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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 runs thus. A pamphlet appeared containing some reflections which stung
Pope to the quick. What those reflections were, and whether they were
reflections of which he had a right to complain, we have now no means of
deciding. 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 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 Warwick had a claim, we are not
disposed to attach much importance to this anecdote.
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
brilliant and energetic lines which everybody knows by heart, or ought to know
by heart, and sent them to Addison. One charge which 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 lines are intended to convey, scarcely one has
ever been proved to be just, and 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 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
probable. But his heart, we firmly believe, acquitted him of the gravest part of
the accusation. He acted like himself. 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 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 Surface; a feeble sickly
licentiousness; an odious love of filthy and noisome images; these were things
which a genius less powerful than that to which we owe the Spectator 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. 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." "Consider," 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 to
reflect that the only revenge which Addison took was to insert 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, 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.
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 honorable family of the Middletons of Chirk, a family
which, in any country but ours, would be called noble, resided at Holland House.
Addison had, during some years, occupied at Chelsea a small dwelling, once the
abode of Nell Gwynn. Chelsea is now a district of London, and Holland House may
be called a town residence. But, in the days of Anne and George the First,
milkmaids and sportsmen wandered between green hedges and over fields bright
with daisies, from Kensington almost to the shore of the Thames. Addison and
Lady Warwick were country neighbors, and became intimate friends. The great wit
and scholar tried to allure the young Lord from the fashionable amusements of
beating watchmen, breaking windows, and rolling women in hogsheads down Holborn
Hill, to the study of letters, and the practice of virtue. These well-meant
exertions did little good, however, either to the disciple or to the master.
Lord Warwick 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 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 a matter of such 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 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 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 neighboring squires, the poetical
fox-hunter, William Somerville. In August 1716, the newspapers announced that
Joseph Addison, Esquire, famous for many excellent works both in verse and
prose, had espoused the Countess Dowager of Warwick.
He now fixed his abode at Holland House, a house which can boast of a greater
number of inmates distinguished in political and literary history than any other
private dwelling in England. His portrait still hangs there. The features are
pleasing; the complexion is remarkably 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 time, been torn by internal dissensions. Lord
Townshend led one section of the Cabinet, Lord Sunderland the other. At length,
in the spring of 1717, Sunderland triumphed. Townshend retired from office, and
was accompanied by Walpole and Cowper. Sunderland proceeded 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 declined by him. Men equally
versed in official business might easily have been found; and his colleagues
knew that they could not expect assistance from him in debate. He owed his
elevation to his popularity, to his stainless probity, and to his literary fame.
But scarcely had Addison entered the Cabinet when his health began to fail. From
one serious attack he recovered 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 discharging the duties of
his post. He resigned it, and was succeeded 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, if he had lived, would probably have been the
most formidable 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 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 seem to have re-established 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
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 gradually prevailed against all the
resources of medicine. It is melancholy to think that the last months of such 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 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, 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, however, were not left to him. Sir Richard
Steele had been gradually estranged by various causes. He considered himself as
one who, in evil times, had braved martyrdom for his political principles, and
demanded, when the Whig party was triumphant, a large compensation for what he
had suffered when it was militant. The Whig leaders took a very different view
of his claims. They thought that he had, by his own petulance and folly, brought
them as well as himself into trouble, and though they did not absolutely neglect
him, doled out favors to him with a sparing hand. It was natural that he should
be angry with them, and especially 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, and the author of the Crisis, and member for Stockbridge who had been
persecuted for firm adherence to the House of Hanover, was, at near fifty,
forced, after many solicitations and complaints, to content himself with a share
in the patent of Drury Lane Theatre. Steele himself says, in his celebrated
letter to Congreve, that Addison, by his preference of Tickell, "incurred the
warmest resentment of other gentlemen"; and everything seems to indicate that,
of those resentful gentlemen, Steele was himself one.
While poor Sir Richard was brooding over what he 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 Somerset, first in rank
of all the 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 to frame it were not honorable to him. But we cannot
deny that it was supported by many of the best and wisest men of that age. Nor
was this strange. The royal prerogative had, within the memory of the generation
then in the vigor of life, been so grossly abused, that it was still regarded
with a jealousy which, when the peculiar situation of the House of Brunswick is
considered, may perhaps be called immoderate. The particular prerogative of
creating peers had, in the opinion of the Whigs, been grossly abused by Queen
Anne's last Ministry; 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 high authorities, was that three independent powers, the sovereign, the
nobility, and the commons, ought constantly to act as checks on each other. If
this theory were sound, it seemed to follow that to put one of these 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 under
the absolute control of the Crown and the Commons, and was indebted only to
their moderation for any power which it might be suffered to retain.
Steele took part with the Opposition, Addison with the Ministers. Steele, in a
paper called the Plebeian, vehemently attacked the bill. Sunderland called for
help on Addison, and Addison obeyed the call. In a paper 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 conclusion while Steele blundered upon the truth. In style, in wit, and
in politeness, Addison maintained his superiority; though the Old Whig is by no
means one of his happiest performances.
At first, both the anonymous opponents observed the laws of propriety. But at
length Steele so far forgot himself 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 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
Biogaphia Britannica, that Addison designated 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 therefore there is less excuse. Now, it is true that the
words "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 Addison's "little Dicky"
had no more to do with Steele, than Sheridan's "little Isaac" with Newton. If we
apply the words "little 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
humor, who played the usurer Gomez, then a most popular part, in Dryden's
Spanish Friar.1
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 acrimony; but no rejoinder appeared. Addison was fast hastening to his
grave; and had, we may well suppose, little disposition to prosecute a quarrel
with an old friend. His complaint had terminated in dropsy. He bore up 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 dedicated them a very few
days before his death to Craggs, in a letter written with the sweet and graceful
eloquence of a Saturday's Spectator. 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 without tears. At the same time he earnestly recommended
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 living by his wits about town, to come to Holland
House. 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 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 frustrated 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 Bolingbroke,
and was still connected with many Tories. It is not strange that Addison, while
heated by conflict, should have thought himself justified in obstructing the
preferment 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
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 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 fortunes 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 defense, when there is neither
argument nor evidence for the accusation.
The last moments of Addison were perfectly serene. His interview with his
step-son is universally known. "See," he said, "how a Christian can die." The
piety of Addison was, in truth, of a singularly cheerful character. The feeling
which predominates in all his devotional writings, is gratitude. God was to him
the all-wise 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; who
had made his cup run over with worldly blessings; who had doubled the value of
those blessings, by bestowing a thankful heart to enjoy them, and dear friends
to partake them; who had rebuked the waves of the Ligurian gulf, had purified
the autumnal air of the Campagna, and had restrained the avalanches of Mont
Cenis. Of the Psalms, his favorite was that which represents the Ruler of all
things under the endearing image of a shepherd, whose crook guides the flock
safe, through 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 1710. He had just 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 sang a funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, one of
those Tories who had loved and honored the most accomplished of the Whigs, met
the corpse, and led the procession by torchlight, round the shrine of Saint
Edward 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 Addison lies next to the coffin of Montague. 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.
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 honor to the
greatest name in our literature, and which unites the energy and magnificence of
Dryden to the tenderness and purity of Cowper. This fine poem was prefixed to a
superb edition of Addison's works, which was published, 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 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 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 beautiful, is in some important points defective;
nor, indeed, do 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 three
generations had laughed and wept over his pages that the omission was supplied
by the public veneration. At length, in our own time, his image, skillfully
graven, appeared in Poet's Corner. It represents him, as we can conceive him,
clad in his dressing-gown, and freed from his wig, stepping from his parlor at
Chelsea into his trim little garden, with the account of the "Everlasting Club,"
or the "Loves of Hilpa and Shalum," just finished for the next day's Spectator,
in his hand. Such a mark of national respect was due to the unsullied statesman,
to the accomplished scholar, to the master of pure English eloquence, to the
consummate painter of life and manners. It was due, above all, to the great
satirist, who alone knew how to use ridicule without abusing it, who, without
inflicting a wound, effected a great social reform, and who reconciled wit and
virtue, after a long and disastrous separation, during which wit had been led
astray by profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism.
1 We will transcribe the whole paragraph. How it can ever
have been misunderstood is unintelligible to us.
"But our author's chief concern is for the poor House of Commons, whom he
represents as naked and defenseless, when the Crown, by losing this prerogative,
would be less able to protect them against the power of a House of Lords. Who
forbears laughing when the Spanish Friar represents little Dicky under the
person of Gomez, insulting the Colonel that was able to fright him out of his
wits with a single frown? This Gomez, says he, flew upon him like a dragon, got
him down, the Devil being strong in him, and gave him bastinado on bastinado,
and buffet on buffet, which the poor Colonel, being prostrate, suffered with a
most Christian patience. The improbability of the fact never fails to raise
mirth in the audience; and one may venture to answer for a British House of
Commons, if we may guess, from its conduct hitherto, that it will scarce be
either so tame or so weak as our author supposes."
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