the feelings of men of a disposition less +simple and impulsive. Addison had once lent him £1000 to build a house at +Hampton Court, instructing his lawyer to recover the amount when due. On +Steele's failure to repay the money, his friend ordered the house and +furniture to be sold and the balance to be paid to Steele, writing to him +at the same time that he had taken the step to arouse him from his +lethargy. B. Victor, the actor, a friend of Steele, who is the authority +for the story, says that Steele accepted the reproof with "philosophical +composure," and that the incident caused no diminution in their +friendship. Political differences at last produced a coldness between +them, and in 1717 Steele writes to his wife, "I ask no favour of Mr. +Secretary Addison." Great must have been the revulsion of feeling in a man +of his nature when he learned that death had now rendered impossible the +renewal of the old associations. All the love, admiration, and enthusiasm +for Addison, which his heart and memory still preserved, broke out in the +letter to Congreve which he prefixed to _The Drummer_. + +Of the closing scene of Addison's life we know little except on rumour. A +report was current in Johnson's time, and reached the antiquary John +Nichols at the close of the last century, that his life was shortened by +over-drinking. But as usual the scandal, when traced to its source, seems +to originate with Pope, who told Spence that he himself was once one of +the circle at Button's, and left it because he found that their prolonged +sittings were injuring his health. It is highly probable that Addison's +phlegmatic temperament required to be aroused by wine into conversational +activity, and that he was able to drink more than most of his companions +without being affected by it; but to suppose that he indulged a sensual +appetite to excess is contrary alike to all that we know of his character +and to the direct evidence of Bishop Berkeley, who, writing of the first +performance of _Cato_, says: "I was present with Mr. Addison and a few +more friends in a side box, where we had a table and two or three flasks +of Burgundy and champagne, with which the author (who is a very sober man) +thought it necessary to support his spirits." + +Another story, told on the same questionable authority, represents him as +having sent on his death-bed for Gay, and asked his forgiveness for some +injury which he said he had done him, but which he did not specify. From +the more trustworthy report of Young we learn that he asked to see the +Earl of Warwick, and said to him, "See in what peace a Christian can die:" +words which are supposed to explain the allusion of the lines in Tickell's +elegy-- + + "He taught us how to live and (oh! too high + The price of knowledge) taught us how to die." + +His body, after lying in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, was buried by +night in Westminster Abbey. The service was performed by Atterbury, and +the scene is described by Tickell in a fine passage, probably inspired by +a still finer one written by his own rival and his friend's satirist: + + "Can I forget the dismal night that gave + My soul's best part for ever to the grave? + How silent did his old companions tread, + By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead, + Through breathing statues, then unheeded things, + Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings! + What awe did the slow solemn march inspire, + The pealing organ, and the pausing choir; + The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid, + And the last words that dust to dust conveyed! + While speechless o'er the closing grave we bend, + Accept these tears, thou dear departed friend! + Oh gone for ever; take this last adieu, + And sleep in peace next thy loved Montague."[68] + +He left by the Countess of Warwick one daughter, who lived in his old +house at Bilton, and died unmarried in 1797. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE GENIUS OF ADDISON. + + +Such is Addison's history, which, scanty as it is, goes far towards +justifying the glowing panegyric bestowed by Macaulay on "the unsullied +statesman, the accomplished scholar, the consummate painter of life and +manners, the great satirist who alone knew how to use ridicule without +abusing it; who, without inflicting a wound, effected a great social +reform; and who reconciled wit and virtue after a long and painful +separation, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy, and virtue +by fanaticism." It is wanting, no doubt, in romantic incident and personal +interest, but the same may be said of the life of Scott; and what do we +know of the personality of Homer and Shakespeare? The real life of these +writers is to be found in their work; and there, too, though on a +different level and in a different shape, are we to look for the character +of the creator of Sir Roger de Coverley. But, while it seems possible to +divine the personal tastes and feelings of Shakespeare and Scott under a +hundred different ideal forms of their own invention, it is not in these +that the genius of Addison most characteristically embodies itself. Did +his reputation rest on _Rosamond_ or _Cato_ or _The Campaign_, his name +would be little better known to us than any among that crowd of +mediocrities who have been immortalised in Johnson's _Lives of the +Poets_. The work of Addison consisted in building up a public opinion +which, in spite of its durable solidity, seems, like the great Gothic +cathedrals, to absorb into itself the individuality of the architect. A +vigorous effort of thought is required to perceive how strong this +individuality must have been. We have to reflect on the ease with which, +even in these days when the foundations of all authority are called in +question, we form judgments on questions of morals, breeding, and taste, +and then to dwell in imagination on the state of conflict in all matters +religious, moral, and artistic, which prevailed in the period between the +Restoration and the succession of the House of Hanover. To whom do we owe +the comparative harmony we enjoy? Undoubtedly to the authors of the +_Spectator_, and first among these, by universal consent, to Addison. + +Addison's own disposition seems to have been of that rare and admirable +sort which Hamlet praised in Horatio: + + "Thou hast been + As one in suffering all that suffers nothing: + A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards + Has ta'en with equal thanks; and blessed are those + Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled + That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger + To sound what stop she please." + +These lines fittingly describe the patient serenity and dignified +independence with which Addison worked his way amid great hardships and +difficulties to the highest position in the State; but they have a yet +more honourable application to the task he performed of reconciling the +social dissensions of his countrymen. "The blood and judgment well +commingled" are visible in the standard of conduct which he held up for +Englishmen in his writings, as well as in his use of the weapon of +ridicule against all aberrations from good breeding and common-sense. +Those only will estimate him at his true worth who will give, what Johnson +says is his due, "their days and nights" to the study of the _Spectator_. +But from the general reader less must be expected; and as the first +chapter of this volume has been devoted to a brief view of the disorder of +society with which Addison had to deal, it may be fitting in the last to +indicate some of the main points in which he is to be regarded as the +reconciler of parties and the founder of public opinion. + +I have shown how, after the final subversion by the Civil War of the +old-fashioned Catholic and Feudal standards of social life, two opposing +ideals of conduct remained harshly confronting each other in the +respective moral codes of the Court and the Puritans. The victorious +Puritans, averse to all the pleasures of sense and intolerant of the most +harmless of natural instincts, had oppressed the nation with a religious +despotism. The nation, groaning under the yoke, brought back its banished +monarch, but was soon shocked to find sensual Pleasure exalted into a +worship, and Impiety into a creed. Though civil war had ceased, the two +parties maintained a truceless conflict of opinion: the Puritan +proscribing all amusement because it was patronised by the godless +malignants; the courtiers holding that no gentleman could be religious or +strict in his morals without becoming tainted with the cant of the +Roundheads. This harsh antagonism of sentiment is humorously illustrated +by the excellent Sir Roger, who is made to moralise on the stupidity of +party violence by recalling an incident of his own boyhood: + + "The worthy knight, being but a stripling, had occasion to inquire + which was the way to St. Anne's Lane, upon which the person whom he + spoke to, instead of answering his question, called him a young + Popish cur, and asked him who made Anne a saint. The boy, being in + some confusion, inquired of the next he met which was the way to + Anne's Lane; but was called a prick-eared cur for his pains, and, + instead of being shown the way, was told that she had been a saint + before he was born, and would be one after he was hanged. 'Upon this,' + says Sir Roger, 'I did not think it fit to repeat the former question, + but going into every lane of the neighbourhood, asked what they called + the name of that lane.'"[69] + +It was Addison's aim to prove to the contending parties what a large +extent of ground they might occupy in common. He showed the courtiers, in +a form of light literature which pleased their imagination, and with a +grace and charm of manner that they were well qualified to appreciate, +that true religion was not opposed to good breeding. To this class in +particular he addressed his papers on Devotion,[70] on Prayer,[71] on +Faith,[72] on Temporal and Eternal Happiness.[73] On the other hand, he +brought his raillery to bear on the super-solemnity of the trading and +professional classes, in whom the spirit of Puritanism was most prevalent. +"About an age ago," says he, "it was the fashion in England for every one +that would be thought religious to throw as much sanctity as possible into +his face, and, in particular, to abstain from all appearances of mirth and +pleasantry, which were looked upon as the marks of a carnal mind. The +saint was of a sorrowful countenance, and generally eaten up with spleen +and melancholy."[74] + +It was doubtless for the benefit of this class that he wrote his three +Essays on Cheerfulness,[75] in which the gloom of the Puritan creed is +corrected by arguments founded on Natural Religion. + + "The cheerfulness of heart," he observes in a charming passage, "which + springs up in us from the survey of Nature's works is an admirable + preparation for gratitude. The mind has gone a great way towards + praise and thanksgiving that is filled with such secret gladness--a + grateful reflection on the Supreme Cause who produces it, sanctifies + it in the soul, and gives it its proper value. Such an habitual + disposition of mind consecrates every field and wood, turns an + ordinary walk into a morning or evening sacrifice, and will improve + those transient gleams of joy, which naturally brighten up and refresh + the soul on such occasions, into an inviolable and perpetual state of + bliss and happiness." + +The same qualities appear in his dramatic criticisms. The corruption of +the stage was to the Puritan, or the Puritanic moralist, not so much the +effect as the cause of the corruption of society. To Jeremy Collier and +his imitators the theatre in all its manifestations is equally abominable: +they see no difference between Shakespeare and Wycherley. Dryden, who +bowed before Collier's rebuke with a penitent dignity that does him high +honour, yet rallies him with humour on this point: + + "Perhaps the Parson stretched a point too far + When with our Theatres he waged a war; + He tells you that this very Moral Age + Received the first infection from the Stage; + But sure a banisht Court with Lewdness fraught + The seeds of open Vice returning brought; + Thus lodged (as vice by great example thrives) + It first debauched the daughters and the wives." + +Dryden was quite right. The Court after the Restoration was for the moment +the sole school of manners; and the dramatists only reflected on the stage +the inverted ideas which were accepted in society as the standard of good +breeding. All sentiments founded on reverence for religion or the family +or honourable industry, were banished from the drama because they were +unacceptable at Court. The idea of virtue in a married woman would have +seemed prodigious to Shadwell or Wycherley; Vanbrugh had no scruples in +presenting to an audience a drunken parson in Sir John Brute; the merchant +or tradesman seemed, like Congreve's Alderman Fondlewife, to exist solely +that their wives might be seduced by men of fashion. Addison and his +disciples saw that these unnatural creations of the theatre were the +product of the corruption of society, and that it was men, not +institutions, that needed reform. Steele, always the first to feel a +generous impulse, took the lead in raising the tone of stage morality in a +paper which, characteristically enough, was suggested by some reflections +on a passage in one of his own plays.[76] He followed up his attack by an +admirable criticism, part of which has been already quoted, on Etherege's +_Man in the Mode_, the hero of which, Sir Fopling Flutter, who had long +been the model of young men of wit and fashion, he shows to be "a direct +knave in his designs and a clown in his language."[77] + +As usual, Addison improves the opportunity which Steele affords him, and +with his grave irony exposes the ridiculous principle of the fashionable +comedy by a simple statement of fact: + + "Cuckoldom," says he, "is the basis of most of our modern plays. If an + alderman appears upon the stage you may be sure it is in order to be + cuckolded. An husband that is a little grave or elderly generally + meets with the same fate. Knights and baronets, country squires, and + justices of the quorum, come up to town for no other purpose. I have + seen poor Dogget cuckolded in all these capacities. In short, our + English writers are as frequently severe upon this innocent, unhappy + creature, commonly known by the name of a cuckold, as the ancient + comic writers were upon an eating parasite or a vainglorious soldier. + + "... I have sometimes thought of compiling a system of ethics out of + the writings of these corrupt poets, under the title of Stage + Morality; but I have been diverted from this thought by a project + which has been executed by an ingenious gentleman of my acquaintance. + He has composed, it seems, the history of a young fellow who has taken + all his notions of the world from the stage, and who has directed + himself in every circumstance of his life and conversation by the + maxims and examples of the fine gentleman in English comedies. If I + can prevail upon him to give me a copy of this new-fashioned novel, I + will bestow on it a place in my works, and question not but it may + have as good an effect upon the drama as Don Quixote had upon + romance."[78] + +Nothing could be more skilful than this. Collier's invective no doubt +produced a momentary flutter among the dramatists, who, however, soon +found they had little to fear from arguments which appealed only to that +serious portion of society which did not frequent the theatre. But +Addison's penetrating wit, founded as it was on truth and reason, was +appreciated by the fashionable world. Dorimant and Sir Fopling Flutter +felt ashamed of themselves. The cuckold disappeared from the stage. In +society itself marriage no longer appeared ridiculous. + + "It is my custom," says the _Spectator_ in one of his late papers, "to + take frequent opportunities of inquiring from time to time what + success my speculations meet with in the town. I am glad to find, in + particular, that my discourses on marriage have been well received. A + friend of mine gives me to understand, from Doctors' Commons, that + more licenses have been taken out there of late than usual. I am + likewise informed of several pretty fellows who have resolved to + commence heads of families by the first favourable opportunity. One of + them writes me word that he is ready to enter into the bonds of + matrimony provided I will give it him under my hand (as I now do) that + a man may show his face in good company after he is married, and that + he need not be ashamed to treat a woman with kindness who puts herself + into his power for life."[79] + +So, too, in politics, it was not to be expected that Addison's moderation +should exercise a restraining influence on the violence of Parliamentary +parties. But in helping to form a reasonable public opinion in the more +reflective part of the nation at large, his efforts could not have been +unavailing. He was a steady and consistent supporter of the Whig party, +and Bolingbroke found that, in spite of his mildness, his principles were +proof against all the seductions of interest. He was, in fact, a Whig in +the sense in which all the best political writers in our literature, to +whichever party they may have nominally belonged--Bolingbroke, Swift, and +Canning, as much as Somers and Burke--would have avowed themselves Whigs; +as one, that is to say, who desired above all things to maintain the +constitution of his country. He attached himself to the Whigs of his +period because he saw in them, as the associated defenders of the +liberties of the Parliament, the best counterpoise to the still +preponderant power of the Crown. But he would have repudiated as +vigorously as Burke the democratic principles to which Fox, under the +stimulus of party spirit, committed the Whig connection at the outbreak of +the French Revolution; and for that stupid and ferocious spirit, generated +by party, which would deny to opponents even the appearance of virtue and +intelligence, no man had a more wholesome contempt. Page after page of the +_Spectator_ shows that Addison perceived as clearly as Swift the +theoretical absurdity of the party system, and tolerated it only as an +evil inseparable from the imperfection of human nature and free +institutions. He regarded it as the parent of hypocrisy and +self-deception. + + "Intemperate zeal, bigotry, and persecution for any party or opinion, + how praiseworthy soever they may appear to weak men of our own + principles, produce infinite calamities among mankind, and are highly + criminal in their own nature; and yet how many persons, eminent for + piety, suffer such monstrous and absurd principles of action to take + root in their minds under the colour of virtues! For my own part, I + must own I never yet knew any party so just and reasonable that a man + could follow it in its height and violence and at the same time be + innocent."[80] + +As to party-writing, he considered it identical with lying. + + "A man," says he, "is looked upon as bereft of common-sense that gives + credit to the relations of party-writers; nay, his own friends shake + their heads at him and consider him in no other light than as an + officious tool or a well-meaning idiot. When it was formerly the + fashion to husband a lie and trump it up in some extraordinary + emergency it generally did execution, and was not a little useful to + the faction that made use of it; but at present every man is upon his + guard: the artifice has been too often repeated to take effect."[81] + +Sir Roger de Coverley "often closes his narrative with reflections on the +mischief that parties do in the country." + + "There cannot," says the _Spectator_ himself, "a greater judgment + befall a country than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a + government into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers + and more averse to one another than if they were actually two + different nations. The effects of such a division are pernicious to + the last degree, not only with regard to those advantages which they + give the common enemy, but to those private evils which they produce + in the heart of almost every particular person. This influence is + very fatal both to men's morals and to their understandings; it sinks + the virtue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys even + common-sense."[82] + +Nothing in the work of Addison is more suggestive of the just and +well-balanced character of his genius than his papers on Women. It has +been already said that the seventeenth century exhibits the decay of the +Feudal Ideal. The passionate adoration with which women were regarded in +the age of chivalry degenerated after the Restoration into a habit of +insipid gallantry or of brutal license. Men of fashion found no mean for +their affections between a Sacharissa and a Duchess of Cleveland, while +the domestic standard of the time reduced the remainder of the sex to the +position of virtuous but uninteresting household drudges. Of woman, as the +companion and the helpmate of man, the source of all the grace and +refinements of social intercourse, no trace is to be found in the +literature of the Restoration except in the Eve of Milton's still +unstudied poem: it is not too much to say that she was the creation of the +_Spectator_. + +The feminine ideal, at which the essayists of the period aimed, is very +well described by Steele in a style which he imitated from Addison: + + "The other day," he writes, in the character of a fictitious female + correspondent, "we were several of us at a tea-table, and, according + to custom and your own advice, had the _Spectator_ read among us. It + was that paper wherein you are pleased to treat with great freedom + that character which you call a woman's man. We gave up all the kinds + you have mentioned except those who, you say, are our constant + visitants. I was upon the occasion commissioned by the company to + write to you and tell you 'that we shall not part with the men we have + at present until the men of sense think fit to relieve them and give + us their company in their stead.' You cannot imagine but we love to + hear reason and good sense better than the ribaldry we are at present + entertained with, but we must have company, and among us very + inconsiderable is better than none at all. We are made for the cements + of society, and come into the world to create relations amongst + mankind, and solitude is an unnatural being to us."[83] + +In contrast with the character of the writer of this letter--a type which +is always recurring in the _Spectator_--modest and unaffected, but at the +same time shrewd, witty, and refined, are introduced very eccentric +specimens of womanhood, all tending to illustrate the derangement of the +social order--the masculine woman, the learned woman, the female +politician, besides those that more properly belong to the nature of the +sex, the prude and the coquette. A very graceful example of Addison's +peculiar humour is found in his satire on that false ambition in women +which prompts them to imitate the manners of men: + + "The girls of quality," he writes, describing the customs of the + Republic of Women, "from six to twelve years old, were put to public + schools, where they learned to box and play at cudgels, with several + other accomplishments of the same nature, so that nothing was more + usual than to see a little miss returning home at night with a broken + pate, or two or three teeth knocked out of her head. They were + afterwards taught to ride the great horse, to shoot, dart, or sling, + and listed themselves into several companies in order to perfect + themselves in military exercises. No woman was to be married till she + had killed her man. The ladies of fashion used to play with young + lions instead of lap-dogs; and when they had made any parties of + diversion, instead of entertaining themselves at ombre and piquet, + they would wrestle and pitch the bar for a whole afternoon together. + There was never any such thing as a blush seen or a sigh heard in the + whole commonwealth."[84] + +The amazon was a type of womanhood peculiarly distasteful to Addison, +whose humour delighted itself with all the curiosities and refinements of +feminine caprice--the fan, the powder-box, and the petticoat. Nothing can +more characteristically suggest the exquisiteness of his fancy than a +comparison of Swift's verses on a _Lady's Dressing-Room_ with the +following, which evidently gave Pope a hint for one of the happiest +passages in _The Rape of the Lock_: + + "The single dress of a woman of quality is often the product of a + hundred climates. The muff and the fan come together from the + different ends of the earth. The scarf is sent from the torrid zone, + and the tippet from beneath the Pole. The brocade petticoat rises out + of the mines of Peru, and the diamond necklace out of the bowels of + Indostan."[85] + +To turn to Addison's artistic genius, the crowning evidence of his powers +is the design and the execution of the _Spectator_. Many writers, and +among them Macaulay, have credited Steele with the invention of the +_Spectator_ as well as of the _Tatler_; but I think that a close +examination of the opening papers in the former will not only prove, +almost to demonstration, that on this occasion Steele was acting as the +lieutenant of his friend, but will also show the admirable artfulness of +the means by which Addison executed his intention. The purpose of the +_Spectator_ is described in the tenth number, which is by Addison: + + "I shall endeavour," said he, "to enliven morality with wit, and to + temper wit with morality, that my readers may, if possible, both ways + find their account in the speculation of the day. And to the end that + their virtue and discretion may not be short, transient, intermitting + starts of thought, I have resolved to refresh their memories from day + to day till I have recovered them out of that desperate state of vice + and folly into which the age has fallen." + +That is to say, his design was "to hold as 'twere the mirror up to +nature," so that the conscience of society might recognise in a dramatic +form the character of its lapses from virtue and reason. The indispensable +instrument for the execution of this design was the _Spectator_ himself, +the silent embodiment of right reason and good taste, who is obviously the +conception of Addison. + + "I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of + the species by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, + soldier, merchant, and artizan, without ever meddling with any + practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a + husband, or a father, and can discern the errors in the economy, + business, and diversion of others better than those who are engaged in + them, as standers-by discover blots which are apt to escape those who + are in the game. I never espoused any party with violence, and am + resolved to observe an exact neutrality between the Whigs and Tories + unless I shall be forced to declare myself by the hostilities of + either side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life as a + looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper." + +In order, however, to give this somewhat inanimate figure life and action, +he is represented as the principal member of a club, his associates +consisting of various representatives of the chief "interests" of society. +We can scarcely doubt that the club was part of the original and central +conception of the work; and if this be so, a new light is thrown on some +of the features in the characters of the _Spectator_ which have hitherto +rather perplexed the critics. + + "The _Spectator's_ friends," says Macaulay, "were first sketched by + Steele. Four of the club--the templar, the clergyman, the soldier, and + the merchant--were uninteresting figures, fit only for a background. + But the other two--an old country baronet and an old town rake--though + not delineated with a very delicate pencil, had some good strokes. + Addison took the rude outlines into his own hands, retouched them, + coloured them, and is in truth the creator of the Sir Roger de + Coverley and the Will Honeycomb with whom we are all familiar." + +This is a very misleading account of the matter. It implies that the +characters in the _Spectator_ were mere casual conceptions of Steele's; +that Addison knew nothing about them till he saw Steele's rough draft; and +that he, and he alone, is the creator of the finished character of Sir +Roger de Coverley. But, as a matter of fact, the character of Sir Roger is +full of contradictions and inconsistencies; and the want of unity which it +presents is easily explained by the fact that it is the work of four +different hands. Sixteen papers on the subject were contributed by +Addison, seven by Steele, three by Budgell, and one by Tickell. Had Sir +Roger been, as Macaulay seems to suggest, merely the stray phantom of +Steele's imagination, it is very unlikely that so many different painters +should have busied themselves with his portrait. But he was from the first +intended to be a _type_ of a country gentleman, just as much as Don +Quixote was an imaginative representation of many Spanish gentlemen whose +brains had been turned by the reading of romances. In both cases the type +of character was so common and so truly conceived as to lend itself easily +to the treatment of writers who approached it with various conceptions and +very unequal degrees of skill. Any critic, therefore, who regards Sir +Roger de Coverley as the abstract conception of a single mind is certain +to misconceive the character. This error lies at the root of Johnson's +description of the knight: + + "Of the characters," says he, "feigned or exhibited in the + _Spectator_, the favourite of Addison was Sir Roger de Coverley, of + whom he had formed a very delicate and discriminated idea, which he + would not suffer to be violated; and therefore when Steele had shown + him innocently picking up a girl in the Temple and taking her to a + tavern, he drew upon himself so much of his friend's indignation that + he was forced to appease him by a promise of forbearing Sir Roger for + the time to come.... It may be doubted whether Addison ever filled up + his original delineation. He describes his knight as having his + imagination somewhat warped; but of this perversion he has made very + little use. The irregularities in Sir Roger's conduct seem not so much + the effects of a mind deviating from the beaten track of life, by the + perpetual pressure of some overwhelming idea, as of habitual rusticity + and that negligence which solitary grandeur naturally generates. The + variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, + which from time to time cloud reason without eclipsing it, it requires + so much nicety to exhibit, that Addison seems to have been deterred + from prosecuting his own design." + +But Addison never had any design of the kind. Steele, indeed, describes +Sir Roger in the second number of the _Spectator_ as "a gentleman that is +very singular in his behaviour," but he added that "his singularities +proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the +world, only, as he thinks, the world is in the wrong." Addison regarded +the knight from a different point of view. "My friend Sir Roger," he says, +"amidst all his good qualities is _something of a humourist_; his virtues +as well as imperfections are, as it were, tinged by a certain extravagance +which makes them particularly his, and distinguishes them from those of +other men. This cast of mind, as it is generally very innocent in itself, +so it renders his conversation highly agreeable and more delightful than +the same degree of sense and virtue would appear in their common and +ordinary colours." + +The fact is, as I have already said, that it had evidently been +predetermined by the designers of the _Spectator_ that the Club should +consist of certain recognised and familiar types; the different writers, +in turns, worked on these types, each for his own purpose and according to +the bent of his own genius. Steele gave the first sketch of Sir Roger in a +few rough but vigorous strokes, which were afterwards greatly refined and +altered by Addison. In Steele's hands the knight appears indeed as a +country squire, but he has also a town-house in Soho Square, then the most +fashionable part of London. He had apparently been originally "a fine +gentleman," and only acquired his old-fashioned rusticity of manners in +consequence of a disappointment in love. All his oddities date from this +adventure, though his heart has outlived the effects of it. "There is," we +are told, "such a mirthful cast in his behaviour that he is rather beloved +than esteemed." Steele's imagination had evidently been chiefly caught by +the humour of Sir Roger's love affair, which is made to reflect the +romantic cast of poetry affected after the Restoration, and forms the +subject of two papers in the series; in two others--recording respectively +the knight's kindness to his servants, and his remarks on the portraits of +his ancestors--the writer takes up the idea of Addison; while another +gives an account of a dispute between Sir Roger and Sir Andrew Freeport on +the merits of the moneyed interest. Addison, on the other hand, had formed +a far finer conception of the character of the country gentleman, and one +that approaches the portrait of Don Quixote. As a humourist he perceived +the incongruous position in modern society of one nourished in the +beliefs, principles, and traditions of the old feudal world; and hence, +whenever the knight is brought into contact with modern ideas, he invests +his observations, as the _Spectator_ says, with "a certain extravagance" +which constitutes their charm. Such are the papers describing his +behaviour at church, his inclination to believe in witchcraft, and his +Tory principles; such, in another vein, are his criticisms in the theatre, +his opinions of Spring Gardens, and his delightful reflections on the +tombs in Westminster Abbey. But Addison was also fully alive to the beauty +and nobility of the feudal idea, which he brings out with great animation +in the various papers describing the patriarchal relations existing +between Sir Roger and his servants, retainers, and tenants, closing the +series with the truly pathetic account of the knight's death. It is to be +observed that he drops altogether Steele's idea of Sir Roger having once +been a man of fashion, which is indeed discarded by Steele himself when +co-operating with his friend on the picture of country life. Addison also +quite disregards Steele's original hint about "the humble desires" of his +hero; and he only once makes incidental mention of the widow. + +Budgell contributed three papers on the subject--two in imitation of +Addison; one describing a fox-hunt, and the other giving Sir Roger's +opinion on beards; the third, in imitation of Steele, showing Sir Roger's +state of mind on hearing of the addresses of Sir David Dundrum to the +widow. The number of the _Spectator_ which is said to have so greatly +displeased Addison was written, not, as Johnson says, by Steele, but by +Tickell. It goes far to confirm my supposition that the characters of the +Club had been agreed upon beforehand. The trait which Tickell describes +would have been natural enough in an ordinary country gentleman, though it +was inconsistent with the fine development of Sir Roger's character in the +hands of Addison. + +In his capacity of critic Addison has been variously judged, and, it may +be added, generally undervalued. We find that Johnson's contemporaries +were reluctant to allow him the name of critic. "His criticism," Johnson +explains, "is condemned as tentative or experimental rather than +scientific; and he is considered as deciding by taste rather than by +principles." But if Aristotle is right in saying that the virtuous man is +the standard of virtue, the man of sound instincts and perceptions ought +certainly to be accepted as a standard in the more debatable region of +taste. There can, at any rate, be no doubt that Addison's artistic +judgments, founded on instinct, were frequently much nearer the mark than +Johnson's, though these were based on principle. Again, Macaulay says, +"The least valuable of Addison's contributions to the _Spectator_ are, in +the judgment of our age, his critical papers;" but he adds, patronisingly, +"The very worst of them is creditable to him when the character of the +school in which he had been trained is fairly considered. The best of them +were much too good for his readers. In truth, he was not so far behind our +generation as he was before his own." By "the school in which he had been +trained," Macaulay doubtless meant the critical traditions established by +Boileau and Bouhours, and he would have justified the disparagement +implied in his reference to them by pointing to the pedantic intolerance +and narrowness of view which these traditions encouraged. But in all +matters of this kind there is loss and gain. If Addison's generation was +much more insensible than our own to a large portion of imaginative truth, +it had a far keener perception of the laws and limits of expression; and, +granted that Voltaire was wrong in regarding Shakespeare as an "inspired +barbarian," he would never have made the mistake which critics now make +every day of mistaking nonsense for poetry. + +But it may well be questioned if Addison's criticism is only "tentative +and experimental." The end of criticism is surely to produce a habit of +reasoning rightly on matters of taste and imagination; and, with the +exception of Sir Joshua Reynolds, no English critic has accomplished more +in this direction than Addison. Before his time Dryden had scattered over +a number of prefaces various critical remarks, admirably felicitous in +thought and racy in expression. But he had made no attempt to write upon +the subject systematically; and in practice he gave himself up without an +effort to satisfy the tastes which a corrupt Court had formed, partly on +the "false wit" of Cowley's following, partly on the extravagance and +conceit of the French school of Romance. Addison, on the other hand, set +himself to correct this depraved fashion by establishing in England, on a +larger and more liberal basis, the standards of good breeding and +common-sense which Boileau had already popularised in France. Nothing can +be more just and discriminating than his papers on the difference between +true and false wit.[86] He was the first to endeavour to define the limits +of art and taste in his essays on the _Pleasures of the Imagination_;[87] +and though his theory on the subject is obviously superficial, it +sufficiently proves that his method of reasoning on questions of taste was +much more than "tentative and experimental." "I could wish," he says, +"there were authors who, beside the mechanical rules which a man of very +little taste may discourse upon, would enter into the very spirit and soul +of fine writing, and show us the several sources of that pleasure which +rises in the mind on the perusal of a noble work." His studies of the +French drama prevented him from appreciating the great Elizabethan school +of tragedy, yet many stray remarks in the _Spectator_ show how deeply he +was impressed by the greatness of Shakespeare's genius, while his +criticisms on Tragedy did much to banish the tumid extravagance of the +romantic style. His papers on Milton achieved the triumph of making a +practically unknown poem one of the most popular classics in the language, +and he was more than half a century before his age in his appreciation of +the beauties of the English ballads. In fact, finding English taste in +hopeless confusion, he left it in admirable order; and to those who are +inclined to depreciate his powers as a critic the following observations +of Johnson--not a very favourable judge--may be commended: + + "It is not uncommon for those who have grown wise by the labour of + others to add a little of their own, and overlook their masters. + Addison is now despised by some who perhaps would never have seen his + defects but by the light he afforded them. That he always wrote as he + would write now cannot be affirmed; his instructions were such as the + characters of his readers made proper. That general knowledge which + now circulates in common talk was in his time rarely to be found. Men + not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and in the + female world any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be + censured. His purpose was to infuse literary curiosity by gentle and + unsuspected conveyance into the gay, the idle, and the wealthy; he + therefore presented knowledge in the most alluring form, not lofty and + austere, but accessible and familiar. When he showed them their + defects, he showed them likewise that they might be easily supplied. + His attempt succeeded; inquiry awakened and comprehension expanded. An + emulation of intellectual elegance was excited, and from this time to + our own life has been gradually exalted, and conversation purified and + enlarged."[88] + +The essence of Addison's humour is irony. "One slight lineament of his +character," says Johnson, "Swift has preserved. It was his practice, when +he found any man invincibly wrong, to flatter his opinions by acquiescence +and sink him yet deeper to absurdity." The same characteristic manifests +itself in his writings under a great variety of forms. Sometimes it +appears in the seemingly logical premises from which he draws an obviously +absurd conclusion, as for instance: + + "If in a multitude of counsellors there is safety, we ought to think + ourselves the securest nation in the world. Most of our garrets are + inhabited by statesmen, who watch over the liberties of their country, + and make a shift to keep themselves from starving by taking into their + care the properties of all their fellow-subjects."[89] + +On other occasions he ridicules some fashion of taste by a perfectly grave +and simple description of its object. Perhaps the most admirable specimen +of this oblique manner is his satire on the Italian opera in the number of +the _Spectator_ describing the various lions who had fought on the stage +with Nicolini. This highly-finished paper deserves to be quoted _in +extenso_: + + "There is nothing of late years has afforded matter of greater + amusement to the town than Signor Nicolini's combat with a lion in the + Haymarket, which has been very often exhibited to the general + satisfaction of most of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom of + Great Britain. Upon the first rumour of this intended combat it was + confidently affirmed, and is still believed by many in both galleries, + that there would be a tame lion sent from the tower every opera in + order to be killed by Hydaspes. This report, though altogether + groundless, so universally prevailed in the upper regions of the + playhouse, that some of the refined politicians in those parts of the + audience gave it out in a whisper that the lion was a cousin-german of + the tiger who made his appearance in King William's days, and that the + stage would be supplied with lions at the public expense during the + whole session. Many, likewise, were the conjectures of the treatment + which this lion was to meet with at the hands of Signor Nicolini; + some supposed that he was to subdue him in recitativo, as Orpheus used + to serve the wild beasts in his time, and afterwards to knock him on + the head; some fancied that the lion would not pretend to lay his paws + upon the hero, by reason of the received opinion that a lion will not + hurt a virgin; several, who pretended to have seen the opera in Italy, + had informed their friends that the lion was to act a part in High + Dutch, and roar twice or thrice to a thorough-bass before he fell at + the feet of Hydaspes. To clear up a matter that was so variously + reported, I have made it my business to examine whether this pretended + lion is really the savage he appears to be or only a counterfeit. + + "But, before I communicate my discoveries, I must acquaint the public + that upon my walking behind the scenes last winter, as I was thinking + upon something else, I accidentally jostled against an enormous animal + that extremely startled me, and, upon my nearer survey of it, appeared + to be a lion rampant. The lion, seeing me very much surprised, told + me, in a gentle voice, that I might come by him if I pleased; 'for,' + says he, 'I do not intend to hurt anybody.' I thanked him very kindly + and passed by him, and in a little time after saw him leap upon the + stage and act his part with very great applause. It has been observed + by several that the lion has changed his manner of acting twice or + thrice since his first appearance; which will not seem strange when I + acquaint my reader that the lion has been changed upon the audience + three several times. The first lion was a candle-snuffer, who, being a + fellow of testy, choleric temper, overdid his part, and would not + suffer himself to be killed so easily as he ought to have done; + besides, it was observed of him that he became more surly every time + he came out of the lion; and having dropped some words in ordinary + conversation as if he had not fought his best, and that he suffered + himself to be thrown on his back in the scuffle, and that he could + wrestle with Mr. Nicolini for what he pleased out of his lion's skin, + it was thought proper to discard him; and it is verily believed to + this day that, had he been brought upon the stage another time, he + would certainly have done mischief. Besides, it was objected against + the first lion that he reared himself so high upon his hinder paws and + walked in so erect a posture that he looked more like an old man than + a lion. + + "The second lion was a tailor by trade, who belonged to the playhouse, + and had the character of a mild and peaceable man in his profession. + If the former was too furious, this was too sheepish for his part, + insomuch that, after a short, modest walk upon the stage, he would + fall at the first touch of Hydaspes, without grappling with him and + giving him an opportunity of showing his variety of Italian trips. It + is said, indeed, that he once gave him a rip in his flesh-coloured + doublet; but this was only to make work for himself in his private + character of a tailor. I must not omit that it was this second lion + who treated me with so much humanity behind the scenes. + + "The acting lion at present is, as I am informed, a country gentleman, + who does it for his diversion, but desires his name may be concealed. + He says, very handsomely in his own excuse, that he does not act for + gain; that he indulges an innocent pleasure in it; and that it is + better to pass away an evening in this manner than in gaming and + drinking; but he says at the same time, with a very agreeable raillery + upon himself, that, if his name were known, the ill-natured world + might call him 'the ass in the lion's skin.' This gentleman's temper + is made out of such a happy mixture of the mild and the choleric that + he outdoes both his predecessors, and has drawn together greater + audiences than have been known in the memory of man. + + "I must not conclude my narrative without taking notice of a + groundless report that has been raised to a gentleman's disadvantage + of whom I must declare myself an admirer; namely, that Signor Nicolini + and the lion have been seen sitting peaceably by one another and + smoking a pipe together behind the scenes; by which their common + enemies would insinuate that it is but a sham combat which they + represent upon the stage; but upon inquiry I find that, if any such + correspondence has passed between them, it was not till the combat was + over, when the lion was to be looked on as dead, according to the + received rules of the drama. Besides, this is what is practised every + day in Westminster Hall, where nothing is more usual than to see a + couple of lawyers who have been tearing each other to pieces in the + court embracing one another as soon as they are out of it."[90] + +In a somewhat different vein, the ridicule cast by the _Spectator_ on the +fashions of his day, by anticipating the judgment of posterity on himself, +is equally happy: + + "As for his speculations, notwithstanding the several obsolete words + and obscure phrases of the age in which he lived, we still understand + enough of them to see the diversions and characters of the English + nation in his time; not but that we are to make allowance for the + mirth and humour of the author, who has doubtless strained many + representations of things beyond the truth. For, if we must interpret + his words in their literal meaning, we must suppose that women of the + first quality used to pass away whole mornings at a puppet show; that + they attested their principles by their patches; that an audience + would sit out an evening to hear a dramatical performance written in a + language which they did not understand; that chairs and flowerpots + were introduced as actors upon the British stage; that a promiscuous + assembly of men and women were allowed to meet at midnight in masks + within the verge of the Court; with many improbabilities of the like + nature. We must, therefore, in these and in the like cases, suppose + that these remote hints and allusions aimed at some certain follies + which were then in vogue, and which at present we have not any notion + of."[91] + +His power of ridiculing keenly without malignity is of course best shown +in his character of Sir Roger de Coverley, whose delightful simplicity of +mind is made the medium of much good-natured satire on the manners of the +Tory country gentlemen of the period. One of the most exquisite touches is +the description of the extraordinary conversion of a dissenter by the Act +against Occasional Conformity. + + "He (Sir Roger) then launched out into praise of the late Act of + Parliament for securing the Church of England, and told me with great + satisfaction that he believed it already began to take effect, for + that a rigid dissenter who chanced to dine in his house on Christmas + day had been observed to eat very plentifully of his + plum-porridge."[92] + +The mixture of fashionable contempt for book-learning, blended with shrewd +mother-wit, is well represented in the character of Will Honeycomb, who +"had the discretion not to go out of his depth, and had often a certain +way of making his real ignorance appear a seeming one." One of Will's +happiest flights is on the subject of ancient looking-glasses. "Nay," says +he, "I remember Mr. Dryden in his _Ovid_ tells us of a swinging fellow +called Polypheme, that made use of the sea for his looking-glass, and +could never dress himself to advantage but in a calm." + +Budgell, Steele, and Addison seem all to have worked on the character of +Will Honeycomb, which, however, presents none of the inconsistencies that +appear in the portrait of Sir Roger de Coverley. Addison was evidently +pleased with it, and in his own inimitable ironic manner gave it its +finishing touches by making Will, in his character of a fashionable +gallant, write two letters scoffing at wedlock and then marry a farmer's +daughter. The conclusion of the letter in which he announces his fate to +the _Spectator_ is an admirable specimen of Addison's humour: + + "As for your fine women I need not tell thee that I know them. I have + had my share in their graces; but no more of that. It shall be my + business hereafter to live the life of an honest man, and to act as + becomes the master of a family. I question not but I shall draw upon + me the raillery of the town, and be treated to the tune of "The + Marriage-hater Matched;" but I am prepared for it. I have been as + witty as others in my time. To tell thee truly, I saw such a tribe of + fashionable young fluttering coxcombs shot up that I do not think my + post of an _homme de ruelle_ any longer tenable. I felt a certain + stiffness in my limbs which entirely destroyed the jauntiness of air I + was once master of. Besides, for I must now confess my age to thee, I + have been eight-and-forty above these twelve years. Since my + retirement into the country will make a vacancy in the Club, I could + wish that you would fill up my place with my friend Tom Dapperwit. He + has an infinite deal of fire, and knows the town. For my own part, as + I have said before, I shall endeavour to live hereafter suitable to a + man in my station, as a prudent head of a family, a good husband, a + careful father (when it shall so happen), and as + + "Your most sincere friend and humble servant, + "WILLIAM HONEYCOMB."[93] + +I have already alluded to the delight with which the fancy of Addison +played round the caprices of female attire. The following--an extract from +the paper on the "fair sex" which specially roused the spleen of Swift--is +a good specimen of his style when in this vein: + + "To return to our female heads. The ladies have been for some time in + a kind of moulting season with regard to that part of their dress, + having cast great quantities of ribbon, lace, and cambric, and in some + measure reduced that part of the human figure to the beautiful + globular form which is natural to it. We have for a great while + expected what kind of ornament would be substituted in the place of + those antiquated commodes. But our female projectors were all the last + summer so taken up with the improvement of their petticoats that they + had not time to attend to anything else; but having at length + sufficiently adorned their lower parts, they now begin to turn their + thoughts upon the other extremity, as well remembering the old kitchen + proverb, 'that if you light your fire at both ends, the middle will + shift for itself.'"[94] + +Addison may be said to have almost created and wholly perfected English +prose as an instrument for the expression of _social_ thought. Prose had +of course been written in many different manners before his time. Bacon, +Cowley, and Temple had composed essays; Hooker, Sir Thomas Browne, Hobbes, +and Locke philosophical treatises; Milton controversial pamphlets; Dryden +critical prefaces; Raleigh and Clarendon histories; Taylor, Barrow, South, +and Tillotson sermons. But it cannot be said that any of these had founded +a prose style which, besides being a reflection of the mind of the writer, +could be taken as representing the genius and character of the nation. +They write as if they were thinking apart from their audience, or as if +they were speaking to it either from an inferior or superior position. The +essayists had taken as their model Montaigne, and their style is therefore +stamped, so to speak, with the character of soliloquy; the preachers, who +perhaps did more than any writers to guide the genius of the language, +naturally addressed their hearers with the authority of their office; +Milton, even in controversy, rises from the natural sublimity of his mind +to heights of eloquence to which the ordinary idioms of society could not +have borne him; while Dryden, using the language with a raciness and +rhythm probably unequalled in our literature, nevertheless exhibits in his +prefaces an air of deference towards the various patrons he addresses. +Moreover, many of the earlier prose writers had aimed at standards of +diction which were inconsistent with the genius of the English tongue. +Bacon, for instance, disfigures his style with the witty antitheses which +found favour with the Elizabethan and early Stuart writers; Hooker, +Milton, and Browne construct their sentences on a Latin model, which, +though it often gives a certain dignity of manner, prevents anything like +ease, simplicity, and lucidity of expression. Thus Hooker delights in +inversions; both he and Milton protract their periods by the insertion of +many subordinate clauses; and Browne "projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia +verba" till the Saxon element seems almost eliminated from his style. + +Addison took features of his style from almost all his predecessors: he +assumes the characters of essayist, moralist, philosopher, and critic, but +he blends them all together in his new capacity of journalist. He had +accepted the public as his judges; and he writes as if some critical +representative of the public were at his elbow, putting to the test of +reason every sentiment and every expression. Warton tells us, in his +_Essay on Pope_, that Addison was so fastidious in composition that he +would often stop the press to alter a preposition or conjunction; and this +evidence is corroborated in a very curious and interesting manner by the +MS. of some of Addison's essays, discovered by Mr. Dykes Campbell in +1858.[95] A sentence in one of the papers on the _Pleasures of the +Imagination_ shows, by the various stages through which it passed before +its form seemed satisfactory to the writer, what nice attention he gave to +the balance, rhythm, and lucidity of his periods. In its original shape +the sentence was written thus: + + "For this reason we find the poets always crying up a Country Life; + where Nature is left to herself, and appears to y{e} best advantage." + +This is rather bald, and the MS. is accordingly corrected as follows: + + "For this reason we find all Fancifull men, and y{e} poets in + particular, still in love with a Country Life; where Nature is left to + herself, and furnishes out all y{e} variety of Scenes y{t} are most + delightful to y{e} Imagination." + +The text as it stands is this: + + "For this reason we always find the poet in love with a country life, + where nature appears in the greatest perfection, and furnishes out all + those scenes that are most apt to delight the imagination."[96] + +This is certainly the best, both in point of sense and sound. Addison +perceived that there was a certain contradiction in the idea of Nature +being "left to herself," and at the same time _furnishing_ scenes for the +pleasure of the imagination; he therefore imparted the notion of design by +striking out the former phrase and substituting "seen in perfection;" and +he emphasised the idea by afterwards changing "delightful" into the +stronger phrase "apt to delight." The improvement of the rhythm of the +sentence in its final form is obvious. + +With so much elaboration of style it is natural that there should be in +Addison's essays a disappearance of that egotism which is a +characteristic--and a charming one--of Montaigne; his moralising is +natural, for the age required it, but is free from the censoriousness of +the preacher; his critical and philosophical papers all assume an +intelligence in his reader equal to his own. + +This perfection of breeding in writing is an art which vanishes with the +_Tatler_ and _Spectator_. Other critics, other humourists have made their +mark in English literature, but no second Addison has appeared. Johnson +took him for his model so far as to convey lessons of morality to the +public by means of periodical essays. But he confesses that he addressed +his audience in tones of "dictatorial instruction;" and any one who +compares the ponderous sententiousness and the elaborate antithesis of the +_Rambler_ with the light and rhythmical periods of the _Spectator_ will +perceive that the spirit of preaching is gaining ground on the genius of +conversation. Charles Lamb, again, has passages which, for mere delicacy +of humour, are equal to anything in Addison's writings. But the +superiority of Addison consists in this, that he expresses the humour of +the life about him, while Lamb is driven to look at its oddities from +outside. He is not, like Addison, a moralist or a satirist; the latter +indeed performed his task so thoroughly that the turbulent license of +Mohocks, Tityre Tus, and such like brotherhoods, gradually disappeared +before the advance of a tame and orderly public opinion. To Lamb, looking +back on the primitive stages of society from a safe distance, vice itself +seemed pardonable because picturesque, much in the same way as travellers +began to admire the loneliness and the grandeur of nature when they were +relieved from apprehensions for the safety of their purses and their +necks. His humour is that of a sentimentalist; it dwells on odd nooks and +corners, and describes quaint survivals in men and things. For our own +age, when all that is picturesque in society is being levelled by a dull +utilitarianism, this vein of eccentric imagination has a special charm, +but the taste is likely to be a transient one. Mrs. Battle will amuse so +long as this generation remembers the ways of its grandmothers: two +generations hence the point of its humour will probably be lost. But the +figure of Sir Roger de Coverley, though it belongs to a bygone stage of +society, is as durable as human nature itself, and, while the language +lasts, the exquisite beauty of the colours in which it is preserved will +excite the same kind of pleasure. Scarcely below the portrait of the good +knight will be ranked the character of his friend and biographer, the +silent Spectator of men. A grateful posterity, remembering what it owes to +him, will continue to assign him the reputation he coveted: "It was said +of Socrates that he brought Philosophy down from heaven to inhabit among +men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me that I have brought +Philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell at +clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses." + + +THE END. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Spectator_, No. 108. + +[2] _Spectator_, No. 158. + +[3] _Spectator_, No. 341. + +[4] _Spectator_, No. 65. + +[5] _Tatler_, No. 25. + +[6] A note in the edition of Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_, published in +1801, states, on the authority of a "Lady in Wiltshire," who derived her +information from a Mr. Stephens, a Fellow of Magdalen and a contemporary +of Addison's, that the Henry Sacheverell to whom Addison dedicated his +_Account of the Greatest English Poets_ was not the well-known divine, but +a personal friend of Addison's, who died young, having written a _History +of the Isle of Man_. + +[7] _Spence's Anecdotes_, p. 50. + +[8] Compare the _Notes on the Metamorphoses_, Fab. v. (Tickell's edition, +vol. vi. p. 183), where the substance of the above passage is found in +embryo. + +[9] _Dunciad_, Book iv. 224. + +[10] Compare _Spectator_, 414. "I do not know whether I am singular in my +opinion, but for my part I would rather look upon a tree in all its +luxuriancy and diffusion of boughs and branches, rather than when it is +thus cut and trimmed into a mathematical figure; and cannot but fancy that +an orchard in flower looks infinitely more delightful than all the little +labyrinths of the finished parterre." + +[11] Letter to the Right Honourable Charles Montague, Esq., Blois, 10{br} +1699. + +[12] Letter from Italy to Lord Halifax. + +[13] Addison's _Works_ (Tickell's edition), vol. v. p. 301. + +[14] Addison's _Works_ (Tickell's edition), vol. v. p. 213. + +[15] Oldham's Satire _Dissuading from Poetry_. + +[16] Oldham's Satire _Dissuading from Poetry_. + +[17] Blackmore, _The Kit-Kats_. + +[18] _Spectator_, No. 9. + +[19] _Spectator_, No. 18. + +[20] _Spectator_, No. 18. + +[21] Sir John Hawkins' _History of Music_, vol. v. p. 137. + +[22] Burney's _History of Music_, vol. iv. p. 203. + +[23] _Spectator_, No. 469. + +[24] Fourth Drapier's Letter. + +[25] Who the "mistress" was cannot be certainly ascertained. See, however, +p. 146. + +[26] Egerton MSS., British Museum (1972). + +[27] Andrews' _History of British Journalism_. + +[28] _Staple of News_, Act I. Scene 2. + +[29] Andrews' _History of British Journalism_. + +[30] _Tatler_, No. 1. + +[31] _Ibid._ + +[32] _Tatler_, No. 271. + +[33] _Preface to the Fables._ + +[34] _Tatler_, No. 5. + +[35] _Ib._, No. 82. + +[36] _Ib._, Nos. 25, 26, 28, 29, 38, 39. + +[37] _Ib._, No. 85. + +[38] _Tatler_, No. 87. + +[39] Spence's _Anecdotes_, p. 325. + +[40] _Tatler_, vol. iv. p. 545 (Nichols' edition). + +[41] See p. 93, note 3. + +[42] _Tatler_, No. 6. + +[43] _Spectator_, No. 10. + +[44] _Spectator_, No. 10. + +[45] _Spectator_, No. 10. + +[46] The writer was a Miss Shepherd. + +[47] _Spectator_, No. 134. + +[48] _Spectator_, No. 553. + +[49] _Ibid._, No. 542. + +[50] _Spectator_, No. 10. + +[51] _Spectator_, No. 555. + +[52] See Addison's _Works_ (Tickell's edition), vol. v. p. 187. + +[53] Spence's _Anecdotes_, p. 196. + +[54] _Spectator_, No. 40. + +[55] _Spectator_, No. 40. + +[56] See p. 43. + +[57] Spence's _Anecdotes_, p. 151. + +[58] _Ibid._ + +[59] These lines are to be found in _The Campaign_, see p. 66. + +[60] _Spectator_, No. 39. + +[61] Spence's _Anecdotes_, pp. 148, 149. + +[62] Spence's _Anecdotes_, p. 257. + +[63] Pope's _Works_, Elwin and Courthope's edition, vol. vi. p. 408. + +[64] Spence's _Anecdotes_, p. 146. + +[65] Addison's Memorial to the King. + +[66] _Freeholder_, No. 1. + +[67] Spence's _Anecdotes_, p. 175. + +[68] Tickell's _Elegy_. Compare Pope's _Eloisa to Abelard_, v. 107. + +[69] _Spectator_, No. 125. + +[70] _Ibid._, vol. iii., Nos. 201, 207. + +[71] _Ibid._, No. 391. + +[72] _Ibid._, No. 465. + +[73] _Ibid._, No. 575. + +[74] _Ibid._, No. 494. + +[75] _Ibid_, Nos. 381, 387, 393. + +[76] _Spectator_, No. 51. + +[77] _Ibid._, No. 65. + +[78] _Spectator_, No. 446. + +[79] _Spectator_, No. 525 (by Hughes). + +[80] _Spectator_, No. 399. + +[81] _Ibid._, No. 507. + +[82] _Spectator_, No. 125. + +[83] _Spectator_, No. 158. + +[84] _Ibid._, No. 434. + +[85] _Spectator_, No. 69. + +[86] _Spectator_, Nos. 58-63, inclusive. + +[87] _Ibid._, Nos. 411-421, inclusive. + +[88] _Life of Addison._ + +[89] _Spectator_, No. 556. + +[90] _Spectator_, No. 13. + +[91] _Spectator_, No. 101. + +[92] _Ibid._, No. 269. + +[93] _Spectator_, No. 530. + +[94] _Ibid._, No. 265. + +[95] I have to thank Mr. Campbell for his kindness and courtesy in sending +me the volume containing this collection. + +[96] _Spectator_, No. 414. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41496 *** |