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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 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 hideous wounds which these generals inflicted with their own hands. Asdrubal
flings a spear which grazes the shoulder of the consul Nero; but Nero sends his
spear into Asdrubal's side. Fabius slays Thuris and Butes and Maris and Arses,
and the long-haired Adherbes, and the gigantic Thylis, and Sapharus and
Monaesus, and the trumpeter Morinus. Hannibal runs Perusinus through the groin
with a stake, and breaks 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 thousands
to flight by his single prowess, and dyeing the Boyne with Irish blood. Nay, so
estimable a writer as John Philips, the author of the Splendid Shilling,
represented Marlborough as having won the battle of Blenheim merely by strength
of muscle and skill in fence. The following lines may serve as an example:-
"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 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 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 qualities which made Marlborough truly great,
energy, sagacity, military science. But, above all, the poet extolled 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
intelligence.
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
remarks on this passage. But we must point out one circumstance which appears to
have escaped all the critics. The extraordinary effect which this simile
produced when it first appeared, and which to the following generation seemed
inexplicable, is doubtless to be chiefly attributed to a line which most readers
now regard as a feeble parenthesis:--
"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 equaled the rage of a tropical
hurricane, had left a dreadful recollection in the minds 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 had presented the appearance of cities just sacked. Hundreds of families
were still in mourning. The prostrate trunks of large trees, and the ruins of
houses, still 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 advantage 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 produced by this Narrative was disappointment. The 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 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
judgment of the many was overruled by that of the few; 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 singularly humane and delicate humor in which Addison
excelled all men. Yet this agreeable work, even when considered merely as the
history of a literary tour, may justly be censured on account of its faults of
omission. We have already said that, though rich in extracts from the Latin
poets, it contains scarcely any references to the Latin orators and historians.
We must add, that it contains little, or rather no information, respecting the
history and literature of modern Italy. To the best of our remembrance, Addison
does not mention Dante, 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 Sidonius
Apollinaris. The gentle flow of the Ticin brings a line of Silius to his mind.
The sulphurous stream 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 without recollecting the Specter Huntsman, and wanders up and
down Rimini without one thought of Francesca. 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 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 favorite poet of the
accomplished Somers, under whose protection Addison traveled, and to whom the
account of the Travels is dedicated. The truth is, that Addison knew little, and
cared less, about the literature of modern Italy. His favorite models were
Latin, his favorite 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 Rosamond. This piece was ill
set to music, and therefore failed on the stage, but it completely succeeded in
print, and is indeed excellent in its kind. The smoothness with which the verses
glide, and the elasticity with which they bound, is, to our ears at least, very
pleasing. 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 was set to new music by Doctor Arne;
and was performed 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.
While Addison thus amused himself, his prospects, and the prospects of his
party, were constantly becoming 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 perverse class had the ascendancy. The elections were
favorable 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. Halifax was sent in the following year to
carry the decorations of the Order of the Garter to the Electoral Prince of
Hanover, and was accompanied on this honorable mission by Addison, who had just
been made Under-Secretary of State. The Secretary of State under whom Addison
first served was Sir Charles Hedges, a Tory. But Hedges was soon dismissed, to
make room for the most vehement of Whigs, Charles, Earl of Sunderland. In every
department of the State, indeed, the High Churchmen were compelled to give place
to their 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
favored by the Queen, who had always been a Tory at heart, and who had now
quarreled with the Duchess of Marlborough, was 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 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 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 Commons 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 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
unfavorable effect on his success as a politician. In our time, a man of high
rank and great fortune might, though speaking very little and very ill, hold a
considerable 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
successively Under-Secretary of State, Chief Secretary for Ireland, 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 thought it an honor 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 circumstances 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 reported, literary
talents were, to a public man, of much 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 argument is to introduce that fact or
argument into a speech made in Parliament. If a political tract were to appear
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 deliberations of the
legislature. A speech made in the 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 superseded 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 without
doors could not but be of the highest importance 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 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
their cause before the country, and this they could do only by means of the
press. Their works are now forgotten. 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. Walpole, though
not a man of literary habits, was the author of at least ten pamphlets, and
retouched and corrected many more. These facts sufficiently show of how great
importance literary assistance then was to the contending 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. 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 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.
To the influence which Addison derived from his literary 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 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 whole deportment indicated a fine sense of the becoming; 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; 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 believe, to that very timidity which his friends
lamented. 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 elevation. No
man is so great a favorite with the Public as he who 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 Montague 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 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 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 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 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 how to blame. If
his first attempts to set a presuming dunce right were ill received, he changed
his tone, "assented 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 works. The Tatler's criticisms on Mr. Softly's sonnet and the
Spectator's dialogue with the politician who is so zealous for the honor of Lady
Q--p--t--s, are excellent specimens of this innocent mischief.
Such were Addison's talents for conversation. But 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 lips were sealed and his manners became
constrained. None who met him only in great assemblies would have been able to
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 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."
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 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 gentleman. But the smallest speck is seen on a white ground;
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 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 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 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 humble companions was one of benevolence, slightly tinctured with
contempt. He was at perfect case in their company; he was grateful for their
devoted attachment; and he loaded them with benefits. Their veneration for him
appears to have exceeded that with which 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 candor be admitted that he
contracted some of the faults which can scarcely be avoided by 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 stain
on the character of Budgell, and it is not improbable that his career would have
been prosperous and honorable, if the life of his cousin had been prolonged. But
when the master was laid in the grave, the disciple broke loose from all
restraint, descended rapidly 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 affection 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 favorite companions was Ambrose Phillips, a good Whig and a
middling poet, who had the honor 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.
Steele had known Addison from childhood. They had been together at the
Charterhouse and at Oxford; but circumstances had then, for a time, separated
them widely. Steele had left college without taking a degree, had been
disinherited by a rich relation, had led a vagrant life, had served in the army,
had tried to find the philosopher's stone, and had written a religious treatise
and several comedies. He was one of those people whom it is impossible either to
hate or to 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.
In speculation, he was a man of piety and honor; 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 blame him, when he diced himself into a spunging-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,
introduced him to the great, procured a good place for him, 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 one occasion, Steele's negligence, or dishonesty, provoked 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 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 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 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 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 something like this:--A letter comes to Addison,
imploring help in pathetic terms, and promising reformation and speedy
repayment. 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. Addison 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
hundred pounds to his friend. The next day he calls on Steele, and finds scores
of gentlemen and ladies assembled. The fiddles are playing. The table is
groaning under Champagne, Burgundy, and pyramids of sweetmeats. Is it strange
that a man whose kindness is thus abused, should send sheriff's officers to
reclaim what is due to him?
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 Rosamond. He deserved, and at length attained, the first place in
Addison's friendship. For a 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 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 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 licentious and corrupt, but was distinguished from other libertines and
jobbers by a callous impudence which presented the strongest contrast to the
Secretary's gentleness and delicacy. Many parts of the Irish administration at
this time appear to have deserved serious 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.
The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland has, we think, wholly escaped the
notice of all his biographers. 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 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 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 Westminster during forty years, spoke
with great effect at Dublin when he was Secretary to Lord Halifax.
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 performances
which, though highly respectable, were not built for duration, and which would,
if he had produced 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
extraordinary 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 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 consequences. Periodical papers had during many years
been published in London. Most of these were political; 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, at the request, it is said,
of Addison, and thus had access to foreign intelligence earlier and more
authentic than was in those times within the reach of an ordinary news-writer.
This circumstance seems to have suggested to him the scheme of publishing a
periodical paper on a new plan. It was to appear on the days on which the post
left London for the country, which were, in that generation, the Tuesdays,
Thursdays, and Saturdays. It was to contain the foreign news, accounts of
theatrical representations, and the literary gossip of Will's and of the
Grecian. It was also to contain remarks on the fashionable topics of the day,
compliments to beauties, pasquinades 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 to conduct the work which he had
planned. His public intelligence 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 among
scholars, and a scholar among rakes. His style was easy and not incorrect; and,
though his wit and humor 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 genius. His writings have been well compared to those
light wines which, though deficient in body and flavor, are yet a pleasant small
drink, if not kept too long, or carried too far.
Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was an imaginary 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.
Bickerstaff 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 1709, it was announced that Isaac
Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was about to publish a paper called the
Tatler.
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