G^^;rEWAY SERIES -VANDYKE t ♦^ ^A XA^X MACAULAY'S fm m fc ESSAY ON ADDISON Class _fc,te33n4 Book. - h3 CopightlJ". Kiot- COPYRIGHT DEPOSm / OF ENGLISH TEXTS GENERAL EDITOR HENRY VAN DYKE THE GATEWAY SERIES. HENRY VAN DYKE, General Editor. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Professor Felix E. Schelling, University of Pennsylvania. Shakespeare's Julius C/esar. Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie, "The Outlook." Shakespeare's Macbeth. Professor T. M. Parrott, Prince- ton University. Milton's Minor Poems. Professor Mary A. Jordan, Smith College. Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. Professor C. T. Winchester, Wesleyan University. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. Professor James A. Tufts, Phillips Exeter Academy. Burke's Speech on Conciliation. Professor William MacDonald, Brown University. Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner, Professor George E. Woodberry, Columbia University. Scott's Ivanhoe. Professor Francis H. Stoddard, New York University. Scott's Lady of the Lake. Professor R. M. Alden, Leland Stanford Jr. University. IRVING'S Life of Goldsmith. Professor Martin Wright Sampson, University of Indiana. Macaulay's Milton. Rev. E. L. Gulick, Lawrenceville School. Macaulay's Addison. Professor Charles F. McClumpha, University of Minnesota. Macaulay's Life of Johnson. Professor J. S. Clark, North- western University. Carlyle's Essay on Burns. Professor Edwin Mims, Trin- ity College, North Carolina. George Eliot's Silas Marner. Professor W. L. Cross, Yale University. Tennyson's Princess. Professor Katharine Lee Bates, Wellesley College. Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, and The Passing of Arthur. Henry van Dyke. j^. y^^^z^^ GATEWAY SERIES ESSAY ON ADDISON BY THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY EDITED BY CHARLES FLINT McCLUMPHA, Ph.D. (Leipzig) PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY fR 320^ \^o^ OLi 27 1904 ,«^ s Copyright, 1904, by ^^. 'AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY. Entered at Stationers' Hall, London. MACAULAY's ADDISON. W. P. I PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR This series of books aims, first, to give the English texts required for entrance to college in a form which shall make them clear, interesting, and helpful to those who are beginning the study of literature ; and, second, to supply the knowledge which the student needs to pass the entrance examination. For these two reasons it is called The Gateway Series. The poems, plays, essays, and stories in these small volumes are treated, first of all, as works of literature, which were written to be read and enjoyed, not to be parsed and scanned and pulled to pieces. A short life of the author is given, and a portrait, in order to help the student to know the real person who wrote the book. The introduction tells w^hat it is about, and how it was written, and where the author got the idea, and what it means. The notes at the foot of the page are simply to give the sense of the hard words so that the student can read straight on without turning to a dictionary. The other notes, at the end of the book, explain difficulties and allusions and fine points. 5 6 Preface by the General Editor The editors are chosen because of their thorough training and special fitness to deal with the books committed to them, and because they agree with this idea of what a Gateway Series ought to be. They express, in each case, their own views of the books which they edit. Simplicity, thoroughness, shortness, and clearness, — these, we hope, will be the marks of the series. HENRY VAN DYKE. PREFACE Believing that this Essay on Addison should be placed before the scholar to be read, appreciated, and understood, I have sought to make this edition simple, attractive, and helpful. I have avoided profuse anno- tation. I have given only such information as would seem necessary to get a proper understanding of the Essay. Merely to accumulate notes and to overload the pupil with historical and biographical data, would defeat the object of the work. In the sketch of Macaulay's life, based on Trevel- yan's Life and Letters and other sources, as well as in the sketch of Addison's life, largely taken from Court- hope's Addison, I have presented the most important biographical data, mainly with a view to outline the man's real life and character, especially as they bear upon his work. CHARLES FLINT McCLUMPHA. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. CONTENTS Introduction .... I. Private Life of Macaulay II. Macaulay's Style . III. The Essay on Addison . IV. Life and Times of Addison Bibliography Essay on Addison Notes . 12 23 26 28 36 39 157 INTRODUCTION Macaulay's Essays are a household word. This is true also of his History and of his Lays. *' It is said that the traveller in Australia, visiting one settler's hut after an- other, finds again and again that the settler's third book, after the Bible and Shakspeare, is some work by Ma- caulay. Nothing can be more natural. The Bible and Shakspeare may be said to be imposed upon an Eng- lishman as objects of his admiration ; but as soon as the common Englishman, desiring culture, begins to choose for himself, he chooses Macaulay. Macaulay's view of things is, on the whole, the view of them which he feels to be his own also ; the persons and causes praised are those which he himself is disposed to admire ; the per- sons and causes blamed are those with which he himself is out of sympathy ; and the rhetoric employed to praise or to blame them is animating and excellent. Macaulay is thus a great civihzer." These words of Arnold were not meant for praise, yet they truly explain why Macaulay is popular and why he is profitable to the great multitude. The first part of the Introduction contains a brief out- line of Macaulay's career, giving enough of the man's private life to afford an estimate of his work and of the II 12 Macaulay's Essay on Addison purpose and ideals for which he undertook this work. His life was a simple one, almost uneventful, and b^ Hter- ary personality was singularly free from all peculiarities or complexities. The second part of the Introduction will treat of Macaulay's style, and will show some of the more important qualities for which his manner of writing has been praised, as well as some for which it has been criticized adversely. The short discussion of the Essay 07i Addison will con- nect the work of Macaulay with the subject of his Essay. The Notes following the text are brief, but sufficiently copious to explain the more difficult parts of the Essay. I. Private Life of Macaulay Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, England, on October 25, 1800. His father, Zachary Macaulay, was the son of a Presbyterian minister descended from a long line of Scotch Presbyte- rians, and his mother, Selina Mills, came of good Quaker stock. Zachary Macaulay had made a moderate fortune in the West Indies, where he had seen the evils of slav- ery, and upon his return to England he became a sup- porter of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery and edited the newspaper of the Abolitionists. " Never," says Minto in his description of Macaulay's early environment, " to use his own favourite mode of expression, was a child brought into this world under circumstances more favourable to the development of Introduction 13 literary talent. His parents belonged to a small sect of earnest and accomplished persons, closely knit together by a common object, and zealously devoted to their adopted mission. With the earUest dawn of intelligence he heard imperial policy discussed at his father's table, and the affairs of the nation arranged, not by ideal politicians, but by men actively engaged in public business — such men as Henry Thornton, Thomas Babington, and Wilberforce. He saw his father preparing their printed organ, and at an early age was taught by that encyclopedic statistician the argumentative value of facts," Thomas, the eldest son of the family, showed a pre- cocity that was simply extraordinary from his very in- fancy. His mother noted his remarkable memory and had confident belief that he was a genius. When a mere child he was an insatiable reader, was busied with his pen writing histories, epics, odes, and what not, with great ease and correctness. In 1808 his mother writes : " He took it into his head to write a compendium of universal history about a year ago, and he really contrived to give a tolerably connected view of the leading events from the Creation to the present time, filling about a quire of paper. . . . He was so fired with reading Scott's Lay and Marmion, the former of which he got entirely, and the latter almost entirely, by heart, merely from his delight in reading them, that he determined on writing himself a poem in six cantos, which he called The Battle of Cheviot:' At this time of his life and education it is interesting 14 Macaulay*s Essay on Addison to read of the loving care and judicious encouragement bestowed upon her son by Mrs. Macaulay. She kept a high standard before him in his attempts at composition. Here are a few words of loving criticism : " I know you write with great ease to yourself, and would rather write ten poems than prune one ; but remember that excellence is not attained at first. All your pieces are much mended after a little reflection, and there- fore take some solitary walks, and think over each separate thing. Spare no time or trouble to render each piece as perfect as you can, and then leave the event without one anxious thought." This she wrote him before he was thirteen years old. Her sympathetic aid and counsel saved him from much of that conceit and literary vanity to which his wonderful precocity and briUiancy of mind exposed him. She lived long enough to see him achieve the honour and fame for which her instruction had prepared him. She died almost immediately after his first great speech on the Reform Bill in 1831. In 181 2 Macaulay left his happy home, his three brothers and five sisters, to attend a private school in the neighbourhood of Cambridge. His letters from the school at Shelford show that he was a very homesick boy, and yet he seems to have the same insatiable thirst for litera- ture. " The books which I am at present employed in reading to myself are, in English, Plutarch's Lives, and Milner's Ecclesiastical History; in French, F^nelon's Dialogues of the Dead'' And from Aspenden Hall, in Introduction 15 1815, he writes : '' Hear what I have read since I came here. Hear and wonder ! I have in the first place read Boccaccio's Decameron, a tale of a hundred cantos. . . . I have likewise read Gil Bias, with unbounded admira- tion of the abilities of Le Sage. Maiden and I have read Thalaba together, and are proceeding to the Curse of Kehama. ... I have read the greater part of the His- tory of Ja77ies I and Mrs. Montagu's essay on Shakspere, and a great deal of Gibbon. I never devoured so many books in a fortnight." In 181 8 Macaulay entered Trinity College, Cambridge. He enjoyed the social hfe of the place, formed pleasing friendships, and won distinction in all his collegiate studies except the one for which Cambridge is most famous, mathematics. His fondness for Hterature made the mathematical training the more distasteful. After winning the prize for Latin declamation and twice secur- ing the Chancellor's medal for English verse, he won the Craven scholarship in 1821, received his B.A. degree in 1822, and became a Fellow in 1824. He remained in college residence for more than seven years. Taken as a whole, his career at the University was very satisfactory. His acknowledged conversational powers and his genial manners gave him a prominent place in all its affairs. Becoming a leader in the Union Debating Society, he developed a taste for poHtics second only to that for lit- erature. He also found his equals in such men as the Coleridges, Hyde, Villiers, Praed, and Charles Austin. After leaving the University he studied law and was 1 6 Macaulay's Essay on Addison admitted to the bar in 1826. The law, however, did not interest him. He had already in 1822 begun to make a name for himself in literature, his first contributions of importance being made to Knight's Quarterly Magazine. These secured for him an introduction to Jeffrey, editor of the Edinbu7'gh Review, also an invitation to write for this famous Review, and in the August number of 1825 appeared his Essay o?i Milton. This article marks the beginning of his success and fame. It showed at a glance that he was a new force in literature. It deter- mined his career. He decided to renounce all thought of pursuing the legal profession and to devote himself to his literary labours. From this time he contributed regu- larly to the Review. While at Cambridge Macaulay received the bad news of his father's failure in business. Zachary Macaulay had neglected his own affairs and had allowed his fortune to slip away from him in his devotion to anti-slavery agita- tion. Thus at the very outset of his career young Macaulay had to come to the aid of his family. " He quietly took up the burden," says his nephew and biogra- pher. Sir George Trevelyan, " which his father was unable to bear ; and, before many years had elapsed, the fortunes of all for whose welfare he considered himself responsible were abundantly secured. In the course of the efforts which he expended on the accomplishment of this result, he unlearned the very notion of framing his method of life with a view to his own pleasure ; and such was his high and simple nature, that it may well be doubted whether Introduction 17 it ever crossed his mind that to Hve wholly for others was a sacrifice at all." Not only did Macaulay, with the aid of his brother Henry, ultimately pay off his father's debts, but during this period of gloom he was the " hfe and sunshine " of the household. His sister. Lady Trevelyan, says that those who did not know him then, before 1826, never " knew him in his most briUiant, witty, and fertile vein." In 1828 his public life may be said to have begun. Lord Lyndhurst made him a Commissioner of Bankruptcy. And in 1830, on the nomination of Lord Lansdowne, he was elected Whig member of Parliament for Calne. Lord Lansdowne had been impressed by his articles on Mill. Macaulay entered Parliament, says Trevelyan, "on the eve of the most momentous conflict that ever was fought out by speech and vote within the walls of a senate house, the young recruit went gayly to his post in the ranks of that party whose coming fortunes he was prepared loyally to follow, and the history of whose past he was destined eloquently, and perhaps imperishably, to record." Macaulay's first speech on the Reform Bill secured for him the same foremost place among orators that his article on Milton had secured for him among essayists. " Whenever he rose to speak," relates Gladstone who sat with him in Parliament, " it was a summons like a trum- pet-call to fill the benches." Strenuous was the Hfe that Macaulay led at this time. In society he was one of the Uons ; in literary circles he associated with Rogers, Moore, Campbell, and others ; in political affairs he filled impor- ESSAY ON ADDISON — 2 1 8 Macaulay's Essay on Addison tant offices ; and in connexion with the Edinburgh Review he wrote thirteen articles — from the Essay on Robert Montgomery to the first Essay on Lord Chathain, During these four years he was the main support of his family. In 1832 he was appointed one of the Commis- sioners of the Board of Control. In this same year, as an acknowledgment of his part in reform, he was returned to Parhament by the newly enfranchised borough of Leeds. " In the first session of the Reformed Parliament he spoke against the repeal of the union with Ireland, in favour of a bill for removing the civil disabilities of the Jews, and in favour of a bill for depriving the East India Company of their exclusive trade with China and other commercial privileges." In 1833 ^^^ was appointed a member of the Supreme Council of India, and its legal adviser, at a salary of ten thousand pounds a year. This was an important post, one that would supply him with a modest fortune suffi- cient for his own simple tastes, and for the welfare of his brothers and sisters. Concerning it he wrote to his sister : " I may therefore hope to return to England at only thirty-nine, in the full vigour of hfe, with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. A larger fortune I never de- sired." His labours in India were arduous, and he won the same reputation as an Indian statesman that he had already achieved in politics at home. He set himself at work solving the great problems presented in India. Such problems were the formation of a new Penal Code, Introduction 19 the Code of Criminal Procedure, and the task of provid- ing public instruction for the native population of India. During this time he found little time for writing, but his reading list shows that he was the same omnivorous de- vourer of books as he had been in his English home. He left India at the end of the year 1837, and arrived in England in the middle of the year 1838. Upon his return home his great desire was to retire to private hfe and devote himself to that Histoi-y of England which he had planned to make the grand work of his last years. He resumed his Essays in the Edinburgh Review, that on Sir WiUiam Temple being one of his best. In October he left England again to spend the winter of 1838-39 in visiting the more important Italian cities. He was greatly moved by the sights, historical monuments, and architecture of ancient and mediaeval Italy. The visit to the church of Santa Croce " was to me," he records in his journal, " what a first visit to West- minster Abbey would be to an American." Soon after his return to England he was hurried again into politics and was elected to Parliament as member for Edinburgh, and shortly after this he entered the Cabinet as Secretary at War, in the ministry of Lord Melbourne. By this time he had already begun his great task, the " history of Eng- land from the accession of King James II down to the time which is within the memory of men still living." The Tory party came into power in 1841, and Macau- lay was reheved from his burdensome duties as Secretary, though he still retained his seat in the House. This 20 Macaulay's Essay on Addison relief from official duties gave him time to pursue his literary projects. He resumed his frequent contributions to the Edinburgh Revieiu, among which was his Essay on Addison, in 1843. In this same year, 1843, he pre- pared the first collected edition of his Essays. In 1844 his connexion with the Review ceased. Two years be- fore this, 1842, Macaulay allowed the publication of a series of poems upon which he had been at work for several years. These were his Lays of Ancient Rome. He himself was not without misgivings as to their success. But the Lays at once became popular and had an enor- mous sale. It is recorded that " eighteen thousand of the Lays of Ancient Rome were sold in ten years ; forty thou- sand in twenty years; and, by June, 1875, upward of a hundred thousand copies had passed into the hands of readers." The Whigs came into power again in 1846, and Macau- lay, at the request of Lord John Russell, again became a member of the Cabinet, Paymaster- General of the Army. In 1846 he was re-elected by his Scotch constituents only after a severe struggle. In the following year, however, at the time of the general election the opposition forces were too strong for him, and he was defeated. The Scotch voters deserted him because of his independent stand on religious and other questions. This defeat marks the real end of his pohtical life and the beginning of his great historical labour, the History of Englafid. His defeat was a loss for politics, but a gain for Hterature. He was now able to devote his whole time to the History, Introduction 21 and for the next few years he worked " doggedly " at it. In 1848 appeared the first two volumes. They met with astonishing success. " Not since the publication of the first volume of the * Decline and Fall,' " writes Morison, '' nearly three quarters of a century before, has any his- torical work been received with such universal acclama- tion. The first edition of three thousand copies was exhausted in ten days ; and in less than four months thirteen thousand copies were sold." In the same year the honour of election to the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University was bestowed upon the historian. Up to this time Macaulay's energy had been super- abundant and his duties manifold and fatiguing, yet his health had been almost always good if not robust. In the middle of the year 1852 he was suddenly stricken down by heart disease, which was followed by a con- firmed asthma. His forty years of incessant intellectual labours had finally undermined his health. Now the peo- ple of Edinburgh, having repented his defeat, re-elected him to Parliament without any canvass on his own behalf. This triumph was very flattering to Macaulay, but he never took up political life as in former years. He made only three speeches during his last four years in the House, and all these in 1853. He could no longer en- dure the fatigues that were formerly a pleasure to him. Warned by his failing health that he must set a limit to his activities, he resigned his seat in 1856. The third and fourth volumes of his History were published in 1855. "^^^ public interest in these volumes 22 Macaulay's Essay on Addison was fully as great as in the first two, twenty-five thousand copies being sold in a few months. Continuing his work upon his History, he also found time to contribute to the Encyclopedia Britaniiica a series of biographies of emi- nent men, namely, Atterbury, Bunyan, Goldsmith, John- son, and Pitt. In recognition of his services to the state and of the glory he had added to Enghsh Letters, he was created a Peer, — Baron Macaulay of Rothley, his birthplace, in 1857. He still continued to labour on his great task, the com- pletion of the History. He realized that his time was short, and he regretted leaving his work unfinished. He was very brave, and he clung to life and work even at the very end : " To-day I wrote a pretty fair quantity of his- tory. I should be glad to finish WilHam before I go. But this is like the old excuses that were made to Cha- ron." Shortly before his death he wrote of himself: "Well, I have had a happy Hfe. I do not know that any one whom I have seen close has had a happier. Some things I regret ; but who is better off ? " He died December 28, 1859, at Holly Lodge, a villa in Kensington. "On the 9th of January, i860, with impressive pomp, and amid the grief of an entire nation, he was borne to Westminster Abbey and buried in the Poets' Corner at the feet of the statue of Addison, and near the tombs of Johnson and Goldsmith, Garrick, Handel, and Gay." Introduction 23 II. Macaulay's Style As distinctly as any writer of the nineteenth century, Macaulay demonstrates the truth of the old saying, " The style is the man." The characteristic quahties of Macau- lay's personality were simplicity, positiveness, and force- fulness. The master qualities of his style are clearness, directness, and energy. The extraordinary powers of memory, the energy of intellect, the vividness and intensity of thought and feel- ing, and the high development of analogical faculty combined to give Macaulay his brilliant command over expression and literary art. He had the true genius for narration. The elements of his style may be examined more closely. His vocabulary was copious. It was far from technical, not commonplace, not scholastic. It was not a remarkable kind of language, such as may be found in Carlyle's works. Minto says : " His command of ex- pression was proportioned to the extraordinary compass of his memory. The copiousness appears not so much in the Shakspearian form of accumulating synonyms one upon another, as in a profuse way of repeating a thought in several different sentences." Macaulay said of Johnson, " When he wrote for pub- lication, he did his sentences out of English into John- sonese." The same can by no means be said of Macaulay ; but critics pretty generally agree that he used too many artifices of style, such as balanced sentences, abrupt tran- 24 Macaulay's Essay on Addison sitions, and pointed figures of speech. His is a style that can be imitated easily. His systematic use of the short sentence is said to come from his study of Gibbon. The length of his commonest sentence is about equal to the usual spoken sentence. His more elaborate sentences are those containing words and clauses formally balanced. These balanced sentences, generally combined with a vast amount of antithesis, produce an artificial effect, losing the natural flow and becoming hard and metallic. Here it is that he is most open to adverse criticism. In John Morley's famous essay on Macaulay this artificial manner is severely criticized : " To borrow the figure of an old writer, Macaulay's prose is not hke a flowing vest- ment to his thought, but like a suit of armour. It is often splendid and glittering, and the movement of the opening pages of his History is superb in its dignity. But that movement is exceptional. As a rule there is the hardness, if there is also often the sheen, of highly- wrought metal. Or, to change our figure, his pages are composed as a handsome edifice is reared, not as a fine statue or a frieze, Svith bossy sculptures graven,' grows up in the imaginative mind of the statuary. There is no liquid continuity, such as indicates a writer possessed by his subject and not merely possessing it. The periods are marshalled in due order of procession, bright and high- stepping ; they never escape under an impulse of emotion into the full current of a brimming stream. What is curious is that though Macaulay seems ever to be bran- dishing a two-edged gleaming sword, and though he steeps Introduction 25 us in an atmosphere of belligerency, yet we are never conscious of inward agitation in him, and perhaps this alone would debar him from a place among the greatest writers." Numerous examples might be chosen to show the exact and systematic use he made of the paragraph. He opened his paragraph with the general topic to be discussed, developed this topic in logical order, and finally closed the exposition with a complete summary. He had, however, the defect of abruptness, and at times destroyed the continuity of his statement by the intro- duction of generalities and contrasting sentences. His vast storehouse of illustrations, his fund of information, and his ability to write as if he were declaiming were instrumental in causing this defect. It remains to add one word of caution to those who wish to study his method of writing. This word may be taken from Minto's remarks : " If the student wishes to conform his style to the general judgement of critics, he must not imitate Macaulay too absolutely ; he must endeavour to be more varied in the forms of his sentences, to aim less frequently at contrasts, to study more care- fully the placing of important words, and, above all, to make a more moderate use of abrupt transitions." In other words, he may not use Macaulay as Dr. Johnson advised his readers to use Addison : " Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and ele- gant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." 26 Macaulay's Essay on Addison III. The Essay on Addison It is well known how Macaulay in 1825 "won the ad- miration of Jeffrey, and a place on the Edinburgh Review " by his remarkable Essay on Milton. And it is even bet- ter known what an effect that article had on the reading public of the famous Blue afid Yellow, as well as on its critical editor. After describing the interest created by this essay among the readers of the Review, Trevelyan relates : " But the compliment that of all others came most nearly home — the only commendation of his hter- ary talent which even in the innermost domestic circle he was ever known to repeat — was the sentence with which Jeffrey acknowledged the receipt of his manuscript, ' The more I think, the less I can conceive where you picked up that style.' " This Essay on Addison falls into what may be termed the middle period of Macaulay's contributions to the Review. It is one of the eight essays that were written upon literary subjects, and exhibited more essentially a critical purpose. In criticizing The Life of Addison by Miss Aikin, he followed the method used by the Edin- burgh Review, namely, a criticism of the book to be re- viewed, then an independent discussion of the subject in hand. He was greatly disappointed with Miss Aikin's book, but he was interested in the task of reviewing it. In a letter to Napier he writes : " I mistrust my own judgement of what I write so much, that I shall not be at Introduction 27 all surprised if both you and the public think my paper on Addison a failure ; but I own that I am partial to it." In his independent discussion of the subject in hand the essayist presents a biographical sketch of Addison, together with an account of his hterary ability and achievements. If there is any sense of " failure " on the part of the reader of to-day, it may be due to the lack of criticism of Addison as a writer. Throughout the essay more time and considerably more sympathy are spent in reviewing the historical and political environment of Addison's life than in depicting the character and merits of xA.ddison as a man and essayist. Generally speaking, this was one of Macaulay's weak points in criticism. He reahzed this himself, and was frank enough to confess it when he was asked to write an article on Scott : " I am not successful in analysing the effect of works of genius. I have written several things on historical, political, and moral questions, of which, on the fullest reconsideration, I am not ashamed, and by which I should be wilHng to be estimated ; but I have never written a page of criticism on poetry or the fine arts which I would not burn if I had the power." There are many reasons why Macaulay should have been "partial" toward this essay. It is interesting to note how many parallels between the careers of Addison and Macaulay may be established. Both men seem to have evinced a strong Whig bias in their under-graduate years at the University; Addison in his Inaitgtiratio Regis Gulielmi, and Macaulay in his essay On the Con- 28 Macaulay's Essay on Addison duct and Character of William the Third. The services of both these young Whigs were sought by the in- fluential men of this party ; rapid promotions followed their valuable services ; places in Parliament were made for them ; and finally both became Secretaries in a Whig Ministry. It is needless to say that both are cele- brated essayists : one holding a place among eighteenth- century writers, honoured for his charm, refinement, and nobleness of sentiment ; the other a similar place among the writers of the nineteenth century, renowned for his force, brilliancy, and optimism. It is not to be won- dered at, therefore, that Macaulay, writing in the nine- teenth century, should have enjoyed the historical and political career of his counterpart of the eighteenth century. IV. Life and Times of Addison Joseph Addison was born at Milston, near Amesbury, Wilts, on May i, 1672. His father, Lancelot Addison, was rector of Milston and afterward Dean of Lichfield. Educated at Oxford, but forced to leave the University because of his preference for monarchy and episcopacy at a time when the University was under Puritan control, he became a chaplain and tutor in famihes attached to the Royalist cause. After the Restoration he served as chaplain to the garrison of Dunkirk, and later of Tangier, when he returned to England and was rewarded with the living of Milston. Here he married Jane Gulston, sister of William Gulston, Bishop of Bristol, by whom he had Introduction 29 three sons and three daughters, Joseph being the eldest child. Lancelot Addison was the author of several theo- logical treatises. '' His hterary 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." Steele, who visited Addison while they were schoolmates, says of Addison's father : " His method was to make it the only pretension in his children to his favour, to be kind to each other. It was an unspeakable pleasure to visit or sit at a meal in that family." Of Addison's mother nothing of importance is recorded. After attending school at Amesbury, Salisbury, and the Grammar School at Lichfield, Joseph was sent to the Charterhouse in London, where was laid the foundation of his sound classical training, and where was formed that friendship with Steele which was so important to him in later years. In 1687 Addison was entered at Queen's College, Ox- ford. He remained there for two years. The excellence of his Latin verses attracted the attention of his instruc- tors, and he was rewarded with a scholarship at Magdalen College. He obtained his master's degree in 1693, a probationary fellowship in 1697, and an actual fellowship in the following year. This fellowship he retained till 1 71 1. "He is said to have shown in the society of Magdalen some of the shyness that afterwards distin- guished him j he kept late hours, and read chiefly after 30 Macaulay's Essay on Addison 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." While connected with the University his reputation for classical learning extended itself to the literary circles of London, so that he was known to Dryden, the acknowl- edged leader of the world of letters, as well as to certain political leaders. His Hterary career may be said to have begun in 1693 with his Account of the Greatest English Poets, his complimentary verses to Dryden, a translation of the fourth book of the Georgics, his Address to King William, composed in 1695, and a Latin poem on the Peace of Ryswick. The Whigs, the party then in power, believed that the author might be of use to them. Charles Montagu, Earl of HaHfax, secured a pension of three hundred pounds a year for Addison in order that he might fit himself for diplomatic employments by foreign travel. Addison left England in 1699, not to return until 1703. " 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." He first crossed to France where he passed eighteen months studying the language and literature, and in December, 1 700, started for Italy, visiting the most important Italian cities. In December, 1701, he crossed the Alps to Ge- neva, and proceeded through Switzerland to Vienna, Introduction 31 where he arrived in the autumn of 1702. He then directed his course through the Protestant cities of Ger- many, reaching Holland in the spring of 1 703, remaining there until his return to England 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 verse he ever wrote." Upon his return to England Addison found himself in very adverse circumstances. His father had died while he was in Holland ; his chief political patron was in dis- credit at Court ; his party, the Whigs, were out of office, and his means were so reduced that he was forced to hve in a very humble manner. It was not long, however, before his marked Hterary abilities gained him new friends. He was admitted to the famous Kit Cat Club, to which all the great Whigs belonged and of which Steele, his old school friend, was also a member. It was Marlborough's victory in the battle of Blenheim that was destined to mend Addison's ill fortune. It was Godol- phin who asked Lord Hahfax to name a poet quahfied to celebrate Blenheim and the victory of the Captain - General. And the story goes, if Pope is to be trusted, that Godolphin's messenger " 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 3'^ Macaulay*s Essay on Addison pledge of more considerable advancement in the future." The fruit of this negotiation was T/ie Campaig7i. The Campaign began Addison's active political life in 1706. The poem was a success. It strengthened the position of the Whig ministry ; it secured a post for its author. This was followed by promotion to the under- secretaryship of state. In 1705 he accompanied Lord Halifax to the Court of Hanover, to invest the Elector of Hanover with the Order of the Garter. In 1 708, owing to the displacement of his chief, the Earl of Sunderland, he lost his post as Under-Secretary, but almost immediately afterward he was offered a secretaryship under the Earl of Wharton, the new Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He was also made keeper of the records in Birmingham Tower, DubHn. At this time he was elected a member of Parliament and remained a member during the rest of his life. Swift, in speaking of his re-election in 1710, said, " If he had a mind to be chosen king, he would hardly be refused." Meanwhile Addison had not abandoned his literary work. After aiding Steele in the composition of his Tender Husband, which was acted in 1705, he wrote the poem called Rosamo?id, which was set to music by the composer Thomas Clayton, in the style of the Italian opera then in vogue. This piece was performed in 1706, but it was poorly received. When Steele began his Tatler, in 1709, Addison became a frequent contributor to it, the first of his contributions being No. 18. The issue of The Tatler by Addison and Steele reached 271 numbers, of Introduction ^3 which Steele wrote about i88, Addison only 42, the others being the work of their joint labours. Though criticism has usually attributed a greater share of praise to the fine workmanship and remarkable method of Addison's contributions to T/ie Tatlei', yet the originahty of Steele, his ability to initiate and invent, his energy and emotionaHsm, are factors to be accredited to Steele in a comparative study of the work of The Tatler. Truly, later, Addison left his impression on every feature of essay-writing that was developed into the perfection of style in the pages of The Spectator. The Tatler was pub- lished till January 2, 1710-11, when it was discontinued and its place was taken by The Spectator, the first number of which appeared on March i, 1710-11. The Spectator was issued every day except Sunday, while The Tatler had appeared only three times a week. It was the daily essay, together with a number of advertisements and letters from real and supposed correspondents, that changed the genuine newspaper character of The Tatler into that of a literary periodical. The newspaper at once became a success, and this was due in a large measure to the superior quality of Addison's contributions. In the papers upon Sir Roger de Coverley the inventive skill of Steele and the literary genius of Addison were exhibited in the highest degree of perfection. Addison's contributions to The Spectator were 2 74 in number, while Steele's were 236. Addison's fame as an essayist rests chiefly upon the articles he contributed to these two periodicals. He also wrote for The Guardian, the successor of The Spectator, and in ESSAY ON ADDISON — 3 34 Macaulay's Essay on Addison June, 1 714, he began, without the aid of Steele, anew series of The Spectator, this appearing only three times a week. He was also interested in three other periodicals. The Whig Examiner, The Freeholder, and The Old Whig. These last were political papers. About a month after the publication of the first num- ber of The Guardian, on April 13, 1713, Addison won great contemporary fame by the production of his tragedy, Cato, which was partly written some twelve years before. This tragedy is said to have been performed amid great public enthusiasm, the Whigs and Tories being equally excited by the eloquent speeches upon the liberties of Rome. Pope in his letter to Trumbull, April 30, 1713, relates how the two political parties vied with each other in their efforts to praise the drama and to make it a "party play " : "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. ... 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 acknowledg- ment, as he expressed it, for defending the cause of hb- erty 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." The fame of Cato passed from England to the Continent. " It was Introduction 35 twice translated into Italian, twice into French, and once into Latin ; a P'rench and a German imitation of it were also published." Two years later, March, 17 15, a second drama was pro- duced by Addison. This was The Dru7ii7ner, a comedy. It was performed at the Drury Lane Theatre, which was now under the management of Addison's friend, Steele. The Drummer was not a success. This was the last of Addison's purely literary productions, his later writings being altogether poKtical in character. He resigned his secretaryship in March, 1718, hoping to spend the remain- ing years of his hfe in literary work. He had planned to write another tragedy on the death of Socrates and to complete his book on the Evidences of Christianity. Soon after his retirement from office, however, his health began to fail, and he died on June 17, 1719. There are two characteristic stories told of the kindliness and nobleness of the man whose whole career had been marked by its sweetness of temper and gentleness of spirit. Even when he was on his death-bed he sent for Gay and asked his forgiveness for some injury which had long been forgotten ; and again, caUing for the Earl of Warwick, his stepson, he said, " See in what peace a Christian can die." After lying in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, he was buried by night in Westminster Abbey. 36 Macaulay's Essay on Addison BIBLIOGRAPHY Macaulay. Biographies of Macaulay. 1 . The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay^ by G. Otto Trevelyan. (2 vols.) 2. Life of Macaulay y by J. Cotter M orison. {English Men of Letters Series.) 3. Lord Macanlay, by C. H. Jones. Criticisms on Macaulay's Works. 1. By W. E. Gladstone. In Quarterly Review, 1876. 2. By Matthew Arnold. In Mixed Essays, No. 7, A French Critic on Milton. 3. By W. Bagehot. In Literary Studies, Vol. ii. 4. By Leslie Stephen. In Hours i7i a Libra?y, Vol. iii. 5. By William Minto. In Manual of English Prose Literature. 6. By H. A. Taine. In History of Etighsh Literature, Bk. V, Chap. iii. 7. By John Morley. In Miscellanies, Vol. i. Addison. Biographies of Addison. I. By W. J. Courthope. {English Men of Letters Series.) Bibliography 37 Criticisms on Addison's Works. 1 . By Dr. Johnson. In The Lives of the English Poets. 2. By W. M. Thackeray. In English Hiwwrists of the Eighteenth Century. 3. ByH.A. Taine. \n History of English Literatu7'e, Bk. iii, Chap. iv. 4. By William Minto. In Manual of English Prose Literature. 5. By Mrs. Oliphant. In Historical Characters of the Reign of Queen A)ine. 6. By J. Scott Clark. In A Study of English Prose Writers. ESSAY ON ADDISON The Life of Joseph Addison. By Lucy Aikin. 2 vols., 8vo. London: 1843. Some reviewers are of opinion that a lady who dares to publish a book renounces by that act the franchises appertaining to her sex, and can claim no exemption from the utmost rigour of critical pro- cedure. From that opinion we dissent. We admit, 5 indeed, that in a country which boasts of many female writers, eminently qualified by their talents and ac- quirements to influence the public mind, it would be of most pernicious consequence that inaccurate history or unsound philosophy should be suffered to pass un- 10 censured, merely because the offender chanced to be a lady. But we conceive that, on such occasions, a critic would do well to imitate the courteous Knight who found himself compelled by duty to keep the lists against Bradamante. He, we are told, defended sue- 15 cessfully the cause of which he was the champion ; but, before the fight began, exchanged Balisarda for a less deadly sword, of which he carefully blunted the point and edge. Nor are the immunities of sex the only immunities 20 which Miss Aikin may rightfully plead. Several of her works, and especially the very pleasing Memoirs of 39 40 Essay on Addison the Reign of James the Firsts have fully entitled her to the privileges enjoyed by good writers. One of those privileges we hold to be this, that such writers, when, either from the unlucky choice of a subject, or from 5 the indolence too often produced by success, they happen to fail, shall not be subjected to the severe discipline which it is sometimes necessary to inflict upon dunces and impostors, but shall merely be reminded by a gentle touch, like to that with which the Laputan 10 flapper roused his dreaming lord, that it is high time to wake. Our readers wall probably infer from what we have said that Miss Aikin's book has disappointed us. The truth is, that she is not well acquainted with her 15 subject. No person who is not familiar with the political and literary history of England during the reigns of William the Third, of Anne, and of George the First, can possibly write a good life of Addi- son. Now, we mean no reproach to Miss Aikin, 20 and many will think that we pay her a compliment, when we say that her studies have taken a different direction. She is better acquainted wdth Shakespeare and Raleigh, than with Congreve and Prior ; and is far more at home among the ruffs and peaked beards of 25 Theobald's than among the Steenkirks and flowing periwigs which surrounded Queen Anne's tea-table at Hampton. She seems to have written about the Eliza- bethan age, because she had read much about it ; she seems, on the other hand, to have read a little about Essay on Addison 41 the age of Addison, because she had determined to write about it. The consequence is that she has had to describe men and things without having either a correct or a vivid idea of them, and that she has often fallen into errors of a very serious kind. The reputation 5 which Miss Aikin has justly earned stands so high, and the charm of Addison's letters is so great, that a second edition of this work may probably be required. If so, we hope that every paragraph will be revised, and that every date and fact about which there can be the 10 smallest doubt will be carefully verified. To Addison ^ himself we are bound by a sentiment as much like affection as any sentiment can be, which is inspired by one w^ho has been sleeping a hundred and twenty years in Westminster Abbey. We trust, 15 however, that this feeling will not betray us into that abject idolatry which we have often had occasion to reprehend in others, and which seldom fails to make both the idolater and the idol ridiculous. A man of genius and virtue is but a man. All his powers cannot 20 be equally developed ; nor can we expect from him perfect self-knowledge. We need not, therefore, hesi- tate to admit that Addison has left us some composi- tions which do not rise above mediocrity, some heroic poems hardly equal to Parnell's, some criticism as 25 superficial as Dr. Blair's, and a tragedy not very much better than Dr. Johnson's. It is praise enough to say of a writer that, in a high department of literature, in ^The essay proper begins here. 42 Essay on Addison which many eminent writers have distinguished them- selves, he has had no equal ; and this may with strict justice be said of Addison. As a man, he may not have deserved the adoration 5 which he received from those who, bewitched by his fascinating society, and indebted for all the comforts of life to his generous and delicate friendship, wor- shipped him nightly in his favourite temple at Button's. But, after full inquiry and impartial reflection, we have 10 long been convinced that he deserved as much love and esteem as can be justly claimed by any of our infirm and erring race. Some blemishes may un- doubtedly be detected in his character ; but the more carefully it is examined, the more will it appear, to use 15 the phrase of the old anatomists, sound in the noble parts, free from all taint of perfidy, of cowardice, of cruelty, of ingratitude, of envy. Men may easily be named in whom some particular good disposition has been more conspicuous than in Addison. But the just 20 harmony of qualities, the exact temper between the stern and the humane virtues, the habitual observ- ance of every law, not only of moral rectitude, but of moral grace and dignity, distinguish him from all men who have been tried by equally strong tempta- 25 tions, and about whose conduct we possess equally full information. His father was the Reverend Lancelot Addison, who, though eclipsed by his more celebrated son, made some figure in the world, and occupies with credit two Essay on Addison 43 folio pages in the Biog7-aphia Britannica. Lancelot was sent up, as a poor scholar, from Westmoreland to Queen's College, Oxford, in the time of the Common- wealth ; made some progress in learning ; became, like most of his fellow students, a violent Royalist ; lam- 5 pooned the heads of the University, and was forced to ask pardon on his bended knees. When he had left college, he earned a humble subsistence by reading the liturgy of the fallen church to the families of those sturdy squires whose manor houses were scattered over 10 the Wild of Sussex. After the Restoration, his loyalty was rewarded with the post of chaplain to the garrison of Dunkirk. When Dunkirk was sold to France, he lost his employment. But Tangier had been ceded by Portugal to England as part of the marriage portion of 15 the Infanta Catharine ; and to Tangier Lancelot Addi- son was sent. A more miserable situation can hardly be conceived. It was difficult to say whether the un- fortunate settlers were more tormented by the heats or by the rains, by the soldiers within the wall or by the 20 Moors without it. One advantage the chaplain had. He enjoyed an excellent opportunity of studying the history and manners of Jews and Mahometans ; and of this opportunity he appears to have made excellent use. On his return to England, after some years of banish- 25 ment, he published an interesting volume on the Polity and Religion of Barbary, and another on the Hebrew Customs and the State of Rabbinical Learning. He rose to eminence in his profession, and became one of 44 Essay on Addison the royal chaplains, a Doctor of Divinity, Archdeacon of Salisbury, and Dean of Lichfield. It is said that he would have been made a bishop after the Revolution if he had not given offence to the government by strenuously 5 opposing, in the Convocation of 1689, the liberal poHcy of William and Tillotson. In 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return from Tangier, his son Joseph was born. Of Joseph's child- hood we know little. He learned his rudiments at 10 schools in his father's neighbourhood, and was then sent to the Charter House.^ The anecdotes which are popularly related about his boyish tricks do not har- monize very well with what we know of his riper years. There remains a tradition that he was the ringleader in 15 a barring out, and another tradition that he ran away from school and hid himself in a wood, where he fed on berries and slept in a hollow tree, till after a long search he was discovered and brought home. If these stories be true, it would be curious to know by what 20 moral discipline so mutinous and enterprising a lad was transformed into the gentlest and most modest of men. We have abundant proof that, whatever Joseph's pranks may have been, he pursued his studies vigor- ously and successfully. At fifteen he was not only fit 25 for the University, but carried thither a classical taste and a stock of learning which would have done honour to a Master of Arts. He was entered at Queen's Col- 1 See Hare's Walks in London and Carthusians in Encyclopedia Britannica. Essay on Addison 45 lege, Oxford ; but he had not been many months there when some of his Latin verses fell by accident into the hands of Dr. Lancaster, Dean of Magdalen College. The young scholar's diction and versification were already such as veteran professors might envy. Dr. 5 Lancaster was desirous to serve a boy of such promise ; nor was an opportunity long wanting. The Revolution had just taken place ; and nowhere had it been hailed with more delight than at Magdalen College. That great and opulent corporation had been treated by 10 James and by his Chancellor with an insolence and in- justice which, even in such a prince and in such a min- ister, may justly excite amazement, and which had done more than even the prosecution of the Bishops to alienate the Church of England from the throne. A 15 president, duly elected, had been violently expelled from his dwelling: a Papist had been set over the society by a royal mandate : the Fellows, who, in con- formity with their oaths, had refused to submit to this usurper, had been driven forth from their quiet cloisters 20 and gardens, to die of want or to live on charity. But the day of redress and retribution speedily came. The intruders were ejected : the venerable House was again inhabited by its old inmates ; learning flourished under the rule of the wise and virtuous Hough ; and with 25 learning was united a mild and liberal spirit too often wanting in the princely colleges of Oxford. In conse- quence of the troubles through which the society had passed, there had been no valid election of new mem- 4-6 Essay on Addison bers during the year 1688. In 1689, therefore, there was twice the ordinary number of vacancies ; and thus Dr. Lancaster found it easy to procure for his young friend admittance to the advantages of a foundation 5 then generally esteemed the wealthiest in Europe. At Magdalen Addison resided during ten years. He was, at first, one of those scholars who are called Demies, but was subsequently elected a Fellow. His college is still proud of his name ; his portrait still 10 hangs in the hall ; and strangers are still told that his favourite walk was under the elms which fringe the meadow on the banks of the Cherwell. It is said, and is highly probable, that he was distinguished among his fellow students by the delicacy of his feelings, by the 15 shyness of his manners, and by the assiduity with which he often prolonged his studies far into the night. It is certain that his reputation for ability and learning stood high. Many years later the ancient doctors of Magda- len continued to talk in their common room of his 20 boyish compositions, and expressed their sorrow that no copy of exercises so remarkable had been preserved. It is proper, however, to remark that Miss Aikin has committed the error, very pardonable in a lady, of overrating Addison's classical attainments. In one 25 department of learning, indeed, his proficiency was such as it is hardly possible to overrate. His knowl- edge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound. He understood them thoroughly, en- Essay on Addison 47 tered into their spirit, and had the finest and most dis- criminating perception of all their peculiarities of style and melody ; nay, he copied their manner with admir- able skill, and surpassed, we think, all their British imi- tators who had preceded him, Buchanan and Milton 5 alone excepted. This is high praise ; and beyond this we cannot with justice go. It is clear that Addison's serious attention, during his residence at the University, was almost entirely concentrated on Latin poetry, and that, if he did not w^holly neglect other provinces of an- 10 cient literature, he vouchsafed to them only a cursory glance. He does not appear to have attained more than an ordinary acquaintance with the political and moral writers of Rome ; nor was his own Latin prose by any means equal to his Latin verse. His knowledge 15 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. A minute examination of his works, if we had time to make such an examination, would fully 20 bear out these remarks. We will briefly advert to a few of the facts on which our judgement is grounded. Great praise is due to the Notes which Addison ap- pended to his version of the second and third books of the Meta^norphoses. Yet those notes, while they show 25 him to have been, in his own domain, an accomplished scholar, show also how confined that domain was. They are rich in apposite references to Virgil, Statins, and Claudian ; but they contain not a single illustration 48 Essay on Addison drawn from the Greek poets. Now, if in the whole compass of Latin Hterature there be a passage which stands in need of illustration, drawn from the Greek poets, it is the story of Pentheus in the third book of 5 the Metamorphoses. Ovid was indebted for that story to Euripides and Theocritus, both of whom he has some- times followed minutely. But neither to Euripides nor to Theocritus does Addison make the faintest allusion ; and we, therefore, believe that we do not wrong him by sup- 10 posing that he had little or no knowledge of their works. His travels in Italy, again, abound with classical quotations, happily introduced ; but scarcely one of those quotations is in prose. He draws more illustrations from Ausonius and Manilius than from Cicero. Even his no- 15 tions of the political and military affairs of the Romans seem to be derived from poets and poetasters. Spots ^ made memorable by events which have changed the desti- nies of the world, and which have been worthily recorded by great historians, bring to his mind only scraps of 20 some ancient versifier. In the gorge of the Apennines he naturally remembers the hardships which Hannibal's army endured, and proceeds to cite, not the authentic narrative of Polybius, not the picturesque narrative of Livy, but the languid hexameters of Silius Italicus. On 25 the banks of the Rubicon he never thinks of Plutarch's lively description, or of the stern conciseness of the Co7?tmentaries, or of those letters to Atticus which so forcibly express the alternations of hope and fear in a ^ See Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. Essay on Addison 49 sensitive mind at a great crisis. His only authority for the events of the civil war is Lucan. All the best ancient works of art at Rome and Florence are Greek. Addison saw them, however, with- out recalling one single verse of Pindar, of Callimachus, 5 or of the Attic dramatists ; but they brought to his recollection innumerable passages of Horace, Juvenal, Statins, and Ovid. The same may be said of the treatise on Medals. In that pleasing work we find about three hundred passages 10 extracted with great judgement from the Roman poets ; but we do not recollect a single passage taken from any Roman orator or historian ; and we are confident that not a line is quoted from any Greek writer. No person, who had derived all his information on the subject of 15 medals from Addison, would suspect that the Greek coins were in historical interest equal, and in beauty of execution far superior, to those of Rome. If it were necessary to find any further proof that Addison's classical knowledge was confined within nar-20 row limits, that proof would be furnished by his Essay on the Evidences of Christianity. The Roman poets throw little or no light on the literary and historical questions which he is under the necessity of examining in that essay. He is, therefore, left completely in the 25 dark ; and it is melancholy to see how helplessly he gropes his way from blunder to blunder. He assigns, as grounds for his religious belief, stories as absurd as- that of the Cock-Lane ghost, and forgeries as rank as ESSAY ON ADDISON — \ 50 Essay on Addison Ireland's Vortigern ; puts faith in the He about the Thundering Legion ; is convinced that Tiberius moved the senate to admit Jesus among the gods, and pro- nounces the letter of Agbarus, King of Edessa, to be a 5 record of great authority. Nor were these errors the effects of superstition ; for to superstition Addison was by no means prone. The truth is that he was writing about what he did not understand. Miss Aikin has discovered a letter from which it 10 appears that, while Addison resided at Oxford, he was one of several writers whom the booksellers engaged to make an English version of Herodotus ; and she infers that he must have been a good Greek scholar. We can allow very little weight to this argument, when 15 we consider that his fellow labourers were to have been Boyle and Blackmore. Boyle is remembered chiefly as the nominal author of the worst book on Greek history and philology that ever was printed ; and this book, bad as it is, Boyle was unable to produce without help. Of 20 Blackmore 's attainments in the ancient tongues, it may be sufficient to say that, in his prose, he has confounded an aphorism with an apophthegm, and that when, in his verse, he treats of classical subjects, his habit is to regale his readers with four false quantities to a page. 25 It is probable that the classical acquirements of Ad- dison were of as much service to him as if they had been more extensive. The world generally gives its admira- tion, not to the man who does what nobody else even attempts to do, but to the man who does best what multi- Essay on Addison 51 tudes do well. Bentley was so immeasurably superior to all the other scholars of his time that few among them could discover his superiority. But the accomplish- ment in which Addison excelled his contemporaries was then, as it is now, highly valued and assiduously 5 cultivated at all English seats of learning. Everybody who had been at a public school^ had written Latin verses ; many had written such verses with tolerable success, and were quite able to appreciate, though by no means able to rival, the skill with which Addison 10 imitated Virgil. His lines on the Barometer and the Bowling Green were applauded by hundreds, to whom the Dissertation on the Epistles of Fhalaris was as unintelligible as the hieroglyphics on an obelisk. Purity of style, and an easy flow of numbers, are 15 common to all Addison's Latin poems. Our favourite piece is the Battle of the Cranes and Pygniies ; for in that piece we discern a gleam of the fancy and humour which many years later enlivened thousands of break- fast tables. Swift boasted that he was never known to 20 steal a hint ; and he certainly owed as little to his predecessors as any modern writer. Yet we cannot help suspecting that he borrowed, perhaps unconsciously, one of the happiest touches in his Voyage to Lilliput from Addison's verses. Let our readers judge. 25 " The Emperor," says Gulliver, " is taller by about the breadth of my nail than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders." 1 Eton, Rugby, etc., are called " public schools " in England. 52 Essay on Addison About thirty years before Gulliver's Travels ap- peared, Addison wrote these Hnes : " Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert Pygmeadum ductor, qui, majestate verendus, 5 Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam." The Latin poems of Addison were greatly and justly admired both at Oxford and Cambridge, before his name had ever been heard by the wits who thronged 10 the coffee-houses^ round Drury Lane theatre. In his twenty-second year he ventured to appear before the public as a writer of English verse. He addressed some complimentary lines to Dryden, who, after many tri- umphs and many reverses, had at length reached a 15 secure and lonely eminence among the literary men of that age. Dryden appears to have been much gratified by the young scholar's praise ; and an interchange of civilities and good offices followed. Addison was prob- ably introduced by Dryden to Congreve, and was cer- 20 tainly presented by Congreve to Charles Montagu, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the Whig party in the House of Commons. At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote himself to poetry. He published a translation of part 25 of the fourth Georgic, Lines to King William, and other performances of equal value ; that is to say, of no value at all. But in those days, the public was in the habit 1 See Justin McCarthy's History of the Four Georges, Vol. I. Essay on Addison ^^ of receiving with applause pieces which would now have little chance of obtaining the Newdigate prize or the Seatonian prize. And the reason is obvious. The heroic couplet ^ was then the favourite measure. The art of arranging words in that measure, so that the lines 5 may flow smoothly, that the accents may fall correctly, that the rhymes may strike the ear strongly, and that there may be a pause at the end of every distich, is an art as mechanical as that of mending a kettle or shoeing a horse, and may be learned by any human being who 10 has sense enough to learn anything. But, like other mechanical arts, it was gradually improved by means of many experiments and many failures. It was reserved for Pope^ to discover the trick, to make himself com- plete master of it, and to teach it to everybody else. 15 From the time when his Pastorals appeared, heroic ver- sification became matter of rule and compass ; and, before long, all artists were on a level. Hundreds of dunces who never blundered on one happy thought or expression were able to write reams of couplets which, 20 as far as euphony was concerned, could not be distin- guished from those of Pope himself, and which very clever writers of the reign of Charles the Second, — Rochester, for example, or Marvel, or Oldham, — would have contemplated with admiring despair. 25 Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very small man. But Hoole, coming after Pope, had learned how 1 See Gummere's Handbook of Poetics. 2 See Pope's Essay on Criticism. 54 Essay on Addison to manufacture decasyllable verses, and poured them forth by thousands and tens of thousands, all as well turned, as smooth, and as like each other as the blocks which have passed through Mr. Brunei's mill in the 5 dockyard at Portsmouth. Ben's heroic couplets resem- ble blocks rudely hewn out by an unpractised hand with a blunt hatchet. Take as a specimen his translation of a celebrated passage in the yEneid : " This child our parent earth, stirr'd up with spite 10 Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write, She was last sister of that giant race That sought to scale Jove's court, right swift of pace, And swifter far of wing, a monster vast And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed 15 On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise In the report, as many tongues she wears." Compare with these jagged, misshapen distichs the neat fabric which Hoole's machine produces in unlim- 20 ited abundance. We take the first lines on which we open in his version of Tasso. They are neither better nor worse than the rest : "O thou, whoe'er thou art, whose steps are led, By choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread, 25 No greater wonders east or west can boast Than yon small island on the pleasing coast. If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore. The current pass, and seek the further shore." Ever since the time of Pope there has been a glut of 30 lines of this sort, and we are now as little disposed to Essay on Addison ^^ admire a man for being able to write them, as for being able to write his name. But in the days of William the Third such versification was rare ; and a rhymer who had any skill in it passed for a great poet, just as in the dark ages a person who could write his name passed for a great 5 clerk. Accordingly, Duke, Stepney, Granville, Walsh, and others whose only title to fame was that they said in tolerable metre what might have been as well said in prose, or what was not worth saying at all, were honoured with marks of distinction which ought to be reserved for 10 genius. With these Addison must have ranked, if he had not earned true and lasting glory by performances which very little resembled his juvenile poems, Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and obtained from Addison a critical preface to the Georgics. In re- 15 turn for this service, and for other services of the same kind, the veteran poet, in the postscript to the translation of the u^7ieid, complimented his young friend with great liberality, and indeed with more liberality than sincerity. He affected to be afraid that his own performance 20 would not sustain a comparison with the version of the fourth Georgic, by " the most ingenious Mr. Addison of Oxford." " After his bees," added Dryden, " my latter swarm is scarcely worth the hiving." The time had now arrived when it was necessary for 25 Addison to choose a calling. Everything seemed to point his course towards the clerical profession. His habits were regular, his opinions orthodox. His college had large ecclesiastical preferment in its gift, and boasts ^6 Essay on Addison that it has given at least one bishop to almost every see in England. Dr. Lancelot Addison held an honourable place in the church, and had set his heart on seeing his son a clergyman. It is clear, from some expressions 5 in the young man's rhymes, that his intention was to take orders. But Charles Montagu interfered. Montagu had first brought himself into notice by verses, well timed and not contemptibly written, but never, we think, rising above mediocrity. Fortunately for himself and 10 for his country, he early quitted poetry, in which he could never have attained a rank as high as that of Dorset or Rochester, and turned his mind to official and parlia- mentary business. It is written that the ingenious per- son who undertook to instruct Rasselas, prince of Abys- 15 sinia, in the art of flying, ascended an eminence, w^aved his wings, sprang into the air, and instantly dropped into the lake. But it is added that the wings, which were unable to support him through the sky, bore him up effectually as soon as he was in the water. This is no 20 bad type of the fate of Charles Montagu, and of men like him. When he attempted to soar into the regions of poetical invention, he altogether failed ; but, as soon as he had descended from that ethereal elevation into a lower and grosser element, his talents instantly raised 25 him above the mass. He became a distinguished finan- cier, debater, courtier, and party leader. He still re- tained his fondness for the pursuits of his early days ; but he showed that fondness not by wearying the public with his own feeble performances, but by discovering Essay on Addison 57 and encouraging literary excellence in others. A crowd of wits and poets, who would easily have vanquished him as a competitor, revered him as a judge and a pa- tron. In his plans for the encouragement of learning, he was cordially supported by the ablest and most vir- 5 tuous of his colleagues, the Lord Chancellor Somers. Though both these great statesmen had a sincere love of letters, it was not solely from a love of letters that they were desirous to enlist youths of high intellectual quali- fications in the public service. The Revolution had 10 altered the whole system of government. Before that event the press had been controlled by censors, and the parliament had sat only two months in eight years. Now the press was free, and had begun to exercise un- precedented influence on the public mind. Parliament 15 met annually and sat long. The chief power in the state had passed to the House of Commons. At such a conjuncture, it was natural that literary and oratorical talents should rise in value. There was danger that a government which neglected such talents might be 20 subverted by them. It was, therefore, a profound and enlightened policy which led Montagu and Somers to attach such talents to the Whig party, by the strongest ties both of interest and of gratitude. It is remarkable that, in a neighbouring country, we 25 have recently^ seen similar effects follow from similar causes. The Revolution of July, 1830, established rep- resentative government in France. The men of letters iThis essay was written in 1843. 58 Essay on Addison instantly rose to the highest importance in the state. At the present moment most of the persons whom we see at the head both of the Administration and of the Opposition, have been professors, historians, journal- 5 ists, poets. The influence of the hterary class in England, during the generation which followed the Revolution, was great, but by no means so great as it has lately been in France. For, in England, the aris- tocracy of intellect had to contend with a powerful 10 and deeply rooted aristocracy of a very different kind. France had no Somersets and Shrewsburies to keep down her Addisons and Priors. It was in the year 1699, when Addison had just completed his twenty-seventh year, that the course of 15 his life was finally determined. Both the great chiefs of the ministry were kindly disposed towards him. In political opinions he already was what he continued to be through life, a firm, though a moderate Whig. He had addressed the most polished and vigorous of his 20 early EngHsh fines to Somers, and had dedicated to Montagu a Latin poem, truly Virgilian, both in style and rhythm, on the peace of Ryswick. The wish of the young poet's great friends was, it should seem, to em- ploy him in the service of the crown abroad. But an 25 intimate knowledge of the French language was a qualifi- cation indispensable to a diplomatist ; and this qualifi- cation Addison had not acquired. It was, therefore, thought desirable that he should pass some time on the continent in preparing himself for official employment. Essay on Addison 59 His own means were not such as would enable him to travel ; but a pension of three hundred pounds a year was procured for him by the interest of the Lord Chan- cellor. It seems to have been apprehended that some difficulty might be started by the rulers of Magdalen 5 College. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote in the strongest terms to Hough. The state — such was the purport of Montagu's letter — could not, at that time, spare to the church such a man as Addison. Too many high civil posts were already occupied by adven- 10 turers, who, destitute of every liberal art and sentiment, at once pillaged and disgraced the country which they pretended to serve. It had become necessary to recruit for the public service from a very different class, from that class of which Addison was the representative. 15 The close of the minister's letter was remarkable. '' I am called," he said, " an enemy of the church. But I will never do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addi- son out of it." This interference was successful ; and, in the summer 20 of 1699, Addison, made a rich man by his pension, and still retaining his fellowship, quitted his beloved Ox- ford, and set out on his travels." He crossed from Dover to Calais, proceeded to Paris, and was received there with great kindness and politeness by a kinsman 25 of his friend Montagu, Charles Earl of Manchester, who had just been appointed Ambassador to the Court of France. The Countess, a Whig and a toast, was probably as gracious as her lord ; for Addison long 6o Essay on Addison retained an agreeable recollection of the impression which she at this time made on him, and, in some lively lines written on the glasses of the Kit Cat Club, described the envy which her cheeks, glowing with the 5 genuine bloom of England, had excited among the painted beauties of Versailles. Louis the Fourteenth was at this time expiating the vices of his youth by a devotion which had no root in reason, and bore no fruit of charity. The servile liter- lo ature of France had changed its character to suit the changed character of the prince. No book appeared that had not an air of sanctity. Racine, who was just dead, had passed the close of his life in writing sacred dramas, and Dacier was seeking for the Athanasian 15 mysteries in Plato. Addison described this state of things in a short but lively and graceful letter to Mon- tague. Another letter, written about the same time to the Lord Chancellor, conveyed the strongest assurances of gratitude and attachment. " The only return I can 20 make to your lordship," said Addison, " will be to apply myself entirely to my business." With this view he quitted Paris and repaired to Blois, a place where it was supposed that the J^'rench language was spoken in its highest purity, and where not a single Englishman 25 could be found. Here he passed some months pleas- antly and profitably. Of his way of life at Blois, one of his associates, an Abb6 named Philippeaux, gave an account to Joseph Spence. If this account is to be trusted, Addison studied much, mused much, talked Essay on Addison 6i little, had fits of absence, and either had no love af- fairs, or was too discreet to confide them to the Abbe. A man who, even when surromided by fellow country- men and fellow students, had always been remarkably shy and silent, was not likely to be loquacious in a 5 foreign tongue, and among foreign companions. But it is clear from Addison's letters, some of which were long after pubhshed in The Gtiardian^ that, while he appeared to be absorbed in his own meditations, he was really observing French society with that keen and 10 sly, yet not ill-natured side glance, which was peculiarly his own. From Blois he returned to Paris ; and, having now mastered the French language, found great pleasure in the society of French philosophers and poets. He 15 gave an account, in a letter to Bishop Hough, of two highly interesting conversations, one with Malebranche, the other with Boileau. Malebranche expressed great partiality for the English, and extolled the genius of Newton, but shook his head when Hobbes was men- 20 tioned, and was indeed so unjust as to call the author of the Leviathan a poor silly creature. Addison's modesty restrained him from fully relating, in his let- ter, the circumstances of his introduction to Boileau. Boileau, having survived the friends and rivals of his 25 youth, old, deaf, and melancholy, lived in retirement, seldom went either to Court or to the Academy, and was almost inaccessible to strangers. Of the English and of English literature he knew nothing. He had 62 Essay on Addison hardly heard the name of Dryden. Some of our coun- trymen, in the warmth of their patriotism, have asserted that this ignorance must have been affected. We own that we see no ground for such a supposition. English 5 literature was to the French of the age of Louis the Fourteenth what German literature was to our own grandfathers. Very few, we suspect, of the accom- plished men who, sixty or seventy years ago, used to dine in Leicester Square with Sir Joshua, or at Streat- 10 ham with Mrs. Thrale, had the slightest notion that Wieland was one of the first wits and poets, and Les- sing, beyond all dispute, the first critic in Europe. Boileau knew just as little about the Paradise Lost, and about Absalom a?td Achitophel ; but he had read Addi- 15 son's Latin poems, and admired them greatly. They had given him, he said, quite a new notion of the state of learning and taste among the English. Johnson will have it that these praises were insincere. '' Noth- ing," says he, " is better known of Boileau than that he 20 had an injudicious and peevish contempt of modern Latin ; and therefore his profession of regard was probably the effect of his civility rather than approba- tion." Now, nothing is better known of Boileau than that he was singularly sparing of compliments. We do 25 not remember that either friendship or fear ever in- duced him to bestow praise on any composition which he did not approve. On literary questions, his caustic, disdainful, and self-confident spirit rebelled against that authority to which everything else in France bowed Essay on Addison 6^ down. He had the spirit to tell Louis the Fourteenth firmly and even rudely, that his majesty knew nothing about poetry, and admired verses which were detest- able. What was there in Addison's position that could induce the satirist, whose stern and fastidious temper 5 had been the dread of two generations, to turn syco- phant for the first and last time ? Nor was Boileau's contempt of modern Latin either injudicious or peevish. He thought, indeed, that no poem of the first order would ever be written in a dead language. And did he 10 think amiss ? Has not the experience of centuries con- firmed his opinion ? Boileau also thought it probable that, in the best modern Latin, a writer of the Augustan age would have detected ludicrous improprieties. And who can think otherwise ? What modern scholar can 15 honestly declare that he sees the smallest impurity in the style of Livy? Yet is it not certain that, in the style of Li\y, Pollio, whose taste had been formed on the banks of the Tiber, detected the inelegant idiom of the Po ? Has any modern scholar understood Latin 20 better than Frederick the Great understood French? Yet is it not notorious that Frederick the Great, after reading, speaking, writing French, and nothing but French, during more than half a century, after unlearn- ing his mother tongue in order to learn French, after 25 living familiarly during many years with French asso- ciates, could not, to the last, compose in French, with- out imminent risk of committing some mistake which would have moved a smile in the literary circles of 64 Essay on Addison Paris ? Do we believe that Erasmus and Fracastorius wrote Latin as well as Dr. Robertson and Sir Walter Scott wrote English ? And are there not in the Disse?-- tation on India^ the last of Dr. Robertson's works, in 5 Waverlyy in Marniion^ Scotticisms at which a London apprentice would laugh ? But does it follow, because we think thus, that we can find nothing to admire in the noble alcaics^ of Gray, or in the playful elegiacs^ of Vincent Bourne ? Surely not. Nor was Boileau so 10 ignorant or tasteless as to be incapable of appreciating good modern Latin. In the very letter to which John- son alludes, Boileau says, " Ne croyez pas pourtant que je veuille par la blamer les vers Latins que vous m'avez envoy^s d'un de vos illustres academiciens. Je les ai 15 trouves fort beaux, et dignes de Vida et de Sannazar, mais non pas d'Horace et de Virgile." Several poems in modern Latin have been praised by Boileau quite as lib- erally as it was his habit to praise anything. He says, for example, of the Pere Fraguier's epigrams, that Ca- 20 tullus seems to have come to life again. But the best proof that Boileau did not feel the undiscerning contempt for modern Latin verses which has been imputed to him, is that he wrote and published Latin verses in several metres. Indeed, it happens, curiously enough, that the 25 most severe censure ever pronounced by him on mod- 1 Verses written in Alcaic strophes. See Tennyson's poem on Milton. 2 A dactylic hexameter line is followed by a dactylic pentameter line. Essay on Addison 6^ ern Latin is conveyed in Latin hexameters. We allude to the fragment which begins — " Quid numeris iterum me balbutire Latinis, Longe Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro, Musa, jubes ? " 5 For these reasons we feel assured that the praise which Boileau bestowed on the Machince Gesticiilantes, and the Gerano-PygmcB07nachia, was sincere. He cer- tainly opened himself to Addison with a freedom which was a sure indication of esteem. Literature was the lo chief subject of conversation. The old man talked on his favourite theme much and well, — indeed, as his young hearer thought, incomparably well. Boileau had undoubtedly some of the qualities of a great critic. He wanted imagination ; but he had strong sense. His 15 literary code was formed on narrow principles ; but in applying it he showed great judgement and penetration. In mere style, abstracted from the ideas of which style is the garb, his taste was excellent. He was well acquainted with the great Greek writers ; and, though 20 unable fully to appreciate their creative genius, admired the majestic simplicity of their manner, and had learned from them to despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we think, to discover, in The Spectator and The Guar- dian^ traces of the influence, in part salutary and in 25 part pernicious, which the mind of Boileau had on the mind of Addison. While Addison was at Paris, an event took place ■ ESSAY ON ADDISON — 5 66 Essay on Addison which made that capital a disagreeable residence for an Englishman and a Whig. Charles, second of the name, King of Spain, died, and bequeathed his dominions to Philip, Duke of Anjou, a younger son of the Dauphin. 5 The King of France,^ in direct violation of his engage- ments, both with Great Britain and with the States General, accepted the bequest on behalf of his grandson. The House of Bourbon was at the summit of human grandeur. England had been outwitted, and found her- lo self in a situation at once degrading and perilous. The people of France, not presaging the calamities by which they were destined to expiate the perfidy of their sover- eign, went mad with pride and delight. Every man looked as if a great estate had just been left him. " The 15 French conversation," said Addison, " begins to grow insupportable ; that which was before the vainest nation in the world is now worse than ever." Sick of the arrogant exultation of the Parisians, and probably fore- seeing that the peace between France and England 20 could not be of long duration, he set off for Italy. In December, 1700, he embarked at Marseilles. As he glided along the Ligurian coast, he was delighted by the sight of myrtles and olive trees, which retained their verdure under the winter solstice. Soon, however, he 25 encountered one of the black storms of the Mediter- ranean. The captain of the ship gave up all for lost, and confessed himself to a capuchin who happened to be on board. The English heretic, in the meantime, 1 Louis the Fourteenth. Essay on Addison 67 fortified himself against the terrors of death with devo- tions of a very different kind. How strong an impres- sion this perilous voyage made on him appears from the ode, " How are thy servants blest, G Lord ! " which was long after published in The Spectator} After some days 5 of discomfort and danger, Addison was glad to land at Savona, and to make his way, over mountains where no road had yet been hewn out by art, to the city of Genoa. At Genoa, still ruled by her own Doge, and by the 10 nobles whose names were inscribed on her Book of Gold, Addison made a short stay. He admired the narrow streets overhung by long lines of towering palaces, the walls rich with frescoes, the gorgeous temple of the An- nunciation, and the tapestries whereon were recorded 15 the long glories of the house of Doria. Thence he hastened to Milan, where he contemplated the Gothic magnificence of the cathedral with more wonder than pleasure. He passed Lake Benacus while a gale was blowing, and saw the waves raging as they raged when 20 Virgil looked upon them. At Venice, then the gayest spot in Europe, the traveller spent the Carnival, the gayest season of the year, in the midst of masks, dances, and serenades. Here he was at once diverted and pro- voked by the absurd dramatic pieces which then dis- 25 graced the Italian stage. To one of those pieces, however, he was indebted for a valuable hint. He was present when a ridiculous play on the death of Cato 1 See The Spectator, No. 489. 68 Essay on Addison was performed. Cato, it seems, was in love with a daughter of Scipio. The lady had given her heart to Caesar. The rejected lover determined to destroy him- self. He appeared seated in his library, a dagger in his 5 hand, a Plutarch and a Tasso before him ; and, in this position, he pronounced a soliloquy before he struck the blow. We are surprised that so remarkable a circum- stance as this should have escaped the notice of all Addison's biographers. There cannot, we conceive, be 10 the smallest doubt that this scene, in spite of its absurd- ities and anachronisms, struck the traveller's imagina- tion, and suggested to him the thought of bringing Cato on the English stage. It is well known that about this time he began his tragedy, and that he finished the first 15 four acts before he returned to England. On his way from Venice to Rome, he was drawn some miles out of the beaten road by a wish to see the smallest independent state in Europe.^ On a rock where the snow still lay, though the Italian spring was 20 now far advanced, was perched the little fortress of San Marino. The roads which led to the secluded town were so bad that few travellers had ever visited it, and none had ever published an account of it. Addison could not suppress a good-natured smile at the simple 25 manners and institutions of this singular community. But he observed, with the exultation of a Whig, that the rude mountain tract which formed the territory of the republic swarmed with an honest, healthy, and contented 1 See San Marino in the Encydopcedia Bj-itannica. Essay on Addison 69 peasantry, while the rich plain which surrounded the metropolis of civil and spiritual tyranny was scarcely less desolate than the uncleared wilds of America. At Rome Addison remained on his first visit only long enough to catch a glimpse of St. Peter's and of the 5 Pantheon. His haste is the more extraordinary because the Holy Week was close at hand. He has given no hint v/hich can enable us to pronounce why he chose to fly from a spectacle which every year allures from dis- tant regions persons of far less taste and sensibiHty than 10 his. Possibly, travelling, as he did, at the charge of a government distinguished by its enmity to the Church of Rome, he may have thought that it would be im- prudent in him to assist at the most magnificent rite of that church. Many eyes would be upon him, and he 15 might find it difficult to behave in such a manner as to give offence neither to his patrons in England, nor to those among whom he resided. Whatever his motives may have been, he turned his back on the most august and affecting ceremony which is known among men, and 20 posted along the Appian way to Naples. Naples was then destitute of what are now, perhaps, its chief attractions. The lovely bay and the awful mountain were indeed there ; but a farm-house stood on the theatre of Herculaneum, and rows of vines grew 25 over the streets of Pompeii. The temples of Pgestum ^ had not indeed been hidden from the eye of man by any great convulsion of nature ; but, strange to say, 1 See J. A. Symonds's Sketches in Italy. yo Essay on Addison their existence was a secret even to artists and anti- quaries. Though situated within a few hours' journey of a great capital, where Salvator had not long before painted, and where Vico was then lecturing, those noble 5 remains were as little known to Europe as the ruined cities overgrown by the forests of Yucatan. What was to be seen at Naples Addison saw. He climbed Vesu- vius, explored the tunnel of Posilipo, and wandered among the vines and almond trees of Capreae ; but lo neither the wonders of nature nor those of art could so occupy his attention as to prevent him from noticing, though cursorily, the abuses of the government and the misery of the people. The great kingdom which had just descended to Philip the Fifth, was in a state of 15 paralytic dotage. Even Castile and Aragon were sunk in wretchedness. Yet, compared with the Italian de- pendencies of the Spanish crown, Castile and Aragon might be called prosperous. It is clear that all the observations which Addison made in Italy tended to 20 confirm him in the political opinions which he had adopted at home. To the last he always spoke of for- eign travel as the best cure for Jacobitism. In his Fi-eeholde7'^ the Tory fox-hunter asks what travelling is good for, except to teach a man to jabber French and 25 to talk against passive obedience. From Naples, Addison returned to Rome by sea, along the coast which his favourite Virgil had celebrated. The felucca passed the headland where the oar and trumpet v/ere placed by the Trojan adventurers on the Essay on Addison 71 tomb of Misenus, and anchored at night under the shelter of the fabled promontory of Circe. The voy- age ended in the Tiber, still overhung with dark verdure, and still turbid with yellow sand, as when it met the eyes of -^neas. From the ruined port of Ostia, the 5 stranger hurried to Rome ; and at Rome he remained during those hot and sickly months when, even in the Augustan age, all who could make their escape fled from mad dogs and from streets black with funerals, to gather the first figs of the season in the country. It is 10 probable that, when he, long after, poured forth in verse his gratitude to the Providence which had enabled him to breathe unhurt in tainted air, he was thinking of the August and September which he passed at Rome. It was not till the latter end of October that he tore 15 himself away from the masterpieces of ancient and modern art which are collected in the city so long the mistress of the world. He then journeyed northward, passed through Siena, and for a moment forgot his prejudices in favour of classic architecture as he looked 20 on the magnificent cathedral.^ At Florence he spent some days with the Duke of Shrewsbury, who, cloyed with the pleasures of ambition, and impatient of its pains, fearing both parties and loving neither, had determined to hide in an Italian retreat talents and accomplishments 25 which, if they had been united with fixed principles and civil courage, might have made him the foremost man of his age. These days, we are told, passed pleasantly ; 1 See Addison's jRejiiarks on Italy. 72 Essay on Addison and we can easily believe it. For Addison was a de- lightful companion when he was at his ease ; and the Duke, though he seldom forgot that he was a Talbot, had the invaluable art of putting at ease all who came 5 near him. Addison gave some time to Florence, and especially to the sculptures in the Museum,^ which he preferred even to those of the Vatican. He then pursued his journey through a country in which the ravages of the lo last war were still discernible, and in which all men were looking forward with dread to a still fiercer con- flict. Eugene had already descended from the Rh^tian Alps, to dispute with Catinat the rich plain of Lom- bardy. The faithless ruler of Savoy was still reckoned 15 among the allies of Louis. England had not yet actu- ally declared war against France ; but Manchester had left Paris : and the negotiations which produced the Grand Alliance against the House of Bourbon were in progress. Under such circumstances, it was de- 20 sirable for an English traveller to reach neutral ground without delay. Addison resolved to cross Mont Cenis. It was December ; and the road was very different from that which now reminds the stranger of the power and genius of Napoleon. The winter, however, was 25 mild ; and the passage was, for those times, easy. To this journey Addison alluded when, in the ode which we have already quoted, he said that for him the Divine goodness had warmed the hoary Alpine hills. 1 The Uffizi Palace, which contains rare treasures of art. Essay on Addison 73 It was in the midst of the eternal snow that he com- posed his Epistle to his friend Montague, now Lord Halifax. That Epistle, once widely renowned, is now known only to curious readers, and will hardly be con- sidered by those to whom it is known as in any per- 5 ceptible degree heightening Addison's fame. It is, however, decidedly superior to any English composition which he had previously published. Nay, we think it quite as good as any poem in heroic metre which ap- peared during the interval bet^veen the death of Dry den 10 and the publication of the Essay 07i Criticism. It con- tains passages as good as the second-rate passages of Pope, and would have added to the reputation of Parnell or Prior. But, whatever be the literary merits or defects of the 15 Epistle, it undoubtedly does honour to the principles and spirit of the author. Halifax had now nothing to give. He had fallen from power, had been held up to obloquy, had been impeached by the House of Com- mons, and, though his Peers had dismissed the impeach- 20 ment, had, as it seemed, little chance of ever again fill- ing high office. The Epistle, written at such a time, is one among many proofs that there was no mixture of cowardice or meanness in the suavity and moderation which distinguished Addison from all the other public 25 men of those stormy times. At Geneva, the traveller learned that a partial change of ministry had taken place in England, and that the Earl of Manchester had become Secretary of State. 74 Essay on Addison Manchester exerted himself to serve his young friend. It was thought advisable that an English agent should be near the person of Eugene in Italy; and Addison, whose diplomatic education was now finished, was the 5 man selected. He was preparing to enter on his hon- ourable functions, when all his prospects were for a time darkened by the death of William the Third. Anne had long felt a strong aversion, personal, polit- ical, and religious, to the Whig party. That aversion 10 appeared in the first measures of her reign. Manches- ter was deprived of the Seals, after he had held them only a few weeks. Neither Somers nor Halifax was sworn of the Privy Council. Addison shared the fate of his three patrons. His hopes of employment in the 15 public service were at an end ; his pension was stopped ; and it was necessary for him to support himself by his own exertions. He became tutor ^ to a young English traveller, and appears to have rambled with his pupil over great part of Switzerland and German)^ At this 20 time he wrote his pleasing treatise on Medals. It was not published till after his death ; but several distin- guished scholars saw the manuscript, and gave just praise to the grace of the style, and to the learning and ingenuity evinced by the quotations. 25 From Germany Addison repaired to Holland, where he learned the melancholy news of his father's death. After passing some months in the United Provinces, he returned about the close of the year 1703 to England. 1 This statement is probably incorrect. Essay on Addison 75 He was there cordially received by his friends, and introduced by them into the Kit Cat Club, a society in which were collected all the various talents and accomplishments which then gave lustre to the Whig party. 5 Addison was, during some months after his return from the Continent, hard pressed by pecuniary difficul- ties. But it was soon in the power of his noble patrons to serve him effectually. A political change, silent and gradual, but of the highest importance, was in daily prog- 10 ress. The accession of Anne had been hailed by the Tories with transports of joy and hope ; and for a time it seemed that the Whigs had fallen never to rise again. The throne was surrounded by men supposed to be attached to the prerogative and to the church ; and 15 among these none stood so high in the favour of the sov- ereign as the Lord Treasurer Godolphin and the Captain General Marlborough. The country gentlemen and country clergymen had fully expected that the policy of these ministers would 20 be directly opposed to that which had been almost con- stantly followed by William ; that the landed interest would be favoured at the expense of trade ; that no addition would be made to the funded debt ; that the privileges conceded to Dissenters by the late King ^25 would be curtailed, if not withdrawn ; that the war with France, if there must be such a war, would, on our part, be almost entirely naval ; and that the government 1 William the Third. l6 Essay on Addison would avoid close connexions with foreign powers, and, above all, with Holland. But the country gentlemen and country clergymen were fated to be deceived, not for the last time. The 5 prejudices and passions which raged without control in vicarages, in cathedral closes, and in the manor-houses of fox-hunting squires, were not shared by the chiefs of the ministry. Those statesmen saw that it was both for the public interest, and for their own interest, to lo adopt a Whig policy, at least as respected the alliances of the country and the conduct of the war. But, if the foreign policy of the Whigs were adopted, it was impos- sible to abstain from adopting also their financial policy. The natural consequences followed. The rigid Tories 15 were alienated from the government. The votes of the Whigs became necessary to it. The votes of the Whigs could be secured only by further concessions ; and further concessions the Queen was induced to make. At the beginning of the year 1704, the state of parties 20 bore a close analogy to the state of parties in 1826. In 1826 as in 1704, there was a Tory ministry divided into two hostile sections. The position of Mr. Canning and his friends in 1826 corresponded to that which Marlborough and Godolphin occupied in 1704. Not- 25 tingham and Jersey were in 1704 what Lord Eldon and Lord Westmoreland were in 1826. The Whigs of 1704 were in a situation resembling that in which the Whigs of 1826 stood. In 1704, Somers, Halifax, Sunderland, Cowper, were not in office. There was no avowed Essay on Addison 77. coalition between them and the moderate Tories. It is probable that no direct communication tending to such a coalition had yet taken place ; yet all men saw that such a coalition was inevitable, nay, that it was already half formed. Such, or nearly such, was the state of 5 things when tidings arrived of the great battle fought at Blenheim on the 13th August, 1704. By the Whigs the news was hailed with transports of joy and pride. No fault, no cause of quarrel, could be remembered by them against the Commander whose genius had, 10 in one day, changed the face of Europe, saved the Imperial throne,^ humbled the House of Bourbon, and secured the Act of Settlement against foreign hostility. The feeling of the Tories was very different. They could not indeed, without imprudence, openly express 15 regret at an event so glorious to their country ; but their congratulations were so cold and sullen as to give deep disgust to the victorious general and his friends. Godolphin was not a reading man. Whatever time he could spare from business he was in the habit of 20 spending at Newmarket or at the card table. But he was not absolutely indifferent to poetry ; and he was too intelligent an observer not to perceive that literature was a formidable engine of political warfare, and that the great Whig leaders had strengthened their party, 25 and raised their character, by extending a liberal and judicious patronage to good writers. He was mortified, and not without reason, by the exceeding badness of 1 The Holy Roman Empire. yS Essay on Addison the poems which appeared in honour of the battle of Blenheim. One of these poems has been rescued from oblivion by the exquisite absurdity of three lines : " Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, e And each man mounted on his capering beast; Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals."' Where to procure better verses the Treasurer did not know. He understood how to negotiate a loan, or remit a subsidy ; he was also well versed in the history 10 of running horses and fighting cocks ; but his acquaint- ance among the poets was very small. He consulted Halifax; but Halifax affected to decline the office of adviser. He had, he said, done his best, when he had power, to encourage men whose abilities and acquire- 15 ments might do honour to their country. Those times were over. Other maxims had prevailed. Merit was suffered to pine in obscurity; and the public money was squandered on the undeserving. " I do know," he added, " a gentleman who would celebrate the battle in 20 a manner worthy of the subject ; but I will not name him." Godolphin, who was expert at the soft answer which turneth away wrath, and who was under the necessity of paying court to the Whigs, gently replied that there was too much ground for Halifax's com- 25 plaints, but that what was amiss should in time be rectified, and that in the meantime the services of a man such as Halifax had described should be liberally rewarded. Halifax then mentioned Addison ; but. Essay on Addison 79 mindful of the dignity as well as of the pecuniary interest of his friend, insisted that the minister should apply in the most courteous manner to Addison him- self ; and this Godolphin promised to do. Addison then occupied a garret up three pair of 5 stairs, over a small shop in the Haymarket. In this humble lodging he was surprised, on the morning which followed the conversation between Godolphin and Hali- fax, by a visit from no less a person than the Right Honourable Henry Boyle, then Chancellor of the Ex- 10 chequer, and afterwards Lord Carleton. This high- born minister had been sent by the Lord Treasurer as ambassador to the needy poet. Addison readily under- took the proposed task, a task which, to so good a Whig, was probably a pleasure. When the poem was little 15 more than half finished, he showed it to Godolphin, who was delighted with it, and particularly with the famous similitude of the Angel.^ Addison w^as in- stantly appointed to a commissionership worth about tw^o hundred pounds a year, and was assured that this 20 appointment was only an earnest of greater favours. The Ccijnpaign came forth, and was as much admired by the public as by the minister. It pleases us less on the whole than the Epistle to Halifax. Yet it un- doubtedly ranks high among the poems which ap- 25 peared during the interval between the death of Dry- den and the dawn of Pope's genius. The chief merit of The Campaign, v/e think, is that which was noticed 1 See Addison's The Cajupaign. 8o Essay on Addison by Johnson, the manly and rational rejection of fiction. The first great poet ^ whose works have come down to us sang of war long before war became a science or a trade. If, in his time, there was enmity between two 5 little Greek towns, each poured forth its crowd of citi- zens, ignorant of discipline, and armed with implements of labour rudely turned into weapons. On each side appeared conspicuous a few chiefs, whose wealth had enabled them to procure good armour, horses, and 10 chariots, and whose leisure had enabled them to prac- tise military exercises. One such chief, if he were a man of great strength, agility, and courage, would probably be more formidable than twenty common men ; and the force and dexterity with which he flung 15 his spear might have no inconsiderable share in deciding the event of the day. Such were probably the battles with which Homer was familiar. But Hom.er related the actions of men of a former generation, of men who sprang from the gods, and communed with the gods 20 face to face ; of men, one of whom could with ease hurl rocks which two sturdy hinds of a later period would be unable even to lift. He therefore naturally repre- sented their martial exploits as resembling in kind, but far surpassing in magnitude, those of the stoutest and 25 most expert combatants of his own age. Achilles, clad in celestial armour, drawn by celestial coursers, grasp- ing the spear which none but himself could raise, driv- ing all Troy and Lycia before him, and choking Sca- 1 Homer : see what follows. Essay on Addison 8i mander with dead, was only a magnificent exaggeration of the real hero, who, strong, fearless, accustomed to the use of weapons, guarded by a shield and helmet of the best Sidonian fabric, and whirled along by horses of Thessalian breed, struck dow^n with his own right 5 arm foe after foe. In all rude societies similar notions are found. There are at this day countries where the Lifeguardsman Shaw would be considered as a much greater warrior than the Duke of Wellington. Buona- parte loved to describe the astonishment with which 10 the Mameltikes looked at his diminutive figure. Mou- rad Bey, distinguished above all his fellows by his bodily strength, and by the skill with which he managed his horse and his sabre, could not believe that a man who was scarcely five feet high, and rode like a butcher, 15 could be the greatest soldier in Europe. Homer's descriptions of war had therefore as much truth as poetry requires. But truth was altogether wanting to the performances of those who, writing about battles which had scarcely anything in common 20 with the battles of his times, servilely imitated his manner. The folly of Silius Italicus, in particular, is positively nauseous. He undertook to record in verse the vicissitudes of a great struggle between generals of the first order ; and his narrative is made up of the 25 hideous wounds which these generals inflicted with their own hands. Asdrubal flings a spear w^hich grazes the shoulder of the consul Nero ; but Nero sends his spear into Asdrubal's side. Fabius slays Thuris and ESSAY ON ADDISON — 6 82 Essay on Addison Butes and Maris and Arses, and the long-haired Ad- herbes, and the gigantic Thylis, and Sapharus and Monaesiis, and the trumpeter Morinus. Hannibal runs Perusinus through the groin with a stake, and breaks 5 the backbone of Telesinus with a huge stone. This detestable fashion was copied in modern times, and continued to prevail down to the age of Addison. Several versifiers had described William turning thou- sands to flight by his single prowess, and dyeing the 10 Boyne with Irish blood. Nay, so estimable a writer as John Philips, the author of The Splendid Shilling, repre- sented Marlborough as having won the battle of Blen- heim merely by strength of muscle and skill in fence. The following lines may serve as an example : 15 " Churchill, viewing where The violence of Tallard most prevailed, Came to oppose his slaughtering arm. With speed Precipitate he rode, urging his way O'er hills of gasping heroes, and fallen steeds 20 Rolling in death. Destruction, grim with blood, Attends his furious course. Around his head The glowing balls play innocent, while he With dire impetuous sway deals fatal blows Among the flying Gauls. In Gallic blood 25 He dyes his reeking sword, and strews the ground With headless ranks. What can they do? Or how Withstand his wide-destroying sword?" Addison, with excellent sense and taste, departed from this ridiculous fashion. He reserved his praise for the 30 qualities which made Marlborough truly great, — energy, Essay on Addison 83 sagacity, military science. But, above all, the poet ex- tolled the firmness of that mind which, in the midst of confusion, uproar, and slaughter, examined and disposed everything with the serene wisdom of a higher intelli- gence. 5 Here it was that he introduced the famous comparison of Marlborough to an Angel guiding the whirlwind. We will not dispute the general justice of Johnson's re- marks on this passage.^ But we must point out one circumstance which appears to have escaped all the 10 critics. The extraordinary effect which this simile pro- duced when it first appeared, and w^hich to the following generation seemed inexplicable, is doubtless to be chiefly attributed to a line which most readers now re- gard as a feeble parenthesis, 15 " Such as, of late, o'er pale Britannia pass'd." Addison spoke, not of a storm, but of the storm. The great tempest of November, 1703, the only tempest which in our latitude has equalled the rage of a tropical hurricane, had left a dreadful recollection in the minds 20 of all men. No other tempest was ever in this country the occasion of a parliamentary address or of a public fast. Whole fleets had been cast away. Large mansions had been blown down. One prelate had been buried beneath the ruins of his palace. London and Bristol 25 had presented the appearance of cities just sacked. Hundreds of families were still in mourning. The pros- trate trunks of large trees, and the ruins of houses, still 1 See Johnson's Essay on Addison. 84 Essay on Addison attested, in all the southern counties, the fury of the blast. The popularity which the simile of the Angel enjoyed among Addison's contemporaries has always seemed to us to be a remarkable instance of the advan- 5 tage which, in rhetoric and poetry, the particular has over the general. Soon after The Campaign was published Addison's Narrative of his travels in Italy. The first effect pro- duced by this Narrative was disappointment. The 10 crowd of readers who expected politics and scandal, speculations on the projects of Victor Amadeus, and anecdotes about the jollities of convents and the amours of cardinals and nuns, were confounded by finding that the writer's mind was much more occupied by the war 15 between the Trojans and Rutulians than by the war between France and Austria ; and that he seemed to have heard no scandal of later date than the gallantries of the Empress Faustina. In time, however, the judge- ment of the many was overruled by that of the few ; 20 and, before the book was reprinted, it was so eagerly sought that it sold for five times the original price. It is still read with pleasure : the style is pure and flowing ; the classical quotations and allusions are numerous and happy ; and we are now and then charmed by that 25 singularly humane and delicate humour in which Addi- son excelled all men. Yet this agreeable work, even when considered merely as the history of a Hterary tour, may justly be censured on account of its faults of omis- sion. We have already said that, though rich in extracts Essay on Addison 85 from the Latin poets, it contains scarcely any references to the Latin orators and historians. We must add that it contains Httle, or rather no information, respecting the history and Hterature of modern Italy. To the best of our remembrance, Addison does not mention Dante, 5 Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Berni, Lorenzo de' Medici, or Machiavelli. He coldly tells us that at Ferrara he saw the tomb of Ariosto, and that at Venice he heard the gondoliers sing verses of Tasso. But for Tasso and Ariosto he cared far less than for Valerius Flaccus and 10 Sidonius Appollinaris. The gentle flow of the Ticin brings a line of Silius to his mind. The sulphurous steam of Albula suggests to him several passages of Martial. But he has not a word to say of the illustrious dead of Santa Croce ; he crosses the wood of Ravenna 15 without recollecting the Spectre Huntsman, and "wan- ders up and down Rimini without one thought of Fran- cesca. At Paris, he had eagerly sought an introduction to Boileau ; but he seems not to have been at all aware that at Florence he was in the vicinity of a poet with 20 whom Boileau could not sustain a comparison, of the greatest lyric poet of modern times, Vincenzio Filicaja.^ This is the more remarkable, because Filicaja was the favourite poet of the accomphshed Somers, under whose protection Addison travelled, and to whom the account 25 of the Travels is dedicated. The truth is, that Addison knew little, and cared less, about the literature of mod- ern Italy. His favourite models were Latin. His 1 See Macaulay's Essay on Milton. 86 Essay on Addison favourite critics were French. Half the Tuscan poetry that he had read seemed to him monstrous, and the other half tawdry. His Travels were followed by the lively opera of 5 Rosamond. This piece was ill set to music, and there- fore failed on the stage, but it completely succeeded in print, and is indeed excellent in its kind. The smooth- ness wdth which the verses glide, and the elasticity with which they bound, is, to our ears at least, very pleasing. 10 We are inclined to think that if Addison had left heroic couplets to Pope, and blank verse to Rowe, and had employed himself in writing airy and spirited songs, his reputation as a poet would have stood far higher than it now does. Some years after his death, Rosamond 15 was set to new music by Doctor Arne ; and was per- formed with complete success. Several passages long retained their popularity, and were daily sung, during the latter part of George the Second's reign, at all the harpsichords in England. 20 While Addison thus amused himself, his prospects, and the prospects of his party, were constantly becom- ing brighter and brighter. In the spring of 1705, the ministers were freed from the restraint imposed by a House of Commons in which Tories of the most per- 25 verse class had the ascendency. The elections were favourable to the Whigs. The coalition which had been tacitly and gradually formed was now openly avowed. The Great Seal was given to Cowper. Somers and Halifax were sworn of the Council. Hali- Essay on Addison 87 fax was sent in the following year to cany the decora- tions of the order of the Garter to the Electoral Prince of Hanover, and was accompanied on this honourable mission by Addison, who had just been made Under- Secretary of State. The Secretary of State under 5 whom Addison first served was Sir Charles Hedges, a Tory. But Hedges w^as soon dismissed to make room for the most vehement of Whigs, Charles, Earl of Sun- derland. In every department of the state, indeed, the High Churchmen were compelled to give place to their 10 opponents. At the close of 1707, the Tories who still remained in office strove to rally, with Harley at their head. But the attempt, though favoured by the Queen, who had always been a Tory at heart, and who had now quarrelled with the Duchess of Marlborough, was 15 unsuccessful. The time was not yet. The Captain General was at the height of popularity and glory. The Low Church party had a majority in Parliament. The country squires and rectors, though occasionally uttering a savage growl, were for the most part in a 20 state of torpor, which lasted till they were roused into activity, and indeed into madness, by the prosecution of Sacheverell. Harley and his adherents were compelled to retire. The victory of the Whigs was complete. At the general election of 1708, their strength in the House 25 of Commons became irresistible ; and before the end of that year, Somers was made Lord President of the Council, and Wharton Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Addison sat for Malmsbury in the House of Com- 88 Essay on Addison mons which was elected in 1708. But the House of Commons was not the field for him. The bashfulness of his nature made his wit and eloquence useless in debate. He once rose, but could not overcome his 5 diffidence, and ever after remained silent. Nobody can think it strange that a great writer should fail as a speaker. But many, probably, will think it strange that Addison's failure as a speaker should have had no unfavourable effect on his success as a politician. In 10 our time, a man of high rank and great fortune might, though speaking very little and very ill, hold a consid- erable post. But it would now be inconceivable that a mere adventurer, a man who, when out of office, must live by his pen, should in a few years become success- 15 ively Under-Secretary of State, Chief Secretary for Ire- land, and Secretary of State, without some oratorical talent. Addison, without high birth, and with little property, rose to a post which dukes, the heads of the great houses of Talbot, Russell, and Bentinck, have 20 thought it an honour to fill. Without opening his lips in debate, he rose to a post, the highest that Chatham or Fox ever reached. And this he did before he had been nine years in Parliament. We must look for the explanation of this seeming miracle to the peculiar cir- 25 cumstances in which that generation was placed. During the interval which elapsed between the time when the censorship of the press ceased, and the time when parliamentary proceedings began to be freely re- ported, literary talents were, to a public man, of much Essay on Addison 89 more importance, and oratorical talents of much less importance, than in our time. At present, the best way of giving rapid and wide publicity to a fact or an argu- ment is to introduce that fact or argument into a speech made in Parliament. If a political tract were to appear 5 superior to the Conduct of the Allies^ or to the best numbers of The Freeholder, the circulation of such a tract would be languid indeed when compared with the circulation of every remarkable word uttered in the de- liberations of the legislature. A speech made in the 10 House of Commons at four in the morning is on thirty thousand tables before ten. A speech made on the Monday is read on the Wednesday by multitudes in Antrim and Aberdeenshire. The orator, by the help of the shorthand writer, has to a great extent super- 15 seded the pamphleteer. It was not so in the reign of Anne. The best speech could then produce no effect except on those who heard it. It was only by means of the press that the opinion of the public without doors could be influenced ; and the opinion of the public 20 without doors could not but be of the highest impor- tance in a country governed by parliaments, and indeed at that time governed by triennial parliaments. The pen was therefore a more formidable political engine than the tongue. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox contended only 25 in Parliament. But Walpole and Pulteney, the Pitt and Fox of an earlier period, had not done half of what was necessary, when they sat down amidst the acclamations of the House of Commons. They had still to plead 90 Essay on Addison their cause before the country, and this they could do only by means of the press. Their works are now for- gotten, but it is certain that there were in Grub Street few more assiduous scribblers of Thoughts, Letters, Answers, Remarks, than these two great chiefs of parties. Pulteney, when leader of the Opposition, and possessed of thirty thousand a year, edited The Craftsman. Wal- pole, though not a man of literary habits, was the author of at least ten pamphlets, and retouched and corrected 10 many more. These facts sufficiently show of how great importance literary assistance then was to the contend- ing parties. St. John was, certainly, in Anne's reign, the best Tory speaker ; Cowper was probably the best Whig speaker. But it may well be doubted whether St. 15 John did so much for the Tories as Swift, and whether Cowper did so much for the Whigs as Addison. When these things are duly considered, it will not be thought strange that Addison should have climbed higher in the state than any other Englishman has ever, by means 20 merely of literary talents, been able to climb. Swift would, in all probability, have climbed as high, if he had not been encumbered by his cassock and his pudding sleeves. As far as the homage of the great went. Swift had as much of it as if he had been Lord Treasurer. 25 To the influence which Addison derived from his lit- erary talents was added all the influence which arises from character. The world, always ready to think the worst of needy political adventurers, was forced to make one exception. Restlessness, violence, audacity, laxity Essay on Addison 91 of principle, are the vices ordinarily attributed to that class of men. But faction itself could not deny that Addison had, through all changes of fortune, been strictly faithful to his early opinions, and to his early friends ; that his integrity was without stain ; that his 5 whole deportment indicated a fine sense of the becom- ing; that, in the utmost heat of controversy, his zeal was tempered by a regard for truth, humanity, and social decorum ; that no outrage could ever provoke him to retaliation unworthy of a Christian and a gentleman ; 10 and that his only faults were a too sensitive delicacy, and a modesty which amounted to bashfulness. He was undoubtedly one of the most popular men of his time ; and much of his popularity he owed, we be- heve, to that very timidity which his friends lamented. 15 That timidity often prevented him from exhibiting his talents to the best advantage. But it propitiated Nemesis. It averted that envy which would otherwise have been excited by fame so splendid, and by so rapid an eleva- tion. No man is so great a favourite with the public as 20 he w^ho is at once an object of admiration, of respect, and of pity ; and such were the feelings which Addison inspired. Those who enjoyed the privilege of hearing his familiar conversation declared with one voice that it was superior even to his writings. The brilliant Mary 25 Montagu said that she had known all the wits, and that Addison was the best company in the world. The malignant Pope was forced to own that there was a charm in Addison's talk which could be found nowhere 92 Essay on Addison else. Swift, when burning with animosity against the Whigs, could not but confess to Stella that, after all, he had never known any associate so agreeable as Addison. Steele, an excellent judge of lively conversation, said 5 that the conversation of Addison was at once the most polite, and the most mirthful, that could be imagined ; that it was Terence and Catullus in one, heightened by an exquisite something which was neither Terence nor Catullus, but Addison alone. Young, an excellent 10 judge of serious conversation, said that when Addison was at his ease, he went on in a noble strain of thought and language, so as to chain the attention of every hearer. Nor were Addison's great colloquial powers more admirable than the courtesy and softness of heart 15 which appeared in his conversation. At the same time, it would be too much to say that he was wholly devoid of the malice which is, perhaps, inseparable from a keen sense of the ludicrous. He had one habit which both Swift and Stella applauded, and which we hardly know 20 how to blame. If his first attempts to set a presuming dunce right were ill received, he changed his tone, " as- sented with civil leer," and lured the flattered coxcomb deeper and deeper into absurdity. That such was his practice we should, we think, have guessed from his 25 works. The Tatler's criticisms on Mr. Softley's sonnet, and The Spectator's dialogue with the politician who is so zealous for the honour of Lady Q — p — t — s, are excellent specimens of this innocent mischief. Such were Addison's talents for conversation. But Essay on Addison 93 his rare gifts were not exhibited to crowds or to strangers. As soon as he entered a large company, as soon as he saw an unknown face, his Hps were sealed, and his manners became constrained. None who met him only in great assemblies would have been able to 5 believe that he was the same man who had often kept a few friends listening and laughing round a table, from the time when the play ended, till the clock of St. Paul's in Covent Garden struck four. Yet, even at such a table, he was not seen to the best advantage. To 10 enjoy his conversation in the highest perfection, it was necessary to be alone with him, and to hear him, in his own phrase, think aloud. " There is no such thing," he used to say, " as real conversation, but between two persons." 15 This timidity, a timidity surely neither ungraceful nor unamiable, led Addison into the two most serious faults which can with justice be imputed to him. He found that wine broke the spell which lay on his fine intellect, and was therefore too easily seduced into convivial 20 excess.^ Such excess was in that age regarded, even by grave men, as the most venial of all peccadilloes, and was so far from being a mark of ill breeding that it was almost essential to the character of a fine gentle- man. But the smallest speck is seen on white ground ; 25 and almost all the biographers of Addison have said something about this failing. Of any other statesman or writer of Queen Anne's reign, we should no more 1 See Thackeray's English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century. 94 Essay on Addison think of saying that he sometimes took too much wine, than that he wore a long wig and a sword. To the excessive modesty of Addison's nature, we must ascribe another fault which generally arises from 5 a very different cause. He became a little too fond of seeing himself surrounded by a small circle of admirers, to whom he was as a king, or rather as a god. All these men were far inferior to him in ability, and some of them had very serious faults. Nor did those faults 10 escape his observation ; for, if ever there was an eye which saw through and through men, it was the eye of Addison. But with the keenest observation, and the finest sense of the ridiculous, he had a large charity. The feeling with which he looked on most of his hum- 15 ble companions was one of benevolence, slightly tinc- tured with contempt. He was at perfect ease in their company ; he was grateful for their devoted attach- ment ; and he loaded them with benefits. Their venera- tion for him appears to have exceeded that with which 20 Johnson was regarded by Boswell, or Warburton by Hurd. It was not in the power of adulation to turn such a head, or deprave such a heart, as Addison's. But it must in candour be admitted that he contracted some of the faults which can scarcely be avoided by 25 any person who is so unfortunate as to be the oracle of a small literary coterie. One member of this little society was Eustace Budgell, a young Templar of some literature, and a distant relation of Addison. There was at this time no Essay on Addison 95 stain on the character of Budgell, and it is not improb- able that his career would have been prosperous and honourable, if the life of his cousin had been prolonged. But, when the master was laid in the grave, the dis- ciple broke loose from all restraint, descended rapidly 5 from one degree of vice and misery to another, ruined his fortune by follies, attempted to repair it by crimes, and at length closed a wicked and unhappy life by self- murder. Yet, to the last, the wretched man, gambler, lampooner, cheat, forger, as he was, retained his affec- 10 tion and veneration for Addison, and recorded those feelings in the last lines which he traced before he hid himself from infamy under London Bridge. Another of Addison's favourite companions was Ambrose Phillipps, a good Whig and a middling poet, 15 who had the honour of bringing into fashion a species of composition which has been called, after his name, Namby Pamby. But the most remarkable members of the little senate, as Pope long afterwards called it, were Richard Steele and Thomas Tickell. 20 Steele had known Addison from childhood. They had been together at the Charter House and at Oxford ; but circumstances had then, for a time, separated them widely. Steele had left college without taking a de- gree, had been disinherited by a rich relation, had led a 25 vagrant life, had served in the army, had tried to find the philosopher's stone, and had written a religious treatise and several corhedies. He was one of those people whom it is impossible either to hate or to 96 Essay on Addison respect. His temper was sweet, his affections warm, his spirits lively, his passions strong, and his principles weak. His life was spent in sinning and repenting ; in inculcating what was right, and doing what was wrong. 5 In speculation, he was a man of piety and honour ; in practice he was much of the rake and a little of the swindler. He was, however, so good-natured that it was not easy to be seriously angry with him, and that even rigid moralists felt more inclined to pity than to 10 blame him, when he diced himself into a sponging- house or drank himself into a fever. Addison regarded Steele with kindness not unmingled with scorn ; tried, with little success, to keep him out of scrapes ; intro- duced him to the great ; procured a good place for him ; 15 corrected his plays ; and, though by no means rich, lent him large sums of money. One of these loans appears, from a letter dated in August, 1708, to have amounted to a thousand pounds. These pecuniary transactions probably led to frequent bickerings. It is said that, on 20 one occasion, Steele's negligence, or dishonesty, pro- voked Addison to repay himself by the help of a bailiff. We cannot join with Miss Aikin in rejecting this story. Johnson heard it from Savage, who heard it from Steele. Few private transactions which took place a 25 hundred and twenty years ago are proved by stronger evidence than this. But we can by no means agree with those who condemn Addison's severity. The most amiable of mankind may well be moved to indignation, when what he has earned hardly, and lent with great Essay on Addison 97 inconvenience to himself, for the purpose of relieving a friend in distress, is squandered with insane profusion. We will illustrate our meaning by an example, which is not the less striking because it is taken from fiction. Dr. Harrison, in Fielding's Amelia^ is represented as 5 the most benevolent of human beings ; yet he takes in execution, not only the goods, but the person, of his friend Booth. Dr. Harrison resorts to this strong measure because he has been informed that Booth, while pleading poverty as an excuse for not paying just debts, 10 has been buying fine jewellery, and setting up a coach. No person who is well acquainted with Steele's life and correspondence can doubt that he behaved quite as ill to Addison as Booth was accused of behaving to Dr. Harrison. The real history, we have little doubt, was 15 something like this : A letter comes to Addison, im- ploring help in pathetic terms, and promising reforma- tion and speedy repayn^ent. Poor Dick ^ declares that he has not an inch of candle, or a bushel of coals, or credit with the butcher for a shoulder of mutton. Ad- 20 dison is moved. He determines to deny himself some medals which are wanting to his series of the Twelve Caesars ; to put off buying the new edition of Bayle's Dictionary ; and to wear his old sword and buckles another year. In this way he manages to send a hun-25 dred pounds to his friend. The next day he calls on Steele, and finds scores of gentlemen and ladies assem- bled. The fiddles are playing. The table is groaning 1 Steele. ESSAY ON ADDISON — 7 98 Essay on Addison under Champagne, Burgundy, and Pyramids of sweet- meats. Is it strange that a man whose kindness is thus abused should send sheriff's officers to reclaim what is due to him ? 5 Tickell was a young man, fresh from Oxford, who had introduced himself to public notice by writing a most ingenious and graceful little poem in praise of the opera of Rosa7nond. He deserved, and at length at- tained, the first place in Addison's friendship. For a 10 time Steele and Tickell were on good terms. But they loved Addison too much to love each other, and at length became as bitter enemies as the rival bulls in Virgil. At the close of 1708 Wharton became Lord-lieutenant 15 of Ireland, and appointed Addison Chief Secretary. Addison was consequently under the necessity of quitting London for Dublin. Besides the chief secretaryship, which was then worth about two thousand pounds a year, he obtained a patent appointing him keeper of 20 the Irish Records for life, with a salary of three or four hundred a year. Budgell accompanied his cousin in the capacity of Private Secretary. Wharton and Addison had nothing in common but Whiggism. The Lord-lieutenant was not only licen- 25 tious and corrupt, but was distinguished from other Hbertines and jobbers by a callous impudence which presented the strongest contrast to the Secretary's gentleness and delicacy. Many parts of the Irish ad- ministration at this time appear to have deserved seri- Essay on Addison 99 ous blame. But against Addison there was not a murmur. He long afterwards asserted, what all the evidence which we have ever seen tends to prove, that his diligence and integrity gained the friendship of all the most considerable persons in Ireland. 5 The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland has, we think, wholly escaped the notice of all his biogra- phers. He was elected member for the borough of Cavan in the summer of 1709 ; and in the journals of two sessions his name frequently occurs. Some of the 10 entries appear to indicate that he so far overcame his timidity as to make speeches. Nor is this by any means improbable, for the Irish House of Commons was a far less formidable audience than the English House, and many tongues which were tied by fear in 15 the greater assembly became fluent in the smaller. Gerard Hamilton, for example, who, from fear of losing the fame gained by his single speech, sat mute at West- minster during forty years, spoke with great effect at Dublin when he was Secretary to Lord Halifax. 20 While Addison was in Ireland, an event occurred to which he owes his high and permanent rank among British writers. As yet his fame rested on perform- ances which, though highly respectable, were not built for duration, and which would, if he had produced 25 nothing else, have now been almost forgotten : on some excellent Latin verses ; on some English verses which occasionally rose above mediocrity, and on a book of travels, agreeably written, but not indicating any extraor- Lf (^ . or \j. loo Essay on Addison dinary powers of mind. These works showed him to be a man of taste, sense, and learning. The time had come when he was to prove himself a man of genius, and to enrich our literature with compositions which 5 will live as long as the English language. In the spring of 1709 Steele formed a literary project, of which he was far indeed from foreseeing the con- sequences. Periodical papers had during many years been published in London. Most of these were politi- 10 cal ; but in some of them questions of morality, taste, and love casuistry had been discussed. The literary merit of these works was small indeed ; and even their names are now known only to the curious. Steele had been appointed Gazetteer by Sunderland, 15 at the request, it is said, of Addison, and thus had access to foreign intelligence earlier and more authentic than was in those times wathin the reach of an ordinary news-writer. This circumstance seems to have suggested to him the scheme of publishing a periodical paper on a 20 new plan. It was to appear on the days on w^hich the post left London for the country, which were, in that gen- eration, the Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. It was to contain the foreign news, accounts of theatrical repre- sentations, and the literary gossip of Will's and of the 25 Grecian. It was also to contain remarks on the fashion- able topics of the day, compliments to beauties, pas- quinades on noted sharpers, and criticisms on popular preachers. The aim of Steele does not appear to have been at first higher than this. He was not ill qualified Essay on Addison loi to conduct the work which he had planned. His pub- he inteUigence he drew from the best sources. He knew the town, and had paid dear for his knowledge. He had read much more than the dissipated men of that time were in the habit of reading. He was a rake 5 among scholars, and a scholar among rakes. His style was easy and not incorrect ; and though his wit and humour were of no high order, his gay animal spirits imparted to his compositions an air of vivacity which ordinary readers could hardly distinguish from comic 10 genius. His writings have been well compared to those light wines which, though deficient in body and flavour, are yet a pleasant small drink, if not kept too long, or carried too far. Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was an imag- 15 inary person, almost as well known in that age as Mr. Paul Pry or Mr. Samuel Pickwick in ours. Swift had assumed the name of Bickerstaff in a satirical pamphlet against Partridge, the maker of almanacs. Partridge had been fool enough to publish a furious reply. Bick-20 erstaff had rejoined in a second pamphlet still more diverting than the first. All the wits had combined to keep up the joke, and the town was long in convulsions of laughter. Steele determined to employ the name which this controversy had made popular ; and in April, 25 1709, it was announced that Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was about to publish a paper called The Tafkr. Addison had not been consulted about this scheme ; I02 Essay on Addison but as soon as he heard of it, he determined to give his assistance. The effect of that assistance cannot be better described than in Steele's own words. " I fared," he said, " Hke a distressed prince who calls in 5 a powerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary. When I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him." "The paper," he says elsewhere, " was advanced indeed. It was raised to a greater thing than I intended it." lo It is probable that Addison, when he sent across St. George's Channel his first contributions to The Tatler had no notion of the extent and variety of his own powers. He was the possessor of a vast mine, rich with a hundred ores. But he had been acquainted only with 15 the least precious part of his treasures, and had hitherto contented himself with producing sometimes copper and sometimes lead, intermingled with a little silver. All at once, and by mere accident, he had lighted on an inexhaustible vein of the finest gold. 20 The mere choice and arrangement of his words would have sufficed to make his essays classical. For never, not even by Dryden, not even by Temple, had the English language been written with such sweetness, grace, and facility. But this was the smallest part of 25 Addison's praise. Had he clothed his thoughts in the half French style of Horace Walpole, or in the half Latin style of Dr. Johnson, or in the half German jar- gon of the present day, his genius would have triumphed over all faults of manner. As a moral satirist he stands Essay on Addison 103 unrivalled. If ever the best Tatlers and Spectators were equalled in their own kind, we should be inclined to guess that it must have been by the lost comedies of Menander. In wit, properly so called, Addison w^as not inferior 5 to Cowley or Butler. No single ode of Cowley contains so many happy analogies as are crowded into the lines to Sir Godfrey Kneller ; and we would undertake to collect from the Spectators as great a number of ingen- ious illustrations as can be found in Hudibras. The 10 still higher faculty of invention Addison possessed in still larger measure. The numerous fictions, generally original, often wild and grotesque, but always singularly graceful and happy, which are found in his essays, fully entitle him to the rank of a great poet, a rank to which 15 his metrical compositions give him no claim. As an observer of life, of manners, of all the shades of human character, he stands in the first class. And what he observed he had the art of communicating in two widely different ways. He could describe virtues, vices, 20 habits, whims, as well as Clarendon. But he could do something better. He could call human beings into existence, and make them exhibit themselves. If we . wish to find anything more vivid than Addison's best portraits, we must go either to Shakespeare or to 25 Cervantes. But what shall we say of Addison's humour, of his sense of the ludicrous, of his power of awakening that sense in others, and of drawing mirth from incidents I04 Essay on Addison which occur every day, and from Uttle peculiarities of temper and manner, such as may be found in every man ? We feel the charm : we give ourselves up to it : but we strive in vain to analyse it. 5 Perhaps the best way of describing Addison's pecul- iar pleasantry is to compare it with the pleasantry of some other great satirists. The three most eminent masters of the art of ridicule, during the eighteenth century, were, we conceive, Addison, Swift, and Vol- lotaire. Which of the three had the greatest power of moving laughter may be questioned. But each of them, wdthin his own domain, was supreme. Voltaire is the prince of buffoons. His merriment is without disguise or restraint. He gambols ; he grins ; 15 he shakes his sides ; he points the finger ; he turns up the nose ; he shoots out the tongue. The manner of Swift is the very opposite to this. He moves laughter, but never joins in it. He appears in his works such as he appeared in society. All the company are convulsed 20 with merriment, while the Dean,^ the author of all the mirth, preserves an invincible gravity, and even sour- ness of aspect, and gives utterance to the most eccentric and ludicrous fancies, with the air of a man reading the commination service. 25 The manner of Addison is as remote from that of Swift as from that of Voltaire. He neither laughs out like the French wit, nor, like the Irish wit, throws a double portion of severity into his countenance while 1 Swift. Essay on Addison 105 laughing inwardly ; but preserves a look peculiarly his own, a look of demure serenity, disturbed only by an arch sparkle of the eye, an almost imperceptible eleva- tion of the brow, an almost imperceptible curl of the lip. His tone is never that either of a Jack Pudding or of 5 a Cynic. It is that of a gentleman, in whom the quick- est sense of the ridiculous is constantly tempered by good nature and good breeding. We own that the humour of Addison is, in our opin- ion, of a more delicious flavour than the humour of 10 either Swift or Voltaire. Thus much, at least, is cer- tain, that both Swift and Voltaire have been success- fully mimicked, and that no man has yet been able to mimic Addison. The letter of the Abbe Coyer to Pan- sophe is Voltaire all over, and imposed, during a long 15 time, on the Academicians of Paris. There are pas- sages in Arbuthnot's satirical works which we, at least, cannot distinguish from Swift's best writing. But of the many eminent men who have made Addison their model, though several have copied his mere diction 20 with happy effect, none has been able to catch the tone of his pleasantry. In The Worlds in The Co7moisseur, in 27ie Minvr, in The Lounger, there are numerous papers written in obvious imitation of his Tatlers and Spectators. Most of those papers have some merit ; 25 many are very lively and amusing ; but there is not a single one which could be passed off as Addison's on a critic of the smallest perspicacity. But that which chiefly distinguishes Addison from io6 Essay on Addison Swift, from Voltaire, from almost all the other great masters of ridicule, is the grace, the nobleness, the moral purity, which we find even in his merriment. Severity, gradually hardening and darkening into mis- 5 anthropy, characterizes the works of Swift. The nature of Voltaire was, indeed, not inhuman ; but he venerated nothing. Neither in the masterpieces of art nor in the purest examples of virtue, neither in the Great First Cause nor in the awful enigma of the grave, could he losee anything but subjects for drollery. The more solemn and august the theme, the more monkey-like was his grimacing and chattering. The mirth of Swift is the mirth of Mephistopheles ; the mirth of Voltaire is the mirth of Puck. If, as Soame Jenyns oddly imag- 15 ined, a portion of the happiness of Seraphim and just men made perfect be derived from an exquisite per- ception of the ludicrous, their mirth must surely be none other than the mirth of Addison ; a mirth con- sistent with tender compassion for all that is frail, and 20 with profound reverence for all that is sublime. Noth- ing great, nothing amiable, no moral duty, no doctrine of natural or revealed religion, has ever been associated by Addison with any degrading idea. His humanity is without a parallel in literary history. The highest proof 25 of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it. No kind of power is more formidable than the power of making men ridiculous ; and that power Addi- son possessed in boundless measure. How grossly that power was abused by Swift and by Voltaire is well Essay on Addison 107 known. But of Addison it may be confidently affirmed that he has blackened no man's character, nay, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find in all the volumes which he has left us a single taunt which can be called ungenerous or unkind. Yet he had detractors, 5 whose malignity might have seemed to justify as terrible a revenge as that which men, not superior to him in genius, wreaked on Bettesworth and on Franc de Pom- pignan. He was a politician ; he was the best writer of his party ; he lived in times of fierce excitement, 10 in times when persons of high character and station stooped to scurrility such as is now practised only by the basest of mankind. Yet no provocation and no example could induce him to return railing for railing. Of the service which his essays rendered to morality 15 it is difficult to speak too highly. It is true that, when The Tailer appeared, that age of outrageous profane- ness and licentiousness which followed the Restoration had passed away. Jeremy Collier had shamed the theatres into something which, compared with the 20 excesses of Etherege and Wycherley, might be called decency. Yet there still lingered in the public mind a pernicious notion that there was some connexion be- tween genius and profligacy, between the domestic virtues and the sullen formality of the Puritans. That 25 error it is the glory of Addison to have dispelled. He taught the nation that the faith and the morahty of Hale and Tillotson might be found in company with wit more sparkling than the wit of Congreve, and with io8 Essay on Addison humour richer than the humour of Vanbrugh. So ef- fectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that, since his time, the open violation of decency has always 5 been considered among us as the mark of a fool. And this revolution, the greatest and most salutary ever ef- fected by any satirist, he accomplished, be it remem- bered, without writing one personal lampoon. In the early contributions of Addison to The Tatler 10 his peculiar powers were not fully exhibited. Yet from the first, his superiority to all his coadjutors was evi- dent. Some of his later Tatlers are fully equal to any- thing that he ever wrote. Among the portraits, we most admire Tom Folio, Ned Softly, and the Pohtical Uphol- 15 sterer. The proceedings of the Court of Honour, the Thermometer of Zeal, the story of the Frozen Words, the Memoirs of the Shilling, are excellent specimens of that ingenious and lively species of fiction in which Addison excelled all men. There is one still better paper of the 20 same class. But though that paper, a hundred and thirty-three years ago, was probably thought as edify- ing as one of Smalridge's sermons, we dare not indi- cate it to the squeamish readers of the nineteenth century. 25 During the session of Parliament which commenced in November, 1709, and which the impeachment of Sacheverell has made memorable, Addison appears to have resided in London. The Tatle^- was now more popular than any periodical paper had ever been ; and Essay on Addison 109 his connexion with it was generally known. It was not known, however, that almost everything good in The Tatler was his. The truth is, that the fifty or sixty numbers which we owe to him were not merely the best, but so decidedly the best that any five of them are 5 more valuable than all the two hundred numbers in which he had no share. He required, at this time, all the solace which he could derive from literary success. The Queen ^ had always disliked the Whigs. She had during some years 10 disliked the Marlborough family. But, reigning by a disputed title, she could not venture directly to oppose herself to a majority of both Houses of Parliament; and, engaged as she was in a war on the event of which her own crown was staked, she could not venture to 15 disgrace a great and successful general. But at length, in the year 17 10, the cause which had restrained her from showing her aversion to the Lo\v Church party ceased to operate. The trial of Sacheverell produced an outbreak of public feeling scarcely less violent than 20 the outbreaks which we can ourselves remember in 1820, and in 1831. The country gentleman, the coun- try clergymen, the rabble of the towns, were all, for once, on the same side. It was clear that, if a general election took place before the excitement abated, the 25 Tories would have a majority. The services of Marl- borough had been so splendid that they were no longer necessary. The Queen's throne was secure from all 1 Anne. no Essay on Addison attacks on the part of Louis. ^ Indeed, it seemed much more Hkely that the Enghsh and German armies would divide the spoils of Versailles and Marli than that a marshal of France would bring back the Pretender to 5 St. James's. The Queen, acting by the advice of Har- ley, determined to dismiss her servants. In June the change commenced. Sunderland was the first who fell. The Tories exulted over his fall. The Whigs tried, during a few weeks, to persuade themselves that 10 her Majesty had acted only from personal dislike to the Secretary, and that she meditated no further alteration. But, early in August, Godolphin was surprised by a letter from Anne, which directed him to break his white staff. Even after this event, the irresolution or dissimu- 15 lation of Harley kept up the hopes of the Whigs dur- ing another month ; and then the ruin became rapid and violent. The Parliament was dissolved. The min- isters were turned out. The Tories were called to office. The tide of popularity ran violently in favour 20 of the High Church party. That party, feeble in the late House of Commons, was now irresistible. The power which the Tories had thus suddenly acquired, they used with blind and stupid ferocity. The howl which the whole pack set up for prey and for blood 25 appalled even him who had roused and unchained them. When, at this distance of time, we calmly review the conduct of the discarded ministers, we cannot but feel a movement of indignation at the injustice with which 1 Louis the Fourteenth. Essay on Addison 1 1 1 they were treated. No body of men had ever adminis- tered the government with more energy, abiUty, and moderation ; and their success had been proportioned to their wisdom. They had saved Holland and Ger- many. They had humbled France. They had, as it 5 seemed, all but torn Spain from the House of Bourbon. They had made England the first power in Europe. At home they had united England and Scotland. They had respected the rights of conscience and the liberty of the subject. They retired, leaving their country at the 10 height of prosperity and glory. And yet they were pur- sued to their retreat by such a roar of obloquy as was never raised against the government which threw away thir- teen colonies, or against the government which sent a gallant army to perish in the ditches of Walcheren. 15 None of the Whigs suffered more in the general wreck than Addison. He had just sustained some heavy pecuniary losses, of the nature of which we are imper- fectly informed, when his secretaryship was taken from him. He had reason to believe that he should also be 20 deprived of the small Irish office which he held by patent. He had just resigned his Fellowship. It seems probable that he had already ventured to raise his eyes to a great lady,^ and that, while his political friends were in power, and while his own fortunes were rising, 25 he had been, in the phrase of the romances which were then fashionable, permitted to hope. But Mr. Addison the ingenious writer, and Mr. Addison the Chief Secre- 1 Countess of Warwick. 112 Essay on Addison tary, were, in her ladyship's opinion, two very different persons. All these calamities united, however, could not disturb the serene cheerfulness of a mind conscious of innocence, and rich in its own wealth. He told his 5 friends, with smiling resignation, that they ought to admire his philosophy ; that he had lost at once his fortune, his place, his Fellowship, and his mistress ; that he must think of turning tutor again, and yet that his spirits were as good as ever. 10 He had one consolation. Of the unpopularity which his friends had incurred, he had no share. Such was the esteem with which he was regarded that, while the most violent measures were taken for the purpose of forcing Tory members on Whig corporations, he was 15 returned to Parliament without even a contest. Swift, who was now in London, and who had already deter- mined on quitting the Whigs, wrote to Stella in these remarkable words : " The Tories carry it among the new members six to one. Mr. Addison's election has 20 passed easy and undisputed ; and I believe if he had a mind to be king, he would hardly be refused." The good will with which the Tories regarded Addi- son is the more honourable to him, because it had not been purchased by any concession on his part. During 25 the general election he published a political Journal, entitled The Whig Examiner. Of that Journal it may be sufficient to say that Johnson, in spite of his strong political prejudices, pronounced it to be superior in wit to any of Swift's writings on the other side. When it Essay on Addison 1 13 ceased to appear, Swift, in a letter to Stella, expressed his exultation at the death of so formidable an antago- nist. " He might well rejoice," says Johnson, "at the death of that which he could not have killed." " On no occasion," he adds, " was the genius of Addison more 5 vigorously exerted, and on none did the superiority of his powers more evidently appear." The only use which Addison appears to have made of the favour with which he was regarded by the Tories was to save some of his friends from the general ruin 10 of the Whig party. He felt himself to be in a situation which made it his duty to take a decided part in poli- tics. But the case of Steele and of Ambrose Phillipps was different. For Phillipps, Addison even conde- scended to solicit, with what success we have not ascer- 15 tained. Steele held two places. He was Gazetteer, and he was also a Commissioner of Stamps. The Gazette was taken from him. But he was suft'ered to retain his place in the Stamp Office, on an implied understanding that he should not be active against the new govern- 20 ment : and he was, during more than two years, induced by Addison to observe this armistice with tolerable fidelity. Isaac Bickerstaff^ accordingly became silent upon politics, and the article of news, which had once formed 25 about one third of his paper, altogether disappeared. The Tatler had completely changed its character. It was now nothing but a series of essays on books, morals, 1 Steele's nom de plume. ESSAY ON ADDISON — 8 114 Essay on Addison and manners. Steele therefore resolved to bring it to a close, and to commence a new work on an improved plan. It was announced that this new work would be pub- lished daily. The undertaking was generally regarded 5 as bold, or rather rash ; but the event amply justified the confidence with which Steele relied on the fertility of Addison's genius. On the second of January, 171 1, appeared the last Tatler. At the beginning of March following, appeared the first of an incomparable series 10 of papers, containing observations on life and literature by an imaginary Spectator. The Spectator himself was conceived and drawn by Addison ; and it is not easy to doubt that the portrait was meant to be in some features a likeness of the 15 painter. The Spectator is a gentleman who, after pass- ing a studious youth at the University, has travelled on classic ground, and has bestowed much attention on curious points of antiquity. He has, on his return, fixed his residence in London, and has observed all the 20 forms of life which are to be found in that great city ; has daily listened to the wits of Will's, has smoked with the philosophers of the Grecian, and has mingled with the parsons at Child's, and with the politicians at St. James's. In the morning, he often Hstens to the 25 hum of the Exchange ; in the evening, his face is con- stantly to be seen in the pit of Drury Lane theatre. But an insurmountable bashfulness prevents him from opening his mouth, except in a small circle of intimate friends. Essay on Addison 115 These friends 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 bar- onet and an old town rake, though not delineated with 5 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. 10 The plan of The Spectator must be allowed to be both original and eminently happy. Every valuable essay in the series may be read with pleasure separately ; yet the five or six hundred essays form a whole, and a whole which has the interest of a novel. It must be remem- 15 bered, too, that at that time no novel, giving a lively and powerful picture of the common life and manners of England, had appeared. Richardson was working as a compositor. Fielding was robbing birds' nests. Smollett was not yet born. The narrative, therefore, 20 which connects together the Spectator's essays, gave to our ancestors their first taste of an exquisite and untried pleasure. That narrative was indeed constructed with no art or labour. The events were such events as occur every day. Sir Roger comes up to town to see Eugenio, 25 as the worthy baronet always calls Prince Eugene, goes with the Spectator on the water to Spring Gardens, walks among the tombs in the Abbey, and is frightened by the Mohawks, but conquers his apprehension so far ii6 Essay on Addison as to go to the theatre when the Distressed Mother is acted. The Spectator pays a visit in the summer to Coveriey Hall, is charmed with the old house, the old butler, and the old chaplain, eats a jack caught by Will 5 Wimble, rides to the assizes, and hears a point of law dis- cussed by Tom Touchy. At last a letter from the honest butler brings to the club the news that Sir Roger is dead. Will Honeycomb marries and reforms at sixty. The club breaks up ; and the Spectator resigns his 10 functions. Such events can hardly be said to form a plot ; yet they are related with such truth, such grace, such wit, such humour, such pathos, such knowledge of the human heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world, that they charm us on the hundredth perusal. 15 We have not the least doubt that if Addison had written a novel, on an extensive plan, it would have been su- perior to any that we possess. As it is, he is entitled to be considered not only as the greatest of the English essayists, but as the forerunner of the great English 20 novelists. We say this of x\ddison alone ; for Addison is The Spectator. About three sevenths of the work are his ; and it is no exaggeration to say that his worst essay is as good as the best essay of any of his coadjutors. His best 25 essays approach near to absolute perfection ; nor is their excellence more wonderful than their variety. His in- vention never seems to flag ; nor is he ever under the necessity of repeating himself, or of wearing out a sub- ject. There are no dregs in his wine. He regales us Essay on Addison 117 after the fashion of that prodigal nabob who held that there was only one good glass in a bottle. As soon as we have tasted the first sparkling foam of a jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh draught of nectar is at our lips. On the Monday we have an allegory as hvely and in- 5 genious as Lucian's Auction of Lives ; on the Tuesday, an Eastern apologue as richly coloured as the tales of Scheherazade ; on the Wednesday, a character described with the skill of La Bruyere ; on the Thursday, a scene from common Hfe, equal to the best chapters in the 10 Vica}' of Wakefield ; on the Friday, some sly Horatian pleasantry on fashionable follies, — on hoops, patches, or puppet shows ; and on the Saturday, a religious meditation, which will bear a comparison with the finest passages in Massillon. 15 It is dangerous to select where there is so much that deserves the highest praise. We will venture, however, to say that any person who wishes to form a just notion of the extent and variety of Addison's powers, will do well to read at one sitting the following papers : the two 20 Visits to the Abbey, the Visit to the Exchange, the Jour- nal of the Retired Citizen, the Vision of Mirza, the Transmigrations of Pug the Monkey, and the Death of Sir Roger de Coverley. The least valuable of Addison's contributions to The 2^ Spectator are, in the judgement of our age, his critical papers. Yet his critical papers are always luminous, and often ingenious. The very worst of them must be re- garded as creditable to him, when the character of the 1 1 8 Essay on Addison 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. No essays in The Spectato?- were 5 more censured and derided than those in which he raised his voice against the contempt with which our fine old ballads were regarded, and showed the scoffers that the same gold which, burnished and polished, gives lustre to the ^neid and the Odes of Horace, is mingled with 10 the rude dross of Chevy Chace. It is not strange that the success of The Spectator should have been such as no similar work has ever ob- tained. The number of copies daily distributed was at first three thousand. It subsequently increased, and had 15 risen to near four thousand when the stamp tax was im- posed. That tax was fatal to a crowd of journals. The Spectator, however, stood its ground, doubled its price, and, though its circulation fell off, still yielded a large revenue both to the state and to the authors. For par- 20 ticular papers, the demand was immense ; of some, it is said, twenty thousand copies were required. But this was not all. To have The Spectator served up every morning with the bohea and rolls was a luxury for the few. The majority were content to wait till essays enough 25 had appeared to form a volume. Ten thousand copies of each volume were immediately taken off, and new editions were called for. It must be remembered, that the population of England was then hardly a third of what it now is. The number of Englishmen who were in Essay on Addison 119 the habit of reading was probably not a sixth of what it now is. A shopkeeper or a farmer who found any pleas- ure in literature was a rarity. Nay, there was doubtless more than one knight of the shire whose country seat did not contain ten books, receipt books and books on 5 farriery included. In these circumstances, the sale of The Spectator must be considered as indicating a popu- larity quite as great as that of the most successful works of Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Dickens in their own time. At the close of 171 2 The Spectator ceased to appear. 10 It was probably felt that the shortfaced gentleman and his club had been long enough before the town ; and that it was time to withdraw them, and to replace them by a new set of characters. In a few weeks the first number of The Guardian was pubhshed. But The Guardian 15 was unfortunate both in its birth and in its death. It began in dullness, and disappeared in a tempest of fac- tion. The original plan was bad. Addison contributed nothing till sixty-six numbers had appeared ; and it was then impossible to make The Guardian what The Spec- 20 tator had been. Nestor Ironside and the Miss Lizards were people to whom even he could impart no interest. He could only furnish some excellent little essays, both serious and comic ; and this he did. Why Addison gave no assistance to The Guardiati 25 during the first two months of its existence is a question which has puzzled the editors and biographers, but which seems to us to admit of a very easy solution. He was then engaged in bringing his Cato on the stage. I20 Essay on Addison The first four acts of this drama had been lying in his desk since his return from Italy. His modest and sensitive nature shrank from the risk of a public and shameful failure ; and, though all who saw the manuscript 5 were loud in praise, some thought it possible that an audience might become impatient even of very good rhetoric, and advised Addison to print the play without hazarding a representation. At length, after many fits of apprehension, the poet yielded to the urgency of his 10 political friends, who hoped that the pubhc would dis- cover some analogy between the followers of Caesar and the Tories, between Sempronius and the apostate Whigs, between Cato, struggling to the last for the liberties of Rome, and the band of patriots who still stood firm round 15 Halifax and Wharton. Addison gave the play to the managers of Drury Lane theatre, without stipulating for any advantage to himself. They, therefore, thought themselves bound to spare no cost in scenery and dresses. The decorations, it is true, 20 would not have pleased the skilful eye of Mr. Macready. Juba's waistcoat blazed with gold lace; Marcia's hoop was worthy of a Duchess on the birthday ; and Cato wore a wig worth fifty guineas. The prologue was written by Pope, and is undoubtedly a dignified and spirited com- 25 position. The part of the hero was excellently played by Booth. Steele undertook to pack a house. The boxes were in a blaze with the stars of the Peers in Opposition. The pit was crowded with attentive and friendly Hsteners from the Inns of Court and the literary Essay on Addison 121 coffee-houses. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Governor of the Bank of England, was at the head of a powerful body of auxiharies from the city, warm men and true Whigs, but better known at Jonathan's and Garraway's than in the haunts of wits and critics. 5 These precautions were quite superfluous. The Tories, as a body, regarded Addison with no unkind feelings. Nor was it for their interest, professing, as they did, pro- found reverence for law and prescription, and abhorrence both of popular insurrections and of standing armies, to 10 appropriate to themselves reflections thrown on the great military chief and demagogue, who, with the support of the legions and of the common people, subverted all the ancient institutions of his country. Accordingly, every shout that was raised by the members of the Kit Cat was 15 echoed by the High Churchmen of the October; and the curtain at length fell amidst thunders of unanimous applause. The delight and admiration of the town were described by The Guardian in terms which we might attribute to 20 partiality, were it not that The Examiiief', the organ of the ministry, held similar language. The Tories, indeed, found much to sneer at in the conduct of their opponents. Steele had on this, as on other occasions, shown more zeal than taste or judgement. The honest citizens who 25 marched under the orders of Sir Gibby, as he was face- tiously called, probably knew better when to buy and when to sell stock than when to clap and when to hiss at a play, and incurred some ridicule by making the 122 Essay on Addison hypocritical Sempronius their favourite, and by giving to his insincere rants louder plaudits than they bestowed on the temperate eloquence of Cato. Wharton, too, who had the incredible effrontery to applaud the lines about 5 flying from prosperous vice and from the power of impi- ous men to a private station, did not escape the sarcasms of those who justly thought that he could fly from noth- ing more vicious or impious than himself. The epilogue, which was written by Garth, a zealous Whig, was severely 10 and not unreasonably censured as ignoble and out of place. But Addison was described, even by the bitterest Tory writers, as a gentleman of wit and virtue, in whose friendship many persons of both parties were happy, and whose name ought not to be mixed up with factious 15 squabbles. Of the jests by which the triumph of the Whig party was disturbed, the most severe and happy was Boling- broke's. Between two acts he sent for Booth to his box, and presented him, before the whole theatre, with a purse 20 of fifty guineas for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual Dictator. This was a pungent allu- sion to the attempt which Marlborough had made, not long before his fall, to obtain a patent creating him Cap- tain General for life. 25 It was April ; and in April, a hundred and thirty years ago, the London season was thought to be far advanced. During a whole month, however, Cato was performed to overflowing houses, and brought into the treasury of the theatre twice the gains of an ordinary spring. In Essay on Addison 123 the summer, the Dmry Lane company went down to the Act at Oxford, and there, before an audience which retained an affectionate remembrance of Addison's ac- complishments and virtues, his tragedy was acted during several days. The gownsmen began to besiege the theatre 5 in the forenoon, and by one in the afternoon all the seats were filled. About the merits of the piece which had so extraor- dinary an effect, the public, we suppose, has made up its mind. To compare it with the masterpieces of the 10 Attic stage, with the great English dramas of the time of Elizabeth, or even with the productions of Schiller's man- hood, would be absurd indeed. Yet it contains excellent dialogue and declamation, and, among plays fashioned on the French model, must be allowed to rank high ; not 15 indeed with Aihalie or Saul, but, we think, not below Cinna, and certainly above any other English tragedy of the same school, above many of the plays of Corneille, above many of the plays of Voltaire and Alfieri, and above some plays of Racine. Be this as it may, we have little 20 doubt that Cato did as much as the Tatlers, Spectators, and Freeholders united, to raise Addison's fame among his contemporaries. The modesty and good nature of the successful drama- tist had tamed even the malignity of faction. But Ht- 25 erary envy, it should seem, is a fiercer passion than party spirit. It was by a zealous Whig that the fiercest attack on the Whig tragedy was made. John Dennis published Remaj'ks on Cato, which were written with some acute- 124 Essay on Addison ness and with much coarseness and asperity. Addison neither defended himself nor retahated. On many points he had an excellent defence, and nothing would have been easier than to retaliate ; for Dennis had written bad 5 odes, bad tragedies, bad comedies : he had, moreover, a larger share than most men of those infirmities and eccen- tricities which excite laughter ; and Addison's power of turning either an absurd book or an absurd man into ridi- cule was unrivalled. Addison, however, serenely conscious loof his superiority, looked with pity on his assailant, whose temper, naturally irritable and gloomy, had been soured by want, by controversy, and by literary failures. But among the young candidates for Addison's favour there was one distinguished by talents from the rest, and 15 distinguished, we fear, not less by malignity and insincer- ity. Pope was only twenty-five. But his powers had ex- panded to their full maturity; and his best poem, The Rape of the Lock, had recently been published. Of his genius, Addison had always expressed high admiration. 20 But Addison had early discerned, what might, indeed, have been discerned by an eye less penetrating than his, that the diminutive, crooked, sickly boy was eager to re- venge himself on society for the unkindness of nature. In The Spectator the Essay on Criticism had been praised 25 with cordial warmth ; but a gentle hint had been added, that the writer of so excellent a poem would have done well to avoid ill-natured personaHties. Pope, though evi- dently more galled by the censure than gratified by the praise, returned thanks for the admonition, and promised Essay on Addison 125 to profit by it. The two writers continued to exchange civihties, counsel, and small good offices. Addison pub- hcly extolled Pope's miscellaneous pieces ; and Pope fur- nished Addison with a prologue. This did not last long. Pope hated Dennis, whom he had injured without provo- 5 cation. The appearance of the Remarks on Cato gave the irritable poet an opportunity of venting his malice under the show of friendship ; and such an opportunity could not but be welcome to a nature which was impla- cable in enmity, and which always preferred the tortuous 10 to the straight path. He published, accordingly, the Nar- rative of the Frenzy of John Dennis} But Pope had mistaken his powers. He was a great master of invective and sarcasm ; he could dissect a character in terse and sonorous couplets, brilliant with antithesis ; but of dra- 15 matic talent he was altogether destitute. If he had written a lampoon on Dennis, such as that on Atticus or that on Sporus, the old grumbler would have been crushed. But Pope writing dialogue resembled — to borrow Horace's imagery and his own — a wolf which, instead of biting, 20 should take to kicking, or a monkey which should try to sting. The Narrative is utterly contemptible. Of argu- ment there is not even the show ; and the jests are such as, if they were introduced into a farce, would call forth the hisses of the shilling gallery. Dennis raves about the 25 drama, and the nurse thinks that he is calling for a dram. "There is," he cries, "no peripetia in the tragedy, no change of fortune, no change at all." " Pray, good sir, 1 See Leslie Stephen's Life of Pope. 126 Essay on Addison be not angry," says the old woman ; " I'll fetch change." This is not exactly the pleasantry of Addison. There can be no doubt that Addison saw through this officious zeal, and felt himself deeply aggrieved by it. 5 So foolish and spiteful a pamphlet could do him no good, and, if he were thought to have any hand in it, must do him harm. Gifted with incomparable powers of ridicule, he had never, even in self-defence, used those powers inhumanly or uncourteously ; and he was not disposed to 10 let others make his fame and his interests a pretext under which they might commit outrages from which he had himself constantly abstained. He accordingly declared that he had no concern in the Narrative, that he disap- proved of it, and that if he answered the Reuiarks, he 15 would answer them like a gentleman ; and he took care to communicate this to Dennis. Pope was bitterly mor- tified ; and to this transaction we are inclined to ascribe the hatred with which he ever after regarded Addison. In September, 1713, The Guai-dian ceased to appear, 20 Steele had gone mad about politics. A general election had just taken place : he had been chosen member for Stockbridge ; and he fully expected to play a first part in Parliament. The immense success of The Tatler and Spectator had turned his head. He had been the editor 25 of both those papers, and was not aware how entirely they owed their influence and popularity to the genius of his friend. His spirits, always violent, were now ex- cited by vanity, ambition, and faction, to such a pitch that he every day committed some offence against good Essay on Addison 127 sense and good taste. All the discreet and moderate members of his own party regretted and condemned his folly. " I am in a thousand troubles," Addison wrote, " about poor Dick, and wish that his zeal for the public may not be ruinous to himself. But he has sent me 5 word that he is determined to go on, and that any advice I may give him in this particular will have no weight with him." Steele set up a political paper called The Englishman, which, as it was not supported by contributions from 10 Addison, completely failed. By this work, by some other writings of the same kind, and by the airs which he gave himself at the first meeting of the new Parlia- ment, he made the Tories so angry that they determined to expel him. The Whigs stood by him gallantly, but 15 were unable to save him. The vote of expulsion was regarded by all dispassionate men as a tyrannical ex- ercise of the power of the majority. But Steele's vio- lence and folly, though they by no means justified the steps which his enemies took, had completely disgusted 20 his friends ; nor did he ever regain the place which he had held in the public estimation. Addison about this time conceived the design of add- ing an eighth volume to The Spectator. In June, 17 14, the first number of the new series appeared, and during 25 about six months three papers were published weekly. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between The Englishman and the eighth volume of The Spectator, between Steele without Addison and Addison without 128 Essay on Addison Steele. The Englishman is forgotten; the eighth vol- ume of The Spectator contains, perhaps, the finest essays, both serious and playful, in the English language. Before this volume was completed, the death of Anne ^ 5 produced an entire change in the administration of public affairs. The blow fell suddenly. It found the Tory party distracted by internal feuds, and unprepared for any great effort. Harley had just been disgraced. Bo- lingbroke, it was supposed, would be the chief minister. 10 But the Queen was on her death bed before the white staffs had been given, and her last public act was to de- liver it with a feeble hand to the Duke of Shrewsbury. The emergency produced a coahtion between all sections of pubhc men who were attached to the Protestant succes- 15 sion. George the First was proclaimed without opposi- tion. A Council, in which the leading Whigs had seats, took the direction of affairs till the new King should arrive.^ The first act of the Lords Justices was to ap- point Addison their Secretary. 20 There is an idle tradition that he was directed to pre- pare a letter to the King, that he could not satisfy him- self as to the style of this composition, and that the Lords Justices called in a clerk, who at once did what was wanted. It is not strange that a story so flattering to 25 mediocrity should be popular ; and we are sorry to deprive dunces of their consolation. But the truth must 1 August I, 1 714. 2 Part of the insignia of the Lord High Treasurer. ^ September, 17 14. Essay on Addison 129 be told. It was well observed by Sir James Mackintosh, whose knowledge of these times was unequalled, that Addison never, in any official document, affected wit or eloquence and that his dispatches are, without exception, remarkable for unpretending simplicity. Everybody who 5 knows with what ease Addison's finest essays were pro- duced, must be convinced that, if well-turned phrases had been wanted, he would have had no difficulty in find- ing them. We are, however, inclined to beheve, that the story is not absolutely without a foundation. It may well 10 be that Addison did not know, till he had consulted experienced clerks who remembered the times when William the Third was absent on the Continent, in what form a letter from the Council of Regency to the King ought to be drawn. We think it very likely that the 15 ablest statesmen of our time. Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, for example, would, in similar circumstances, be found quite as ignorant. Every office has some little mysteries which the dullest man may learn with a httle attention, and which the 20 greatest man cannot possibly know by intuition. One paper must be signed by the chief of the department, another by his deputy ; to a third the royal sign manual is necessary. One communication is to be registered, and another is not. One sentence must be in black ink, 25 and another in red ink. If the ablest Secretary for Ireland were moved to the India Board, if the ablest President of the India Board were moved to the War Office, he would require instruction on points like these ; ESSAY ON ADDISON — 9 130 Essay on Addison and we do not doubt that Addison required such in- struction when he became, for the first time, Secretary to the Lords Justices. George the First took possession of his kingdom with- 5 out opposition. A new ministry was formed, and a new Parhament favourable to the Whigs chosen. Sunderland was appointed Lord-lieutenant of Ireland ; and Addison again went to Dublin as Chief Secretary. At Dublin Swift resided; and there was much specu- 10 lation about the way in which the Dean and the Secretary would behave towards each other. The relations which existed between these remarkable men form an interest- ing and pleasing portion of literary history. They had early attached themselves to the same political party and 15 to the same patrons. While Anne's Whig ministry was in power, the visits of Swift to London and the official residence of Addison in Ireland had given them oppor- tunities of knowing each other. They were the two shrewdest observers of their age. But their observations 20 on each other had led them to favourable conclusions. Swift did full justice to the rare powers of conversation which were latent under the bashful deportment of Ad- dison. Addison, on the other hand, discerned much good nature under the severe look and manner of Swift ; and, 25 indeed, the Swift of 1708 and the Swift of 1738 were two very different men. But the paths of the two friends diverged widely. The Whig statesmen loaded Addison with solid benefits. They praised Swift, asked him to dinner, and did nothing Essay on Addison 131 more for him. His profession laid them under a diffi- culty. In the state they could not promote him ; and they had reason to fear that, by bestowing preferment in the church on the author of the Tale of a Tub, they might give scandal to the public, which had no high 5 opinion of their orthodoxy. He did not make fair allow- ance for the difficulties which prevented Halifax and Somers from serving him, thought himself an ill-used man, sacrificed honour and consistency to revenge, joined the Tories, and became their most formidable champion. 10 He soon found, however, that his old friends were less to blame than he had supposed. The dislike with which the Queen and the heads of the church regarded him was insurmountable; and it was with the greatest diffi- culty that he obtained an ecclesiastical dignity of no 15 great value, on condition of fixing his residence in a country which he detested. Difference of poHtical opinion had produced, not in- deed a quarrel, but a coolness between Swift and Ad- dison. They at length ceased altogether to see each 20 other. Yet there was between them a tacit compact Hke that between the hereditary guests in the Iliad. "''E7xea 5' dWi^Xcoj' oKeiliixeda Kal 8l oifxiXov UoWol jxkv yap i/xol TpQes kXcltoi t kirlKovpoi^ Kretj'etj', %v /ce ^eos 7e iropri koX Troccrt /ctxe/w, 2' IloXXot 5' av aol 'Axct'ot, evalpeixev 6v k€ dijprjai." It is not strange that Addison, who calumniated and insulted nobody, should not have calumniated or insulted Swift. But it is remarkable that Swift, to whom neither 132 Essay on Addison genius nor virtue was sacred, and who generally seemed to find, like most other renegades, a peculiar pleasure in attacking old friends, should have shown so much respect and tenderness to Addison. >>> '^ 5 Fortune had now changed. The accession of the House of Hanover had secured in England the liberties of the people, and in Ireland the dominion of the Prot- estant caste. To that caste Swift was more odious than any other man. He was hooted and even pelted in the 10 streets of Dublin ; and could not venture to ride along the strand for his health without the attendance of armed servants. Many whom he had formerly served now libelled and insulted him. At this time Addison arrived. He had been advised not to show the smallest civility to 15 the Dean^ of St. Patrick's. He had answered, with ad- mirable spirit, that it might be necessary for men whose fidelity to their party was suspected, to hold no inter- course with political opponents; but that one who had been a steady Whig in the worst times might venture, 20 when the good cause was triumphant, to shake hands with an old friend who was one of the vanquished Tories. His kindness was soothing to the proud and cruelly wounded spirit of Swift ; and the two great satirists re- sumed their habits of friendly intercourse. 25 Those associates of Addison whose political opinions agreed with his shared his good fortune. He took Tick- ell with him to Ireland. He procured for Budgell a lucrative place in the same kingdom. Ambrose Phillipps 1 Swift. Essay on Addison 133 was provided for in England. Steele had injured him- self so much by his eccentricity and perverseness that he obtained but a very small part of what he thought his due. He was, however, knighted ; he had a place in the household ; and he subsequently received other marks of 5 favour from the court. Addison did not remain long in Ireland. In 1715 he quitted his secretaryship for a seat at the Board of Trade. In the same year his comedy of The Dru77imer was brought on the stage. The name of the author was not 10 announced ; the piece was coldly received ; and some critics have expressed a doubt whether it were really Ad- dison's. To us the evidence, both external and internal, seems decisive. It is not in Addison's best manner ; but it contains numerous passages which no other writer 15 known to us could have produced. It was again per- formed after Addison's death, and, being known to be his, was loudly applauded. Towards the close of the year 1715, while the re- bellion was still raging in Scotland, Addison pubhshed2o the first number of a paper called The Freeholder. Among his political works The Freeholder is entitled to the first place. Ev^en in The Spectator there are few seri- ous papers nobler than the character of his friend Lord Somers, and certainly no satirical papers superior to 25 those in which the Tory fox-hunter is introduced. This character is the original of Squire Western, and is drawn with all Fielding's force, and with a delicacy of which Fielding was altogether destitute. As none of Addison's 134 Essay on Addison works exhibits stronger marks of his genius than The Free- holder^ so none does more honour to his moral character. It is difficult to extol too highly the candour and human- ity of a political writer whom even the excitement of civil 5 war cannot hurry into unseemly violence. Oxford, it is well known, was then the stronghold of Toryism. The High Street had been repeatedly Hned with bayonets in order to keep down the disaffected gownsmen ; and trai- tors pursued by the messengers of the government had 10 been concealed in the garrets of several colleges. Yet the admonition which, even under such circumstances, Addi- son addressed to the University, is singularly gentle, respectful, and even affectionate. Indeed, he could not find it in his heart to deal harshly even with imaginary 15 persons. His fox-hunter, though ignorant, stupid, and violent, is at heart a good fellow, and is at last reclaimed by the clemency of the King. Steele was dissatisfied with his friend's moderation, and, though he acknowl- edged that The Freeholder was excellently written, com- 20 plained that the ministry played on a lute when it was necessary to blow the trumpet. He accordingly deter- mined to execute a flourish after his own fashion, and tried to rouse the pubKc spirit of the nation by means of a paper called The Town Talk, which is now as utterly 25 forgotten as his English77ian, as his Crisis, as his Letter to the Bailiff of Stockbridge, as his Reader, in short, as everything that he wrote without the help of Addison. In the same year in which 77ie Drummer was acted, and in which the first numbers of The Freeholder ap- Essay on Addison 135 peared^ the estrangement of Pope and Addison became complete. Addison had from the first seen that Pope was false and malevolent. Pope had discovered that Addison was jealous. The discovery was made in a strange manner. Pope had written the Rape of the Lock, 5 in two cantos, without supernatural machinery. These two cantos had been loudly applauded, and by none more loudly than by Addison. Then Pope thought of the Sylphs and Gnomes, Ariel, Momentilla, Crispissa, and Umbial, and resolved to interweave the Rosicrucian mythology 10 with the original fabric. He asked Addison's advice. Addison said that the poem as it stood was a delicious httle thing, and entreated Pope not to run the risk of marring what was so excellent in trying to mend it. Pope afterwards declared that this insidious counsel first 15 opened his eyes to the baseness of him who gave it. Now there can be no doubt that Pope's plan was most ingenious, and that he afterwards executed it with great skill and success. But does it necessarily follow that Addison's advice was bad? And if Addison's advice was 20 bad, does it necessarily follow that it was given from bad motives? If a friend were to ask us whether we would advise him to risk his all in a lottery of which the chances were ten to one against him, we should do our best to dissuade him from running such a risk. Even if he were 25 so lucky as to get the thirty thousand pound prize, we should not admit that we had counselled him ill ; and we should certainly think it the height of injustice in him to accuse us of having been actuated by malice. We think 136 Essay on Addison Addison's advice good advice. It rested on a sound principle, the result of long and wide experience. The general rule undoubtedly is that, when a successful work of imagination has been produced, it should not be recast. 5 We cannot at this moment call to mind a single instance in which this rule has been transgressed with happy effect, except the instance of the Rape of the Lock. Tasso recast his Jerusalem. Akenside recast his Pleasures of the Imagination, and his Epistle to Cui'io. Pope himself, to emboldened no doubt by the success with which he had expanded and remodelled \k\Q Rape of the Lock, made the same experiment on the Dunciad. All these attempts failed. Who was to foresee that Pope would, once in his life, be able to do what he could not himself do twice, 15 and what nobody else had ever done ? Addison's advice was good. But had it been bad, why should we pronounce it dishonest? Scott tells us that one of his best friends predicted the failure of Waverley. Herder adjured Goethe not to take so unpromising a sub- 2oject as Faust. Hume tried to dissuade Robertson from writing the History of Chai'les the Fifth. Nay, Pope himself was one of those who prophesied that Cato would never succeed on the stage, and advised Addison to print it without risking a representation. But Scott, 25 Goethe, Robertson, Addison, had the good sense and generosity to give their advisers credit for the best inten- tions. Pope's heart was not of the same kind with theirs. In 1 715, while he was engaged in translating the Iliad, Essay on Addison 137 he met Addison at a coffee-house. PhilHpps and Budgell were there ; but their sovereign got rid of them, and asked Pope to dine with him alone. After dinner Addi- son said that he lay under a difficulty which he wished to explain. "Tickell," he said, " translated some time ago 5 the first book of the Iliad. I have promised to look it over and correct it. I cannot, therefore, ask to see yours ; for that would be double dealing." Pope made a civil reply, and begged that his second book might have the advantage of Addison's revision. Addison readily 10 agreed, looked over the second book, and sent it back with warm commendations. Tickell's version of the first book appeared soon after this conversation. In the preface, all rivalry was ear- nestly disclaimed. Tickell declared that he should not 15 go on with the Iliad, That enterprise he should leave to powers which he admitted to be superior to his own. His only view, he said, in publishing this specimen was to bespeak the favour of the public to a translation of the Odyssey, in which he had made some progress. 20 Addison, and Addison's dev^oted followers, pronounced both the versions good, but maintained that Tickell's had more of the original. The town gave a decided prefer- ence to Pope's. We do not think it worth while to settle such a question of precedence. Neither of the 25 rivals can be said to have translated the Iliad, unless in- deed, the word translation be used in the sense which it bears in the Midsummer Nighfs Df'ea77t. When Bottom makes his appearance with an ass's head instead of his 138 Essay on Addison own, Peter Quince exclaims, " Bless thee ! Bottom, bless thee ! thou art translated." In this sense, undoubtedly, the readers of either Pope or Tickell may very properly exclaim, " Bless thee ! Homer ; thou art translated 5 indeed." Our readers will, we hope, agree with us in thinking that no man in Addison's situation could have acted more fairly and kindly, both towards Pope, and towards Tickell, than he appears to have done. But an odious 10 suspicion had sprung up in the mind of Pope. He fancied, and he soon firmly believed, that there was a deep conspiracy against his fame and his fortunes. The work on which he had staked his reputation was to be depreciated. The subscription, on which rested his 15 hopes of a competence, was to be defeated. With this view Addison had made a rival translation : Tickell had consented to father it ; and the wits of Button's had united to puff it. Is there any external evidence to support this grave 20 accusation ? The answer is short. There is absolutely none. Was there any internal evidence which proved Addi- son to be the author of this version? Was it a work which Tickell was incapable of producing? Surely not. 25 Tickell was a Fellow of a College at Oxford, and must be supposed to have been able to construe the Iliad; and he was a better versifier than his friend. We are not aware that Pope pretended to have discovered any turns of expression peculiar to Addison. Had such turns of Essay on Addison 139 expression been discovered, they would be sufficiently accounted for by supposing Addison to have corrected his friend's lines, as he owned that he had done. Is there anything in the character of the accused persons which makes the accusation probable? We an- 5 swer confidently — nothing. Tickell was long after this time described by Pope himself as a very fair and worthy man. Addison had been, during many years, before the public. Literary rivals, political opponents, had kept their eyes on him. But neither envy nor faction, in their 10 utmost rage, had ever imputed to him a single deviation from the laws of honour and of social morahty. Had he been indeed a man meanly jealous of fame, and capable of stooping to base and wicked acts for the purpose of injuring his competitors, would his vices have remained 15 latent so long? He was a writer of tragedy: had he ever injured Rowe? He was a writer of comedy: had he not done ample justice to Congreve, and given valu- able help to Steele? He was a pamphleteer: have not his good nature and generosity been acknowledged by 20 Swift, his rival in fame and his adversary in politics? That Tickell should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highly improbable. That Addison should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highly improb- able. But that these two men should have conspired 25 together to commit a villainy seems to us improbable in a tenfold degree. All that is known to us of their inter- course tends to prove that it was not the intercourse of two accomplices in crime. These are some of the 140 Essay on Addison lines in which Tickell poured forth his sorrow over the coffin of Addison : " Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, A task well suited to thy gentle mind ? e Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend, To me thine aid, thou guardian genius, lend. "When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms. When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart, 10 And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart; Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before, Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more." In what words, we should like to know, did this guar- dian genius invite his pupil to join in a plan such as the 15 editor of the Satirist would hardly dare to propose to the editor of the Age ? We do not accuse Pope of bringing an accusation which he knew to be false. We have not the smallest doubt that he believed it to be true ; and the evidence on 20 which he believed it he found in his own bad heart. His own life was one long series of tricks, as mean and as malicious as that of which he suspected Addison and Tickell. He was all stiletto and mask. To injure, to in- sult, and to save himself from the consequences of injury 25 and insult by lying and equivocating, was the habit of his life. He published a lampoon on the Duke of Chandos ; he was taxed with it ; and he lied and equivocated. He published a lampoon on Aaron Hill ; he was taxed with it ; and he lied and equivocated. He published a still 30 fouler lampoon on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ; he Essay on Addison 141 was taxed with it ; and he hed with more than usual ef- frontery and vehemence. He puffed himself and abused his enemies under feigned names. He robbed himself of his own letters, and then raised the hue and cry after them. Besides his frauds of malignity, of fear, of inter- 5 est, and of vanity, there were frauds which he seems to have committed from love of fraud alone. He had a habit of stratagem, a pleasure in outwitting all who came near him. Whatever his object might be, the indirect road to it was that which he preferred. For Bolingbroke, 10 Pope undoubtedly felt as much love and veneration as it was his nature to feel for any human being. Yet Pope was scarcely dead when it was discovered that, from no motive except the mere love of artifice, he had been guilty of an act of gross perfidy to Bolingbroke. 15 Nothing was more natural than that such a man as this should attribute to others that which he felt within himself. A plain, probable, coherent explanation is frankly given to him. He is certain that it is all a romance. A line of conduct scrupulously fair, and even 20 friendly, is pursued towards him. He is convinced that it is merely a cover for a vile intrigue by which he is to be disgraced and ruined. It is vain to ask him for proofs. He has none, and wants none, except those which he carries in his own bosom. 25 Whether Pope's malignity at length provoked Addison to retaliate for the first and last time, cannot now be known with certainty. We have only Pope's story,^ which 1 See Courthope's Life of Addison. 142 Essay on Addison runs thus. A pamphlet appeared containing some reflec- tions which stung Pope to the quick. What those reflec- tions were, and whether they were reflections of which he had a right to complain, we have now no means of de- 5 ciding. The Earl of Warwick, a foolish and vicious lad, who regarded Addison with the feelings with which such lads generally regard their best friends, told Pope, truly or falsely, that this pamphlet had been written by Addison's direction. When we consider what a tendency stories 10 have to grow, in passing even from one honest man to another honest man, and, when we consider that to the name of honest man neither Pope nor the Earl of War- wick had a claim, we are not disposed to attach much importance to this anecdote. 15 It is certain, however, that Pope was furious. He had already sketched the character of Atticus in prose. In his anger he turned this prose into the briUiant and energetic lines which everybody knows by heart, or ought to know by heart, and sent them to Addison. One charge which 20 Pope has enforced with great skill is probably not without foundation. Addison was, we are inclined to believe, too fond of presiding over a circle of humble friends. Of the other imputations which these famous Hnes are intended to convey, scarcely one has ever been proved to be just, and 25 some are certainly false. That Addison was not in the habit of " damning with faint praise " appears from innumerable passages in his writings, and from none more than from those in which he mentions Pope. And it is not merely unjust, but ridiculous, to describe a man who made the Essay on Addison 143 fortune of almost every one of his intimate friends, as " so obliging that he ne'er obliged." That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satire keenly, we cannot doubt. That he was conscious of one of the weaknesses with which he was reproached, is highly prob- 5 able. But his heart, we firmly beUeve, acquitted him of the gravest part of the accusation. He acted like him- self. As a satirist he was, at his own weapons, more than Pope's match ; and he would have been at no loss for topics. A distorted and diseased body, tenanted by 10 a yet more distorted and diseased mind ; spite and envy thinly disguised by sentiments as benevolent and noble as those which Sir Peter Teazle admired in Mr. Joseph Sur- face ; a feeble, sickly licentiousness ; an odious love of filthy and noisome images; these were things which a 15 genius less powerful than that to which we owe The Spec- tator could easily have held up to the mirth and hatred of mankind. Addison had, moreover, at his command, other means of vengeance which a bad man would not have scrupled to use. He was powerful in the state. 20 Pope was a Catholic ; and, in those times, a minister would have found it easy to harass the most innocent Catholic by innumerable petty vexations. Pope, near twenty years later, said that " through the lenity of the government alone he could live with comfort." " Con- 25 sider," he exclaimed, " the injury that a man of high rank and credit may do to a private person, under penal laws and many other disadvantages." It is pleasing ro reflect that the only revenge which Addison took was to insert 144 Essay on Addison in The Freeholder a warm encomium on the translation of the Iliad, and to exhort all lovers of learning to put down their names as subscribers. There could be no doubt, he said, from the specimens already published, 5 that the masterly hand of Pope would do as much for Homer as Dryden had done for Virgil. From that time to the end of his life, he always treated Pope, by Pope's own acknowledgment, with justice. Friendship was, of course, at an end. lo One reason which induced the Earl of Warwick to play the ignominious part of talebearer on this occasion, may have been his dislike of the marriage which was about to take place between his mother and Addison. The Countess Dowager, a daughter of the old and honourable 15 family of the Myddletons of Chirk, a family which, in any country but ours, would be called noble, resided at Hol- land House. Addison had, during some years, occupied at Chelsea a small dvveUing, once the abode of Nell Gwynn. Chelsea is now a district of London, and Hol- 20 land House may be called a town residence. But, in the days of Anne and George the First, milkmaids and sports- men wandered between green hedges and over fields bright with daisies, from Kensington almost to the shore of the Thames. Addison and Lady Warwick were 25 country neighbours, and became intimate friends. The great wit and scholar tried to allure the young Lord from the fashionable amusements of beating watchmen, break- ing windows, and rolling women in hogsheads down Holborn Hill, to the study of letters and the practice of Essay on Addison 145 virtue. These well meant exertions did little good, how- ever, either to the disciple or to the master. Lord VVar- v*^ick grew up a rake ; and Addison fell in love. The mature beauty of the Countess has been celebrated by poets in language which, after a very large allowance has 5 been made for flattery, would lead us to believe that she was a fine woman ; and her rank doubtless heightened her attractions. The courtship was long. The hopes of the lover appear to have risen and fallen with the fortunes of his party. His attachment was at length matter of such 10 notoriety that, when he visited Ireland for the last time, Rowe addressed some consolatory verses to the Chloe of Holland House. It strikes us as a little strange that, in these verses, Addison should be called Lycidas, a name of singularly evil omen for a swain just about to cross 15 St. George's Channel. At length Chloe capitulated. Addison was indeed able to treat with her on equal terms. He had reason to expect preferment even higher than that which he had attained. He had inherited the fortune of a brother who 20 died Governor of Madras. He had purchased an estate in Warwickshire, and had been welcomed to his domain in very tolerable verse by one of the neighbouring squires, the poetical fox-hunter, William Somervile. In August, 1 7 16, the newspapers announced that Joseph Addison, 25 Esquire, famous for many excellent works, both in verse and prose, had espoused the Countess Dowager of War- wick. He now fixed his abode at Holland House, a house ESSAY ON ADDISON — lO 146 Essay on Addison which can boast of a greater number of inmates distin- guished in political and literary history than any other private dwelling in England. His portrait still hangs there. The features are pleasing ; the complexion is re- 5 markably fair ; but, in the expression, we trace rather the gentleness of his disposition than the force and keenness of his intellect. Not long after his marriage he reached the height of civil greatness. The Whig government had, during some 10 time, been torn by internal dissensions. Lord Town- shend led one section of the Cabinet, Lord Sunderland the other. At length, in the spring of 171 7, Sunderland triumphed. Townshend retired from office, and was ac- companied by Walpole and Cowper. Sunderland pro- 15 ceeded to reconstruct the ministry ; and Addison was appointed Secretary of State. It is certain that the Seals were pressed upon him, and were at first decHned by him. Men equally versed in official business might easily have been found ; and his colleagues knew that they could 20 not expect assistance from him in debate. He owed his elevation to his popularity, to his stainless probity, and to his Hterary fame. But scarcely had Addison entered the Cabinet when his health began to fail. From one serious attack he re- 25 covered in the autumn ; and his recovery was celebrated in Latin verses, worthy of his own pen, by Vincent Bourne, who was then at Trinity College, Cambridge. A relapse soon took place ; and, in the following spring, Addison was prevented by a severe asthma from discharg- Essay on Addison 147 ing the duties of his post. He resigned it, and was suc- ceeded by his friend Craggs, a young man whose natural parts, though little improved by cultivation, were quick and showy, whose graceful person and winning manners had made him generally acceptable in society, and who, 5 if he had lived, would probably have been the most for- midable of all the rivals of Walpole. As yet there was no Joseph Hume. The ministers, therefore, were able to bestow on Addison a retiring pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year. In what 10 form this pension was given we are not told by the biographers, and have not time to inquire. But it is certain that Addison did not vacate his seat in the House of Commons. Rest of mind and body seemed to have re-estab- 15 lished his health ; and he thanked God, with cheerful piety, for having set him free both from his office and from his asthma. Many years seemed to be before him, and he meditated many works, a tragedy on the death of Socrates, a translation of the Psalms, a treatise on the 2c evidences of Christianity. Of this last performance, a part, which we could well spare, has come down to us. But the fatal complaint soon returned, and gradu- ally prevailed against all the resources of medicine. It is melancholy to think that the last months of such 25 a life should have been overclouded both by domestic and by political vexations. A tradition which began early, which has been generally received, and to which we have nothing to oppose, has represented his wife 148 Essay on Addison as an arrogant and imperious woman. It is said that, till his health failed him, he was glad to escape from the Countess Dowager and her magnificent dining-room, blazing with the gilded devices of the House of Rich, 5 to some tavern where he could enjoy a laugh, a talk about Virgil and Boileau, and a bottle of claret, with the friends of his happier days. All those friends, how- ever, were not left to him. Sir Richard Steele had been gradually estranged by various causes. He con- 10 sidered himself as one who, in evil times, had braved martyrdom for his poHtical principles, and demanded, when the Whig party was triumphant, a large compen- sation for what he had suffered when it was militant. The Whig leaders took a very different view of his 15 claims. They thought that he had, by his own petu- lance and folly, brought them as well as himself into trouble, and though they did not absolutely neglect him, doled out favours to him with a sparing hand. It was natural that he should be angry with them, and espe- 20 cially angry with Addison. But what above all seems to have disturbed Sir Richard, was the elevation of Tickell, who, at thirty, was made by Addison Under- Secretary of State ; while the editor of The Tatler and Spectator^ the author of The C7'isis, the member for 25 Stockbridge who had been persecuted for firm adher- ence to the House of Hanover, was, at near fifty, forced, after many solicitations and complaints, to content him- self with a share in the patent of Drury Lane theatre. Steele himself says, in his celebrated letter to Congreve, Essay on Addison 149 that Addison, by his preference of Tickell, "incurred the warmest resentment of other gentlemen " ; and every- thing seems to indicate that, of those resentful gentle- men, Steele was himself one. While poor Sir Richard was brooding over what he 5 considered as Addison's unkindness, a new cause of quarrel arose. The Whig party, already divided against itself, was rent by a new schism. The celebrated Bill for limiting the number of peers had been brought in. The proud Duke of Somicrset, first in rank of all the 10 nobles whose religion permitted them to sit in Parliament, was the ostensible author of the measure. But it was supported, and, in truth, devised, by the Prime Minister. We are satisfied that the Bill was most pernicious ; and we fear that the motives which induced Sunderland 15 to frame it were not honourable to him. But we cannot deny that it was supported by many of the best and wis- est men of that age. Nor was this strange. The royal prerogative had, within the memory of the generation then in the vigour of life, been so grossly abused, that it 20 was still regarded with a jealousy which, when the pecul- iar situation of the House of Brunswick is considered, may perhaps be called immoderate. The particular pre- rogative of creating peers had, in the opinion of the Whigs, been grossly abused by Queen Anne's last minis- 25 try ; and even the Tories admitted that her Majesty in swamping, as it has since been called, the Upper House, had done what only an extreme case could justify. The theory of the English constitution, according to many 150 Essay on Addison high authorities, was that three independent powers, the sovereign, the nobihty, and the commons, ought con- stantly to act as checks on each other. If this theory were sound, it seemed to follow that to put one of these 5 powers under the absolute control of the other two, was absurd. But if the number of peers were unlimited, it could not well be denied that the Upper House was un- der the absolute control of the crown and the Commons, and was indebted only to their moderation for any power 10 which it might be suffered to retain. Steele took part with the Opposition, Addison with the ministers. Steele, in a paper called The Plebeian, vehe- mently attacked the Bill. Sunderland called for help on Addison, and Addison obeyed the call. In a paper 15 called The Old Whig, he answered, and indeed refuted, Steele's arguments. It seems to us that the premises of both the controversialists were unsound ; that, on those premises, Addison reasoned well and Steele ill ; and that consequently Addison brought out a false con- 20 elusion, while Steele blundered upon the truth. In style, in wit, and in politeness, Addison maintained his supe- riority, though The Ohi Whig is by no means one of his happiest performances. At first, both the anonymous opponents observed the 25 laws of propriety. But at length Steele so far forgot him- self as to throw an odious imputation on the morals of the chiefs of the administration. Addison replied with severity, but, in our opinion, with less severity than was due to so grave an offence against morality and Essay on Addison 151 decorum ; nor did he, in his just anger, forget for a moment the laws of good taste and good breeding. One calumny which has been often repeated, and never yet contradicted, it is our duty to expose. It is asserted in the Biographia Britaiuiica, that Addison designated 5 Steele as "little Dicky." This assertion was repeated by Johnson, who had never seen The Old Whig, and was therefore excusable. It has also been repeated by Miss Aikin, who has seen The Old Whig, and for whom there- fore there is less excuse. Now, it is true that the words 10 '"'little Dicky" occur in The Old Whig, and that Steele's name was Richard. It is equally true that the words " little Isaac " occur in the Duenna, and that Newton's name was Isaac. But we confidently affirm that Addi- son's little Dicky had no more to do with Steele than 15 Sheridan's little Isaac with Newton. If we apply the words "Httle Dicky" to Steele, we deprive a very lively and ingenious passage, not only of all its wit, but of all its meaning. "Little Dicky" was the nickname of Henry Norris, an actor of remarkably small stature, but of great 20 humour, who played the usurer Gomez, then a most popu- lar part, in Dryden's Spanish Friar. The merited reproof which Steele had received, though softened by some kind and courteous expressions, galled him bitterly. He replied with little force and great ac- 25 rimony; but no rejoinder appeared. Addison was fast hastening to his grave ; and had, we may well suppose, Httle disposition to prosecute a quarrel with an old friend. His complaint had terminated in dropsy. He bore up 152 Essay on Addison long and manfully. But at length he abandoned all hope, dismissed his physicians, and calmly prepared himself to die. His works he entrusted to the care of Tickell, and dedi- 5 cated them a very few days before his death to Craggs, in a letter written with the sweet and graceful eloquence of a Saturday's Spectatoj-. In this, his last composition, he alluded to his approaching end in words so manly, so cheerful, and so tender, that it is difficult to read them 10 without tears. At the same time he earnestly recom- mended the interests of Tickell to the care of Craggs. Within a few hours of the time at which this dedication was written, Addison sent to beg Gay, who was then liv- ing by his wits about town, to come to Holland House. 15 Gay went, and was received with great kindness. To his amazement his forgiveness was implored by the dying man. Poor Gay, the most good-natured and simple of mankind, could not imagine what he had to forgive. There was, however, some wrong, the remembrance of 20 which weighed on Addison's mind, and which he declared himself anxious to repair. He was in a state of extreme exhaustion ; and the parting was doubtless a friendly one on both sides. Gay supposed that some plan to serve him had been in agitation at Court, and had been frus- 25 trated by Addison's influence. Nor is this improbable. Gay had paid assiduous court to the royal family. But in the Queen's days he had been the eulogist of BoHng- broke, and was still connected with many Tories. It is not strange that Addison, while heated by conflict, should Essay on Addison 153 have thought himself justified in obstructing the prefer- ment of one whom he might regard as a political enemy. Neither is it strange that, when reviewing his whole life, and earnestly scrutinizing all his motives, he should think that he had acted an unkind and ungenerous part, in 5 using his power against a distressed man of letters, who was as harmless and as helpless as a child. One inference may be drawn from this anecdote. It appears that Addison, on his death-bed, called himself to a strict account, and was not at ease till he had asked 10 pardon for an injury which it was not even suspected that he had committed, for an injury which would have caused disquiet only to a very tender conscience. Is it not, then, reasonable to infer that, if he had really been guilty of forming a base conspiracy against the fame and for- 15 tunes of a rival, he would have expressed some remorse for so serious a crime? But it is unnecessary to multiply arguments and evidence for the defence, when there is neither argument nor evidence for the accusation. The last moments of Addison were perfectly serene. 20 His interview with his stepson is universally known. " See," he said, " how a Christian can die." The piety of Addison was, in truth, of a singularly cheerful charac- ter. The feeling which predominates in all his devo- tional writings is gratitude. God was to him the all-wise 25 and all-powerful friend who had watched over his cradle with more than maternal tenderness ; who had listened to his cries before they could form themselves in prayer ; who had preserved his youth from the snares of vice ; 154 Essay on Addison who had made his cup run over with worldly blessings; who had doubled the value of those blessings by bestow- ing a thankful heart to enjoy them, and dear friends to partake them ; who had rebuked the waves of the 5 Ligurian gulf, had purified the autumnal air of the Cam- pagna, and had restrained the avalanches of Mont Cenis. Of the Psalms, his favourite was that which represents the Ruler of all things under the endearing image of a shepherd, whose crook guides the flock safe, through 10 gloomy and desolate glens, to meadows well watered and rich with herbage. On that goodness to which he ascribed all the happiness of his life, he relied in the hour of death with the love which casteth out fear. He died on the seventeenth of June, 17 19. He had just 15 entered on his forty- eighth year. His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was borne thence to the Abbey at dead of night. The choir sung a funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, one of those Tories who had loved and honoured the most ac- 2ocomplished of the Whigs, met the corpse, and led the procession by torchlight, round the shrine of Saint Ed- ward and the graves of the Plantagenets, to the Chapel of Henry the Seventh. On the north side of that Chapel, in the vault of the house of Albemarle, the coffin of 25 Addison lies next to the coffin of Montagu. Yet a 'few months, and the same mourners passed again along the same aisle. The same sad anthem was again chanted. The same vault was again opened; and the coffin of Craggs was placed close to the coffin of Addison. Essay on Addison 155 Many tributes were paid to the memory of Addison ; but one alone is now remembered. Tickell bewailed his friend in an elegy which would do honour to the greatest name in our literature, and which unites the energy and magnificence of Dryden to the tenderness and purity of 5 Cowper. This fine poem was prefixed to a superb edi- tion of Addison's works, which was pubhshed, in 1721, by subscription. The names of the subscribers proved how widely his fame had been spread. That his countrymen should be eager to possess his writings, even in a costly 10 form, is not wonderful. But it is wonderful that, though English literature was then little studied on the Continent, Spanish grandees, Italian prelates, marshals of France, should be found in the list. Among the most remarkable names are those of the Queen of Sweden, of Prince 15 Eugene, of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Dukes of Parma, Modena, and Guastalla, of the Doge of Genoa, of the Regent Orleans, and of Cardinal Dubois. We ought to add that this edition, though eminently beauti- ful, is in some important points defective ; nor, indeed, do 20 we yet possess a complete collection of Addison's writings. It is strange that neither his opulent and noble widow, nor any of his powerful and attached friends, should have thought of placing even a simple tablet, inscribed with his name, on the walls of the Abbey. It was not till 25 three generations had laughed and wept over his pages that the omission was supplied by the pubhc veneration. At length, in our own time, his image, skilfully graven, appeared in Poets' Corner. It represents him, as we can 156 Essay on Addison conceive him, clad in his dressing-gown, and freed from his wig, stepping from his parlour at Chelsea into his trim little garden, with the account of the Everlasting Club, or the Loves of Hilpa and Shalum, just finished for 5 the next day's Spectator, in his hand. Such a mark of national respect was due to the unsuUied statesman, to the accomplished scholar, to the master of pure Enghsh eloquence, to the consummate painter of life and man- ners. It was due, above all, to the great satirist, who 10 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 disas- trous separation, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism. NOTES The heavy marginal figures stand for page, and the lighter ones for line. 39 : 15. Bradamante. The maiden knight, who, disguised in man's attire, fought a duel with Rogero. He would not use against her his magic sword, Balisarda. See Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, xlv. 68. 39 : 21. Miss Aikin, Lucy (1781-1864). She wrote the Life of Addison, and Memoirs of the courts of Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I. 40 : 9. Laputan. Gulliver visited Laputa, a flying island, in- habited by a race of philosophers who were so absent-minded that attendants were employed to flap their faces with a bladder to arouse them from their abstraction. See Swift's Travels of Lemuel Gulliver. 40:23. Raleigh (1552-1618). English courtier, navigator, historian, and poet, during reigns of Elizabeth and James I. 40: 23, Congreve (1670-1729). Dramatist of the age of Queen Anne. 40 : 23. Prior (i 664-1 721). Poet and diplomatist of the reigns of William III and Queen Anne. 40 : 25. Theobald's. Country seat of Lord Burleigh and hunting seat of James I, in Hertfordshire, thirteen miles north of London. 40 : 25. Steenkirks. Large lace neckcloths, artistically disar- ranged, worn by the dandies of Queen Anne's reign, so called because the French gentlemen rushed into the battle of Steenkirk with their cravats in disorder. 40 : 27. Hampton. A palace on the Thames, fifteen miles southwest of London, built by Cardinal Wolsey and presented by 157 158 Notes him to Henry VIII. It was the royal residence of all the Tudor and Stuart sovereigns. 41: 15. Westminster Abbey. A famous church in London, which existed before the end of the eighth century. Most of the present structure was completed in the middle of the thirteenth century. The British sovereigns, from Edward the Confessor to King Edward VII, have been crowned there, and many are buried there. Most of the great poets and statesmen of England have monuments in the south transept, in and near " Poets' Corner." Of the nine chapels surrounding the east end in a semicircle, the most interesting and historic are those of Edward the Confessor and of Henry VII. The abbey is built in the form of a somewhat irregu- lar cross, its length, exclusive of Henry VII's chapel, being 511 feet. 41 : 25. Parnell (1679-1717). Minor poet of the age of Queen Anne. He assisted Pope in his translation of Homer's works. 41 : 26. Dr. Blair (i 718-1800). Critic and professor of Rhetoric in the University of Edinburgh. 41 : 27. Dr. Johnson (1709-1784). The greatest literary critic and essayist of the eighteenth century. He was also a lexicog- rapher and dramatist. The largest and most valuable of Johnson's works is his Lives of the Poets, containing the critical and literary biographies of English poets from Cowley to Gray. Johnson's Dictionary, written in eight years, is a monument of vast enterprise and labour. He wrote for such periodicals as The Getitlcmaii's Magazine, The Rambler, and The Idler. His tale of Rasselas is a romantic satire on human life. It describes how Prince Rasselas was confined in "The Happy Valley," in order to avoid all the miseries of common life. 42 : 8. Button's. A coffee-house in Covent Garden, frequented by Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift, and other literary men. 43 : I. Biographia Britannica. A collection of biographical sketches of distinguished Britons, published 1 747-1766. 43 '• 3-4- Commonwealth. The form of government established Notes 159 in England on the death of Charles I, in 1649, which existed under Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard, until the abduction of the latter in 1659. 43 : 13. Dunkirk. The northernmost town of France, on the strait of Dover, Cromwell secured it by treaty in 1658, and Charles II sold it to France in 1662. 43 : 14. Tangier. Seaport of Morocco, near the west entrance of the strait of Gibraltar. The Portuguese ceded it to England in 1662 as a part of the dowry of Catharine, queen of Charles II. 43 : 16. Infanta Catharine. Daughter of John II of Portugal, wife of Charles II of England. 44 : 3. Revolution, of 1688. The English invited William, Prince of Orange, husband of Mary, elder daughter of James II, to cross to England for the protection of their religious liberties. William landed November 5, 1688, and James II fled to France. The Prince of Orange was crowned William III, in February, 1689. 44 : 5. Convocation. An ecclesiastical court that dealt with church matters. In 1689 it opposed William Ill's plan to include in the state church all dissenting Protestant clergymen. 44 : 6. Tillotson (1630- 1694). Archbishop of Canterbury and adviser of William III in church affairs. 44: II. Charter House. An endowed school for boys and hospital for indigent gentlemen, founded in London, in 161 1. Among its scholars were Addison, Steele, Blackstone, Wesley, and Thackeray. 45 : 7. See note on 44 : 3. 45 : 14. Bishops. Seven bishops of the Church of England were imprisoned because they petitioned James II to excuse them from reading his edict, abrogating the laws against Catholicism, in their churches. 45 : 25. Hough ( 1 651-1743). His election as President of Magdalen College in 1687 was declared void by James II, and Parker, Bishop of Oxford, a Catholic at heart, was elected in Hough's place. i6o Notes 46 : 8. Demies. A demy, or demi, at Magdalen College, Oxford, called " scholar " at other colleges, is one who secures a founder's benefaction. The demy afterwards succeeds to a fellowship, hence he is a half-fellow. 46 : 12. Cherwell. This favourite walk is to-day called "Addi- son's Walk." 47 : 5. Buchanan (i 506-1 582). Scotch historian and tutor of Mary Queen of Scots as well as of her son James VI. 47 : 25. Metamorphoses. Title of a work by the Latin poet Ovid. 47 : 28. Virgil (B.C. 70-19). Romanpoet,author of the ^;z^2V/, and favourite of Augustus. 47 : 28. Statins (45-96). Roman poet, author of the Thchais. 47 : 29. Claudian (about 365-408). Roman poet, author of epics, lyrics, etc. 48 : 4. Pentheus. Euripides relates in the BaccJuv that Pentheus, while secretly witnessing the orgies of the Bacchanales, was mis- taken for a wild beast and torn to pieces by his own mother and sister, in their Bacchic rage. 48 : 5. Ovid (B.C. 43-A.D. 18). Roman poet, his chief work being the Metajuorphoses. 48 : 6. Euripides (b.c. 480-406). Tragic poet of Athens, the last of the illustrious trio, the two predecessors being ^schylus and Sophocles. Of the many tragedies written by Euripides only nine- teen entire pieces are extant. 48 : 6. Theocritus (b. about B.C. 270). Greek poet, the creator of pastoral poetry, and author of many famous idylls. 48 ; 14. Ausonius (about 310-394). Latin poet and poli- tician. 48:14. Manilius. Latin poet, possibly writing under Augustus. 48 : 14. Cicero (b.c. 106-43). Roman orator and consul, cele- brated for his works written in the purest Latin style. 48 : 21. Hannibal (b.c. 247-183). Carthaginian general, hero of the Second Punic War. Notes i6i 48 : 23. Polybius (B.C. 204-125). Greek historian, author of history of Rome from 220-146 B.C. 48 : 24. Livy (b.c. 59-17). Roman historian, author of a history of Rome, in 142 books, from the foundation of the city to 9 B.C. Only 35 of these books are extant. 48 : 24. Silius Italicus (about 25). Roman poet, author of the heroic poem Ptmica. 48 : 25. Rubicon. Small river between Italy and Cisalpine Gaul, the crossing of which by Caesar was equivalent to a declaration of war against the republic. 48: 25. Plutarch (first century a.d.). Greek biographer and essayist, author of the Pa^'allel Lives and Morals. 48 : 27. Commentaries. Caesar's account of his campaigns in Gaul. 48 : 27. Atticus. Letters from Cicero to his friend Atticus. 49 : 2, Lucan (39-65). Roman poet, author of the P/zarj^/m. 49 : 5. Pindar (about b.c. 522-443). Greek lyric poet, author of the famous Epicinia, or triumphal odes. 49 : 5. Callimachus (d. about 240 b.c). An Alexandrian poet and teacher. 49 : 6. Attic dramatists, ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. 49 : 7. Horace (b.c. 65-8). Roman poet, author of the famous satires, odes, and epistles. 49 : 7. Juvenal (about 60-140). Roman poet, author of satires. 49 : 8. Statins, Ovid. See note on 47 : 28 and 48 : 5. 49 : 29. Cock-Lane ghost. A ridiculous ghost story of the eighteenth century. See Boswell's Life of Johnson, i. 406-408, iii. 268. 50 : I. Ireland's Vortigern. Title of a drama which Ireland claimed was written by Shakespeare. 50 : 2. Thundering Legion. A Christian legion of the army of Marcus Aurelius. It is related that in a battle against the heathen his legion prayed for rain and was saved by a miraculous thunder- storm. ESSAY ON ADDISON — II 1 62 Notes 50 : 2. Tiberius (b.c. 42-A.D. 37). Roman emperor, successor of Augustus Caesar. The crucifixion of Christ toolc place during his reign. 50 : 4. Agbarus. Eusebius relates that Agbarus, king of Edessa, wrote to Jesus Christ, asking Him to come and heal him of a sickness. 50 : 12. Herodotus (about B.C. 484-424). Greek historian, called the father of history. 50 : 16. Boyle, Charles (1676-1731). He started a scholastic controversy with Bentley by his edition of the Epistles of PJialaris. See Macaulay's Essay on Sir William Temple. 50 : 16. Blackmore (1650-1729). Physician, poet, and writer on theology and politics. See Johnson's Lives of the Poets. 50 : 22. Aphorism . . . apophthegm. There is, in truth, little difference in the meaning of these words. They both indicate a concise statement of an important truth, but an aphorism usually refers to speculative principles, ethics, or science, e.g. " Maladies are cured by nature, not by remedies," and an apophthegm or apothegm to practical matters, e.g. " Heaven helps those that help themselves." " An apothegm, in common matters what an apho- rism is in higher, is essentially a terse proposition that makes a vivid impression on the mind." — Cent. Diet. 50 : 24. False quantities. The scansion of classical poetry is based on the long or short quantity of a vowel or a syllable. 51 : I. Bentley (1662-1742). Head of Trinity College, Cam- bridge. He proved that the Epistles of Phalaris, edited by Boyle, were written in 2 a.d., instead of 6 B.C. 51 : 19-20. Thousands of breakfast-tables. This refers to the popularity of The Spectator., Addison's paper. 51 : 20. Swift (1667-1745). Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, celebrated as a churchman, politician, and man of letters. His best -known works are his satires. Battle of the Books, Tale of a Tub, and Gulliver's Travels. See note on Laputan. 52 : 3. Jamque acies, etc. These lines appear in Pygmao- Notes 163 machia (p. xxxi). "And now, amid the hosts, advances the chief of the Pygmies, who, of colossal stature and stately bearing, towers above all the rest even to the height of half an ell." 52 : 10. Drury Lane. The most celebrated theatre in London. It was built in 1663, burned in 1672, and rebuilt in 1674, from designs by Sir Christopher Wren. A new structure was built in 1791, and this was again destroyed by fire in 1809. The present playhouse was rebuilt in 181 2. 52 : 13. Dryden (1631-1700). He was poet laureate of Eng- land, and was the greatest poet after Milton. He wrote dramas, satires, and lyric, religious, and political poems. His translation of Virgil, complimented by Addison, is here alluded to. 52 : 20. Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax (1661-1715). Chancellor of the Exchequer under William III, and Prime Minister from the accession of George I until his death in 171 5. He was a patron of letters, hence his interest in Addison. 52 : 21. Chancellor of the Exchequer. A member of the British cabinet upon whom devolves the charge of the public income and expenditure as the highest finance minister of the government. •52 : 22. Whig. Name of a political party originating in Eng- land in the seventeenth century, in the reign of Charles I or II, when great contests existed respecting the royal prerogatives and the rights of the people. The supporters of the king were termed Tories, and the advocates of popular rights were called Whigs. 52 : 22. House of Commons. The lower house of Parhament in England, consisting of the representatives of cities, boroughs, and counties, chosen by men possessed of the property or qualifications required by law. 53 : 2. Newdigate prize. Offered annually at Oxford for the best English poem. 53 : 3- Seatonian prize. Offered annually at Cambridge for the best poem on a sacred subject. 53 : 14. Pope (1688-1744). The leading poet of the age of Queen Anne. Like Dryden, he was a satirist. His chief works / 164 Notes are the Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, translations of the I/iad 3ind Odyssey, the Dunciad, and the Essay on Alan. 53 : 24. Rochester (1647- 1680). -^ licentious, witty versifier and court favourite of Charles II. 53 : 24. Marvel (1621-1678). A poet, best known for his friendship with Milton. He assisted Milton in his Latin secre- taryship. 53 : 24, Oldham (i 653-1 683). Satirical poet, contemporary with Dryden. 53 : 26. Ben Jonson (1573-1637). After Shakespeare, the greatest dramatist of the age of Elizabeth and James I. 53 : 26. Hoole ( 1 727-1 803). He translated into English verse Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. 54 : 4. Mr. Brunei's mill. Brunei invented a machine for turning pulley-blocks for ships, and built the first tunnel under the Thames. 54 : 7. Translation, yEneid. See Jonson's The Poetaster, v. i. 54 : 21. Tasso. '^^^ Jerusalem Delivered, xiv. 58. 55:6. Duke (1655-1707). Theologian and mediocre poet. , 55 : 6. Stepney (1663- 1707). Translator of Juvenal's Satires. 55:6. Granville ( 1 667-1 735). Minor dramatist and poet. 55 : 6. Walsh ( 1 663-1 709). Minor poet, friend of Dryden and Pope. 56 : II. Dorset (i 637-1 706). Courtier, versifier, and patron of letters. 56 : 14. Rasselas. See note on Dr. Johnson, 41 : 27. 57 : 6. Somers (i 652-1 716). Lawyer and Whig statesman during the reign of Queen Anne. 57 : 10. The Revolution. See note on 44 : 3. 57 : 12. Censors. The censorship of the press in England was abolished in 1694. 57 : 28. Men of letters. These were Thiers, Guizot, Chateau- briand, Lamartine, Villemain, and others, men active in French politics in 1843, when this essay was written. Notes 165 58 : II. Somerset (1660-1748). Whig in politics, opposed to James II, and a firm adherent of William III. 58:11. Shrewsbury (1660-17 1 8). Statesman and scholar. He helped to make the Revolution of 1688 successful, and was Lord High Treasurer under George I. 58 : 22. Ryswick. The treaty of peace signed at Ryswick, in 1697, between France and the allies — Germany, Holland, England, and Spain. 60 : 3. Kit Cat Club. Most celebrated social and political club of Whigs, who met at a mutton-pie house kept by Christopher Cat, in Shire Lane. Upon admission to the club each member cele- brated in verse the lady whom he had chosen for his "toast." Addison's "toast," the Countess of Manchester, was praised as follows : " 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 unborrow'd blushes glowed." 60 : 6. Versailles. City in France, about ten miles southwest of Paris. Here Louis XIV erected the celebrated royal palace, con- taining galleries of pictures and statues of French events and per- sonages. During the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XVI this was the most celebrated court of Europe. 60 : 7. Louis XIV (1638-17 1 5). King of France, called the Great. He was eldest son of Louis XIII and of Anne of Austria. The reign of Louis XIV has been styled the Augustan age of France, and the court was famous for the great men assembled about the king. 60:12. Racine (1639- 1 699). Greatest French tragic dramatist. 60 : 14. Dacier. Librarian to Louis XIV. He published a translation of Plato's works, in which he sought to derive the doc- trines of Athanasius from Plato. 1 66 Notes 60 : 14. Athanasian. Name taken from St. Athanasius, a bishop of Alexandria (about 296-373). The Athanasian creed is a sum- mary of the orthodox faith, opposed to Arianism, which questioned the divinity of Christ. 60 : 28. Spence (1699-1768). Professor of poetry and history in Oxford. 61 : 8. Guardian. A daily paper published by Steele after The Spectator. See Nos. loi and 104. 61 : 17. Malebranche (1638-1715). French philosopher and metaphysician. 61:18. Boileau (1636-1711). French poet and satirist. Pope imitated his VArt Poetique in the Essay on Criticisjn. Boileau insisted on the cultivation of simplicity, clearness, and, above all, good sense in poetry. 61 : 20. Newton (1642- 1727). Illustrious scientist and mathe- matician. 61 : 20„ Hobbes (1588-1679). Philosopher, author of the Z^z/fa- than, a treatise on the origin and sanctions of government. 61 : 270 The Academy. The French Academy, founded by Richelieu, in 1635, ^^ ^^^ official representative and arbiter in all questions pertaining to French language, literature, and art. 62 : 9. Sir Joshua Reynolds (i 723-1 792). The celebrated portrait painter, friend of Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, etc., lived in Leicester Square. See Boswell's Life of Johnsoti. 62 : 10. Mrs. Thrale (1741-1821). A woman of literary tastes and a friend of Dr. Johnson. See Boswell's Life of Johnson. 62 : II. Wieland (1733-1813). German poet and romancer; one of the translators of Shakespeare into German. 62 : 11-12. Lessing (1729-1781). Celebrated German drama- tist and critic. His famous Laoco'dn contained his theories of liter- ary criticism and art. 62 : 14. Absalom and Achitophel. Dryden's satire on poli- ticians of James II's reign. 63 : 13-14. Augustan age. The reign of Augustus was the Notes 167 golden age of Roman literature. This name was also given to the reign of Louis XIV (see note on 60 : 7). The pseudo-classic writers of the eighteenth century called their age Augustan. 63 : 18. PoUio (B.C. 76-A.D. 4). Roman general, consul, and historian of the civil war. He established the tirst public library in Rome. 63 : 21. Frederick the Great (171 2-1 786). Frederick II, eldest son of Frederick William I of Prussia, and Sophia, daughter of George I of England. He is the hero of the seven years' war, and he gained Silesia from Maria Theresa of Austria. He established the greatness of modern Prussia, yet he despised the German lan- guage and literature. 64 : I. Erasmus (1465-1536). Dutch scholar and theologian. 64 : I. Fracastorius (1483-1553). Italian physician and poet. 64 : 2. Dr. Robertson (1721-1793). Historian, author of History of Scotland^ etc. 64 : 8. Gray (1716-1771). Poet, author of Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, and other poems. 64 : 9. Vincent Bourne (i 695-1 747). Distinguished scholar and writer of Latin verse. 64 : 12. " Ne croyez pas," etc. " Do not think, however, that I wish to find fault with the Latin verses which you have sent me of one of your illustrious Academicians. I have found them very beautiful, and worthy of Vida and Sannazaro, but not of Horace and Virgil." 64 : 15. Vida (1485-1566). Italian ecclesiastic and writer of Latin poetry. 64 : 15. Sannazaro (1458-1530). ItaHan poet, writer of pas- toral poetry and prose. 64 : 19. Fere Fraguier (1G66-1728). French classical scholar and writer of Latin poetry, 65 : 3- " Quid niimeris," etc. " Why, Muse, dost thou bid me, the son of a Sigambrian born far north of the Alps, to stammer again in Latin verses ? " 1 68 Notes 65 : 7-8. Machinae Gesticulantes, and the Gerano-Pygmaso- machia. Titles of two of Addison's Latin poems : Puppet Shows, and the Battle of the Pygmies and the Cranes. 66 : 6-7. States General. The name given to the national assembly of both France and Holland. The reference here is to Holland. 66 : 8. House of Bourbon. The royal house in France from 1589 to 1793, and after its restoration from 181 5 to 1830. 66 : 22. Ligurian. A district of northern Italy in Roman times, now embracing the province of Genoa. 67 : 7. Savona. City of Italy, on the gulf of Genoa. 67 : 10. Doge. Title of chief magistrate in the republics of Venice and Genoa. 67 : II. Book of Gold. A book in which the names of the lead- ing citizens were recorded. 67 : 16. Doria. The most celebrated member of the Doria family was Andrea Doria (1466-1560), the naval commander. He freed Genoa from French rule in 1528, and won the title, "Father and Liberator of his Country." 67 : 22. Carnival. The week before Lent, generally celebrated in Roman Catholic countries. 67 : 28. Cato (B.C. 95-46). Roman statesman ; committed suicide when he heard of Julius Caesar's victory at Thapsus. He was the hero of Addison's drama. 68 : 2. Scipio (d. B.C. 46). Roman tribune and consul. His army was defeated by Cgesar in 46. 68 : 20-21. San Marino. A republic in the northeast of Italy, the oldest and, next to Monaco, the smallest state in Europe. 69 : 5. St. Peter's. Church, the basilica of St. Peter, in Rome. It was begun in 1450, and consecrated in 1626. It surpasses all cathedrals in magnitude and splendour. 69 : 6. Pantheon. Roman temple, erected B.C. 26. 69 : 21. Appian way. A paved road connecting Rome with southern Italy, built B.C. 312-307. Notes 169 69 : 25. Herculaneum. Ancient Italian city, five miles from Naples, destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79. It was a place of resort for wealthy Romans. 69 : 26. Pompeii. See note on 69 : 25. Destroyed by eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. It was buried under lava and ashes for nearly seventeen centuries. Excavations were begun in 1748 and are still being carried on. 69 : 26. PaBstum. Ancient city of southern Italy, on the gulf of Salerno, famous for its ruined temples. 70 : 3. Salvator Rosa (161 5-1673). Italian painter of land- scapes, etc. 70 : 4. Vico (1668- 1 744). Italian philosopher and historian. 70 : 8. Posilipo. Ridge southwest of Naples, famous for its ancient grotto. 70 : 9. Capreae. Island in the Mediterranean at the entrance to the bay of Naples. 70 : 14. Philip the Fifth (1683- 1746). First king of Spain of the house of Bourbon. By the will of Charles II he inherited the throne of Spain. He was driven from his Italian possessions by the house of Austria. 70 : 22. Jacobitism. The principles of the Jacobites or adhe- rents of James II and his family. 70 : 23. Freeholder. Political paper published by Addison for seven months of the year 1716. See No. 22. 71 : I. Misenus. Reputed friend and trumpeter of /Eneas. The promontory near Cumse is called Misenum. 71 : 2. Circe. A mythological Greek sorceress, taken by her father to the island of JExz, off the coast of Italy. 71 : 5. .ffineas. The hero of Virgil's ^-^nezd, a Trojan prince, who, after the fall of Troy, escaped to Latium, Italy. His son, Ascanius, was the ancestor of Romulus and Remus, reputed founders of Rome. 71 : 22. Shrewsbury. See note on 58 : 11. 72 : 8 Vatican. The papal palace at Rome, joining the basilica 170 Notes of St. Peter. It became the residence of the popes after their return from Avignon, France, in 1377. The museum contains valuable pictures, statuary, and books. 72 : 12. Eugene. Prince Eugene of Savoy (i 663-1 736), one of the leading generals in the war of the Spanish Succession. He defeated Marshal Catinat, the French general. 72 : 12-13. Rhaetian Alps. Ancient Latin name for the Alps of Tyrol and parts of northern Lombardy. 72 : 14. Ruler of Savoy. Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, first king of Sardinia. 72 : 18. Grand Alliance. CoaHtion formed by England, Hol- land, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden, against France. Louis XIV's grandson had succeeded to the throne of Spain, thus making France too strong and disturbing the balance of power. 72 : 22-24. Road . . . Napoleon. Napoleon built a road over Mt. Cenis in 18 10. 73 : 2-3. Lord Halifax. See note on 52 : 20. 74 : 7. Death of William the Third. In March, 1702, 74 : II. Seals. Seals were emblems of ofhce. He was asked to resign his secretaryship. 74 : 13. Privy Council. They were not advisers of the crown, 74 : 27. United Provinces. In 1579 the seven provinces of the Low Countries (now Holland) formed the Union of Utrecht, and laid the foundation of the Dutch Republic. 75 : 17. Godolphin (1645-17 12). Great financier, adherent of James II. 75 : 18. Marlborough (i 650-1 722). John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, the famous general in the war of the Spanish Suc- cession, whose great victories over the French at Blenheim, Ra- millies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet resulted in the triumph of the English forces and led to the Peace of Utrecht. On the accession of Queen Anne he was for a time practically the ruler of England. But when the Tories were returned to power both Marlborough and his son-in-law, Godolphin, were dismissed. Notes 171 75 : 19. Country gentlemen, etc. The Tories were called the " country " party. 76 : 14. Tories. See note on Whig, 52 : 22. 76 : 22. Mr. Canning (i 770-1 827). A statesman and Tory leader. In 1827 he was obliged to seek the aid of the Whigs to form a ministry. 76 : 24-25. Nottingham, Daniel Finch, Earl of Nottingham (i 647-1 730). A Tory displaced by the Whigs. 76 : 25. Jersey, Edward Villiers, Earl of Jersey (1656-1711). Also displaced by the Whigs. 76 : 25. Eldon, John Scott, Earl of Eldon (1751-1838). Tory leader and Lord Chancellor of England. 76 : 26. Westmoreland, John Lane, Earl of Westmoreland (i 759-1841). He held the office of Lord Privy Seal. 76 : 28. Somers (1651-1716). Whig leader and Lord Chan- cellor in 1697. 76 : 28. Halifax. See note on 52 : 20. 76 : 28. Sunderland, Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland ( 1 674-1 722). Whig leader and son-in-law of the Duke of Marl- borough. 76 : 29. Cowper ( 1 664-1 723). Statesman and Lord High Chancellor in 1 707. 77 : 12. Imperial throne. The Holy Roman Empire, which comprised in general the German-speaking peoples in Central Europe. It began with Charles the Great, king of the Franks, who was crowned Emperor of the West, 800. The empire degen- erated through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and Francis II (Francis I of Austria) abdicated as the last emperor in 1806. 77 : 13. Act of Settlement. Parhament passed an act by which the Hanoverians and not the Stuarts should succeed Queen Anne. 77 : 21. Newmarket. Famous for its race-course and training stables. 172 Notes 79 : 18. Similitude of the Angel: " Calm and serene he drives the furious blast, And pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." — From The Campaign. 79 : 19. Commissionership. Commissioner of Appeals in the Excise, and later Under-Secretary of State. 80 : 25. Achilles. Hero of Homer's Iliad, who defeated the Trojans and slew Hector. 80 : 28. Troy. Ancient city, called Ilium in the Homeric poems, situated in the northwestern part of Asia Minor, at the foot of Mt. Ida. Dr. Schliemann, in 1 871-1873, believed that he had discovered the ruins of old Ilium, and made famous excavations there. 80 : 28. Lycia. Ancient country on the southern coast of Asia Minor, south of Phrygia. 80 : 28. Scamander. River of Asia Minor, also called Xanthus. 81 : 8. Life guardsman Shaw. This was probably Shaw, the pugilist, who entered the army and won distinction at Waterloo. 81 : 9. Wellington (1769-1852). British general, celebrated for his defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, 1815. 81 : 9-10. Bonaparte (1769-1821). Emperor of France, and celebrated general. In 1798 he defeated the Mamelukes in the battle of the Pyramids. 81 : II. Mamelukes. Egyptian cavalry corps. Originally a body-guard of Turkish slaves, practically rulers of Egypt. 81 : 11-12. Mourad Bey. Commander of the Mamelukes, who fought against Napoleon in his Egyptian campaign of 1798. 81 : 27. Asdrubal, or Hasdrubal. Brother of Hannibal and hero of the Punic War. He slew Nero the consul. 81 : 29. Fabius. Roman hero of the Second Punic War. He defeated Hannibal by decoying his troops into useless marches. In these battles Thusis, Butes, Maris, Arses, and the other warriors were slain. Notes 173 82 : 10. Boyne. In the Battle of the Boyne (so called from a river in Ireland) William III vanquished the adherents of James II, and secured the control of Ireland in 1690. 82 : II. John Philips (i 676-1 708). A minor poet, an imitator of Milton. 83 : 24. Prelate. Richard Kidder, bishop of Bath and Wells. 84 : II. Victor Amadeus (1666-1732). Known as the Duke of Savoy; ruler of Sicily after the treaty of Utrecht. Later he be- came king of Sardinia. 84:18. Empress Faustina. There were two Roman empresses of this name, both notorious for their profligacy. One was the wife of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, the other of his successor, Marcus Aurelius. 85 : 5. Dante (1265-1321). Italian poet, author of the Divine Comedy. 85 : 6. Petrarch (i 304-1 374). ItaHan poet, author of sonnets and other poems. 85 : 6. Boccaccio (13 13-1375). Itahan writer, author of the Decameron. 85 : 6. Boiardo (i 430-1494). Italian poet, author of Orlando Injiamorato. 85 : 6. Berni (1498- 15 35). Italian poet. 85 : 6. Lorenzo (1449-1492). Ruler of Florence, whom Pope Sixtus IV is accused of attempting to assassinate. 85 : 7. Machiavelli (1469-15 27). Statesman and writer of Florence. 85 : 15. Santa Croce. "The Westminster Abbey of Florence," 85 : 16. Spectre Huntsman. "The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line," described in Boccaccio's Tale, and versified by Dryden under the title of Theodore and Honoria. 85 : 17. Rimini. For the story of Paolo and Francesca da Rimini, see Dante's Inferno, Canto v. 85 : 22. Vicenzio Filicaja (i 642-1 707). A Florentine poet. 1 74 Notes 86 : I. Tuscan. The dialect of Tuscany, central division of Italy, became the purest Italian language. 86: II. Rowe (1674-17 1 8). Poet laureate to George I and writer of tragedies. 86 : 15. Doctor Arne (1710-1778). Celebrated English musi- cian, best known as the composer of Ktde Britannia. 86 : 28. The Great Seal. To have the Great Seal was to be Lord-Keeper. 87 : 2-3. Electoral Prince of Hanover. Afterward George I of England. 87 : 12. Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxford (1661-1724). Influen- tial statesman during part of Queen Anne's reign. As Lord High Treasurer in a Tory ministry he aided in bringing the war of the Spanish Succession to a close. In 17 14 Bolingbroke defeated Harley and succeeded him. 87 : 23. Sacheverell (1672-17 13). A Tory clergyman, con- victed of libelling the Whig ministry. The excitement caused by his trial led to the defeat of the Whigs and the removal of Godol- phin from power, in 1710. 87 : 29. Malmsbury. In northern Wiltshire, his native county. 88 : 19. Talbot, Russell, and Bentinck. Family names of the dukes of Shrewsbury, Bedford, and Portland. 88 : 21. Chatham. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-17 78). The celebrated English statesman who opposed the coercive measures passed by Parliament at the beginning of the American Revolution. 88 : 22. Fox ( 1 749-1 806). Great Tory orator, rival of the younger Pitt, son of Henry Fox, Lord Holland. See Macaulay's Essay on Lord Holland. 88 : 27. Censorship of the press. From the Reformation until 1679, all books, journals, dramatic pieces, etc., were in- spected, before publication, by a censor, to insure their freedom from anything immoral or offensive to the government. 89 : 6. Conduct of the Allies. A tract written by Jonathan Swift, in 171 1, in support of the Tories. Notes 175 89 : 25. Mr. Pitt (1759-1806). The younger Pitt, leader of the House of Commons when twenty-three years old. 89 : 26. Walpole, Sir Robert (1676-1745). Greatest Whig statesman; Secretary of War and Navy under Anne; Prime Min- ister under George III. He resigned his offices in 1742. 89 : 26. Pulteney (i 684-1 764). Whig, co-worker with Wal- pole, later head of the rebellious Whigs who called themselves " The Patriots." 90 : 3. Grub Street. Milton Street at present, once inhabited by needy writers, who did piecework for publishers. 90 : 7. Craftsman. A periodical edited by Bolingbroke in op- position to Walpole and the Whigs. 90 : 12. St. John, Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751). A prominent Tory statesman. With Harley he overthrew Marl- borough, and later superseded Harley as Prime Minister. He sought to prevent the Hanoverian succession. Through TAe Craftsman he opposed Walpole. 91 : 17. Nemesis. The mythological goddess of retribution or vengeance. 91 : 25-26. Mary Montagu (i 689-1 762). A clever literary woman, best known for her letters. She was a cousin of Field- ing, the novelist, and a friend of Addison, Pope, and other literary people. 92 : 2. Stella. Poetical name given by Swift to Esther Johnson. See Leslie Stephen's Life of Swift. 92 : 4. Steele (i 671-1729). Schoolmate, co-worker, ardent friend, and admirer of Addison. He was a dramatist and essayist. He published The Tatler, and contributed to its successors, The Spec- tator, The Guardian, and The E?iglishman. He was also manager of the Drury Lane Theatre. He is one of the creators of the modern essay. 92 : 7. Terence (b.c. 185-159). Roman dramatist. 92 : 9. Young (1681-1765). Poet; best known as author of Night Thoughts. 176 Notes 92 : 25-26. Tatler's criticisms . . . Spectator's dialogue. See The Tatler, No. 163, and The Spectator, Nos. 567, 568. 94 : 20. Boswell (i 740-1 795). Author of the most famous biography in the English language, — his Life of Johnson. 94:20-21. Warburton by Hurd. Bishop Richard Hurd (1720- 1808) was friend and biographer of Bishop Warburton (1698- 1779)- 94:27-28. Eustace Budgell ( 1 686-1 737). A relative and pro- tege of Addison. He contributed to The Tatler, The Spectator, and The Guardian. He became dissipated, fell into debt, was guilty of forgery, and drowned himself. The last words he wrote were, " What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." 95 : 15. Ambrose Phillipps (1671-1749). Dramatist, con- tributor to The Guardian and The Freethinker, and friend of Addison. 95 : 20. Thomas Tickell (1686- 1740). Poet and translator of the Iliad. It was this translation that caused the quarrel between Pope and Addison. 96 : 23. Savage (1697-1743). Minor poet and dissolute char- acter. Friend of Dr. Johnson. See the latter 's Lives of the Poets. 97 : 5. Fielding's Amelia. One of the celebrated novels of Henry Fielding (i 707-1 754). 97 : 23-24. Bayle's Dictionary. Historical and Critical Dic- tionary of the French Language by Pierre Bayle (i 647-1 706). 98 : 23. Wharton (1640-1714). Prominent W^hig and patron of Addison. 99:17. Gerard Hamilton ( 1 729-1 796). Member of the House of Commons, whose first speech remained his most notable effort and thus gained for him the nickname " Single-speech Hamil- ton." 100 : 6. Literary project. The Tatler. 100 : 14. Gazetteer. Authorized news publisher, editor of The Gazette, a periodical started in 1665, owned and conducted by the government. Notes 177 100 : 24-25. Will's and of the Grecian. Celebrated coffee- houses. See McCarthey's The Four Georges, vol. i. loi : 15. Bickerstaff. Pseudonym first used by Swift, after- ward by Steele. loi : 17. Paul Pry. Chief character in a drama written by John Poole (i 786-1 879). loi : 17. Samuel Pickwick. Leading character in Dickens's Pickwick Papers. 102 : lo-ii. St. George's Channel. The channel between Wales and Ireland. 102 : 22. Temple, Sir William (i 628-1699). Eminent diplo- matist and essayist. 102 : 26. Horace Walpole (j 7 17-1797). Son of Sir Robert Walpole, a critic, essayist, and letter-writer of note. 102 : 27-28. Half German jargon. Here Macaulay probably had Carlyle in mind. 103 : 4. Menander (b.c. 342-291). Athenian dramatist. 103 : 6. Cowley (1618-1667). Minor poet, once highly es- teemed. 103 : 6, Butler (161 2-1 680). Author of Hudibras, a satire on the Puritans. 103 : 8. Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723). A German artist who painted portraits of all the English sovereigns from Charles II to George I. 103 : 21. Clarendon. Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1608- 1674). Leading statesman of the Restoration, author of the History of the Great Rebellion. 103 : 26. Cervantes (1547-1616). Spanish writer, author of Don Quixote, the first part of which was published in 1605. 104 : 24. Commination service. The service read on Ash Wednesday in the English Church for the " denouncing of God's anger and judgements against sinners." 104:26. Voltaire ( 1 694-1 778). French philosopher and writer, author of dramas, histories, essays, and other works. ESSAY ON ADDISON — 12 lyS Notes 105 : 5. Jack Pudding. An old English expression for a clown, a buffoon, a vulgar fellow. 105 : 14-25. Abbe Coyer to Pansophe. A satirical letter, sup- posed to be written by Voltaire, who, however, denied that he had written it, and hinted that Abbe Coyer was the author. The letter was addressed to Dr. Jean- Jacques Pansophe, probably a satirical reference to Rousseau. 105 : 17. Arbuthnot (i 667-1 735). Physician to Queen Anne, writer of satires on social and political subjects, the friend of Pope and Swift. 105 : 22. World, etc. Periodicals of the eighteenth century. 106:13. Mephistopheles. The devil in Goethe's i^«/^j/. 106 : 14. Puck. The mischief-doer in Shakespeare's Midsum- mer Night'' s Dream, 106 : 14. Soame Jenyns (i 704-1 787). Essayist and theo- logian. 107 : 8-9. Bettesworth and on Franc de Pompignan. Vic- tim of the satire of Swift and Voltaire respectively. 107 : 19. Jeremy Collier (i 650-1 726). Eminent bishop and theologian, attacked the stage for its immorality, which attack resulted in a much-needed reform. 107 : 21. Etherege (1635-1691) and Wycherley (1640-1715). Brilliant, but corrupt dramatists of the Restoration. 107 : 28. Hale (1609- 1 6 76) and Tillotson (1630- 1694). The former Lord Chief Justice and the latter Archbishop of Canterbury, both noted for uprightness and saintliness of character. 108 : I. Vanbrugh (1666-1726). Brilliant, but coarse dramatist of the Restoration. 108 : 14. Tom Folio, etc. These "portraits" are to be seen in The Tatler. 108 : 15. Court of Honour, etc. These descriptions may be found in The Tatler, No. 220, and the following. 108 : 22. Smalridge (1663-1719). Bishop of Bristol, an elo- quent pulpit orator. Notes 179 109: 22. In 1820. Outbreak of popular feeling caused by the trial of Queen Caroline, wife of George IV. 109 : 22. In 1831. Agitations leading up to the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832. no : 3. Marli. A village five miles north of Versailles, some- times the residence of Louis XIV. no : 4. Pretender. Son of James IL, styled James III. no : 5. St. James's. This palace, in London, has been a royal residence since the time of Henry VIII. " St. James's " has become the official name for the " Court of Great Britain." no : 13-14. Break his white staff. To resign his office of Lord High Treasurer. in : 8. United England and Scotland. In 1707. 111 : 15. Walcheren. The English troops sent to capture Ant- werp, in 1809, perished at Walcheren, an island at the mouth of the Scheldt. 111:24. A great lady. The Countess of Warwick. See note on 144 : 16. 112 : 14. Whig corporations. Certain corporations, self-per- petuating, were enabled to use their power to control elections. 114 : 23. Child's. Celebrated coffee-house in St. Paul's Church- yard. 115 : 18. Richardson (1689-1761), Fielding (1707-1754), Smollett (1721-1771). The three leading novelists of the eigh- teenth century. 115 : 27. Spring Gardens. Pleasure gardens next to White- hall palace. 115 : 29. Mohawks. A band of lawless young men who went about the streets at night committing all sorts of outrages on unpro- tected citizens. 117 : 6. Lucian's. A Greek satirist. In the Auction of Lives, Zeus sells by auction the philosophers of rival sects. 117 : 7-8. Tales of Scheherazade. The queen who was sup- posed to relate the tales of the Arabian Nights. 1 80 Notes 117 : 9. LaBruydre (1645-1696). A celebrated French moralist. 117: 15. Massillon (1663-1742). French orator, preacher to Louis XV. 118 : 10. Chevy Chace. An early popular English ballad. 118 : 15. Stamp tax. A Tory tax of one half-penny on each newspaper of a single sheet. It was really an attack upon the freedom of the press. 119 : 4. Knight of the shire. A county member of Parliament as distinguished from a borough member. 119 : 21. Nestor Ironside and Miss Lizards. This was the Guardian and his wards, the Lizard family playing the same part in The Guardian as fhe Spectator Club in The Spectator and Isaac Bickerstaff and Jenny Distaff in The Tatler. 120 : 20. Macready (1793- 1873). One of the great English tragedians, manager of the Drury Lane theatre. 120:21. Juba (d. B.C. 46). King of Numidia. Caesar defeated him and the forces of Pompey in B.C. 46. 120 : 21. Marcia. Daughter of Cato in Addison's Cato. 120 : 26. Booth, Barton (1681-1733). The greatest tragedian of Addison's day, 120 : 26. To pack a house. To fill it with friends and sup- porters. 120 : 29. Inns of Court. Colleges in which students of law reside and are instructed. The four principal in London are the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. 121 : 4. Jonathan's and Garraway's. Two coffee-houses fre- quented by stock-brokers and merchants. 121 : 16. October. Club of Tories and High Churchmen, of which Dean Swift was a member. 121 : 26. Sir Gibby. Sir Gilbert Heathcote. 122 : 9. Garth (1661-1719). A poet and physician, friend of Addison. 122 : 17-18. Bolingbroke. See note on 90 : 12. Notes 1 8 1 123 : 2. Act at Oxford. Corresponding, broadly, to our college commencement. At Oxford the Act took place early in July. 123 : 12-13. Schiller's manhood (1759-1805). The great Ger- man dramatist and poet. 123 : 16. Athalie. Tragedy by Racine (1639-1699), French tragic poet. 123 : 16. Saul. Tragedy by Alfieri (i 749-1803), a great Italian dramatist. 123 : 17. Cinna. Historical tragedy by Corneille, the greatest French tragic dramatist. 123 : 28. John Dennis (165 7- 1734). Mediocre dramatist and critic. 125 : 17. Atticus. Pope's name for Addison. 125 : 18. Sporus. Pope's name for Lord Hervey. 125: 27. Peripetia. A Greek word meaning a sudden reversal of circumstances on which the plot in a drama hinges; a denoue- ment. 129 : I. Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832). Scotch philoso- pher and historian, author of a History of the Revolution of 16S8. 129 : 14. Council of Regency. A body constituted during a king's minority, insanity, or absence from the kingdom. 129 : 16. Lord John Russell (1792-1878). A famous states- man, under whose leadership many important political measures were passed, notably the Reform Bill of 1832. 129: 16-17. Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850). Statesman who op- posed the passage of the Reform Bill, and who helped to repeal the Corn Laws in 1846. 129 : 17. Lord Palmerston (1784- 1865). Statesman, twice Prime Minister, and distinguished for his guidance of England's foreign relations. 129 : 27. India Board. A board of control over the government of the East India Company, established by the crown. 130 : 25. Swift of 1708, etc. See Life of Swift, in English Men of Letters Series. 1 82 Notes 131 : 22-26. Hereditary guests. Glaucus the Trojan and Diomed the Greek. Diomed addressed Glaucus as follows {Iliad, vi. 226- 229) : "So let us shun each other's spears, even among the throng; Trojans are there in multitudes and famous allies for me to slay, whoe'er it be that God vouchsafeth me, and my feet overtake; and for thee are there Achaians in multitude, to slay whome'er thou canst." — Leaf's translation. " Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield, In the full harvest of yon ample field ; Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore ; But thou and Diomed be foes no more." — Pope's Iliad. 133 '• 19-20. Rebellion. The Earl of Mar started a Jacobite movement in Scotland, in favour of James Stuart, " the Pretender," called by his adherents James III. 133 : 21. Freeholder. Biweekly paper, 1715-1716, in support of the House of Hanover. 133 : 27. Squire Western. A character in Fielding's Tom Jones, a typical country gentleman of the old school. 134:24-26. Town Talk, Englishman, Crisis, Reader. Names of periodicals. 135 : 10. Rosicrucian. In reference to a secret society whose members professed to possess magic power. 136 : 8. Akenside (1721-1770). Poet, author of the Pleasures of the Imagination. 136:19. Herder (i 744-1 803). Theologian, literary critic, friend of Goethe. 136 : 19. Goethe (1749-1832). The greatest poet, dramatist, and literary genius that Germany has produced. 136 : 20. Hume (1711-1776). Historian, writer of a History of England. 136 : 20. Robertson. See note on 64 : 2. 139 : 17. Rowe. See note on 86 : 11. Notes 183 140:15-16. Satirist, Age. Libellous, partisan papers published in London in Macaulay's time. 140 : 26. Duke of Chandos. A great noble of Addison's time, the subject of one of Pope's lampoons. See Moral Essays, No. iv. 99-172. 140 : 28. Aaron Hill (i 685-1 750). Minor historian and poet. 143 '• 13-14- Sir Peter Teazle, Mr. Joseph Surface. Two of the leading characters in Sheridan's 77^£? School for Scandal. 144 : 14. Countess Dowager. Widow of the late Earl of War- wick. 144 : 15. Chirk. A town in Denbighshire in North Wales. 144:16-17. Holland House. A celebrated mansion in Kensing- ton which passed to the Holland branch of the Warwick family. It took its name from Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, by whose father- in-law, Sir W^alter Cope, it was built in 1607. Addison married the widow of the sixth Earl of Warwick. See Hare's Walks in London. 144 : 18-19. Nell Gwynn (1650-1687). One of the favourites of Charles II, an actress. 144 : 29. Holborn Hill. A part of modern London, one of the central districts, which are St. Giles, Holborn, Strand, and London City. 145 : 14. Lycidas. Title of Milton's elegy in memory of his friend Edward King, who was drowned while crossing from Eng- land to Ireland. 145:17. Chloe. A favourite name in eighteenth-century poetry for a shepherdess or a love-sick maiden. 145 : 24. Somervile (1677- 1742). Minor poet, author of The Chase. 146 : lo-ii. Lord Townshend (i 674-1 738). Statesman, first Secretary of State under George I. He was succeeded by Addison. 146 : II. Lord Sunderland (1675-1722). Whig Secretary of State under Anne, son-in-law of the Duke of Marlborough. 1 84 Notes 147 : 2. Craggs. A friend of Addison and his successor as Secretary of State. 147 : 8. Joseph Hume (1777-1855). Celebrated political re- former. 148 : 4. House of Rich. See note on Holland House, 144 : 16. 149 : 22. House of Brunswick. The Hanoverian kings were descendants from William, Duke of Brunswick-Liineburg. 149 : 27. Swamping. To create a sufficient number of new peers to change the vote of the House of Lords. In 171 1 Queen Anne, acting through her Tory ministry, had created twelve new peers for the sole purpose of obtaining a Tory majority in the Upper House, to adopt a measure favoured by the House of Commons. 151 : 13. Duenna. A comedy by Sheridan. 152 : 13. Gay (1688-1732). Poet and dramatist, author of the Beggar^ s Opera. 154 : 7. His favourite. Read Addison's versification of it, The Spectator^ No. 441. 154 : 16. Jerusalem Chamber. A room at the southwest side of Westminster Abbey, so called, probably, from tapestries or pic- tures of the history of Jerusalem with which it was hung. 154 : 18. Atterbury (1662-1732). Was made bishop of Rochester and dean of Westminster in 171 3. Soon after the death of Anne, having plotted to restore the Stuarts, he was banished for life. 155 : 6. Cowper (i 731-1800). Poet, author of The Task and translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. 155: 29. 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